Joe returns from spring Break in Florida in evening, after traveling to Miami Beach where his mom has a meeting, then Orlando and Disney World, then the Florida Keys.

Computer Science: How computers work. Memory store and recall. Concept of storing a program and recalling instructions, then modifying instructions. Graphic model of computer parts. Joe disassembles an old computer for parts - he will use the cabinet and a few other parts for his own new computer which we are building.

Math: Factorials. Joe looks at factorial examples and observes ratio of successive factorials ("about 3" at first), then realized and saw how it was just the last number in the factorial that was new. He is already used to writing ratios as 4:1 etc.

Aviation Technology: Reviewed Chapter 2 questions for test.

PE: recess and bike riding.

Aviation: review for test: propellers, engine operations chapter.

Reading: Hardy Boys, Disappearing Floor.

Computer Science: picked up a load of 3 computers at Federal Surplus, with 17" monitors and some furniture (all for $50!!). Joe disassembled one to get a 24X CD-ROM drive to put in his computer, and will use the 3 monitors for the flight simulator setup.

Music: Joe attends Neal's violin lesson with Greg Berger, potential new teacher for him.

Reading; Hardy Boys - did not want to put down! Joe retrieves three more Hardy Boys books from the library.

Aviation: Review and test on flight instrument chapter.

Computer Science: Completed assembling the hardware for Joe's new computer. First power up testing. Everything works!! Big day!

Math: Binary math. Joe wants to do Trinary Math! So we do that one too.

Computer Science: Analog vs digital computers - theory. Install Windows 98 and software on Joe's new computer. However, despite struggling with it all weekend, the software is just not stable (the hardware works great!). We start over by formatting the disk and proceeding more slowly, step by step.

Monday April 8 & Tuesday April 9 Math & Science: Factorials - review. Quantity prefixes - we've been running into "Mega" "Kilo" etc. a lot in computers and elsewhere, so took time out to review all of these. Definition of Hertz, and link to computers and radios. Explained wave theory (intro, as for radio waves). Aviation Technology: review of next sections, prep for test this week.

Flight school, evening, 2 hour lecture/lab on Aeronautical charts. Also reviewed Chapters in textbook.

Music: practiced violin 20 minutes.

Reading: Finished Hardy Boys book.

Math (with Computer Science): Presented 1920s era Comptometer (antique calculating machine), with its repetitive method of multiplication. Figured out how to do powers together, and explained 9s complement addition, which Joe practiced. Very impressive machine with lots of whirring gears, buttons, and levers.

Reviewed more binary addition, then Joe asked to do Trinary Math!! So we did, working out the place values, then addition problems, then looking for patterns. Joe was intrigued with the story of the Russian trinary computer yesterday, and has always found trinary and interesting alternative to binary. He was very enthused with this project today!

Found 1947 Army recruiting advertisement touting Eniac's power and solved the same problem in Excel (Joe first did it on a calculator, but wanted to see all the digits), in far less time than Eniac.

Electronics lab. Joe with guidance soldered together a simple circuit with 1.5 volt battery, light bulb, and switch. We soldered to nails poked thru 1/4 inch plywood as our "circuit board".

Music: first violin/fiddle lesson with Greg Berger. Also practiced in AM for 30 minutes.

Aviation: Reviewed chapter and test questions on right of way rules.

Aviation: Reviewed chapter on airport lighting and control. Electronics and Computers: Built circuit for lighting LEDs with 9v batteries; also included a small motor. Then wired in a gameport rudder pedal test for the flight simulator computer.

Math (Probability): elaborated the number of combinations of the 4 gameport button wires which we hypothesize the Microsoft Sidewinder is multiplexing to get 16 button functions. Reviewed hypotheses testing (can only prove false etc.). Presented formula for combinations using factorials, and worked it out for the gameport button combinations.

Tax Day! Took the opportunity to explain taxes to Joe, and had him go over his own tax return and make the calculations and lookup his tax himself. Then he made a copy of his own return, and put his own return in the mail.

