SAD LOSS

          Yesterday a former colleague was instantly killed in a car accident. What a shock!  

       Ted influenced students, fellow teachers, parents and the community at large.

          Ted  started his career at the school I was teaching in. Throughout my career I made it a habit to keenly watch new teachers who came out with the latest teaching techniques. I learned much from Ted.

         Ted was super organized so the kids had excellent material that was well presented. Parents were always well informed as Ted was an excellent communicator.

      Ted came from a very promising professional hockey career.  Ted decided to leave hockey and enter education. We were lucky for that choice. Through  out his career he found time to coach competitive hockey teams in the community.

     Ted was the best family man I ever met. He thought his wife and kids were the greatest and treated that way.

     Ted became a school administrator and put his incredible effort and ideas to that leadership.

     What a shock! Ted was just a few months away from retirement.

     I will miss him greatly along with all the other people he came in contact with.

DELETIONS HIT A SNAG

     I worked hard for a few days deleting photos. I got  into the swing of things. I saw a pattern forming and I knew which photos should be deleted  without having to think too much.

   I found that I took many snow photos. Well ,why wouldn't you take snow shots  when we have snow for a good part of the year? So close your eyes and delete the snow photos. Some of the snow photos were good.

    I also discovered that I had many scenic photos. Many of them were of the same place with little difference. I tried to take photos of flowers. Although I took many flower photos very few were worth a look. 

   So I  ended up keeping photos with family in them. 

   I also  have to admit that I got sidelined. I started looking at photos. Photos of my kids when they were cute little guys. They are still cute with some gray hair.  Well looking at photos sidelined my project for one day. today I was terribly busy and didn't get at my project.

    So I hope that I get some deletions done tomorrow.

 

DIGITAL PHOTO BLUES

       Be it resolved that they keep digital cameras away from the idiots. May I make my case.

       My daughter gave me a small digital camera a long time ago. Then I bought a much nicer digital camera. 

      So I was really  ready to take pictures. I took many digital photos of things I really liked . I took several photos of the same thing. I went to the same places may times and got more photos. I have many  photos of seasons. 

      Now one thing I didn't know about was a file system. A filing system is still beyond me. So my phots are scattered all over the place, I edited photos but did not delete the originals. Sometimes I edited three or four times. I labeled very few photos. I have learned how to label photos but don't do it because it's not in my routine. 

   What brings about all this self criticism? Since  I bought a laptop I now have to import my photos from the old PC.  Okay, that should be simple and it is. However, I had about 7000 photos. These photos are largely unorganized. Some of these photos I do not recognize. What was the location? Why was a photo taken?

    So now this old boy is going through and deleting photos he doesn't want before importing them to the laptop. So far  I've  deleted about 1500 photos.

    Poor me!

COMPUTER

     As you may know I've had a few challenges with windows 11 and blogger. I will admit that some of the problems were my fault. My lack if knowledge and experience causes some of my problems.

    So the  crucial time happened when the computer froze. Well , it didn't really freeze. McAfee came on and gave me two choices. I didn't know if this was scam or not. I could not move until I made a choice. One was uninstall and the other was renew.

    So this called my friend Todd's expertise. Todd came and explained the McAfee thing. I could click uninstall as windows has it's own protection.

    Then I was behind in my updates. Windows 10 down loaded updates automatically. Windows 11 you have to manage the updates. Todd also took off some unnecessary do dads and added others that were necessary

    Then what I had to sort out if my problems were windows 11 and what to do about them.

    I also got my scanner working.

   So Todd was like a technician who repairs your computer except you don't have to go to a shop.

    As a result of these situations writing a post and reading and responding to posts was very difficult.

COLLEAGUES

   As I start many posts, I was a teacher. I've been retired for 28 years. These two colleagues have been retired less than five years.

       I always watched the new  teachers when they came on the staff.  

       So on Wednesday, I had a long lunch with some two former colleagues. I've been retired for 28 years. These two guys taught with me in my last five years. They are both retired so it's interesting to find out what's going on in their retirement. I watched them carefully when they came on staff. I wasn't watching to see if they could teach. I  knew that  they came out and had the latest educational methods. I did this so that I could keep up with the times.

      Mike was a social studies teacher. I never taught social studies. But Mike was an excellent out door Ed. teacher and I got to teach some outdoor Ed. with him. Outdoor ed is a little different as you teach the theory and then take the kids on a field trip to see if they have prepared properly. Some kids were pretty cold as they hadn't prepared properly. We usually had some extra blankets. Then on weekends we sometimes went out back packing trips to check out new areas for field trips.

    Daryl taught science. I had taught science previously so  It was interesting to watch new methods. Daryl also liked back packing so he came along with us.

   So it was a good afternoon talking about old times.

MAYHEM IN COMPUTER LAND

       Four or five days ago my computer started acting up. It seemed like the size was larger and some parts of the blog did not fit on the screen. Well, I blundered through a post. I  did my editing three lines at a time. I tried to adjust things but nothing worked.

     The next morning I tried to read some blogs and make comments. It could be done but I had to use very different steps. I gave up.

     Then I found out that things had really fallen apart. I couldn't get on to many of my sites like email, Facebook and MSN. I worried about it all day. I was going to phone my friend but  decided to check some things on line. Since online information had closed I began to  see if I could find a solution. After a few hours I had got into all sites by using many strange moves. For emails, I went down about 20 pages before I found a sign in choice. 

    After thinking all this through I began to sense that all the problems were because of changes made by windows 11. And I must admit that some of it was from my lack of knowledge and experience. 

   I asked me friends today and they noticed some different things.

   However, when it comes to an elderly senior who's not that competent on computers it can be very confusing. They don't give you a warning that something is going to happen. Maybe they think that everybody should be smart enough to catch in.

     How about you? Did you notice anu changes?

SOME THINGS STICK TO YOU ALL YOUR LIFE

     Many stories were told  about my past with their Dad. We were less than a year apart so we were, to say the least, a little active. Because  of some over exuberance, we got into trouble once in a while.

     Our nearest neighbor w   My brother and his three kids came to visit me a couple of months ago. His kids are in their 50's and 60's. But  since I don't get out to see them anymore it was pleasant to see them. We had a great time  reminiscing and catching up with todays news.

     Every once in a while the kids would come up with a question about my past. How did they know about this. Well, you can guess that their Dad told them.as  a very elderly man who was on our yard most days. He   bought eggs from my Mom.

     So my brother and I were about 8 or 9. We quite often made sling shots. The sling shots didn't last very long as they had been made by little boys. However, at times they did have some power.

    One day the elderly neighbor came on the yard. The spare tire on his car was mounted on the back of the car. It looked like a great target. I envisioned my self hitting the bull's eye in the center of the wheel. Would all the kids think I was great.

    Well, was I not only far off the target. I hit the back window and broke it. Silence took over very rapidly. The gentle man was  not happy. He went  in the house to talk to Mom. There  were more kids on the yard besides my family. Things quieted down very quickly and my rash action brought a  chill over the group.

    So  this is what one of my brother's kids brought up. So some things stick with you your whole life. I imagine they will be talking about this long after I am gone.