Surprise!

Thursday night my new urologist called and said that my blood test results with regard to my prostate were OK, but that I had low testosterone. TOngith Stephanie read more about this and this can be connected with a whole nexus of male menopause/andropause symptom and it has some weird treatments, which the doctor alluded to. I am to get another blood test and see him in six months.

Friday - after almost finishing one of his on-line classes in time for his Mom's birthday - Vincent first said explicitly what we suspected recently - that he thinks he'll stay here with us instead of going back to Ohio and staying with his father. He was somewhat disappointed with his father aborted a planned-for move to Florida and he told Stephanie he's been surprised how easily he's almost finished this class here. They don't currently have Internet access in the RV they were staying in - with no working toilet or shower. Today Vincent highlighted the creature comforts - a bed, food (homecooked by Mom), Internet access, video games - and didn't say what I think is also true: we've been getting along pretty well, enjoying each other's company, and for better or worse we haven't been bugging Vincent much about things we used to (school work, getting a job, cleaning his room, bad language, etc.). We've also done some fun things together. I wouldn't say Vincent is that much less isolated here - he's really disengaged from his friends (including ones we don't like) and stayed in the house for the most part - as in Ohio - but in principle he still knows how to get around here more (and Meemaw is no longer in Ohio). (We also do a better job of taking care of him - with doctor and dentist et al. visits - and he seems to have quit smoking here!).

Sunday night two more surprises awaited us when I pulled the two baby turtles out fo their habitat and put them in bowls of dechlorinated water with a piece of dog food I'd been soaking. First, it appeared after a while that Big Mac - who I saw on Saturday in the contained with food in the habitat - had defecated (which they would do in the water), and then Filet of Fish - the scrawnier, less active baby turtle - whom Dr. Williams and her colleagues had tube fed - began to bite at the piece of dog food. Filet of Fish ate! Check out the video above for more evidence of this.

-- Perry

- Perry

More health

Friday I took Vincent for his follow-up visit to the oral surgeon did removed his wisdom teeth. Vincent’s mouth had been bothering him all week, but when we got there the doctor removed Vincent’s stitches (I missed it – I was out with the dog – in a couple of minutes. Vincent has used up almost a whole bottle of Advil, but is getting better. I’ve faced health issues as I re-re-injured my right knee (on my way to the doctor three weeks ago) and have started going back irregularly to physical therapy. Fall allergies – worsened by dust in Nancy and Bob’s basement and Nancy’s things now in our house. When I went to the doctor, I got some antibiotics for among other things an ear infection. Replacing it was a weirder ear condition that has made my hearing a little worse and has lately mimicked tennitis. Tuesday I go back to the doctor – but no running to the bus this time. In between, I’ll hope that my allergies and sneezing don’t wake me up in the middle of the night again. We’re also fighting health problems with our baby turtles, who haven’t eaten after three and a half weeks (despite one and a half reptile vet visits). This week we’re going to try to a different heat lamp.

-- Perry

Baby turtles

For years one of our adult turtles, Speckles, has been laying eggs once or twice a year. In recent years, we've adopted an elaborate incubation system for the eggs, but grew pessimistic about them hatching (We knew they could be fertilized.). Imagine Stephane's surprise two weeks ago when she noticed something moving in the incubation chamber, and found not one but two apparently less than one-day-old baby turtles. We've done lots of research since, but haven't got them to eat, which we are very concerned about. We've created a somewhat different kind of habitat for them than for their parents, tried different foods, and tried fiddling with the temperature and lighting (and tried taking them outside). Their father (Greenville) went on a five-month hunger strike when he first connected with us, but the vet we took them to last week said the babies definitely wouldn't last that long. Wish for patience and ingenuity for us and energy, healing, and (eating) inquisitiveness on the part of the babies, who Stephanie have dubbed Big Mac and Filet of Fish.

-- Perry

Job news

Lots of job news today. Stephanie learned that she has got a final positive recommendation from her principal before she goes up for tenure – over the summer? – with the school district and school board. Stephanie - still recovering from being ill - stays late at school all week this week: Tuesday night for an open house for families of incoming students, aimed particularly of parents of one the four schools that the school district is closing next month, most of whose current kindergarteners, 1st-, 2nd- and, 3rd-graders will be coming to Fairmont. (Families associated with this school had in recent years campaigned very hard to keep the school open.)

