The Father's Day Gift That Changed My Life

Let me begin by saying happy Father’s Day to my wife and children. If that seems a bit backwards to you, let me explain.

Call them coincidences, accidents, serendipity, fate, or whatever you like, but it seems as if my life has been filled with events that have taken me down paths that I could never have imagined, let alone planned.

In the winter of 1980, I was teaching in Long Beach Island. One day I went to the mailbox and saw a Technology for Children flier meant the shop teacher who had the mailbox above mine. It was offering him a two-week loan of a TRS-80 to see what computers were all about.

I asked him if he was interested in it. When he said no, I filled out the form. A few weeks later the computer was delivered. I set it up in the dining room, opened the manual and began to read. In no time at all, I had typed in my first program, which printed my name on the screen. It was nothing short of magic!

Here was a machine that would do MY bidding. It was love at first byte. I kept it home for that first week, spending every waking minute writing all the code I could. By the second week, I had it in class and was using it with my 5th graders.

When I had to send it back, I didn't want to let it go. It was like losing my best friend. I said to Jill, "I'm 35 years old, and I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up." However, we had recently moved into a new house and with two kids and a mortgage, a computer was not in the budget, and I had no idea how I could do it.

Even though I couldn't afford a computer, I began reading anything I could get my hands on, particularly magazines and periodicals. I began saving and scheming how to get my hands on a computer. It looked like the only way that was going to happen would be if I could save enough to get a Sinclair ZX-81 kit and build it from the ground up. At that time, they were about $150. That was like $500 in today. That’s an expensive "toy."
The months past and as the school year ended and Father's Day came along. I received a gift that was not only a surprise; it was life changing. Jill and the kids chipped in order to buy me the kit!

It became my passion. I subscribed to Sync Magazine, which was devoted to the computer and had an amazing following of hobbyists and engineers who were trying to push the limits of the computer. You have to realize that this computer had no disk drive or internal storage of any kind and only 1K of RAM, but that didn't matter. It was enough to get me started, and you would be amazed at how much you could do with 1K.
Soon thereafter, they came out with a 16K memory pack. I bought it and was walking on air. Back then, 16K of RAM was more than I could have hoped for. I began writing programs for the classroom. One of my first major undertakings was a math drill program for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Built into the program was a crude arcade game that sent a flying saucer across the screen and gave the user a chance to shoot it down.

In 1982, Timex bought the rights to the computer and began selling them in stores. As soon as they came out I went to the store to see what Timex was doing as far as software was concerned. They had a program called SuperMath, which like my program, was a math drill. They were selling it for $19.95. Adjusting for inflation, today that would be about $50.

It killed me to lay out that much money, but I had to see how it compared to what I did. I wanted to see how much work I would have to do to compete with what they were selling. After loading it, I was flabbergasted! My program was significantly better than the one Timex was marketing.

Later that week, I was telling my best friend, Howard, about it. At that time, he was the VP of Qualco Automotive, a company that sold a large line of aftermarket products for cars. I said I wished there was a way I could get my programs out there. He told me there was. All I would have to do is come up with the art work for the packaging. He would have his printer run it off and let me use two of his blister packaging machines at no cost and give me anything else I needed at his cost. How could I NOT take the chance?

A few days later, on a road trip with the family, we began brainstormed a name for my company. We settled on Memory Master Software. I knew that I had about three or four programs that I could sell, but if I was going to do anything, I would need more.
There were literally hundreds of programs you could buy from guys like me who advertised in Sync, Computer Shopper, and other magazines. When they arrived, they were usually in a zip-lock bag with a typed or hand written set of instructions. No one had anything suitable for sale in stores.

I took out a half-page ad in Sync magazine, which basically said that Memory Master was accepting programs suitable for mass market. Royalties would be paid based on sales. I never expected what happened next.

Over the next few weeks, I received somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 programs. Some were little more than a collection of bugs and poor code, but others were surprisingly complex, but it boggled the mind to see what people thought would appeal to the mass market.

An engineer from Czechoslovakia sent a program on bridge stress analysis. A farmer in Iowa, sent me a program that tracked hog feeding and breeding. These were not the things you would typically see in K-Mart.

