Summer Project: DIY Gymnastics Mushroom

In addition to running EssayTagger I'm also a high school gymnastics coach. This is totally off-topic for EssayTagger, but I didn't have anywhere else to post it!

My flares aren't perfect but they are fun!

A mushroom is an indispensable tool for developing pommel horse circles. It takes a ton of time just to get a basic circle but once you're there you can start working spindles, russians, flares, moores, back moores, spindle flares, swiss hops. Add some obstacles and you can also work loops and back loops.

The best part is that you can train all this on your own, in the offseason. You can easily get circles in 9 months. It's a lot harder to do it during our 10-week season.

Unfortunately mushrooms are expensive. The type in the picture on the left with a steel base costs about $950. Even the cheapo-looking plastic mushrooms are over $300. Ouch!

$300+ for this?!

So I wanted to engineer my own mushroom that would be strong enough to support my 157lbs, it had to be simple enough for my more handy high school gymnasts to build at home, and the raw materials had to be reasonably affordable.

I'm pretty happy with the results:

Tools needed
Drill
7/16" drill bit
1" flat bit
Mitre saw (or do the cuts at a hardware store)
Light duty staple gun
Box cutter
Measuring tape
Sharpie

Yep, we really are global!

I have a handful of friends who speak Arabic so we'll see what they have to say about this blog post. But, needless to say, I find it pretty dang cool!

Something I created was noticed on the other side of the world!

Link: http://go4learning.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post.html

Ug, how can we solve anything if we confuse correlation with causation?

The headline reads: "School Absences Translate to Lower Test Scores, Study Says".

If you ain't in school, ya ain't gonna learn. That's obvious. But this article from Sarah D. Sparks implies causation--that missing school causes the lower test scores. Sparks argues that "The analysis contributes to mounting evidence that absenteeism puts students at greater risk of poor academic achievement and eventually dropping out of high school."

If it's true that absenteeism is a causal factor, the solution is very simple: make sure those kids get to school every day. So let's push for more government grant money to hire a whole army of truancy officers!

However, let's remember:

Any teacher will tell you that missing school is bad, but what really matters is why those kids are missing school. Correlations can be interesting but identifying causation is how you solve problems.

Time-out for: Mosquitos... and the death of the English language

Oh, the pain.

I'm suffering from two mosquito bites that are out of reach of my normal method for alleviating the itch: scalding them with hot water. I claim that there are vaguely scientific reasons for why the scalding hot water does actually work (I'll get to those at the end).

But I figured it couldn't hurt to google--yet again--to see if there was another remedy to try. I came across a particular Yahoo article that was vaguely interesting. The reader comments had a lot of home remedies to offer as well.

Now let me warn you. Plenty of readers had mistakenly used the possessive S "mosquito's" when they meant the plural S "mosquitos." That happens all the time. Everywhere. Sorry, English teachers; this might be a battle we cannot win.

But nothing could have prepared me for the grammatical terror of this comment:

Click to view full-size, if you dare

Time-out for: Kind words from my students

I love that I had all seniors the last two years. It makes it easier to leave my position at the school knowing that we're all moving off toward our own new adventures.

The kids were a little shocked to hear that I resigned but they've been super-sweet and supportive.

I wanted to collect some of the things they had to say in one place and I figured I may as well share it with y'all too.


"I'm just sad my sister won't be able to have you. You were one of my favorite teachers and I hope that even out of the classroom you can put your talent to good use and influence kids in alternative ways. Thank you for being awesome. Good luck wherever your life takes you now."
--Colleen R.

Sunshine, southern California, and... recruiting?!

I lived in LA for six years so every summer I come back to enjoy the sunshine, spend time with my acrobat friends on Muscle Beach, and just relax. Well I've just arrived in LA, but this year I'm on a mission: I'm building EssayTagger.com even while I work on my tan and burning off my winter fat!

Here's the view from my "office" (aka the Marina del Rey Starbucks):

I'm also working my contacts while I'm out here. LA isn't nearly as jam-packed with tech talent as the Bay Area is (I lived up there for two years before LA), but there is a lot of development going on down here.

I have an acquaintance that I'm trying to recruit to do some of the more hard-core Flash ActionScript development. And I'm piecing together the company's advisory board; a friend of mine in Santa Monica successfully started his own social networking site (no, I'm not friends with Mark Zuckerburg) and I'm hoping to get him to sign on to advise us as we build and grow.

As you can see, building a company is very stressful

On top of that, I've got to crank through the Java development while I'm here. Our mid-August demo target comes a mere 2-3 weeks after I return from LA. I've got to get the bulk of the work done while I'm here.

So this really is a working vacation--and arguably more work than vacation (right, IRS?).

Time-out for: Summer!

This looks like a product photo but it is actually a shot from my cell phone. My neighbor sure knows how to cool off in the hot, humid summers! And his two-year-old daughter has shockingly good aim with that water cannon!

 Okay, now that we've cooled off, back to work!

Time-out for: Gymnastics (and Photoshop) fun!

I'm proud to say that my gymnasts took home the 2011 MSL Boys Gymnastics Conference Championship this year! Everything came together at just the right moment and we beat the other 10 teams in our Conference (three of which were top-10 in the state! Oh, we're in Illinois, by the way--one of the few states that has a high school gymnastics league). And since it was our turn to host Varsity Conference, we got to do it in our own gym.

2011 MSL Champs!

There's a great article about the win from the local paper here:
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110429/sports/704299722/

The trophy is designed to have an 8x10 team photo mounted in it. The Varsity roster tends to change a bit by the end of the season, so I wanted to take a new photo to put in the trophy. Plus I wanted the trophy itself to be in the photo.

Here's how it turned out. Nice!

The trophy looks nice in "the cage"--our tiny, tiny gym!

And here's a closer look at the team photo:

Yes, I'm the shortest guy in the photo

But here's your brainteaser challenge: Notice anything odd about the photo?
The answer after the break.