I learned at a big all-staff meeting that there will be a net loss of 45 jobs at the Presbyterian Center. Friday is still layoff day. Apparently people won’t have to leave immediately or lose their e-mail accounts immediately. I looked up more information about layoff policies (which would include about eight months of pay and benefits for me). My Mom learns more Tuesday about whether she will be able to work at home for her last three weeks or so of work. She had started to do so but then learned that it wasn’t all approved. For the first time in months, last week she started going back to work. June 4 is the day she set as a retirement day. Stephanie and I are set to visit her and go to a high school reunion for me later this month.

And then there’s kids news: Vincent and Stephanie talked twice briefly by phone on Mother’s Day. And, just as importantly: Today we got a chance for new kids! As she often does in the spring, Speckles laid an egg – but just one (unusually), so far.

Vet visit

For the second time in three Tallahassee visits, we took the turtles to see Dr. Brumfield, the reptile vet at Northwood Animal Hospital, which also treated Frisco in his youth. We usually want Dr. Brumfield (pictured above with his colleagues, two of them relatively new) to give the turtles a general check-up plus to trim and shave their beaks and toenails. Both had had medical emergencies in the past year or so – ones that generated some calls but no actual visits to potential Kentuckiana reptile vets. We’d inadvertently left Speckles behind during a trip to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and she’d apparently fallen down the stairs and there was a little dark blood on her head, which she must have hit on her way down the basement (where we amazingly found her, looking for her, even though we didn’t know she was there). About a month ago Stephanie had cleaned out the bathtub with a bleach-based cleaner and then I – not knowing this – had filled the tub with water for Greenville for his weekly swim. About an hour later I figured out that the bubbles were residue from the bleach, and we called around and ultimately gave him a milk bath. Also, a third turtle, a water turtle named Speedy, had visited with Dr. Brumfield during our visit two and a half years ago, but Speedy subsequently died.

Dr. Brumfield weighed and examined their animals and did the nail and beak care (to the extent to which Speckles allowed him to), and he was generally positive about their condition. Later this week we’re going to bring the practice some fecal specimens to analyze. Among Dr. Brumfield’s suggestions:

Try leaving the turtles outside during the summer for a few hours. Of course, the last time he suggested this, disaster ensued as Sawyer escaped. But he gave us suggestions for keeping him, including burying the chicken wire for their outdoor play enclosure deep in the ground. Covering the enclosure with wire might ward off any airborne predators (such as hawks). Exposing them to direct sunlight is important.

Try harder to get the turtles to eat vegetables – not just fruit (if we’re lucky) and superworms (beetle larvae). Material he gave us suggested some vegetables we haven’t tried before (such as squash), and our Community-Supported Agriculture produce may provide some possibilities. He also suggested cooking – like pureeing (?) – vegetables to make them even easier to eat. Although we have vitamin and mineral powders to sprinkle on their food, we confessed we’ve never really used them, and he suggested we do so one or two days a week.

In the past Dr. Brumfield had turtles and he suggested using as the bedding of their habitat the mix he used: cypress chips and sphagnum moss. We’d tried that (instead of Sawyer’s Astroturf), but very recently had switched to something more expensive but probably similar – turtle bedding that was said to be less likely to have pesticides or bacteria in them. Instead, Dr. Brumfield this time suggested that we simply use dirt. He hinted that we also might try to keep the habitat moist, possibly by spraying water. In Minnesota, I briefly tried using a humidifier during the winter – with all of that dry heat – but found it difficult.

In winter, he suggested – consistent with other suggestions – giving the turtles a swim twice a week instead of once a week.

We’ll try to implement some of this. The materials Dr. Brumfield gave us had some daunting suggestions: including NOT using a glass case, NOT putting female and male turtles together (because sexual harassment by the guy will stress out the girl), and NOT leaving out food. In general, Dr. Brumfield said the turtles were in good health and looked well cared for, even if he had a few suggestions. Dr. Brumfield spent more than an hour with us (and that’s without the fecal test analysis), which also yielded one of the turtles’ more expensive vet bills. But, Greenville and Speckles, you’re worth every penny of it.

-- Perry

October animals

Start of the week

Monday Vincent started his job, which may just last through the stocking the store. Vincent was tired when we picked him up – not just from getting up early but from standing up for most of eight hours and lifting things. Something had cut his finger – he had a band-aid. It occurred to me that getting up every morning at 8 a.m. may make him sick at some point (plus all that smoking). He ended up eating and watching TV with us until 9 p.m. and then going to bed, and so no school work. I don’t know if he got up early enough Tuesday morning to do any schoolwork.

