July Update, of sorts.

We're just over halfway through the kids' summer break. It's been a busy 6 weeks!

We've had no shortage of ups and downs. Each kid has experienced his own sequence of good and not-so-good events and there's a whole lot of processing that goes along with all of that.

I hate speaking so vaguely. I'm sorry. The kids are old enough that I can't really share their stories here without their permission.

Work has been good. A few of my repair jobs came back to the store because of problems I had missed or wasn't trained to see. "Boomerangs", as they call them at the shop, are very, very bad news. A hundred in-house mistakes are eventually forgivable, but one public mistake...dude...you're in trouble. My managers decided that my work needed to be better supervised. Which, since it wasn't being supervised AT ALL, wouldn't be hard to do. 

True to form, the edict was made without any process in place or authority delegated. Everyone agrees that it must be done. End of story. No one is assigned to check my work. There is no universal standard I'm being held to. I just do the work the best I know how and beg one of the other mechanics to check it over before I can declare the job is finished. 

 

Each mechanic I can choose from has different preferences. One mechanic will check it out thoroughly, just in the stand, and have an exacting standard, but doesn't want/know how to give feedback so he just makes the minor fixes himself without explanation and gives it back. Another mechanic will give it a decent test ride outside, but not check anything in the stand, and he'll let me know if anything didn't work like it should. The other two are simply too busy to ask so don't even try. 

 

It's a little frustrating, yes, but that's pretty much how apprenticing is supposed to go, right?

The younger boys and I attended ACES Family Academy again. We love sleeping in the dorms, eating in the dining hall, and taking mini classes on campus at the University of Illinois. Here are a few picts from our lovely 1.5 days there. I took a few of them. The rest came from volunteers putting on the event. Can you spot at least one of us in each one??

We hiked the dorm stairs all the way to the top floor (6th). Cool staircase!

Dorm hallway. Can you sense Matthew's excitement?

Every stinking thing about ACES Family Academy is fun. Even walking to dinner.

Since the U of I is so close to us, we biked there and used our bikes to get around. It saved a lot of time and gave us something fun to do in down time. Matthew tried to get us lost, but did not succeed.

 

 

Playing pool at the Illini Union. We all stink at it.

It's the Alma Mater! Another famous U of I landmark.

 

 

 

Waiting for Commencement to start.

Commencement. The three of us are sitting in the middle of the back row. Can you see us?

Plant ID class. We went on a scavenger hunt in the IDEA Garden.

Economy class. We're learning about "economic utility" and how trading influences it. Kids were asked to rate their satisfaction (utility) with 5 different types of candy. Then they were given 5 random pieces and asked to add up their total utility. Then they were allowed to trade with each other. By the end, both James and Matthew had maximized their utility score. It helped Matthew a lot that his favorite candy was Smarties and tons of people were willing to trade with him.

 

Economics class, ranking candy preferences. How would you rank Skittles, Reese's PB cups, Starbursts, Smarties, and Kit Kat?

 

 

Economics class. Man, I look grouchy.

 

 

Economy class. Final photo. Matthew is thrilled. James is NOT happy. It turns out, the last kid to trade him had STOLEN that piece of candy from another participant and the true owner came back for his Reese's. James was left with 4 Reese's and a Smarties. After class, we talked to the instructor and James could trade with her. Matthew decided that ACES Family Academy was a special occasion and therefore released himself from the "no white sugar" part of his vegetarian diet. He's not big into treats, though, and even though Smarties were his favorite, he only ate a couple rolls of them by the time we got home. He nonchalantly threw the rest away.

Junior Naturalist class. We learned how and why scientists track animals in the wild, then each kid got to tag their own stuffed mammal to take home.

 

Playing in Memorial Stadium. We got to play around in the famous football stadium. Famous around here, anyway.

Nosebleed seats give the best view of the whole stadium :)

They served dinner one night in the Stock Pavilion. I thought it was a GREAT idea. So much room to roam.

A mini class about yeast. We got to do an experiment together.

Yeast class. Each group measured the amount of CO2 that came from their yeast metabolizing sugar. Our balloon was the first to stand up on its own!

Yeast class. Matthew reminding me to write down ALL of our observations. He was a real stickler for following the protocol.

James put a face on our balloon, which garnered a lot of attention from the instructors and led to a class-wide phenomenon.

 

 

This was James' third year at ACES Family Academy, so he earned a Master's Degree. He was NOT okay with the public attention, but he hung in there.