Tag Archives: Science

W^2 – October sunrise

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, October 8, 2025

My drive to school usually takes about a half an hour, sometimes a little more depending on the weather or the traffic or both. I’ve been driving the same route for over 25 years and sometimes I take the road less traveled.

Herrick Lake Road service entrance for Herrick Lake Forest Preserve, Wheaton, IL October 2, 2025 7:14 AM

Last week, I took the road less traveled and passed by the forest preserve in full sunrise. It was a humid morning with ground fog which scattered the sun’s light. It was beautiful.

Herrick Lake Road service entrance for Herrick Lake Forest Preserve, Wheaton, IL October 2, 2025 7:14 AM

September was dry and warm, especially the second half of the month. This past Monday night it rained hard, and the earth soaked it up; then yesterday afternoon cool winds, clear skies, and high pressure moved into the area bringing cooler fall weather. It was great sleeping weather last night, but I don’t think I’ll get the same shot this morning. Only time will tell.

It is Wednesday and today is going to be a wonderful Wednesday. I am going to take the alternate route and see what the sunrise brings. Sometimes a diversion is the best way to tackle a Wednesday. Today could be a million and six times better than yesterday. I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, sometimes mixing it up on the way to school. 

Do you mix it up when you drive to same place?

W^2 – comet chasing

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Tonight, my wife and I popped in the car to travel a little further west to see the early evening sky. We took off after sunset I’ve been excited about watching sunsets and looking up at the sky since I shared this month’s edition of the Jet Propulsion Lab’s What’s Up: Skywatching Tips from NASA with my kiddos. I’ve added the video below. We are learning about light, it’s that time in the school year.

I was excited when I learned we might be able to see a comet this month if we looked at the western sky close to sunset. That’s what we were looking for, but all we could see was a pretty sunset, Venus and a couple of stars. If I looked the other way, I could see the waxing gibbous moon rising in the eastern sky.

the sunset look east
to rising moon looking west

This past weekend we were at the lake, but we arrived too late Friday night to look for the comet and Saturday and Sunday were cloudy, so I couldn’t look for the comet away from the light pollution of the big city. But I am not giving up. Tomorrow night I’ll be outside to see the setting sun and I am hauling along a pair of binoculars for tomorrow night’s volunteer shift at Loaves and Fishes. Continue reading W^2 – comet chasing →

W2 – glassware

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Clean glassware drying on the drying rack. Naperville, IL Monday, June 3, 2024, 12:54 PM

It’s summer again, this year it’ll be my 25th summer break as a teacher. I have four more summer breaks after this one, then it’ll be permanent summer break.

This summer, and for the past twenty-four, I’ve simply been auditioning. Continue reading W2 – glassware →

Leaping into March

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It’s leap day. I’ve been blogging since May 2010, and I have never posted on a leap day. NEVER.

Wednesday night, February 28th. Dog walk with Fern and you can three stars aligned in Orion’s Belt in the middle of the photo

After searching through the leap year Februarys, I found ONE post written on February 28, 2012. Stamps, stamps, and more stamps that was close to a leap day. I re-read it, and it took me back.

These days, I don’t write many letters, the folks I wrote have passed away. I could write to my kids or my brothers, but I don’t. It’s too easy to call or send a text. So, I don’t write. I do write thank you notes to my students, but I am behind in that of late.

Last night I was walking Fern around the neighborhood, and I could clearly see Orion spread across the southwestern sky. It was a beautiful night, and the stars were bright. Continue reading Leaping into March →

Tuesday’s Tune: Thank God I’m a Country Boy

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Summer break is winding down and next week at this time, I’ll be getting ready for a new group of students. I am excited and I am looking forward to this year, it will be my twenty-fifth year of teaching.

Today, I am travelling home from last ballpark trip for the summer. I was in Florida for two games: Sunday in Tampa Bay and Monday in Miami – both indoor games. It was hot and humid in Florida much warmer than is comfortable for me.

Sunday morning leaving Chicago
Tuesday afternoon at the gate in Atlanta

A couple of weeks after school ended, I attended a professional development opportunity put on by Adobe to teach me how to use their newly updated software – Adobe Express. Click the link to check it out! I’ve been using Adobe Express this summer to edit photos, create a graphics,  and in general  playing with it toying with possibilities of using it with my students.  I am sticking with iMovie for videos because the software is the same on my iPhone, iPad, and my MacBook. And it is easy to use.

Monday night’s graphic

After each ballpark visit, I’ve created a video and posted it to my YouTube channel. I started during last year’s trip recording the seventh inning stretch and then adding the national anthem. I’ve been working on my video production and editing skills adding new elements to each video.

Sometimes I feel like a country boy as technology in the classroom continually evolves. My first year of teaching was almost entirely paper and pencil (or pen) for me and my students. This year, almost all of what I do will involve using technology for presentations to assignments and assessments but I still am going to ask them to use paper and pen for their notebooks in class.

last Thursday’s graphic – after 25 ball parks more than a hundred baseball games, I finally got a game ball.

Last week when I was in Baltimore, I recorded the national anthem and posted the video along with last week’s W^2 (wordless Wednesday) I changed the name to anthem, it made more sense to have a single word, rather than the phrase ‘O say can you see.’ Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune: Thank God I’m a Country Boy →

W^2 – bite

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, July 19, 2023

It is Wednesday, again. I am in Denver, Colorado for another baseball game. Last night’s game didn’t turn out well for my team, but they play 162 games in a season for a reason.

