Saturday, April 24, 2010

CNN Live

I was just watching CNN Live and heard some disturbing things. Apparently teachers are selfish, greedy people who don't care about children at all, according to Steve Harper reporting from Hartford, Connecticut. Steve was reporting on the state of the economy and the need for some change in education. It is either cut 100,000 jobs nation wide or require all teachers to not receive raises in years when the economy is down.

He explained that education is paid for through property taxes. So when the economy is down the money available goes down. That makes sense to me. Less property taxes less money to pay teachers. However, the money received does not correlate to the size of classes and the amount of work teachers to do. So if the economy is in a two to three year slump classes can still increase in size each year, as well as class workloads.

Shouldn't the education of our nation's children be one of our highest priorities? Freezing raises in salary until the economy gets better is a good idea and most teachers would be willing to do it but teachers are worried that that day when the economy is good enough to start giving raises will never come.

Starting teacher salary in Utah is less than $28,000 a year. People don't get into teaching for the money. Then for Steve to assume they are only teaching for the money is ridiculous. My wife love's teaching. She loves when she can help student s understand new concepts. She loves teaching, she hates grading and everything else that goes with it.

One school District forced teachers to show up one minute before school and required them to leave no later than 10 minutes after school got out so they could pay them less. That is ridiculous. Those teachers are still going to work as many as 60+ hours a week because they love teaching. Now they are getting paid less for their work.

Another example, one school fired or laid off all of its employees and then rehired them all at lower salaries. If that were to happen in an actual company would that be legal? Seriously, I'm interested to know.

I tried to post a comment on the CNN website. I could not find an appropriate place to post my comments. it makes me mad that they can say such things and not allow for people to post their comments. So now I'm forced to hear people say my wife is greedy, selfish and doesn't care about the students.

I see how attitudes are changing toward education both from the students perspective and the rest of the country and it worries me. it seems to be less and less about the quality of the education and the learning that comes from it and more about the grade and how cheap they can make it.

They were giving out grants(extra money) to math and science teachers here in Utah because they were short on them. Less and less people are going into those fields here because of how ridiculous things here are getting.

Sorry about my rant. This is actually better than it would be if Courtney were to speak her mind. She was pretty upset listening to it this morning.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Ghost Town

It is that time again. Finals are done. Today is the last day of graduation. It is already pretty quiet around here. After this weekend this town will be like a ghost town. . . I can't wait.

I love that I can drive anywhere without tons of traffic no matter what time of day. I love the fact that I can go to eat on a Friday night and lines will almost be non-existent where ever we go. Don't get me wrong, I love having everyone here Fall/Winter. However, summer is great when it is quiet. I feel like I can relax and do anything I want.

Work is slow, yes. I'll just learn to use my time productively to get things done and learn new things. It could be an adventure. Who knows?! We shall see.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Words Can Not Describe

Things have been crazy. I just finished finals and just before that I took the GMAT. The GMAT will decide, along with my grades, whether or not I will get into grad school.

I am somewhat disappointed in the outcome of the GMAT and my finals. I, by no means, performed horribly. I was just expecting more. I'm applying for grad school and should here back some time next month. The good thing is it is over. I can now relax and enjoy my free time everyday after work. I can't wait. I'm planning on accomplishing a lot this summer. I'll be sure to share what things I do accomplish.

Court still has a little over a month left of teaching. She can not wait to be done with it and to be able to relax and play this summer too. Things are well and we are trying to stay out of trouble. Until next time.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Oops I forgot to add . . .

On the checkout page for our website you need to enter the date in this format for credit card expiration date yyyy-mm-dd and the credit card has to be more than 6 digits long. Thanks Kate for catching that.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

My Year in the Junior Core

I've been studying Information Systems (I Sys) for the past year now. Information Systems is a mix of business and computers. I learn both sides in order to help improve a company's system. These systems handle all their information, from sales to customer preferences. This field is ever changing and opens up opportunities to its graduates in all area of the work force, whether it is working with databases, programming or management. These are just a few of the many different areas I Sys students can go.

This past year we have been learning about systems. Specifically, how to create a system proposal, design and implement these systems into real working systems. Last semester we were given an assignment to put together a proposal for a fictional company. This semester we spent the whole 4 months designing and implementing this system. It includes a functioning in-store system that handles sales, rentals, and repairs, as well as creating management reports. We have also created a web based site that allows for online sales. Check it out here. Click on "Product". Type "c" in the search field. As you type AJAX will go to the database and return with information making changes to the web page with refreshing the whole page. Click on one of the results. AJAX again will populate the product info without refreshing the page. Click "buy". After you enter in information(PLEASE make it bogus information because this really will get saved into our database. I don't want your real information floating around) When you hit "checkout" all your information will get carried over to the confirmation page and our database will create the transaction as a sale! Cool huh!?

The only focus of this site was to learn to use AJAX, and how to add a back end database and connect that all together using a web server. It has been very challenging and very exciting. It seems simple enough; however, there is so much more than meets the eye. Many times I have come home to show Courtney what I have done and she is very supportive and excited for me, but she has a only a small idea of what went into making things function and work the way that they do.

I just wanted to share a little bit of what my life has been these past 8 months. I'm prepping for my presentation where we present our finished system to the client and hand them the system as well as almost 150 pages in system documentation. Wish me luck.

Friday, April 2, 2010

April Fool's Day

Just in case you still believe the last post was true, it isn't. It would have been nice if the post were true and we were pregnant but we aren't. I apologize if anyone is upset. I enjoyed the congratulations from friends and the frustration from my sister who couldn't believe I posted it online before telling her.

At the end of the last post, if you were to look closer, you would have noticed the word "December" had a link. Had you clicked it, you would have been taken too a Wiki page about April fool's Day.

I say things hinting about us might being pregnant so much Courtney doesn't think anyone will believe us when it is true. Once when my mom didn't answer her cell phone, I left a message saying call us back if you want to know whether or not we are pregnant. They called expecting us to tell them we were and we weren't. I'm horrible. Good things my parents have a sense of humor. Courtney says we'll have to have proof when it is true like a sonogram picture or something.

Again, I hope you didn't mind my little joke. I hope your April Fool's Day was a fun one.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

A new addition to our family!!

Yes, that's right you guessed it. Courtney is pregnant!! We just found out and can't be more excited. After almost 3 years of marriage we are soon to welcome a new addition to our happy family.

We've already started to think about boys and girls names for the baby. We are very lucky to already be in a 2-bedroom apartment which will help the transition of having a baby be a little bit easier(no moving etc).

All our friends gave their babies funny names until they found out if it is a boy or girl. I'm pushing to call the baby "Kumquat". You know, so I can say things like, "how is our little kumquat doing today?" we'll see if I can get that by Court.

We are not sure on the exact due date. We'll let you know when we go to the doctor. We think it should be some time around late December early January. That would be cool if the baby was born on my birthday! Courtney is doing well, no morning sickness yet(knock on wood). We'll be sure to keep you up to date.