Neil Callahan, another homeschooler here for morning. Reviewed concepts of binary math with Neal. Chance for Joe to explain how computers work. The boys built a simple circuit with two switches two make one of two light bulbs come on. After lunch had them rebuild it, after I had discretely cut one of the hidden wires, so they would have to stepwise debug the circuit. Very effective tool! Joe explained potentiometers to Neal, and the three of us successfully demonstrated our hacked gameport. In a joint effort we successfully took off in a P-38 with Neal controlling ailerons thru one potentiometer (hand-held at this point), Joe on rudder potentiometer, and me on elevator and throttle pots. It works! Now on to building the rudder pedals to turn the potentiometer, and eventually a control yoke. In the meantime we'll use a joystick patched into our gameport hack.

Flight School: studied for exam. Cross-country flight in Flight Simulator 2002, practicing communications and navigation.

Reading: Hardy Boys

Writing: articulated lists of ideas for concepts for a poetry-based birthday card for Grammy.

Flight School: Studied and reviewed test questions. 3 hour lecture (evening) on navigation and pilotage, particularly use of radio aids to navigation (VORs, VORTAC, VOR/DME, Omnis).

Reading: Hardy Boys

Math: Scientific notation review and practice. Use of exponents with priority of operations, and use of exponents (drill). A drill format where I make up one problem for Joe and then he makes up one for me is working well, as it allows him to give me problems where he has questions.

Violin Lesson. Violin practice.

Reading: Joe retrieves three more Hardy Boys books on a trip to the library.

Math: Least common denominator and adding fractions with unlike denominators drill.

Violin practice

Computer Image Editing: Practiced tools for irregularly shaped image extraction, then Joe cut and pasted two pictures together to make a birthday card, in Photoshop Elements.

Writing: Alliteration exercise, in preparation for Grammy's birthday. Made lists of words starting with J,H,L, inspired by the images pasted together. Then sorted the words, once where Joe entered a sort order prefix in an Excel column and used Excel to resort the list, and second where he cut and pasted (with insert cells) to get words adjacent that made sense. The finished product is at: http://www.alaska.net/~fritzf/Ba/Grammy_birthday.htm

Math: Binary addition practice and decimal-binary conversions on HP 16C Computer Scientist Calculator (mine, vintage early 1980s.). More fraction addition with unlike denominators. Tried to use some symbolic fractions with variables, but Joe was having a hard time with that leap, so will slow down, go back to pan balance equations and try again from a familiar starting point.

Computer Science: continued testing network cards, explained interrupt vs polling.
Good site with animated graphic of interrupts vs. polling.. Finally, late in the evening we got it to work! No more interrupt conflicts!

Math: fraction addition box (a type of crossword puzzle) from edhelper.com, which creates randomized selections with other features.

Aviation Technology: More study of airspace regulations (this is hard!)

Reading: Hardy Boys #11 (almost completes in one day).

Keyboarding: Mavis Beacon (completed fabricating keyboard platform for Joe's desk).

Music: violin practice

PE: Lunch recess with JCCS kids at Capitol Park.

Toured the Airlift Northwest Lear Jet with the Juneau Homeschool Association.

Music: Violin practice

Reading: Hardy Boys - finished while the clock ticked (#11), and started another.

Keyboarding: Mavis Beacon

Poetry: Alliteration exercise from Harris Middle School (Shelbyville TN), Some bold alliteration (based on tongue twisters), but then a more subtle and interesting one, with other poetic devices, using a rock and roll song (Pink Floyd's Time).

Math: Worksheets on reducing fractions to lowest terms, using difficulty level 2 from Scott Bryce's Math Worksheets, which generate randomized combinations of problems at a given difficulty level (great tool!).

Aviation Technology: further study of airspace regulations.

New Parents Day at DZ middle school - went to a number of classes to consider options and selections for next year.

Attended outstanding motivational speech by Brigadier General Stephen Ritchie, part of the Juneau Glacier Rotary Clubs Pillars of Freedom series of luncheon programs at Centennial Hall. Joe was particularly interested because of his flying stories and connections - it was a particularly good fit. Aviation Technology: completed review of all test questions required for midterm (finished airspace regulation today). Evening two hour lecture on survival skills from Ivan Show, plus an hour of review on airspace regulations etc.