When asked, he told his mother that working was harder than going to school.

He also talked and texted – presumably with Jessi – a lot.

I see one of the reasons he got a job is that he’s got days – in the abstract – free. He says a smaller number of people work with him during the day – including a college student who also works at UPS – and then at 3 p.m. a number of kids who have just gotten out of high school show up. He said he befriended one of those people.

We’re trying to pick him up as often as possible. I’m afraid if we suggest he takes the bus, he’ll call one of his friends and get a ready – of course, he’s supposed to be on “house arrest” – but if he gets a ride who’s to say whether they dilly-dallied on the way home. The main thing is we want him to finish those two classes (and then keep going).

Stephanie was to pull kids for the first time today. I finished the report for a modest-sized project I’ve been working on for the Presbytery of Cincinnati for almost a year and sent off the materials – although the main client has a family illness and I’m trying to make sure Tuesday that someone actually got it.

My Mother gave her report on SAT data Monday, which went OK, although she had to make a correction to last week’s report.

Stephanie and I both have after-work things today – me, Toastmasters; Stephanie, open house for families of her students – and so we’ll see how things go with Vincent after work.
Some good health news: Vincent – at home more recently with the house arrest – no doubt will get lots of exercise at his new job – and hopefully won’t also get a hernia. For most of the past week, Stephanie has been getting up early enough to do a new DVD version of the old pilates exercise video she got from Mom and some minutes of a more aerobic new DVD (almost 45 minutes total!) and has started to lose weight (no such good news on the weight front for me).

Since he got sick and spent a week plus at the vets – all the more so with summer weather finally arriving – Frisco has been unable to get through his usual walks without trying to stop (and – when I’m walking him – having me carry him – some times for half a block – sometimes several blocks). This morning – when it’s cooler than during the day – he finally did our whole long Leland circuit (I’ve been avoiding going through town with its thrown away food lurking) without me carrying him at all – the first time since his hospitalization.

-- Perry

Progress?

Vincent and I talked and looked over the official record of his English class and talked about his two remaining projects – a somewhat vague critical essay and a multi-step research paper. We batted around some possible topics and Googled some possible sources, and then today I went to the public main library, University of Louisville Library, and Wild and Wooly video store to obtain books, articles, and DVDs connected with two possible topics: critical essay topic film adaptations of Beowulf, the “Knight’s Tale” from Canterbury Tales, and Romeo and Juliet. I dropped those by the house, picked up Vincent and the dog, and then Vincent dropped off job applications that he’d completed before and after he went to Ohio to four nearby businesses. Apparently, he’d been sleeping, watching the 1996 version of Romeo and Juliet that I blogged about two weeks ago, working on his math class (he says he’s finished three of five sections), and eating leftover dessert from last night’s Crescent Hill church officer Oldham County meeting/gathering/potluck dinner (from one of the businesses, the bakery, where we stopped for him to drop off an application). He also picked up something to eat as we left the last business.

Stephanie called to say she might end up staying put in the Grand Ole Opry resort for the whole two days, where there was more social activity (meals, receptions, etc.) and keynote speeches associated with the conference, partly because the whole conference is put on by a company promoting its software. Stephanie said some of the sessions are more geared towards educators with experience using the software. Since she hasn’t used it in her classroom yet, these go a little over her head. She’s staying with another English as a second language teacher – middle school, I believe – but it doesn’t sound like she’s gone out that much with the other teachers.

I’m trying to get a little work done but head for more health care reform phone calling/canvassing – which is all the more daunting knowing what we already should have known from calling during the last few weeks and from those communications with friends – Many people are skeptical about health care reform, and the president’s poll numbers are really sagging, with his very unfavorable ratings skyrocketing – all the more so after Professor Gates-gate – especially among whites, especially among working-class whites (a good share of the people we’re contacting). 12 percent more likely voters have very unfavorable views of the president than have very favorable views, and 4 percent of likely voters now say, in general, they would vote for a Republican candidate for Congress, instead of a Democratic candidate. Democratic strategists believe as unemployment eases, these numbers will change, but there’s already a precedent where this did not happen (1994).

