Ft. Wayne Trip Pictures - Part 1

Ft. Wayne Trip Pictures - Part 2

Ft. Wayne Trip Pictures - Part 3

Ft. Wayne Trip Pictures - Part 4

Some Christmas Pictures

Computer Learning for Preschoolers

We give our three-year-old son, Landen, pretty much free reign over our older computer. He reads books on www.starfall.com, types letters with Timon and Pumba, puts together puzzles at www.jigzone.com and writes "books" on Google Documents.

He got his first Webkinz today for Christmas and his two eight-year-old sisters have enjoyed showing him the ins and outs of the Webkinz village.

A little bit ago, he somehow had logged himself off of Webkinz and was sitting back at the login screen while shouting across the room to me, "How do I login to Webkinz?" I told him he needed to type his username and password, which he quickly started to do. By the time I got there he had about fifty characters in each field.

I explained that he had to type a certain username and password and told him I would print them out for him.

I showed him where to type each one and turned him loose. Here's the result:

I changed his password before posting the video.

Happy Holidays 1992

My Grandma and Grandpa Culp sent this Christmas greeting out in 1992. I got the card recently when my neighbors brought it over to me. In the photo my grandparents are seen in front of their house. My grandpa was so proud of his front window that he decorated in spectacular fashion each Christmas.

Evelyn passed away in 2002, shortly after Kylee and Makenna's first birthday.

The girls got a chance to know Fred before he died in 2005.

I sure miss them.

Six Months Ago. . .

Kristi's cousin, Heather, took this picture.

Kylee, Emily, Makenna

Sent from my Droid.

Top Five Chapter Book Read Alouds for Second Grade

Reading chapter books to my class was my favorite academic activity during my 14 years of teaching second grade (I say academic because nothing can top playing Kick the Ball Over the Fence with the kids at recess.) Those 14 years of reading gave me a chance to discover some great second grade chapter book read alouds.

Here are my top five chapter book read alouds for second graders:

5. Poppy by Avi

4. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

3. Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar

2. Holes by Louis Sachar

1. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Reading Where the Red Fern Grows to Second Graders

I finished reading Where the Red Fern Grows to my eight-year-old twin daughters last night. It was the 15th time I have read the book. The previous 14 times include once to myself and 13 times to my classes of second grade students.

In general terms, this is a great chapter book read aloud for second graders because it:

• builds a strong emotional bond between the reader (and listeners) and the characters.
• builds intense understanding of the relationships between the characters.
• has a number of moments that the reader (or listener) does not expect to happen.
• has many themes that eight-year-olds can understand, especially when presented in the masterful way Wilson Rawls presents them.
• is just a great story filled with fantastic writing.

I'm A Failure

I have officially failed at my attempt at a "post a day, everyday for 100 days." I only made it 63 days. Hey, wait a minute. I'm not a failure! That's a D minus.

Jimmy Johns

Yesterday at Jimmy Johns I told the clerk, "Sorry to order so slow, you're probably about to freak."

She didn't laugh.

Google Voice

If you call my cell phone and I don't answer, Google Voice will. It will take a message from you for me. Google will then deliver an audio file of the message to my phone. Google also transcribes the message and delivers the text of the message to me. Well, it tries its best to transcribe the message.

A few weeks ago, I got a message from my eight-year-old daughter that Google Voice transcribed as, "I'm I'm trying to do it tonight and we're now in Wednesday 19th. Aloha."

Her actual message, "I lost my tooth Dad. When I was brushing my teeth. Bye."


Today Google Voice told me that my wife called and said, "Hey Steve, that was just thinking maybe after work, you could come and years of the eye doctor because we might be picking up lose them. We could probably use your help. Maybe you could help the girlfriend. I could head home. Appointment needs. I'm feeling of great so so anyway. The maybe head over to that after bye."

I won't transcribe Kristi's whole actual message. Basically, it was: 'stop by the eye doctor to help the girls pick out new glasses.'

Photography by A Three-Year-Old

There's something about the photos that a three-year-old takes. I always enjoy looking through them. They offer a perspective rarely seen. As I weeded through them this evening, there were about 20 I just couldn't delete. . . my foot on the ever-present antique footstool under my desk, the one mostly of my feet, what my desk really looks like, Makenna's smile. I don't get shots like these. Landen did.

Dumbest Commercial Ever

This commercial for Kay Jeweler's Love's Embrace collection has got to be the stupidest commercial of all time.

That is one creepy guy!

Old ASU Tablet: Is She Being Nice to You?

These are pages from a tablet used around my senior year of high school (used for scores and a little school work,) mostly written in 1990.

More computer football stats.

I must have really liked that computer game. All you did was enter a number for your play.

I hate to toot my own horn, but 10.3 yard per play? Toot, toot!

The Apple II text based football game was written in BASIC programming language. I knew some BASIC. My best memory of this game was the time that I went into the code and reprogrammed the game to cause it to make the human player score on almost every single play. Then, I sat back and smiled as my buddy, Brent, played the game and was positive he was the greatest text-based-football player of ALL TIME. As he gloated over his stats, he began to catch onto my smile and figured out something was up. His text-based Heisman had been fumbled away.

More nervous talking on the phone to a girl either Brent or I liked, probably me - it's my writing.

That's, NO, she is not be nice to him.

I think I made this in Geometry class. It is geometric!

Searches for November

Some searches that led to this blog in November:

• we didnt start the fire crack cocaine
• why is peter pan in we didn t start the fire
• steve gall recess
• dave and bets hahn
• stephen gall contaminated water in mckeesport ruling
• abnormally small feet
• logan s roadhouse or texas roadhouse?
• parts added to we didnt start the fire
• compare we didnt start the fire to jack kerouac
• vanna pick me a letter video