Eighth Grade Graduation

Adam graduated from 8th Grade at LTMS. He was one of several students that were honored with the Presidents Academic Achievement award given to students meeting the President's criteria for all three years of middle school in terms of grades and in standardized testing.

He really enjoyed his social studies class because he got along with his teacher, Mr. Holliday (pictured on the left at graduation). I'm glad that this happened. We all need to understand and appreciate history if we have any hope of enjoying the significance of the presence and the impact of our decisions upon the future.

In addition to receiving the president's award at graduation, Adam also was chosen for "Best Hair" in the year book. We are so proud.

After a busy summer of baseball practice, games and tournaments and overlapping football practice for Tates Creek High School, we are sure that Adam will hit the ground running at Tates Creek High School.

Becca's Birthday

Becca got her ears pierced for her birthday this year. Emily went with her to the store to make it more like a party.

After the ear piercing party, Emily joined us all to watch Becca blow out the candles on her cake and open a few gifts.

Although Becca was hoping for a cell phone and expressing that hope often, she was thrilled with the volleyball net that is fun for the whole family.

She was excited about the ceiling fan that she opened up. The one in her room hasn't worked for quite some time.

The present that she opened with the most expression was from Emily. She picked out a pair of ear rings for her to wear after the long, long waiting period with the earstretchers that she got at the ear ring store.

Happy Mother's Day

Just yesterday, I finished trimming all the bushes, shrubs and trees around the house and was wondering what to do with the Bradford Pear.

As I was mowing the lawn, I was looking at the weight of what was left of the tree and decided that the tree was going to end up on the house one day if I didn't have a tree service come take it out.

Last night, I told Jackie that we were going to lose the tree and that we needed go ahead and get it removed.

This morning, while we were at church, or while we at Tony Roma's celebrating Mother's day, a thunderstorm took care of getting it down, placing it directly on the deck.

When the family walked into the kitchen after lunch, they thought some fast growing ivy had grown up on the deck while we were gone, but quickly ruled that out as something that only happens in the movies.

I've been wanting to open up the deck for several years, so I guess this will give me a summer project. I already had one project in painting the deck, doors, and other trim to match the new window color. I need more projects.

I saw it as a project, but Adam saw it as a chance to invent a new game called "tree diving". He's in the picture if you can find him. We all thought the "tree diving" game looked fun until I realized that each dive was applying more pressure to Jackie's azaleas.

Resolution of Craftsmen

I'm currently reading "The Craftsman" by Richard Sennett.

I read tonight about the conflict between the designer and the craftsman that occurred in Peachtree Center in Atlanta. The problem was that the designers used CAD to plan the whole thing and never visited the city to know it was hot outside in the summer. The community of craftsman fixed many of the remote ideal design flaws, but they couldn't fix them all.

I found it quite ironic that I struggled for a week with a very similar issue within one of the office complexes there several years ago. Overall, the combination of design and craft worked well there.

So here is Richard's section on conflicting standards, one of my favorites so far:

What do we mean by good-quality work? One answer is how something should be down, the other is getting it to work. This is a difference between correctness and functionality. Ideally, there should be no conflict; in the real world, there is. Often we subscribe to a standard of correctness that is rarely if ever reached. We might alternatively work according to the standard of what is possible, just good enough-- but this can be a recipe for frustration. The desire to do good work is seldom satisfied by just getting by.

Thus, following the absolute measure of quality, the writer will obsess about every comma until the rhythm of a sentence comes out right, and the woodworker will shave a mortise-and-tenon joint until the two pieces are completely rigid, needing no screws. Following the measure of functionality, the writer will deliver on time, no matter that every comma is in place, the point of writing being to read. The functionally minded carpenter will curb worry about each detail, knowing that small defects can be corrected by hidden screws. Again, the point is to finish so that the piece can be used. To the absolutist in every craftsman, each imperfection is a failure; to the practitioner, obsession with perfection seems a prescription for failure.

A philosophical nicety is necessary to bring out this conflict. Practice and practical share a root in language. It might seem that the more people train and practice in developing a skill, the more practical minded they will become, focusing on the possible and the particular. In fact, the long experience of practice can lead in the opposite direction. Another variant of the "Isaac Stern rule" is : the better your technique, the more impossible your standards. (Depending on his mood, Isaac Stern worked many, many variations of the "Isaac Stern rule" on the virtue of repeated practice.) Linux can operate in a similar fashion. The people most skilled in using it are usually the ones thinking about the program's ideal and endless possibilities.