I signed contracts for about a half dozen programs and set up my "factory," which was a pool table in my garage. I bought a few hundred cassette tapes and labels. I purchased ten cassette recorders from Crazy Eddie's and daisy chained them together so that I could make nine programs in each run.

My family became my assembly-line workers, and by the time the truck rolled up to my house with the boxes, I had things ready to go. All I had to do was sell them, which was not going to be an easy task.

Whenever I could I made calls and visited buyers, would hear basically the same story. Timex made them commit to three months of purchases. Then they failed to deliver during the first two months. I was visiting buyers during the second month, and they told me that they were receiving three months’ worth of merchandise the following month and there was no way they could purchase from me.

Others who were attempting the same thing I was doing, were losing their shirts. I was luck. I told them that they could afford it, because my price was so low, all they would have to do is sell a few, and they would make a profit.

They couldn’t believe it when I told them I could supply them with a line of a dozen programs at $1.50 each. Realizing that they could turn around and sell them for $19.95 each, I could make sales where others were failing. Even at $1.50 each, I was making 100% profit, because it was costing me 75 cents a program.

It became obvious that Timex had botched the marketing of the computer, and it would not be around long. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, I decided to try to make my money back and get out of the software business.

I was lucky to have a family and friends support me allow me to keep my cost low and spirits high. I made my money back with a few buck to boot, but the experience of doing it was worth a million dollars.

I now knew for sure that I wanted to be involved in computers and technology for the rest of my life. However, I was a realist. I knew I couldn't give up teaching, but I could become a technology teacher. That became my focus from that point on, and the rest is history.

On this Father's Day, I want to thank the secretary who accidentally put the TRS-80 flier in my mailbox. I want to thank Howard from making it possible for me be one of the very few Timex-Sinclair software companies that didn't go belly up, but most of all I want to thank my family for their support, for their love and for giving me the Father's Day gift that truly changed my life.

Jill told me early on in our marriage that when it came to working, I could do whatever I wanted, and that she would support me. She has stayed true to that promise every day since we were married, 16,647 days ago! There is no way I would be where I am today without you! For that I will be eternally grateful.

I love you, Jill and it seems completely appropriate for me to say. Happy Father’s Day to you.

Why I Became a Teacher

Vicki Davis, one of my Facebook and Google+ education friends posted a question asking folks to tell why they became a teacher. Because my story is neither typical nor short, I decided to blog about it and just provide a link from Google+ to here.

Forgive me if there are more typos and run-ons than my usual posts. I'm writing this pretty much as a stream of consciousness, or stream of semi-consciousness as I often call my ramblings.

As a student, I slid by on my ability, often asking teachers, "When will I ever use this?" Even in junior high school I questioned the value of much of what we were being taught. However, I wasn't a rebel nor a trouble maker. So I just cruised along with a C average right through college.

Because I received a 4 year grant at the end of my freshman year of college, not because of my academic ability, but because of my performance on the wrestling team, I stretched my college career into 5 years and took classes that I would not normally have been able to fit in my schedule.

In my senior year, I only had classes three days a week. An injury prevented me from wrestling and I took a part time job on the other two days. I was a substitute teacher in the projects in Philadelphia. My experiences there were makings of a small book. It was an entirely different world than I had experienced up to that point and it gave me a hearty respect for the dedicated souls who tried to provide these students with an education.

I graduated from college with a liberal arts degree, but didn't go into teaching. I took a job as a management trainee for Rickel Lumber, the Home Depot of the 1960's. I didn't really care for the politics or the organization in general, and so I went to work for the newly formed Pathmark Supermarket Corporation as a warehouse management trainee.

After about six months with them, I got drafted (into the Marines), and I have a story that would rival Arlo Guthrie's tale of White Hall Street and the Group W bench, but that's for another blog. To make a long story short, I got out at the last minute, because of my wrestling injury.

That night, at the end of August 1969, my friends and I were celebrating the fact that I would not be going to Viet Nam. I mentioned that I wasn't really crazy about warehouse life. As far as they knew, I was in the army and I could take a week and look for another job. One of my friends said, "Hey, there's new middle school opening down the road. Why don't you try there?"

