Latest Update at 11:00 a.m. Thurs. 2.24.11 (below)

I am *not* getting anything done!  My excuse is the "snow event" that we're supposed to be getting... I just don't see it.  The satellite water vapor images show a pretty distinct band of "no water vapor" over us and to the north.  This sorta matches with the patches of blue sky overhead and the fairly consistent lack of snow shown in the highway cameras up and down the I-5 corridor, all the way to Canada.  

 But I don't pretend to be a meteorologist...  heck, I had to look it up to make sure I was spelling it correctly (and to make sure that I wasn't referring someone who predicts meteor showers...).  So, I'm sure that we'll get our weather event... I just can't see how it's going to develop in the satellite pics.  

3:11 p.m. Update:
Scratch that.  I went out for a quick walk right after posting, and there were teeny tiny flakes just starting to come down.  Now, 30 minutes later, it is definitely snowing. The satellite water vapor image still shows minimal moisture overhead, so that's new insight into using that image. 

5:30 p.m. Update: 
After a brief period around 4:30 where it looked like things were going to let up, the preciptation restarted as tiny ice drops and has dusted the ground and rooftops white.  It's getting dark, and harder to tell now whether it is still ice or has turned to rain, but it is still coming down as a fine steady sprinkling of something.  Glad I don't have to go out on the roads tomorrow. 

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 23, 2010 -  7:00 a.m. Update
Well, nothing happened overnight, and I'm still not seeing a source of water vapor on the satellite images... not that I have any expertise in interpreting those at all, of course.  It's still cold, so the grass has kept its ice.  Any of the hard surfaces, like fence tops, appear to have lost theirs.  The sky is dark and grey, more than it was during yesterday's snow, actually.  So we'll see what happens...

8:45 p.m. Update
Oh my.  We has snow.  Lots of it, and it's coming down consistently.  I have no idea when it started. Guess that's what I get for monitoring it via the computer pages instead of the window.  My excuse:  I fell down an Jonathan Coulton rabbit hole at 6:00 and only came up for air just now...

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 24, 2010 - 7:15 a.m. Update
Seattle appears to continue to be mostly in the snow shadow, and we didn't get nearly the amount that I'm reading other areas (like Renton) got.  There's maybe a little more than an inch.  The grass is sorta covered, and the roads are white; not really enough to even be pretty.   

11:00 a.m. Update
Every time I've written that it's snowing, it's stopped.  So this time I'm just going to look the other way and pretend that I don't see it....

I woke up the other morning, and my first thought was, "Man, that dream really felt like I was awake. But I know I was dreaming because that situation wasn't real."

But, then, later I woke up, got up and started my day. So, now, I'm wondering. I *know* the first dream really was a dream. But the first waking, I'm not so sure. Was I dreaming that I woke up or not? And I'm not sure how I could ever figure the answer out...

I've realized for a long time that, at least for me, the memory of something works the same, whether it is a memory of a dream or of an actual occurrence. But I'm usually pretty sure which one it is, unlike this time...

Oh that Black Cat.

I've mentioned before that I strongly suspected the Black Cat of ringing the door chimes just to get me to get up and play with him. He appears to now be expanding his repertoire.

He ran the door chime again this morning, and when I got up to let him out he dashed back into the living room and looked at me. O.K., so I shut the door, and am walking back towards my chair, and he dashes off into the hallway. Starting to suspect something, I follow him. Sure enough, he's at the foot of the stairs. *Now* I'm certain I know what he's up to, so I start upstairs. He wants someone to snuggle with on the bed. Sure enough, as soon as I'm up a stair or two, he zips past me and is waiting there on the bed as I come in. Silly kitty.

We have a snuggle and he settles in beside my head, just like we were going off to sleep, purring madly. Sadly, I'm not a kitty cat, and I have stuff to get done instead of sleeping all afternoon. (So instead of working on all that stuff, I'm typing this. Go figure. ;-)

Our HS Science Olympiad Invitational was yesterday, and I pulled my Remote Sensing event off. In some ways this year was better than others, in that I felt that my questions were structured with more thought as to what I really expected them to know.

I learned some stuff while grading the responses, particularly to anticipate that someone might me helping me score the event. I actually had a key that let me use the two parents who showed up unexpectedly, which was good. Among my lessons learned was the realization that if I'm having the students 'estimate' an answer, I need to think about what the reasonable range of answers should be. Based on my working the problem beforehand (a lessoned learned from previous experiences!) I had established what I thought was a reasonable range, but looking that the student answers, next time I'll base it on percentage and put the range in the key. I wound up rescoring several parts of the tests after my volunteers had left, because I felt that my original criteria was too tight.

A major impact on the test creation was that I was called into a sub job unexpectedly on Thursday so I didn't have that day to finish things up. Then, Friday night, when I finally got to pick the test up again to finish pulling it together, it dawned on me that I was basically rewriting the same event as I had created three years ago. Well, that would be fine, except that two of my current team had been there and would possibly be more familiar with the material (always a concern when I'm responsible for the event).

So, at 10 o'clock at night, I find myself having to completely redirect my efforts, after having taken two weeks to pull my background material together for the other approach. It came together, but was not as polished as I would have liked. But independent of how I thought it came off, my students told me that they felt it was a better event than the one from the Invitational that they'd attended two weeks ago.

At least, I'm not responsible for creating the event for the Regionals next month. That's when it really gets to be a balancing act, to help my team prepare for an event that I'm creating and still be fair to the other teams.

The other things I learned were more specific to how to present the questions, and my team *will* have the advantage of discussing that with them when we meet over the next few weeks. And it's fun to be back. I've missed working with the kids this last fall.