You know you're doing something right...

When your kid does this...

My 11 year old Daughter has recently had a bought with Unstable Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis or USCFE, which is basically the head of the femur pushing out of the socket as the hip growth plate slips. It was at first, assumed that she had just pulled a groin muscle from playing softball, but as the weeks passed by we got more concerned. Then came the fateful day when she fell. The Drs reckon it was a result of her hip completely displacing! She's been extremely mature and a fighter through it all. She was in surgery for 8 hours the night of her fall. She also agreed to participate (YES, we let her decide!) in a trial to monitor blood flow to the repaired area in an effort to increase the success rate of this type of surgery and possibly prevent complications in future patients. I wish I knew what we, as her parents, did to instill in her a sense of helping others even in her our time of need!

Knowing that since she was facing the worst case scenario with her injuries and was going to be basically confined to a wheelchair for about 3 months, I made her a cushion for the chair. Peace signs are her thing. Not so much the free love hippie kind of peace, but the "can't we all just get along" kind. She's also keen on recycling and everything "green". Which is why her foam in the cushion is soy based and I think the fabric was recycled, too.

For the first week she was in the hospital and in a constant state of drug induced haze.Most of the time she had a catheter and could barely move. She took it all in stride, rarely complained (She's 11... there's gonna be SOME complaining!), but was keen to know what was going on with her and the healing process. Of course, she was anxious to get out of the hospital and back to the comfort of her own bed. I think she was kind of missing her little sister!
We also had to build a ramp to get her in and out of the house. Once she started her home Physical Therapy she rolled herself up to the kitchen table and made this:

If you can't read it, it's a chart she made from the list of exercises that the Physical Therapist gave her to try and do. The sheer drive and creativity that she has exhibited during this ordeal, is an inspiration not only to me, but hopefully to anyone that reads this and the upcoming blog that I am going to help her establish to chronicle the events for herself!


All of this is basically to tell the world...

I'M PROUD OF YOU MORGAN!!

Game changing vs. Feminine hyigene

iPad... first thing that came to my mind... WTF where they thinking when they named this game changing piece if hardware? iPad congers up images of a "sanitary" napkin with a moisture sensor attached to a "hi-tech" pair of grungies with a twitter account that tweets the fact that the "Aunt Flow" has arrived! Now you see why this is an "explicit" blog! :-p

On a more serious note, I DO believe that this product will be a game changer. I've heard a lot of the detractions about it, but even my 10 year old can see where it fills a need. I predict that the iPad, provided the price comes down a little (knock $200 off the price and you'll sell the shit out of them, Steve!), will be the "textbook" of the future! It has what a student needs to fit perfectly into this small, but essential niche! No, it doesn't have Flash... No it doesn't multi-task... BUT, it does have the needed power and abilities to replace hard copy books and paper in the classroom! The larger form factor, ebook store, and the addition of iWork(Apple's version of Microsoft Office), lends it perfectly to this application. Built in WiFi allows it to connect and interact with the active and smart boards that are so prevalent in the modern classroom. Picture this... a student arrives a school, goes to their desk, grabs their iPad and checks the in room email for that day's assignments and then uploads their homework and then proceeds to watch the interactive video that their teacher made and uploaded to YouTube giving them a list of links and information about their upcoming digital presentation on the different aspects of government. The child has a question, so they email the teacher asking for additional info and resources! The class is getting kind of unruly, so suddenly it pushes up on everyone's iPad... a pop quiz on last nights homework. Li'l Johnny failed to do his homework, so the teacher remotely screen captures his "my dog ate my homework" excuse and forwards the image to her personal account and his parents via email. After lunch, via the ceiling mounted webcam and DLP projector the whole class does a group chat, via iChat, with a class of similar age in Japan, for the intercontinental, cross-cultural project that they are working on together. Suzy, the more advanced student in the class, having finished all the days assignments, pulls up one of the iTunesU videos that the teacher emailed her to help keep her engaged and learning. After the students have gone home, the teacher grades the day's work and and uploads the grades to the class' website for everyone's parents to see their child's progress. Realizing the he needs some additional help, Li'l Freddie pops up on the teacher's iChat and asks her for a little additional tutoring on that night's assignments.

See how it can all work together?! A secondary spin on the benefits... the environment! Being all digital, just think of all the trees that can be saved by not publishing text books or using paper in the classroom! Just think of the landfill space that can be saved! The ever expensive ink saved! Therefore the money saved!

Yes, there is the initial expense and logistics of deployment and professional development training, but in the long run, the savings will far surpass the upfront funding! Face it folks, we are lagging behind in developing technology for our children. Computers are here to stay! They are integrated into EVERY aspect of our lives, whether you realize it or not!

So to bring it back around to the initial topic... While the iPad wasn't the be all end all that the fanboys and geeks were hoping for, it still carries the form factor a LONG way towards the future. Maybe Adobe and Apple will work out their differences... Maybe they won't have to (HTML5)... Maybe by the time of it's release, the iPad will have the ability to multi-task... maybe, not... This I don't know! What I do know is that, without having to hack it, the iPad has pushed the ebook reader well beyond being just that!