That Monday I walked into the Sayerville Middle School and ran into a man in jeans who was pushing a large cart of books. I asked if he needed a hand and he answered that he could use one. I helped him move the books and put them away. Then I asked him for directions to the Principal's office. He asked why I wanted the principal, and after telling him, he informed me that he was the principal.

We went down to the office and chatted. He told me that they were fully staffed, but with a large young staff, he expected to lose people to draft. He said he would go to the board to see if they would hire me as a permanent substitute in the building.

The board agreed and thus began my teaching career. The two years I spent in Sayerville were absolutely amazing. The first year I as a permanent sub, I made it my mission to teach things the way "I" thought they should be taught. Whenever I encountered a sub plan that would have had me asking, how will this every help me in life, I tried to change it so that it had some relevance.

At the end of that first year, the Assistant Superintendent asked me if I was interested in a special class. I asked what he meant and he told me I would have the 14 worst discipline cases in the 9th grade in a self-contained classroom. I would have full control and answer to no one by him. Other than that, they would be mine. I could send them to regular classes if I felt they could handle it and I would deal with discipline and parents. The only time he wanted me to come to him would be if they did something that was a police matter.

I was interested, but still had a few questions. What about curriculum? Would I be constrained? What would I do about teaching material. To the first question, he answered, that aren't learning anything now, so anything I could teach them would be a bonus. As to the second question, he reached into his pocket, handed me the master key to all the classrooms and told me to take anything I needed.

That sealed the deal and thus began what was unquestionably the toughest, most challenging, and most rewarding years of my life. I don't know how much the kids learned from me, but I know that by the end of that year, I had learned more about teaching and about life than I had learned in the previous 20+ years. It set me on a path that I followed for the next 30 years and will follow until the day I die.

Toward the end of those 30 years, I was conducting a WebQuest workshop with Tom March. At the end of the workshop a participant came up to me and asked how I made the change. I asked her to explain what she meant by "the change". She said, "You know, from the sage on the stage to the guide on the side."

My answer was simple. I told her that I never made the change. I've been doing the same thing for 30 years. The only thing that changed was the labels, which prompted her to ask me what I meant by the labels. I told her that 30 years ago, I was labeled a radical nut and the other day someone called me a visionary.

Thanks for asking the question, Vicki. I brought back a wonderful flood of memories.

Solid Gold Stupidity

It's amazing how greed equates with stupidity. I'm sure you have seen the ads to purchase a proof solid gold clad coin originally designed to sell for $50, for the amazing low price of $9.95. It is clad in 14 mg of 99.9999% pure gold! If you haven't, take a minute to visit this site and then come back here to do a little math with me.

It sounds impressive and the fact that they run numerous TV ads is testimony to the fact that they are selling like hotcakes, but let's take a look at a few obvious red flags and a few not-so-obvious ones.

Yesterday I went out in the rain "clad" in my rain coat. And this coin is CLAD in 14 mg of gold. That is 14 thousandTHS of a gram. It would take 71 of these coins to make just one gram of gold, and it takes 31 grams to equal a single ounce. (Gold is measured in troy ounces.)

Gold is currently about $1720 an ounce. When you do all the math, you find that the $50 coin you just got at a bargain price of $9.95 (plus shipping) contains a whopping 77 cents worth of gold.

It would appear that you have been overcharged by just a bit, but never fear. If gold ever makes it to $22,360 an ounce you can sell your coin to someone for $9.95 and make your money back (as long as you also charge shipping).

That, my friend is the mathematics of greed and stupidity.

NOTE: I'm no math wizard. I rounded some fractions and may have even made a mistake along the way, which I would be happy to correct, but the bottom line is that if you are buying these coins as an investment, don't do it. I have some beach front property that I can sell you that is a better deal. Just plan on seeing it at low tide.

DirecTV

In August we went to live with my parents in NJ to help my father recover from a stroke. They have DirecTV, but no DVR. Knowing that we would be there for a while, I called them up to add a DVR to their account for the month or two we expected to be there. They were more than happy to do it, but it required a two year agreement. I explained about the stroke, that my parents were both 90, and that there was no way I wanted to tie them to a two year contract.

Nothing I could say or do could make them waive the two year contract. Finally, after the rep mentioned that there were conditions under which they would waive the fee when the contract was closed, I relented and figured I would fight that battle later on down the line.

