Mystery solved

One of the backyard mystery is solved. The two trees are almond trees. No wonder squirrels love them soooo much. They came to our yard for lunch and dinner and lately start to digging our lawn

Gardening Links

Monthly calendar from thegardenhelper
Master Gardeners of Santa Clara county monthly tip
San Francisco area rose calendar
Rose gardening calendar
http://www.gardeningwithnatives.com/
http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/

Camp BizSmart

Now this is a worthwhile summer camp. My view of spending summer for my kids (later when they are bigger and if we’re not homeschooling during summer) is going away to Indonesia if we want to spend the money or just relaxing/going to places around bay area. But this camp is different.

Read about this camp in the paper today: Camp BizSmart.

It’s a two week camp, immersion in economic entrepreneurship education principles and practices for 7th - 9th grade student. The cost ( 2008 ) is $750 for tuition, camp materials, t-shirt and DVD. And student have to send competitive application to demonstrate their passion for entrepreneurship.

Hehehe…. don’t know whether they’ll still be around when my kids finally eligible for the camp

Just keeping this for reference

My first garden

DSCF0113

Originally uploaded by gsetio

Today is my first gardening experience. First planting to be exact. I’ve been gardening since I moved in to our new house. Finally bought one with quite big frontyard and backyard. Having been living in apartments/dorm for 9 years, I’ve never do gardening before. Not even when I was in Indonesia. There, our maids did the gardening

So after planting flowers we bought yesterday I took picture of them so that I have a keepsake in case those plant can’t survive :D.
I planted these:

Update (8/21/2008), one of the Larkspur (blue flower) died already But so far out of 15 plants only 1 died

The rest of the yard already done by the previous owner. We get quite a number of roses. This is the biggest ones:


These are the problematic ones, I don’t know whether they will survive next year. These roses had black spots when we moved in. I removed the infected leaves, sprayed fungicide, finally tried the bayer 3 in 1 fungicide and fertilizer.


These are my favorites:

This is the smallest one

These are the unidentified trees and shrubs:


This is sago palm:

This is new zealand flax


These are our peach trees. They are still small but they have fruits already! And they are really sweet

There are some more trees and shrubs in the frontyard but I didn’t upload the photos.
Next, we’ll see whether those new flower can survive next month

Alice Educational Software

Mentioned in Randy’s Last lecture. Looks cool. And it’s FREE!!!!

3D programming environment to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game or a video to share on the web. A Teaching tool for introductory computing.
It’s designed for middle school and up. Here’s is the link

The Last Lecture

Just watched this videoclip: Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.

What a great speech! Very inspiring. A must watch for my kids when they are able to appreciate it.

Here is a link to the lecture’s transcript.

Some quotes:

*(On the reason he decided to be a professor because someone told him)’because you’re such a good salesman that any company that gets you is going to use you as a salesman. And you might as well be selling something worthwhile like education’

*Decide if you’re a Tigger or Eeyore… Never lose the childlike wonder. It’s just too important. It’s what drives us.

*Help Others.

*Never give up

*How do you get people to help you? … You get people to help you by telling the truth. Being earnest. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person everyday, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.

*Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself

* Be good at something, it makes you valuable.

He died today, may he rest in peace.

Career Changer Checklist

A Career Changer’s Checklist - 12 Common-Sense Questions to Find Your Career

How do I make a career change?
What do I do for a career
How do I advance in IT?
Those who are in IT/IS are facing this quagmire, but so are the folks just leaving college and high school, and those stuck in non-IT/IS jobs that they hate but are looking to our sector with hope. People re-entering IT will find this series helpful as well.

This series can be used by guidance offices in schools and colleges, and by employers in the corporate world trying to keep their employees from getting bored and leaving.

If the truth be told, this series is being written for InformIT readers and those in IT, but it could just as easily be written for any sector: those in healthcare, those in education, those in government, those in the trades, those in publishing, and so on.

Montessori Preschool Video Clips

Free montessori video clip from expertvillage (by Tami Elliot: Tami Elliot is the owner and a teacher at the Northstar
Montessori Preschool.)

Preschool Language Activities in Montessori
Preschool Montessori Activities
Montessori Methods & Activities
Montessori Math Methods
Montessori Counting Methods
Montessori Language Activities
Montessori Sensory Activities
Montessori Visual Activities

Update

So long since I updated this blog

Lot’s of things happened. Happy events… sad events….

No, not going to write long here. Just want to share an interesting article SONNY SCOTT:Home-schoolers threaten our cultural comfort

4th anniversary

What did we do for our 4th anniversary?

Run errands.. kind of sad isn’t it?

Morning just before sending Gabby to her Chinese class, found a note on our car asking us to fix our car alarm otherwise he/she will report us to the police! What a way to start my day!!! sigh

So we had to fix that. First drop her off, went to exchange car with hubby. Hubby sent the car to service. I returned book to library, picked up Gabby, ran home to get our spare car remote, picked up hubby. Hubby had to cancel his foot therapy and don’t know what else he had rescheduled.
Evening, hubby had his MBA/MSE class, came home after kids are in bed.

There goes our 4th anniversary day.