Joe with Gen. Ritchie after autographing his book (click to enlarge)

Math: More worksheets on reducing fractions to lowest terms, using difficulty level 3 from Scott Bryce's Math Worksheets, which generate randomized combinations of problems at a given difficulty level (great tool!). Explained reducing strategies again and reviewed how its similar to equation solving (dividing both top and bottom by same thing).

Poetry: Looked for alliteration and other poetic devices in more song lyrics (including Queen), using different colored markers for each device.

History: Laid out 9 foot timeline of World War II history (Pacific) for hall wall on butcher paper, and began pasting in images of significant dates. Joe has a lot of knowledge about WWII from his reading and other experiences and the timeline should help him integrate a lot of his knowledge. We plan to superimpose other timelines on this one along the hall wall.

Keyboarding: Mavis Beacon (15 min).

Music: violin practice; violin lesson with Greg Burger at 2:30

Reading: Hardy Boys

Aviation Technology: more review of chapters 1-5.

PE: soccer at Adair-Kennedy field, with homeschool group; kickball at lunch recess at Capitol Park.

Math: Equation worksheet.

Aviation Technology: administered practice test for Joe, 35 questions taken from the FAA test book to simulate the midterm. He scored 91% !!! And was reassured about his performance anxiety. Only need 70% to pass the FAA test. Also three-hour course in piloting and navigation, including use of the E6B flight computer at flight school. Also included section on aircraft weight and balance, which is a very good mathematical exercise - moment arms from weighted averages etc.

Geography: We came up with the idea to circumnavigate the island of Guadalcanal. On an overflight yesterday (team flying on two networked computers) we both became disoriented. We had spotted a significant feature (an airfield) but weren't sure where we or it was and we ended up flying in a big circle (visual flight thru valleys - not following compass). Its a big island and Joe came up with the idea of flying it in F-18 Hornets so we could circumnavigate in a reasonable amount of real time - at least following the coastline we couldn't get lost! Thus was born our project "Geography at Mach 2", hopefully the first of many such flights and the discovery of a very wonderful and exciting tool for teaching geopgraphy!!! (and many related fields). With adrenaline going even. Nothing like an F-18 for that!! The day began with instructions in the form of Mission Orders sealed in a manila envelope, along with two maps which we were to fill in with details.

Music: violin practice

PE: kickball at lunch recess, plus morning break football toss in meadow.

Independent Research: Today Joe spontaneously initiated his own research topic on the internet! Earlier in the day we'd had a casual discussion about where a place was located (an airfield in a book he was reading). Awhile later he asked to turn on his computer and when I when in to check he was looking at pictures of the airfield, having initiated his own web search in Google and found what he was looking for. We've done this together a lot, but this was the first time he initiated a search on his own, and it was great to see him get rewarded with immediate gratification and good images of exactly what he was looking for!

Aviation Technology: Review of radio communications for test. Practiced course plotting for our simulator flight today. Watched video on weight and balance calculations.

Reading: Completed a Hardy Boys book, reading most of it in one day.

Today's "Geography at Mach 2" project was a flight from Guadalcanal to Rabaul, on the island of New Britain. At least that is where today's Mission Orders were supposed to send us. We plotted our course, using plotter techniques we learned last Friday night for flight planning and a map we got off the internet. While we were to follow a compass course for the flight, we planned our route to go along the shores of some easy to indentify islands so we could keep track of our position. All was going well, but as we got near the objective and were over the island of Bouganville one of the pilots stood up and tripped over his joystick cord and ended up on the floor. We got the joystick plugged back in, but the aircraft was just not responding very well. Fortunately we spied an airbase below, not the one we were supposed to find, but nonetheless a good intelligence report and reward to bring back with us. These tools work incredibly well! We covered about 500 miles in real time today - just about the right duration for one of these missions.

Aviation: Weights and balances exercises, performance.

PE: Tennis lesson at JRC

Computers: Joe assigned and successfully hooks up all peripherals of one of the recently acquired older IBM's, gets it on our LAN and updates a software package from the internet.

Joe and I attended the open house at DZ middle school - met teachers and checked out house options for next year.