Artistic Adventures
Jun. 24th, 2018 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyLittle Bit and I had some minor adventures yesterday.
He had a friend over when I arrived but shortly after was ready for the friend to go home and to hopefully do something "fun and exciting" with me. It's summer, and he's easily bored, and apparently the friend had been there since noonish the previous day, so by 3pm Little Bit was getting bored with this friend and ready to do something else.
I drove the friend home and Little Bit and I performed our car wash and vacuum ritual that we've been doing most every weekend since I bought my new car*. Afterwards he was asking about getting boba tea, and I found a place on the other side of my parents' house that gave me a reason to go just two blocks further down the road to hit Half Price Books first. We stopped in HP and I perused the DVDs while Little Bit checked out the Anime section. We hit the boba place and he bought a flavor he wasn't familiar with and instantly didn't like, although I think it's the soy milk he didn't like and not the flavor, but he didn't feel comfortable going back in to the same place to order something different.
I looked up another boba place nearby, right across the street from the car wash place we had just come from on the other side of my parents' house. We went back to that area, but that place was closed for renovations. There used to be a Mooyah Burgers & Fries next door to it, but it's now becoming some sort of Asian restaurant that sounds like I will definitely have to try out once they're open (I forget the name and Google Maps hasn't been updated yet), and I think that's the bulk of the renovations that are going on in there.
Little Bit was pretty despondent, so I again looked for another boba place, which again was on the other side of my parents' house down the road into Bedford, so again we drove back down Harwood, past the first boba place, past the Half Price Books, and a couple stop lights further up the road. As I pulled into that shopping center I happened to see a popcorn place a couple of suites down from the boba place, and I thought it would be nice to get some flavored popcorn to take back to my mom. I pulled up to that shop, but sadly, that place was already closed for the day. Next door to them, though, was an art place, and Little Bit noticed they had "Art Classes" stenciled on their front window and I noticed that they were open. He showed a little interest, and after parking the vehicle in front of the boba place, I asked him if he wanted to check it out before we went to get the boba. Sure, he said. We walked back to their suite and went in.
Oh Boy! Central Arts of Bedford is all about having a comfortable space for people to make mostly paintings, but all sorts of other artistic pieces as well. One ~4ft tall piece was a 1ft x 3ft hunk of teal glass mounted in a handcrafted metal frame that had skulls blown into it from the back side - it was done by a dentist whose office was just up the road. We happened to stop by while there was just one person in the place and prior to a regular bi-weekly showing that they were doing between 7-11pm, so the studio was set up like a gallery at the moment. Little Bit got more and more excited about taking classes there, which are more about bringing out someone's innate creativity than forcing someone to work on a subject or in a medium that they are not enthusiastic about all for the sake of teaching technique over interest.
We picked up the boba, grabbed a frozen smoothie for mom, and headed back to the house. We picked her up and made her come back with us to the art place so she could see it for herself. Little Bit kept asking me why we were bringing her, as I think he was wanting to keep this as a just-between-us adventure, and I told him we wanted her to be as excited about this place as he was, since she'd be the one most likely bringing him to his classes and/or paying for them. It's also my secret to try to get mom out of the house a bit more when I can. Her hip and back pains make it difficult for her to get out of chairs, let alone out of the house. We headed back to the house to contemplate dinner. It was a toss up between our favorite Chan's Mongolian Grill (next to the car wash and the 2nd boba tea place), Moon Wok (which we haven't tried yet and is in the same shopping center as the Half Price Books), or the new Burning Rice (which is next to my bank up the road a bit from Chan's). The fact that all these places exist within a 5 mile radius of my parents' house does still make it an easy drive when traversing back and fourth along the same road a few times in one day.
We decided to try out Burning Rice, which is a bibimbop (sic) restaurant, and was pretty good. Little Bit got despondent again, though, because while we were at the house thinking about what to get he happened to go looking up Korean BBQ and saw the places where you can grill your own meat, so he was looking forward to that. Unfortunately, Burning Rice is not that type of restaurant. I'll have to take the boys either into Arlington or back into Carrollton to try out one of the in-table grill restaurants. I've had Jin Korean in south Arlington, but there's also Omi Korean with locations in north Arlington and Carrollton, and there's also Gen Korean (note the spelling difference) also in Carrollton, in the same shopping center as the revolving sushi that the boys are always begging to go back to.