One month ran into two, which ran into three, which ran into four. We were in NJ until December. My parents were now in assisted living, the house was sold and the closing was the 14th. It was time to close the account and I prepared myself for the upcoming battle.

I called to have the service stopped and explained the reason. The first thing they asked was whether they have DTV at the assisted living facility. I explained that they did not and could not subscribe from there. At that point, I was pleasantly surprised when the rep went through the process and near the end said, (without me asking), "Under the circumstances we will waive the early cancellation fee."

The account was closed and I was relieved and thankful that I didn't have to do battle. DirectTV had scored some points with me, but alas, it didn't last that long. Just yesterday, I was checking my father's credit card statement and saw a $10 change from DirectTV. It was a charge that had never appeared on the card before. I called to find out about it and told it was a charge for canceling the equipment protection plan.

Now I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Now it may be that if I complained and explained, I could get the $10 fee removed, but they did waive the early cancellation fee and it wasn't worth raising my blood pressure over $10. I just asked for confirmation that the account was closed properly and that this would be the last charge I would receive from DTV. The rep confirmed it and I bid him a good day.

Overall, I have no major complaint, but it galls me that they have been a customer for year and apparently paid for the protection plan on a monthly bases and then are hit with a fee to cancel the protection. I just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Up here in NH, we have Comcast. I'm not at all happy with their pricing. My wife and I were thinking of looking into DTV up here, but after the $10 charge, that's less likely.

My Way or the Highway

Back in the 80's, I was teaching 9th grade general math. In the back of the class sat Scott Harris (name changed for privacy). His body language and facial expression mirrored what I had been told, namely that he was just waiting until he was 16 so he could drop out of school.

One day, as I showing some new skills and and the method for solving the problem, his expression soured and his head shook in disagreement.

Puzzled by his actions, I said, "Scott, what's up?"

Frowning, he mumbled, "Nothin..."

"It must be something or you wouldn't have made a face. Come on. What is it?"

We went back and forth like this for a little while until he finally relented and said, "That's not the way I do it."

"OK, show me how you do it."

"Why? Teachers never let me do it my way. I have to do it the way they do it."

"Well, that's not the way I work. If your way works, I have no problem with it."

Still with a look of disdain on his face, he came up to the board and showed me a method I had never seen. We did a half a dozen problems and every one of them came right. Try as I might, I could not come up with a problem that couldn't be solved using his method.

I said, "That"s cool! As long as it works, you can use your method." I though I saw a glimmer of a smile as he went back to his seat.

He did well on the quiz and we moved on to the next skill. After I showed the class how the problem was solved, I turned to see Scott shaking his head again. When I asked him about it, he once again said, "That's not the way I do it."

We repeated the same scene from the week before and to make a long story short, it was repeated many more times during the year.  In fact, after about the third time, I had an assistant teacher in the class. I would show the class how to solve the problem and then invite Scott up to the board to show us the "Harris method".

He thrived in my class, but unfortunately, as far as the system and his previous teachers were concerned, Scott was a failure. I believe that Scott was actually a math genius and prior teachers didn't meet his needs. He certainly had a far greater grasp on math relationships than I did. I couldn't help but wonder whether his gift (or curse) extended to other subjects.

I wish I had a happy ending to this story, but Scott was turning 16 before the next school year and had already determined he was quitting. Scott had not failed. The system had failed him.

I don't know where Scott is today, but I hope that like so many geniuses before him who were failed by the system or terrible teachers, that he is thriving, sitting in some office as a CEO, and doing things via the Harris method.

It Really Stinks!

I started teaching in 1969 on an emergency certificate. I was a liberal arts major with no teaching courses under my belt. In order to get my permanent certificate, I had to go through the paper chase and take the necessary courses.

Of course one of those courses was supervised teaching (practice teach for those who are already teaching). I would be observed twice a week and once every two weeks, all of the teachers in the program would meet for a three hour group session at Farleigh Dickenson.

The teacher for that course was Bob Linette, then the Superintendent of Rockaway schools. I never met him before or after completing the class, yet I will remember his name until the day I die, because three words from him on our first day of class, confirmed my beliefs and helped set the direction of my teaching for the next four decades.