Frisco still seems to be lagging, as I continue to carry him occasionally during our walks, even when it’s not that hot (some of these is worse since he was sick and at the vet’s).

Mom remembered this week that it was 30 years ago Tuesday (by the date) that (with very little help from Penny and me, who were mainly off at a Latin conference in Michigan, but with lots of help from the folks at the United Church in Tallahassee, which she left a couple of years later) Mom bought and then moved from a house we’d lived in for three years in the Betton Hills neighborhood of Tallahassee, to the cheaper house on Greenwood Drive, where she’s lived ever since (and where all five of us have lived at one time or another). This was connected with my parents’ divorce, which was happening around the same time.

-- Perry

Take me home, Country . . .

Stephanie and I ended up going on our 10 days of traveling without both Vincent and Frisco. Vincent's father, you may recall, picked him up last Tuesday. We'll pick him up at some point this weekend in Ohio. Frisco became ill during the middle of last week and we ended up leaving him at our veterinarian's, instead of taking him to West Virginia and Ohio - and boarding him while we were in Las Vegas. On our way out of town - two hours late - we stopped by to say hello, give the vet staff his medication, and walk him. They took him off an IV so we could walk him. They had him on an Elizabethan collar - the cone thing - like he was on several years ago - so he wouldn't attack the IV. I walked him in the Meier's parking lot across from the vet's while Stephanie bought luggage at the vet's, since one of the pieces of luggage we'd bought to go to Guatemala two years ago had died on the way out to the car.



We drove on Interstate 64 through Lexington and into West Virginia near Huntington-Ashland.

Huntington is a NW WV city that we've blogged about driving through before. Penny interned at the paper one summer in the early 1980s. Our cousin from WV lives there now. Another cousin went to college there - at Marshall - and we've seen the movie "We Are Marshall," about a plane crash and the football team (which ex-Vike and one-time 'Nole Randy Moss played for). We opted to drive though one of the one-way streets thourgh the middle of the old part of town. Below is the county courthouse in Huntington.

And the public library . . .

Below is the entrance to Marshall.

And a college bookstore.

The bookstore is across from the football stadium, on the eastern end of the campus. Marshall just switched from the Mid America conference to Conference USA, which the University of Louisville used to belong to.

After leaving Huntington, we drove through Point Pleasant and along the Ohio River towards Mason.

We passed some coal generating plants and (below) a plastics factory.

As we pulled into Mason, we saw not only the two-year-old Super WalMart (built in small part on family members' land) ) (below) but also the brand-new bridge, four lanes, between Pomeroy, OH, and Mason - and also something called a "Coffee House" which turned out be a low-key front for a very small-scale casino.

In the video below, Frisco greeted Stephanie and me as we stopped by the vet's at the beginning of our trip.

-- Perry

Mid-year review

Wednesday night I stayed up for the second night in a row trying to come close to finishing a big report for work. With my 2 p.m. Thursday mid-year review meeting with my manager looming, I have tried to use the valuable extra time – when it turned out that last Thursday was a week early to get further ahead. I did not finish the report – though I made a lot of progress. My Thursday last week I had almost finished a shorter research summary and finished a draft of a survey – both of which my manager had wanted done by this week. I made more progress over the last week planning for clients for the next few Presbyterian Panel meetings, partly by taking the initiative and scheduling meetings with people my manager or I had thought might be promising clients.

Wednesday afternoon I had discovered that I had filled out the written Mid-year review wrong, and so I redid Wednesday afternoon and gave my manager a new copy.

Recall that one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve faced at this job was the ANNUAL (end of the year) review meeting with my previous manager 2 ½ years ago. And in January the new manager was a little tough on me for not getting some things done, and there was plenty more material to work with in this meeting (plenty of missed deadlines, according to the pretty ambitious schedule he had adopted for me in my 2009 performance goals. But this time he wasn’t tough on me. I had noticed that it appeared that one could actually change goals – including deadlines – mid-year – maybe even after one had missed some of the mid-year goals. He didn’t go for that but he did say in the section to the right of each goal I could not only note the goals I had achieved but also say something about why I’d miss other goals and re-set new deadlines for them (trying to be neither too conservative nor too aggressive in this deadline-setting is complex).

Some of those reasons in general include me having to still do more of my old job for a while this winter and spring, data problems with two projects, and perhaps a somewhat steeper learning curve than we imagined for this new job (my manager conceded that – since he’d been doing it for 21 years – he might not have entirely appreciated how much learning new things it would all entail).

