Micah Burkette   Micah Burkettes place on the web to blog

While getting a haircut today, I was sitting next to a nice woman, Gail, who was talking about home schooling with another woman in the waiting area. Not that I intended to eavesdrop, but they were talking across the room loudly and everyone could hear.

Turns out that she was having so much trouble with her public school about her son with ADHD and she could not afford a private school, that she withdrew him from school and is home schooling her son by herself. She had gone to college to be a teacher but had gotten married to someone in the military and they traveled so much that she could never take a job as a full time teacher.

Now they have settled in this area and their son is struggling with a lot of attention issues, which the teachers complain are disruptive. I thought that the schools were required to provide this child with the education suited to his needs. I do not agree with the idea that disruptive students must be sent home for homeschooling. Not every parent is equipped with the skills to teach their own children – many have jobs that they need to support their families and cannot stay home with their children.

I am going to have to get in touch with my local congressmen and see what is being done to help these children.

Everyone knows that California is having huge financial problems as a state. There have been all kinds of government services cut or eliminated. Now the local government of the City of Oakland, California is considering closing 14 of its 18 public libraries. So the locals decided to have a little protest. A handful of protesters put on makeup and declared themselves to be zombies. The zombies marched along a main street in Oakland with signs about needing brains and libraries. It was pretty weird.

Has anyone seen survey results that have figured out where most people in today’s world trust for their daily news? I believe the source has been changing over the years. It used to be radio, then TV, the daily newspapers and the internet. Not sure it was in that order – sorry. Anyway, I wonder if people count on the internet now more than any other sources?

Looks like I need to head back to school for a couple of semesters. All the job advancement opportunities require a degree and certifications that I don’t have. It’s not like I can’t do the work. They want the certification though. So I have to find a way to come up with the money to pay for the classes and give up most of my weeknights to study or attend classes.

The buzz in the computer industry is all about cloud computing. I don’t really understand why we have to do our computing in the clouds. So I started looking for a good explanation of cloud computing. This guy, Jeremy Cone, seems to be able to explain it in plain English:

Don’t Get Stuck in a Cloud