I have created little food monsters!
We had our dinner, mom and I plopped down for a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory while our stomachs settled, and Little Bit ran off to his room. Dad was already asleep, and Eldest was still hanging out with his Gaggle of Boys friends for the second day in a row. Mom lamented that she's going to be sad when the day comes that he spends all his time with his friends and is never home. Little Bit, however, will probably keep her active enough with his summer musings, between a math tutoring class (that he asked for himself), possible drum lessons, and now art lessons.
I found out that schools have been teaching multiplication in a very strange way, which I just looked up and is called Two Digit Multiplication versus how I was taught which is called Vertical Multiplication, and it's confusing as fuck, and I can't for the life of me see how this new method is somehow winning over from the older, more compact and seemingly faster method. Also, that video says students won't have to use pen and paper to solve complex multiplications now and implies us old farts never faced real-world word problems when learning to do math. BULLSHIT! There's no way even I'm doing that stupid ass quadrant of smaller multiplications in my head and keeping those numbers in my head long enough to then turn around and add them up. I think I'd be better off making lines in order to never have to know how to multiply ever again. So, after being tested at Kumon, the tutors are recommending reprogramming that "new math" out of Little Bit's head and getting him into using the "old math" ways. Oh, and there's the Big-7 division and Multiple Towers, or some other such bull, in order to do the long division, which again the video implies won't require pen and paper to ever work out again. HA HA HA HA HA HA! Good fucking grief, this shit hurts my head. Why are we teaching this crap to the kids?
*Also, I bought a new car, which I hadn't posted about. Not much to say about it other than there's a new fancy gadget in our driveway. The Acura is now a family spare vehicle and will most likely become Eldest's car of choice when he gets his driver license in a couple months. He turns 16 in July, but he waited too long to start his driver's education class, and he's required to have a permit for at least 6 months as a requirement to getting his license, so he'll have to wait a couple extra months before he's official. That must be a change since 20+ years ago, because I took my driver's ed class in spring, then turned 16 on June 29, so I only had my permit for about a month before I had my official DL. (And I just realized my birthday is only 5 days away, sheesh where the hell did April and May and June go?)
He had a friend over when I arrived but shortly after was ready for the friend to go home and to hopefully do something "fun and exciting" with me. It's summer, and he's easily bored, and apparently the friend had been there since noonish the previous day, so by 3pm Little Bit was getting bored with this friend and ready to do something else.
I drove the friend home and Little Bit and I performed our car wash and vacuum ritual that we've been doing most every weekend since I bought my new car*. Afterwards he was asking about getting boba tea, and I found a place on the other side of my parents' house that gave me a reason to go just two blocks further down the road to hit Half Price Books first. We stopped in HP and I perused the DVDs while Little Bit checked out the Anime section. We hit the boba place and he bought a flavor he wasn't familiar with and instantly didn't like, although I think it's the soy milk he didn't like and not the flavor, but he didn't feel comfortable going back in to the same place to order something different.
I looked up another boba place nearby, right across the street from the car wash place we had just come from on the other side of my parents' house. We went back to that area, but that place was closed for renovations. There used to be a Mooyah Burgers & Fries next door to it, but it's now becoming some sort of Asian restaurant that sounds like I will definitely have to try out once they're open (I forget the name and Google Maps hasn't been updated yet), and I think that's the bulk of the renovations that are going on in there.
Little Bit was pretty despondent, so I again looked for another boba place, which again was on the other side of my parents' house down the road into Bedford, so again we drove back down Harwood, past the first boba place, past the Half Price Books, and a couple stop lights further up the road. As I pulled into that shopping center I happened to see a popcorn place a couple of suites down from the boba place, and I thought it would be nice to get some flavored popcorn to take back to my mom. I pulled up to that shop, but sadly, that place was already closed for the day. Next door to them, though, was an art place, and Little Bit noticed they had "Art Classes" stenciled on their front window and I noticed that they were open. He showed a little interest, and after parking the vehicle in front of the boba place, I asked him if he wanted to check it out before we went to get the boba. Sure, he said. We walked back to their suite and went in.