Trying to prioritize things – which projects to try to finish first – is still sometimes a quandary – especially projects where there is not a deadline looming that a client set – just something we want to go ahead and get done for its own sake.

I always wonder – what we will come up to talk about – and then we go on forever. This may have set a record for me – 1 hour and 20 minutes – it’s just that we spent the majority of time talking about things over than the review. Also discussed were the following topics:

- his family’s new cat
- our struggles with another office partly over a controversial Panel summary he once tried to release early, our church’s Evangelism Committee
- the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership whose meeting I’m going to with colleague Gail in three weeks and whether we can afford to stay in and whether I should stay on as Outreach Committee chairperson
- focus groups projects and how two newer colleagues had done on projects on which I worked with them

On the whole, our two managers still supervise what I do pretty heavily – and this comes new with him since he wasn’t a manager before and our old manager was in some respects pretty hands-off and so now there’s two of them – I have mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, I’m getting all of this free, on-the-job training in areas that – I must confess – like survey research that I did not have that much experience with. On the other hand, it all feels like a lot of unnecessary micromanagement sometimes.

Anyway – pretty good review meeting – I’ve got a lot of work to do (including a little bit I’m taking on our vacation) – and – unless they have surprise big September layoffs – my job should be OK at least until the annual review in December (we’ll see if I’ve made any of my deadlines by then).

We tried to nail down our plans for leaving Friday afternoon to visit with Stephanie’s West Virginia relatives, and then on Saturday morning to a family reunion in a nearby town. But Frisco is sick – probably from something he ate on our Tuesday morning walk – and he’s staying overnight at the veterinarian’s – which may delay our departure. He may stay with the vet/at the boarding place at the vet’s – where they can monitor him, instead of staying with us in West Virginia and Ohio (and boarding for just 4 ½ days near the airport in Ohio while we’re in Vegas).
Frisco hadn’t eaten or defecated for a couple of days and he moped much of Thursday – though as we were dropping him off tonight at the vet’s he was pretty energetic.

Another companion animal complication: Thursday morning I noticed that our female turtle, Speckles (pictured below resting after the big event), who had been trying to lay eggs for several weeks, had indeed laid half a dozen eggs overnight. I was able to pick up all of them – she didn’t lay any more later this morning – and rescue most, setting up the whole incubation process again. By nightfall, at least half of them still seemed OK – others were sunken in. We already have a long list of turtle and plant care tasks that we’ve asked our friend Jessi, Vincent’s former prom date, to stop by with her mother to handle. Drying off some of the turtle egg incubation contraption is just something else we’re adding to that list, but we do feel a little bad about it. We’re hoping for turtle babies one of these summers.

Stephanie did try reaching Vincent by phone on Thursday, but he didn’t pick up. In the long run, this is a little worrisome because we don’t know exactly where he is, as his father may have moved.

More mix of news: We were unnerved to get – as I do each year – a renewed call to pay back my student loans – which I usually stall by getting economic hardship forbearance – while the government pays for some – but not all – of the interest that would be accruing. We’re already paying Stephanie’s back each month – and this is hard enough, even with help.

Better news: Mom says that Aunt June’s throat cancer is in remission, which is a big pleasant surprise. She still has trouble eating and still has a bunch of other health problems. But beating the cancer – at least for now – is a big miracle itself.

Another slightly unnerving event: I got into a little bit of an argument with one of our neighbor’s sons when we came home and a car – of a guest of theirs, it turns out – was parked in our carport. This is an important neighbor relationship since we and they share a driveway that (even though it’s technically mostly on the property of the house we rent, we still have to maintain cooperation/good spirits.

You might pray for contined healing for June, Frisco, and Speckles – and for my work and our finances

-- Perry

Fruit salad

Pink hair (and a guest)

After summer school Tuesday Vincent headed off to visit with a friend who is married and heading off to Texas to be with her husband during bootcamp. Periodically over the past half a dozen years Vincent has dyed his hair. Apparently his friend and he decided to dye his hair purple, but it turned out pink (even the eye brows, which Vincent doesn't usually dye). My immediate reaction was practical: how are you going to get a job now? Apparently, the kids at school the next morning didn't flinch (except Andrea who said "I no want touch pink"), as turtle math took to comparing height. They measured and compared the heights of Greenville (6 inches) and Speckles (6 1/2 inches) and Vincent and then all the students - and then a guest, me! - who stopped by for an early lunch break. Stephanie took the camera in time to take a few pictures of the measure-in.

