gatorcast from paul smith

Last night I remembered how to sew.  The last time I did  was when I was 12.   I had originally thought that I never did, but remembered 7th grade at Cutler Ridge Jr. High when I made a soccer ball and a dolphin.  It was in ‘Home Ec’.    I was telling the story to Evan on the way home from Michaels (my new favorite store) after he asked me “Dad, how we were actually going to sew this together?”  I told him I would figure it out.  So the design was completely his and he did most of the cutting, but Dad sewed this old ‘historian” up.  Not too bad, huh?   This is for a play Evan will do at the end of the week at St. Pats.

This evening I ran again…I missed running the last couple of days and I really missed it.  Tonight I ran even further.  I ran 3.2 miles non-stop!   I do not think I have ever run this far without stopping. Never. (well maybe when I was 12)  Doing this makes me feel like the I can do anything.   Because 4 weeks ago, I would have bet big money that I would never run, much less this far.

I can’t believe it.  I started running.   I’ve been inspired by several things, but mostly because I want to be healthy.   Cameron also started running because of cross country at school.    I started walking again 39 days ago after putting down the cigs.  I’ve been wondering if I could actually run for a period of time.  I tried several times and could not go more that 2 minutes… yea….    I started thinking about it and watching other people and a  couple of weeks ago while I was in Miami, I passed an old guy also walking.  A few minutes later he passed me running.  Well, he was kinda fast walking that looked like running.   Shortly after that we both had the same pace, him “running” and me walking.  Then it dawned on me.  I was running the wrong way.  I was trying to kill myself trying to sprint.  I had no rhythm.  I had not cadence.    So last week I started out on a normal walk and about 10 minutes in started to run.   And kept running.  I ran for about 20 minutes straight down 39th ave.  I didn’t want to stop.  I was afraid I would hurt myself so I slowed and stopped.  It’s hard to put into words how it felt.    I’ve done it 4 times since and all I can think about is it running again.  One of the interesting things about this is that I can see that I have never had very good endurance.  At anything.   This however, requires it and I assume helping me build it.  I can feel it.  I am not planning a marathon or anything, but I hope I can keep this a part of my life from now on.

iTunes Store approved and released my 1st iPhone App last night.  It can be found here.

I was totally inspired by not smoking and used that motivation to build an App that would help remind me of the time, money and number of cigarettes I was consuming.  All for nothing.

I am now 25.6 days since I smoked, I have not smoked 625 cigarettes and I have saved $203.   Of course the money is the least important of the three.  The volume of cigs really hits home.

I started smoking 20 months ago and do not miss it at all.

I also realized that if I could quit smoking, I could do anything.

Today I discovered something wonderful!   Tests..

We are using a new system at school that allows me to build exams, tests and quizzes.

I can have the exam reveal the answers immediately or make them wait until the all submitted.    I can time it, and when complete,  show the class by question the % or number that they got correct.  Real-time.   It was fun after the test today showing them the results and correct answers.

The test today had 11 questions that I thought were easy, but for most it was hard.  Only 1 student out of 34 got 100.   The average was below 60.

It was very interesting listening to them go through trying to solve the questions.  All of this was open book too.

In addition to getting them to review and truly have to think, this  exercise will also help in the future when I ask them to pay attention and get their assignments done.   Technology, I love it.