Dave McNab's Homepage
elcome to my homepage! For some years it served as a way for me to get information to my students about assignments and to steer friends and chance acquaintances to WWW pages concerning my own interests. We didn't have a book for my classes and all assignments were posted here. Since I retired from teaching as of June 2008, I'm not quite sure what I'll do with this page, but, for the moment I'll just keep updating it.
Family
My wife of 25 odd years (and thus far almost 20 more that weren't so odd), Elizabeth was an elementary teacher at West Kingston School in South Kingstown, RI. Some years ago she became an officially retired elementary teacher. She has been working for the Kingston Fire District, Kingston Free Library, Kingston Congregational Church, or grandmothering to the point where she is only slightly busier than she was while teaching.
We see our grandchildren quite regularly. Zachary and Clarice Jennings are with us fairly regularly as they live close by in West Kingston. Zach is entering 5th grade at Chariho Middle School and Clarice is a 3rd grader at Richmond Elementary. Zach and I have been doing some work with robotics using the NXT robot and software.
Our other pair of grandchildren, Doug and Will McNab live with parents Sid & Allan in Hyde Park, Mass. Doug spends a couple of nights a week with us as he is a 8th grader at Moses Brown and this makes the commuting easier. We don't see Will quite as often, but both boys spent a week or so with us most summers while they go to Kingston Camps with their cousins.
Their respective parents just keep truckin'.
Bagpipes & Celtaica
I remain, in my fantasies, an aspiring
player of the Great Highland Bagpipe and often use the
Bagpipe Web to check out current events. A particularly entertaining
approach to Bagpipes can be found on
Bill Gority's Homepage . Along with this goes my interest in
things Celtic , such as the
Celtic knot work shown above, and the history of the
clans . The news group rec.music.makers.bagpipe is
another great source of current information.
Canoeing
Trips in my canoe are probably one of my favorite activities. My wife and I worked for the Appalachian Mountain Club some years on the Saco River in Maine and have hiked over much of the White Mountains. GORP is a great source of information as well as a trail snack. I'm trying to get my life organized for a trip some time in Canada and one of my best resources is the Canadian Recreational Canoeing Association. I'm hoping to go on a trips in Northern Canada some summer soon.
Computers
I spend a fair amount of time fiddling with computers. I'm surely not a programmer by any stretch of reality, but I enjoy work with my Macintosh and find the information available from Apple quite helpful.
As I have learned about server management and operation, I am increasingly aware how little I know. I used to work almost entirely with Macs but have had some experience with PC's. A few years ago I built a PC from scratch and worked at learning to use Windows and now understand its basic premise(pure unadulterated evil!). I've even switched over to Vista and now do most of my work on Windows boxes.
Teaching computers was a blast! Even after 10 years I had to hustle to keep up with a bunch of kids who are energetic, computer savvy, and teach me things all the time. The kids are basically interested and it is more a matter of keeping the energy channeled than teaching in the traditional "lecture" sense. I will admit that the "thrill "of formatting drives and installing software has begun to wear off. Gee...it seemed like such an easy job when someone else was doing it.
Other odds & ends
I was active in the RI Task Force on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Youth and the RI Safe Schools Institute, a group providing anti-homophobia training for schools. The kinds of harassment GLBTQ? kids face in many schools is truly unconscionable and is outlined in School Shouldn't Hurt: Lifting the Burden from Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Youth: A report of the Rhode Island Task Force on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Youth. Unfortunately, like many volunteer groups, both of these groups have ceased to exist. I am also a member of GLSEN , an organization of gay, lesbian, & straight teachers working to support the safety and dignity of all students and teachers. One of the groups in the Providence area that has been very helpful is Youth Pride. Several students and ex-students have been involved with this group and I have gotten to know a number of people on their very dedicated and impressive staff.
Current Events
The 2009 school year is almost over and that has nothing to do with me!. It seems weird, but I am finally getting used to this retirement stuff. I do miss the kids, but I get to miss (in the other sense) commuting at 5:30 and faculty meetings. Life ain' t all that bad. And a decent hardworking honest liberal got elected President! I do believe in miracles. I wish Molly Ivins was alive to write about it.
I've been doing a lot of work on the Providence Meeting website. We have the new site up and running with a good calendar set up using embeded Google calendars. It was a lot of work, but it's a nice site. Now I'm fiddling with word press to try to figure out a blog for the meeting site. I've even started my own blog (again)
I've been on a diet and going to the YMCA gym and have lost 25+ pounds. I have become re-acquainted with my long invisible toes. Hopefully this will lead back to some canoeing up North. I'm even beginning to enjoy working out and have been threatened with expulsion by the CAoS (Cosmic Association of Slugs).
Doug often stays with us a night or two each week, just to make the commute a bit easier. He often spends at least part of his vacations with us as well. During this last vacation he spent only one day with us. It was by all reports a shocking experience.
One of the great advantages of being both a grandfather and a nerd, is that over the years we have accumulated a bit of spare cash and feel as if we can spend it on truly odd toys. Nerds know where to get neat toys.
My best friend in third grade was John Van de Graff, son of the physicist of Van de Graff generator fame. I didn't get to play with one then, but I gave myself one this Christmas and life around the house has been even more entertaining since then. Doug seems to enjoy it. Zach came by a few days later and had and had an equally hair raising time.
Most people have some secret vice. Something they really enjoy, but feel just isn't quite acceptable. These vary from the organic fitness enthusiast's hidden love of Twinkies to Cary Grant's wonderful sisters in "Arsenic and Old Lace" hobby of burying their victims in the cellar. My own secret vice is more on the scale of twinkies than of poisoning and is basically enjoying the products of Despair Inc. As a role model I realize that it is questionable, but there stuff is just plain hilarious One of their newer posters seems to sum up my life. As it's copyrighted, I can not reproduce it, but the picture and quote below sum it up rather well.
Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.
I know it's old, but I just love this!
One day I was setting up computers for the start of school and thinking it was is a lot of work. Of course this went on on top of preparing for my teaching duties, I received the piece of mail shown below. I had been feeling rather "unrewarded" until this piece of mail made it clear that I was not unrecognized.
The form above is unaltered except for blocking the company name, blurring my address, and making a comment. It just reassures one's faith in the wonders of truth, justice, and automated mass mailing.
Sanity Restoration
Last but not least I truly enjoy comics. I usually read the front page of the paper and then the comics. I then spend the rest of the day trying to figure out which one makes more sense. A quick trip through Dilbert often restores my sense of dis-equilibrium. Technical help is often available from Car Talk. Most of the ideas apply quite readily to computers, although I still have trouble with the carburetor on my laptop. I am especially impressed, in a mildly hysterical sense, by the dedicated staff of this program as noted in their credits. A truly wonderful view of computers and the IT industry/profession is found in the strip User Friendly.
Terry Pratchett, the author of the discworld series, pretty much completes my search for a better reality. He has started me off on my latest hobby, bonsai mountains. His books are, in general, sited in a much more entertaining reality. I suspect that I identify with Rincewind, a mildly incompetent wizard and graduate of the Unseen University. Teaching middle schoolers with their and my hidden, and sometimes conflicting, curricula seems somewhat similar. I do think I'm had more fun though!
