Posted by Doug
Sat, 15 Nov 2003 20:34:00 GMT
We rented Spyro today for our
GameCube. Oh, my goodness is this game fun!
You play this little purple adolescent dragon. You run around doing things little dragons do (flame things, eat sheep, ram things with your horns, fly around, etc.). The setting is in China (maybe Japan, this shows my ignorance) in a series of Dragon dojos. There are bad ninja dudes that are trying to steal all the dragonflies. Your job is to catch all the dragonflies to protect them from the Bad Guys. Meanwhile you’re learning how to be a big dragon. The animation is great, the game play is great. All of the kids love it. It’s a little hard for Josh (who’s now six) to do all the “challenges”. So, I’m watching him play and “help” when he gets to the sticky parts. The game is so much fun I have a hard time giving him back the controller!
Here’s a for instance on what a bad father I am. Today is actually Josh’s Birthday. We had his party last weekend while Grandma and Grandpa were here. Josh is having a hard time understanding why he doesn’t get a birthday party today as well as last weekend. I think he’s getting it, but it’s taken most of the day. So, I’m sitting there playing after “helping him through a hard part” and he’s wanting the controller back. He says things like, “Can I have a turn?” and “Dad, I think I can do this part.” Finally he says to me, “Dad, I think it’s my turn. You know it’s my birthday.”
Posted in GameCube | no comments
Posted by Doug
Fri, 14 Nov 2003 21:00:00 GMT
For those of you who don’t know, my primary “axe” is an IBM ThinkPad. I’ve quit carrying an external keyboard and mouse around with me. I’m just too lazy to manually plug in the keyboard, mouse, network, power, and monitor every time I sit down to my desk. So, I’m exclusively using the built-in LCD, keyboard, and “touchstick” pointing device.
So what’s the point of this? This week I’ve needed to use a keyboard and mouse on my secondary computer. Usually I just
ssh into it from my
ThinkPad. This week I actually need a mouse on the thing. I had to scrounge around to find one. The only thing I could find is this old Logitech trackball. Man do I love this thing! I didn’t realize just how much I miss it! It’s smooth, fast, and accurate. The trackball on it is huge. I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing it has a three inch diameter. The only complaint I ever had with it was it didn’t scroll right in XFree86. There’s been some patches added that handle scrolling with only the fourth button (just like the MS-Window’s drivers do). Anyway, it makes me want to start carrying it around again… well, maybe not. But, it’s fun to use again.
Posted in Hardware | no comments
Posted by Doug
Fri, 14 Nov 2003 20:04:00 GMT
I don’t think we had any official Parent/Teacher confernces in pre-school. Maybe. This was the first one for “real” school. Good news and bad news. First, he’s litterally the most academically advanced kid in the class. He does his “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic” better than anyone else in his class. Second, the teacher thinks he’s well liked by the other kids. Josh gets along well with the other kids and doesn’t have any trouble playing with any of them that she’s noticed. The “bad news” is nothing surprising. He doesn’t concentrate very well and rarely finishes his work. He doesn’t listen to all of the directions the teacher gives and doesn’t follow through with them. Of course, this is no different than what we see at home. In his defense, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” All of that pretty much describes me as well. While we’re airing our dirty laundry, Carla can certainly be scatter brained from time to time too. The moral of the story is that he’s a product of his environment. More good news is that even these problem areas are fairly typical for this age. He’ll need to be better next year; but, this year he can be learning this stuff as he goes.
Of course, if Carla and I can teach him in a year to finish his work quickly and follow instructions I’ll call my job as a parent done. One of the things his teacher mentioned was giving him lists of instructions in threes. Something like, “do this, then do that, and then do this last thing.” He does well on the first two but doesn’t get the third. She made a good suggestion on how to help him get things done quickly. For tasks he doesn’t want to do, she suggested letting him know what types of things he could when he gets done. That’s something like “eat your vegetables and then you can have dessert.”
In summary, his teacher seems like a very sweet lady who cares about her students. She seemed sensitive to Joshua’s personality, strengths, and weaknesses. She gave us some focused information on what we can do to help Josh better. I’d like to say I’m proud of my son. I’m not just proud of him because he’s smart (although I am). I’m really proud of him because he seems to be good at playing with other children. Personally, I’d much rather him be nice than smart. Being smart is important; but being nice is more important.
Posted in Josh | no comments
