What do we do with our time out her on the island? Yesterday was a "statutory holiday" (Canadian for "Monday off"). We spent the afternoon walking around downtown Victoria - think Mackinac Island meets New York City. Mark bought some new shoes and I got my birthday present two weeks early - a lovely soft, cotton Victorian-style nightgown. Sometimes a girl just has to have something pretty. Last night, Mark's parents came for supper - grilled chicken and corn-on-the-cob (not as good as Johnechek) - and we went for a drive to see a new type of construction being used here to combat rising building costs. The guy basically is using large corrugated shipping containers as raw building material and the results are surprisingly attractive. My inlaws are thinking of building a new house on their property out on the Saanich peninsula. The peninsula is lovely - reminds me a lot of the Leelanau Peninsula.
So, today Mark is off to Vancouver via seaplane for meetings at the University of British Columbia. He is currently working on a transportation project for the Ministry of Education. They have to be able to track kids when they get on and off school buses. This isn't a bad idea, but I'm surprised at how much work it's taking. There really isn't an easy solution that won't create headaches for parents or bus drivers. Either the bus drivers will have to take attendance - as if bus drivers needed any more responsibility when they already have to keep the little darlins in their seats and safe - or the parents will have to be responsible for sending a bar-coded card to school with their children. Yeah, right. This would work for approximately 10% of the population and they probably already drive their children to school in their SUVs. I personally think we should just insert microchips into their pointy, little heads. (No, we're not planning to send our kids to public school...)
It's only 60ish degrees here today. I'm going to make the most of it and start clearing the bedroom so we can paint it.
2 comments:
what about bracelets? With the lance armstrong live strong bracelets and every other cause bracelets it would be something every kid might actually even want to wear. Each one could be bar coded and there could be a small scanning machine on each bus that could log each kid as they come on the bus and leave the bus. They might actually find the scanning fun. The scanning machine could be linked to a central school compute and get the info a it is acquired.
Bracelets are a nice idea, but the novelty would wear off for most kids after a few days/weeks. It really can't be anything that the kids are responsible for. I almost think the bus driver should have a scanner and a sheet with every kid's picture and name on it next to a barcode. When that kid gets on the bus, the driver could scan the barcode. Most drivers know the kids on their route and it would work for subs because there would be a picture next to it (Sam Jones couldn't claim he was Bobby Johnson). Still a bit of a hassle for the driver, but perhaps the most workable solution aside from microchip implantation...
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