I got home tonight to find that I had received the Microsoft MVP Award kit for 2003. The MVP award is given for peer support on the newsgroupsonline (oops, force of habit there) — sometimes I think I’ve done more of that than programming over the years. :-) I was an MVP in 1998 and 99, but had to give up the award when I was hired on full-time at MS. Now that I’m employed by a different company, I’m eligible again.

I see I omitted one large piece of information in my description below: the program goes from Kindergarten through 6th Grade. By the end of 6th, the goal is to have both language groups fluent in the other language.

Ael came to work with me today for a few hours, and I tried her out on one of the bilingual ladies in the cafeteria. She went all shy, so I don’t know what, if anything, she understood. After high-school Italian, though, I didn’t have much trouble following her.

Maybe bloggers do have too much influence.

Update: yeah, that was way too cryptic. Might even be incorrect by the time you click on it. On Compuserve’s search, if you search for Skype.net, you get three links, one of which is my complaining about the EULA. Why should my opinion on this be “rated so highly”?

Update: I’m similarly placed in Yahoo’s search as well.

Cory also reports that the Transportation Security Administration’s appointed “passenger advocate” actually works for a company with a large stake in CAPPS II. CAPPS II is the screening system that will rate passengers as green, yellow, or red. I’ve heard quotes of as many as 1-2% of passengers being red-flagged, but can’t find any of those references now: they all say “only a few will be scored red”.

I’m not entirely sure what my credit rating has to do with my ability to board a plane…

Cory reports that Verisign, which recently directed every .com and .net URL typo to their own advertising site, is now getting to create key components of an electronic voting system.

What Is Wrong With This Picture?

Update: fixed link.

Not that I haven’t been sorely tempted. :-)

Scoble points at Josh Ledgard’s blog. Josh is a tester at Microsoft, and he writes an entertaining blog, too.

BTW, Josh, I _don’t_ go community fishing for Bug Bashes. Bad form! :-)

This is a story guaranteed to make most of the developers out there drool all over their keyboards.

Especially if they’re sharing a conference room with five other people…

Last night was Curriculum Night at Ael’s school. All the parents met with the teacher, Mrs. Williams, so she could tell us what would be going on in class this year. Since Ael is in a dual-language program, this was more interesting than (I assume) the usual meeting would be.

Half the days are taught in English, half the days are taught in Spanish. Half the children (theoretically) are native English speakers, and half are native Spanish speakers. (The actual ratio is a little less favorable, but they’re bringing in more Spanish speakers.) They color code the languages: English is written in blue, and Spanish is written in red.

During the “centers” part of the day (dress-up, fine motor, etc.) each student is paired with one from the other language. Language arts are taught in two groups, each in their native language. The “classroom assistant”, Mrs. Reyes (I think), is actually a certified and experienced teacher in Mexico.

And the best part of the night: if you’re expected to sit in a meeting, they provide child care so you can actually pay attention. :-)

I’m not sure how I got on this page…