I arrived yesterday morning and had a full day planned, capped with walking to and from the ballpark.

goofing around at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Denver, Colorado July 18, 2023 10:51 MDT

My plan was to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, lunch with a blogger, then the game. Sometimes things don’t go your way or lot of other people have the same idea. It turned out that I was not the only person who wanted to get a jump start on their day and when I arrived at the car rental facility I was well back in the line. The line moved smoothly and did get my car, but I was more than an hour behind schedule. Continue reading W^2 – bite →

Day 18 – Friday, not just another day?

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This morning as I stumbled through my morning routine, I noted in my reflection and gratitude app that it was Friday. Normally Friday would bring joy and be amazing, but during the summer when it is summer break, Friday is simply another day.

Thursday evening’s sunset

Fridays during the school year bring joy and anticipation of weekend plans and a less structured day. During summer break, almost every day is less structured! I try to keep that in mind as I plan and execute my day and my week. As the summer winds down, structure is what I look forward to about returning to school.

Years ago, I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Reading the book was difficult. It was full of ideas about personal management and was more of a textbook for life. I finished it and every so often, I open it, and re-read or leaf through the pages. The habit I rely on most during the unstructured summer is Habit 3: Put First Things First. Reading that book, changed my life. Continue reading Day 18 – Friday, not just another day? →

Tuesday’s Tune: Fire and Rain

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It’s Day 8 of summer break and I have completed one FULL week. Mostly it’s been catching up on the tasks that I said I’d do when school ended or working on the things that needed to be done to close out school, like packing my classroom and moving to another classroom, my twelfth classroom in twenty-two years. Moving is incomplete and I’ll finish moving later this week when I return home.

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain.
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.

I have spent Days 4 through 7 (and Day 9) at our lake house.

day lilies, drenched in June rain, awaiting July blooms

Our daughter is spending the summer by the lake working at a local veterinarian. The lake house is about a two-hour drive to where she attends university at Michigan State. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a veterinarian, but by the time I finished high school I had changed my career path to being an engineer, and a couple of years later I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. It wasn’t until I went back to school in 1997 that I finally realized my middle school career aspiration of working with animals. Yes, there is a joke there, a dad joke, but a joke, nonetheless.

It’s been a dry spring in the Midwest and throughout southern Canada. Dry understates the problem.

Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain.
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end.

Wildfires have ravaged southern Canada and for the past month the air has been filled with smoke particles. The skies, normally a brilliant sky blue, have been a grayish white with the sun’s rays scattered as they pass through the atmosphere. Last week major league baseball cancelled three games in the northeast due to wildfire smoke in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

Last week Saturday, June 4th a wildfire, sparked by an untended campfire, burned over 2000 acres near our lake house. Our daughter was here, she sent photos of Forest Service fire planes scooping water from the lake’s surface and helicopters filling buckets filled with water to douse the wildfire’s flames.

Continue reading Tuesday’s Tune: Fire and Rain →

W^2 – Old Glory

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, May 31, 2023

For this week’s Wordless Wednesday, I have ‘Old Glory’ and the moon on a late spring night.

It’s been, too long since I’ve published a post, but there have been many I’ve done in my mind. Things just get in the way of writing and posting.

Speaking of which, there are two school days remaining in this school year and I harken back to a school year gone awry and the birth of Making the Days Count dot org, at first a dot com. That was thirteen years ago; this post is the first of year fourteen.

I spent the evening marking papers, then realized I needed to run a quick errand and walked outside to discover the moon and the flag.

A lot has taken place since that first post thirteen years ago, but theirs is more to tell in the years ahead, just like the flag and moon. There’s more left and beginning Monday at noon, there are 76 days to practice for the time when I won’t be teaching.

Today was a great day, I think I got 140 sixth graders to think about energy transfer when they really wanted to think about summer break and sleeping in. Tomorrow we are on a walking field trip to a local park and Friday will be here and gone before I know it and I’ll be outside waving to school buses as the leave the parking lot one last time.

I’ve got a little formatting to do and then I’ll press publish and this will go live. The day is done, and I am headed to bed to catch some rest before it starts all over anew. Making the days Count, one day at a time, it’s all in a cycle.

What are your plans this summer?

W^2 – five thousand plus seconds

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W^2 or W squared for Wordless Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Last night I was on my way home from purchasing a lottery ticket, two tickets, one for last night’s drawing and one for tonight’s drawing. I know, the chance of winning is minuscule, maybe even infinitesimal, but I purchased them anyway.

the waxing crescent moon and Jupiter over Danada Forest Preserve, Wheaton, IL, December 27, 2022 8:41 PM

On the way home, I looked up to see the setting waxing crescent moon and Jupiter. A cloudless or less clouded December sky is a rarity here in northern Illinois and I suppose my four-dollar purchase of lottery tickets could be construed as an admission ticket to a Tuesday evening light show.

I pulled to the roadside and waited patiently for traffic to pass while I snapped photos of the prairie, the moon, and Jupiter; all of which are reflecting our sun’s light. It takes the sun’s light 5080.32 seconds to travel from the sun to Jupiter and reflect toward Earth so we can see it. That’s an hour, twenty-four minutes, and forty seconds.

My last post was titled ‘light’ and I almost named this post ‘light, again,’ but I decided that the title above would be better. Things take time and cloud free nights in winter are rare. This morning the sun rose, as it always does, and we welcomed a new day. Today is going to be an amazing day. I know it and I can feel it, so I’d better jump up, jump in, and seize the day. Making the Days Count, one day at a time, being patient with the universe.

When was the last time you looked up to see the light of a night sky?