Thursday, January 28, 2010

Tour De France Route Announced!

2010 Tour de France route
Bonjour!

The route for the Tour de France (that's Tour OF France to you and me) has been announced!

Our boy Lance is back again and he's in it to win it this year baby!  Eff you Alberto! (and eff your family too....................
.......what, too much?)

sillyDaddy has already gone to the trouble of listing out the key stages for you (aren't I nice?...unlike those Frenchies?).

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Fight The Female-Teacher-Effect!

Dads, work now to counteract the newly documented female-teacher-effect so that your geek girl can flourish.

A University of Chicago study released today (pasted below), follows other research released earlier this month that found .

The author of the earlier Villanova study says,  "Girls are likely to perform as well as boys when they are encouraged to succeed."

If you're able to successfully counterbalance the math-challenged sisterhood teaching her, then you're also going to need these .

Believing Stereotype Undermines Girls' Math Performance: Elementary School Women Teachers Transfer Their Fear of Doing Math to Girls, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2010) — Female elementary school teachers who are anxious about math pass on to female students the stereotype that boys, not girls, are good at math. Girls who endorse this belief then do worse at math, research at the University of Chicago shows.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Protecting Your Personal Information on the Internet

Do you continue to hear the stories about passwords and accounts being hacked, people being scammed on-line and companies "losing" their customers' information?  Does it make you nervous?DIY Identity protection

The on-line world, much like the real world, is both wild and wonderful. There are positive elements and seriously creepy elements.

This is the first in what I think will be a four post series on protecting yourself and your family on the web.

To start us off I’m posting a terrific, albeit scary, MSNBC article about how easy it is to gather and then use your personal information from Facebook and other sites where bits of your identity can be viewed by any maniac with a computer.

From the story, "Using only one friend’s name and place of employment, he found her blog and résumé. That provided a font of information on her grandparents, pets, hometown and more. He then visited her bank’s Web site...."  I'll have tips for you at the end.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Use Google Reader To Manage Your Subscriptions

Are you new to the wonderful world of blog subscriptions (also known as RSS feeds) and would like to learn how to add a subscription to your favorite blog (wink wink, nudge nudge)?

Google's Reader feature is an incredibly easy to use subscription management tool and, like everything else from Google, it's free! Use Google Reader to subscribe to sillyDaddyUse Google Reader to subscribe to sillyDaddyUse Google Reader to subscribe to sillyDaddy

First, you'll need a free Google account.  If you already have Gmail (Google's free email service) then you're already set!  Use the "Reader" link at the top of the Gmail page (click on any picture to get a close up view).

If you don't already have a Google account you can .

Once you're on the Google Reader page, click the "Add a subscription" tab at the top left of the page and either enter the blog address or enter key words to conduct your search.

TIP: Once you're set up with Reader you can subscribe to future blogs while you're on that blog's site by finding and clicking the blog's "Subscribe" button. Your subscription will be added automagically to your Reader.

Once you get a few subscriptions you can create files to hold similar blogs, add them to your iGoogle account (more about the wonders of iGoogle in a future post), etc.

Other free Google products reviewed here include , and Google Docs.

Happy Reading!


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Monday, January 11, 2010

Re-purpose Wooden Alphabet Blocks As DIY Photo Holders

DIY alphabet block photo holders
My fifth wedding anniversary was last October (yes I know, I can't believe eM has put up with me for five years either).

The traditional gift material for the fifth year is wood.  I decided to use some of the kids’ wooden alphabet blocks to make magnetic picture holders, one for each of the kids' first initials, that eM could stick on the fridge or on her file cabinets at the office.

I thought about buying new blocks for this project but I like the worn, played-with look of the blocks we have around the house. The kids haven’t played with these for a very long time so I'm hoping that removing a few of the letters from their collection won't permanently effect their spelling ability.

Protect Hardwood Floors From Chairs

Please believe SillyDaddy when I tell you that you don't want to refinish your hardwood floors.
DIY Hardware floor protection
I've refinished two in our house, and while the hallucinations from the massive amounts of inhaled wood dust were awesome, it was otherwise backbreaking work.

Take a quick step to protect your floors from sliding chairs and furniture.

DIY Hardware floor protectionIn the past I've bought felt pieces with an adhesive back and applied them to furniture legs.  This works just fine for a while.  But when dealing with a piece of furniture that's moved often (like dining room chairs), the felt eventually works its way off.

I found the following product at a local hardware store and gave it a try. 

Use your hammer to pound these into the tips of the chair legs.  They were fairly easy to apply and I'm happy to report that they're working perfectly.


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