Oh Boy! Central Arts of Bedford is all about having a comfortable space for people to make mostly paintings, but all sorts of other artistic pieces as well. One ~4ft tall piece was a 1ft x 3ft hunk of teal glass mounted in a handcrafted metal frame that had skulls blown into it from the back side - it was done by a dentist whose office was just up the road. We happened to stop by while there was just one person in the place and prior to a regular bi-weekly showing that they were doing between 7-11pm, so the studio was set up like a gallery at the moment. Little Bit got more and more excited about taking classes there, which are more about bringing out someone's innate creativity than forcing someone to work on a subject or in a medium that they are not enthusiastic about all for the sake of teaching technique over interest.
We picked up the boba, grabbed a frozen smoothie for mom, and headed back to the house. We picked her up and made her come back with us to the art place so she could see it for herself. Little Bit kept asking me why we were bringing her, as I think he was wanting to keep this as a just-between-us adventure, and I told him we wanted her to be as excited about this place as he was, since she'd be the one most likely bringing him to his classes and/or paying for them. It's also my secret to try to get mom out of the house a bit more when I can. Her hip and back pains make it difficult for her to get out of chairs, let alone out of the house. We headed back to the house to contemplate dinner. It was a toss up between our favorite Chan's Mongolian Grill (next to the car wash and the 2nd boba tea place), Moon Wok (which we haven't tried yet and is in the same shopping center as the Half Price Books), or the new Burning Rice (which is next to my bank up the road a bit from Chan's). The fact that all these places exist within a 5 mile radius of my parents' house does still make it an easy drive when traversing back and fourth along the same road a few times in one day.
We decided to try out Burning Rice, which is a bibimbop (sic) restaurant, and was pretty good. Little Bit got despondent again, though, because while we were at the house thinking about what to get he happened to go looking up Korean BBQ and saw the places where you can grill your own meat, so he was looking forward to that. Unfortunately, Burning Rice is not that type of restaurant. I'll have to take the boys either into Arlington or back into Carrollton to try out one of the in-table grill restaurants. I've had Jin Korean in south Arlington, but there's also Omi Korean with locations in north Arlington and Carrollton, and there's also Gen Korean (note the spelling difference) also in Carrollton, in the same shopping center as the revolving sushi that the boys are always begging to go back to.
I have created little food monsters!
We had our dinner, mom and I plopped down for a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory while our stomachs settled, and Little Bit ran off to his room. Dad was already asleep, and Eldest was still hanging out with his Gaggle of Boys friends for the second day in a row. Mom lamented that she's going to be sad when the day comes that he spends all his time with his friends and is never home. Little Bit, however, will probably keep her active enough with his summer musings, between a math tutoring class (that he asked for himself), possible drum lessons, and now art lessons.
I found out that schools have been teaching multiplication in a very strange way, which I just looked up and is called Two Digit Multiplication versus how I was taught which is called Vertical Multiplication, and it's confusing as fuck, and I can't for the life of me see how this new method is somehow winning over from the older, more compact and seemingly faster method. Also, that video says students won't have to use pen and paper to solve complex multiplications now and implies us old farts never faced real-world word problems when learning to do math. BULLSHIT! There's no way even I'm doing that stupid ass quadrant of smaller multiplications in my head and keeping those numbers in my head long enough to then turn around and add them up. I think I'd be better off making lines in order to never have to know how to multiply ever again. So, after being tested at Kumon, the tutors are recommending reprogramming that "new math" out of Little Bit's head and getting him into using the "old math" ways. Oh, and there's the Big-7 division and Multiple Towers, or some other such bull, in order to do the long division, which again the video implies won't require pen and paper to ever work out again. HA HA HA HA HA HA! Good fucking grief, this shit hurts my head. Why are we teaching this crap to the kids?
*Also, I bought a new car, which I hadn't posted about. Not much to say about it other than there's a new fancy gadget in our driveway. The Acura is now a family spare vehicle and will most likely become Eldest's car of choice when he gets his driver license in a couple months. He turns 16 in July, but he waited too long to start his driver's education class, and he's required to have a permit for at least 6 months as a requirement to getting his license, so he'll have to wait a couple extra months before he's official. That must be a change since 20+ years ago, because I took my driver's ed class in spring, then turned 16 on June 29, so I only had my permit for about a month before I had my official DL. (And I just realized my birthday is only 5 days away, sheesh where the hell did April and May and June go?)