Most of the kids were able to figure out that Mr. Vincent is taller than I am, we are both taller than Mrs. Gregory, and everyone is taller than Greenville and Speckles. Notice the nice color coordination between Vincent's hair color, T-shirt, and elements in the classroom. Vincent ended up wearing some shirts this week that he hasn't worn for a while - because of my subtle T-shirt rotation and him being so far behind with laundry - and then the next week Stephanie was able to pick Vincent's clothes out, since they're in the basement and on the second floor and he can't reach them. Up through some of 10th grade I used to pick some of Vincent's school clothes out. After measuring people's heights, we measured the lengths of the two sofas in Stephanie's room to see if Vincent could lie down on them.

Vincent sat in what is usually the teacher reading to the students chair.

He helped the kids with some lists/calculations on the board (below).

Stephanie had played a game with the kids in which she gave them on the board (while timing them) each five addition problems (varying according to their skill levels) and they had to figure them out and answer them correctly and then gave them a time. Vincent and my time turned out to be close, but Shuto had come in under us. Besides learning about seconds (and in some cases minutes) and addition, the students had to compare numbers (Who ran faster, Greenvile or Speckles? Who added faster, Mr. Chang or Mr. Vincent?), which taught or reinforced greater than or less than concepts.

This also gave Vincent practice in math, a topic that he is ostensibly studying in a dual-enrollment high school-college class right now. I know from looking at analysis of his standardized test scores that although his math scores are OK, he still occasionally even has trouble with some basic arithmetic.

While Vincent retired to the teacher's chair to read silently and I got ready to go, Stephanie got the students started on a money exercise where they had $1 to spend and they had to figure out what they would spend money on first and how much tomorrow. Some of this budgeting involved some new thinking on the part of the students (and generated some unrealistic prices). But the point was to get the kids practice at writing and reading numbers and some basic arithmetic, plus some practical math skills and even just basic reinforcement that math skills are not purely academic skills, that they're important practical skills also.

The kids got a late start on this and so they were to work on the first purchase - including drawing a picture of what they were purchasing and once they reported the price, figuring out how much money they had left (some of this was tough for one of the outgoing kindergarteners who had not learned addition and subtraction yet in school), and then taking home their work and showing it to their parents and then bringing it back Thursday to work on the next purchase.

Some of these materials (including the math bingo and I believe this activity) were not things that Stephanie found in her regular ESL curricular materials or things she found on the Internet, but materials summer school had actually directly supplied summer school teachers for Math Camp week. Greenville and Speckles went in to summer school for their fifth and final day Thusday, but stayed home Friday, when the kids had a party with the other teacher teaching ESL students (usually a regular classroom teacher - the one other teacher going to Vegas for that conference, with her husband). Each week Stephanie prepared some partly narrative mini-evaluations/report cards from the week for the students and their parents, staying up late to work on these Thursday night (along with grading whatever tiny bit of homework the kids had done but she hadn't yet graded) and finishing these up in class on Friday while Vincent held down the fort. Monday while Vincent slept in class the outgoing superintendent of schools dropped by briefly. While I was there Wednesday one of the three-day acting summer school elementary school principals dropped by Stephanie's classroom. But also in the office was the regular school principal, who was essentially "volunteering" by popping in. We saw her Saturday also . . . .

-- Perry

Race on tape

Click on the arrow below to watch the turtles - after about about a five-minute wait - finally race.

School breakfast

Click on the arrow below to see Greenville and Speckles eating on Monday, almost two weeks ago, on Day 1 of the second week of summer camp, this one math camp.

Turtle math

Four out of five days of the second and final week of the summer camp-themed summer school at Stephanie's school, Stephanie and Vincent brought the turtles. On the first day they ate again (above) and then raced again. This time the kids timed the race, as an exercise in practical math. Stephanie took the camera this time and got some pictures and videos. The kids watched the eating.

Vincent worked with one of the two small groups of kids on math. One of the activities of the week was math bingo.

Unusually, Vincent smiled for the camera (below).

In spite of what he says about disliking kids, Vincent appeared to have fun with these kids.

Finally, the kids prepared for the great race between Greenville and Speckles.

I'll post a video of the race later.

-- Perry