Education Week

As of my last update, I had decided to self teach myself algebra. My goal; attempt to test at a level of math skills that would allow me to qualify for an apprenticeship without the need for taking any college courses. I'm happy to report that my self educational experiment has been going quite well and I have covered over 300 pages of reading material in the last week. I have been learning all kinds of new things about math and have discovered many practical skills that I know I will apply in real world situations many times in the future.

I'm not one to spend time lamenting the past, I'm more concerned about what I can do today and then tomorrow. Every day is a new start and yesterday is set in stone, tomorrow isn't. However, I do look to my past as valuable life experience that I hope will be useful to help me through my tomorrow's. One of those lessons, never give up on learning new things. I wish I had taken this lesson more seriously in my high schools days but, now is as good time as any start.



With a week of brain exercise weighing on my sanity, we decided to take the day on Saturday and check out the Antique Powerland Museum in Brooks Oregon. The group of 8 included Me and my Wife, my Daughter and 3 of her friends, my Dad and his Wife.

Laurie at the entrance

I found the Museum to fascinating and much bigger than I expected. The whole thing sits on over 60 acres and houses several individual museums. Not all museums were open, but we were still able to spend about 4 hours there and took in a smorgasbord of cool oldies that were neat to see. I know, that sounds a lot like a trip to Dad and Mom's house and I won't deny the similarities. But, seeing as my parents don't have 60 acres, this served as a good supplement to looking through their garage.

Karli, Heather, Bekah,Jasmine

Being a photographer, I am amazed with shapes, angles, texture, rust, dirt and many of the other visual candy that I came across at the museum. I only took my point and shoot camera but really wished I would have taken my DSLR. I could probably spend several hours in the place just taking pictures of "stuff". For people that like old things or for people that like to take pictures of interesting things, this is a gem of a playground for both.

Me, checking out my camera

One of the more fascinating things that we got to see was an actual working sawmill. They use the mill to make many things that are used around the museum grounds. Most of the guys that ran mill looked as though they may have been using some of that equipment when it was brand new. It was all powered by an old steam boiler (yes, just like your parents old heat system) and really felt like a step back in time as you watched all the old millers turn trees into 2X4's.

My Dad and Wife waiting for the mill to fire up

Click on the link below to watch the mill in action

video of old mill in operation

After several hours of browsing, I gained a somewhat clear picture that this place was much more fascinating to me than it was to a group of 11 year old girls. We decided to head back to the homestead and topped off the day with some grilled burgers.

Must get back to studying, I plan on taking the placement test on the 18th of this month.
-Red-