There we were about 15 of us seated in a circle. He posed a question. I was seated on his right and one by one, starting on his left, he asked for our answer. The question was, "What do you think of the American education system."

For those of you who weren't even born then, there were very few mandated tests and those that were given, confirmed our scores were right up there near the top. One by one, each person extolled the merits of our educational system. When it got to me, I simply said, "It stinks!"

After the collective gasp and silence, he asked me to explain what I meant. I said, "What part of your day is the math part? Which part was the science part, and which the English part. Aren't we supposed to be preparing kids for life? School needs to be more like life. In life we solve complex problems and work with others."

I continued for a while and when I finished, he uttered three words, "You're absolutely right!"

That was the start of my journey. If he had told me I was crazy, my path might have been more difficult, but I'm stubborn and determined. It wouldn't have changed my opinion. Fortunately I was teaching in a district where Jim Moran, the then Assistant Superintendent felt the same way as Bob Linette and I. He took me under his wing and nurtured the rebel in me rather than squelch it.

I traveled a path that few others had the opportunity to travel. Over the next 40 years I had the good fortune of working with like minded administrators in some truly unique situations. There are some truly amazing storied to tell, but I'll save those for another day.

That was 1969. If I was in the same situation today, I wonder how those other people would answer that question. I know that I would answer differently. I would have not said those same two words. I would have expanded a bit and said, "It really stinks!"

A Phone Call from a Non-Existent Number

At 2:49 PM, the phone rang. No one was on the other end. Hmmm... Must have been a wrong number. At 8:06 PM the phone rang again. Same number and same silence.

Since it was a California number, I didn't want the three hour difference to result in another wrong number in the middle of the night, so I called the number back. I was was greated by, "Welcome to Verizon Wireless. The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service..." HUH? How can I be getting calls from a disconnected number?

With my curiosity peaked, I tried a reverse phone number lookup. Once upon a time, you could get this for free, but I quickly realized it is one more thing that has been monetized. Now you have to pay for it. Forget that!

I could simply block the phone number. With Verizon I get five free blocks, but why should I waste one on a disconnected Verizon number. They need to fix the problem, but before I called customer service, I wanted to do more research.

Next I tried typing in the number as a Google search. BINGO! As I when through the results, it quickly became obvious that I was not alone; not by a long shot! It appeared that not just a few, not just a few hundred, but probably thousands of people had, and are experiencing the same thing. Not only that, it has been going on for years!

Now I was REALLY curious.

At 8:42 PM, I called Verizon Customer Service. I explained what I had found to Brad, the rep on the other end of the line. I told him that I knew I can simply solve my problem by blocking the number, but that thousands of people were having the same problem and I wanted to find out what was going on for them and the thousands of others who may experience the problem in the future.

After I gave him the number and he did a look up, he told me the number appeared "Temporarily Unavailable", whatever that meant. We continued to have a pleasant conversation about next steps. He offered to block the number for me and created an NRB ticket on the number that would go on to the network people to investigate it.

I thanked him, but told him that I wanted to be able to follow up on the ticket to find out exactly what was happening. He said I could call up in about a week to check on the status of the ticket, and that was where I left things with Brad.

I plan on following up in a week, but with my curiosity now in high gear I decided to spend a few bucks and use Intelius.com to see what I could find out about the number. When I visited the site, I found that it would cost me $4.99, but if no results were found, it would cost me nothing. Expecting it to cost me nothing, I continued only to find out that there were three different results for that number, but no indication as to whether any of those results were current.

Not knowing whether the results were current ticked me off. If the results were not current, I had just flushed $4.99 down the drain. Hmmm.... That would be a nice way for them to make money. If you sell old (useless) information, it's not likely you would get no results. I wonder...

Armed with names and addresses, I went back to Google. I found out about what I expected; namely that plenty of other people had spent money to find out who was calling. The first question that popped into my mind after see this was, could this be a scam to make money for the companies that have monetized the reverse phone lookup? Something just isn't right here!

I don't know what's going on and I don't know if I ever will, but I do know that I am not going to let this die here and now. I will post more when I find out more.

Oh, and in case you are interested, the number was (310) 429-5382. Do the Google search and see what you think.