Picturepocket's Blog

Category: learning

  • Work It

    Now that I’ve been doing sales for a while, I have added some interviews for people who think they might want to try it too. The company runs an online ad that is very clear that it the work is telesales, that it is commission only, and it requires licensing. In this economy, it seems…

  • Children’s Stories

    Something fun to do in Oregon is to visit the Enchanted Forest outside of Salem. Built into a wooded mountain side, kids can interact with various Grimm fairy tales before their Disney glow-up. I went as a kid and I’ve taken my daughters several times as well. They have a cute Humpty Dumpty, scenes from…

  • A.I.Pocalypse

    I haven’t had a scary dream in years, but I had one recently. It was the kind that had me shook.  I dreamed that a computer virus went through all the files and redid them all in the style of artificial intelligence art and ChatGPT writing. The result was that everything looked and sounded similar,…

  • Jesus, the Mark Version 

    Today I read the book of Mark. There is no Christmas story in the book of Mark. We just jump straight to cousin John carrying on out in the desert. He’s loud, he’s weird and giving everybody a dunk in river. He’s addressing sins and calling out everyone on their BS. Jesus shows up and…

  • Who Not to Friend 

    These days my young daughters are navigating the turns and twists of friendships and I try to give them good advice and also demonstrate what it is to be a good friend.  There are pitfalls to finding good friends. My kids know to avoid bullies, but there are subtle indicators of false friends too. The…

  • The Tale of Two Colleges

    I have been to college twice, and then taught at several colleges for over 20 years. For a long time, I could not understand people‘s negative attitude about higher education. Why would people hate learning so much? Why would people not want someone to grow and achieve more than the level that their parents had?…

  • 7 Tips on Advice

    Getting good advice is a tough thing these days— we have more information available, but it is not necessarily better. The problem with advice is that the taker of advice is the one who will face the consequences of their own actions, not the giver. So, here is my advice on advice.  My conclusion is…

  • Fixer Uppers

    If necessity is the mother of invention, then poverty and misplaced confidence are the parents of DIY.  When we bought our home eight years ago, it was plenty large enough for Tim, me and a preschooler. Now we are a family of four and space is feeling tight. We have reconfigured the kids bedroom in…

  • Life in the Margins

    One of the things that I am trying to do better with the kids is to build in margins. If we all have to be somewhere at a set time, then I schedule the drive time and parking. Then I add the time that it will take to find the children’s shoes and also go…

  • Don’t Mind the Cursive

    I keep seeing posts from folks bemoaning the loss of cursive and  complaining about what books the kids these days are or aren’t reading. I guess that Facebook has become a place to vent frustrations about the educations Gen Z and Alpha. So here’s mine: please stop. Seriously, as a parent of two school children,…