Pictures of Brookgreen Gardens

Just a few pictures of Brookgreen gardens near Myrtle Beach. I loved the place. More to come about it...

Hugo's New Book

I have a review of Hugo Kerr's new book, The Cognitive Psychology of Literacy Teaching: Reading, Writing, Spelling, Dyslexia (& a bit besides) available at Suite101. You can read it here...

Back from the Beach (Our Stay at South Beach Resort)

Cheryl and I just returned from a week in Myrtle Beach, S.C. We stayed at South Beach Resort, where we own a time share. It was our first time staying there; we bought the time share at the end of the summer in 2006 and missed out on staying there last year.

The resort is quite nice. Our room was small and a little cramped, but that was mostly our fault. We reserved a studio. Next time we'll get a larger pad...

Other than the size of the room, it was really pretty had to find anything at South Beach to complain about. We tried (since I knew I'd be writing about the place) and came up with almost nothing.

Check-in and check-out were both a breeze. The staff at the place was very friendly. The Owners' Club at the resort entrance had a concierge's station and the three or four people who worked there were very helpful. They were there from at least 8:00am until 8:00pm. You could ask them where to eat, or for directions to some place. They would get you show tickets if you wanted. And much more...

The Owners' Club housed a number of attractions. In the front area you have the concierge's station and the Front Desk. There's a DVD library, a few dozen books to pick over if you want something to read, a couple of computers for Internet access, a few items for sale with the resort logo on them (golf shirts, etc.), and brochures on Myrtle Beach's attractions. Further back in the club there is an exercise room (which I didn't use), an arcade area and a pool table (you buy tokens to play), a sauna, some offices, and an indoor-outdoor pool. As you walk out the back you find the pool area; there are a couple of hot tubs (who needs that in June?), a small baby pool, and a lazy river.

There were a number of activities based at the Club. We didn't take advantage of any of them, but if you had young children the activities would be great.

There was a second pool facility. The Lagoon Pool had a sloped, easy access entrance, a safety rope at about the three foot level, and a deep end that only went to 4 feet 9 inches. There's a waterfall at the deep end. The pool wraps around a small bar (open from 4pm to 9pm, I think) and there's live music most afternoons.

Landscaping at the resort was very nice. There were Palmetto trees everywhere and a variety of flowers and ground cover plants along the edges of the manicured lawns. It's well lit at night. And the grounds are populated by a few dozen squirrels (which were fun to watch). Everything seems wheelchair accessible.

The room itself was pleasant and well furnished. We had a half-kitchen (no stove in the studio units) with a fridge and microwave. There was a TV (complete with VCR/DVD player), a sound system, iron, coffee maker, toaster, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. In the studio we had a four-place setting of Fiesta dishes. There were knives and a cutting board, flatware, wine glasses - even a corkscrew. Best of all, it was clean.

The air conditioning looked much like what you find in most hotels; but it lacked the musty smell that almost every hotel from Super 8 on up to the Marriott seems to have. There was also a ceiling fan.

Life in a time share is a little different than at a hotel. No one comes in to clean up after you (you can get that for a fee, if you want). We had access to a washer and dryer that we shared with the guests next door.

One of the nicest surprises in our stay was the free tickets. We got eight tickets that let us in to a variety of attractions. They included an all day wrist band at the NASCAR park, free admission to five of the area's mini-golf courses, admission to two of the area's golf courses (I don't golf), and admission to a nearby water park.

On top of that, we got tickets to see the "Good Vibrations" show at the Carolina Opry for sitting down with our Owner Rep.

Because we'd never stayed at the resort before, we didn't actually have an Owner's Rep until now. Our Rep is Mike Meeks (a nice guy who moved down there from the mountains not too far from here). We met with Mike on Saturday morning and went over some of the services South Beach offers its owners.

I'll throw in a plug here: if you're interested in seeing South Beach, give Mike a call. His number is 843-913-5306. He can probably set you up with a tour of the place and talk to you about buying in. Mention my name to him. And if you don't want to talk to him, email me.

If I had to whine about something it would be Internet access. Almost every hotel up and down Ocean Blvd has free wireless access in the rooms. At South Beach Resort it was $4.99 for half an hour, $9.99 for the day, and $49.99 for the week. I thought that the price was kind of steep; but more to the point, I guess, I thought that at a place like South Beach I ought to be able to get the same kind of Internet access that comes free at most Best Westerns. And that was really my only complaint...

All in all our stay at South Beach was a great experience and we'll definitely be back there next year.

Finishing Up in Myrtle Beach

Well, after six days here on the Grand Stand (the long stretch of beach along South Carolina's north shore), Cheryl and I are about ready to check out and go back home.

It's been a fun week. We've been to Pawley's Island twice, walked around the gardens of Brookgreen, eaten out a few times, played some mini-golf, been to the Good Vibrations show at the Carolina Opry, and done a little shopping.

Pictures to come next week...

Did You Hear Michelle Obama Talk Trash About "Whiteys?"

Did you hear the news about Michelle Obama using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago? The news about it is out there in the blogosphere and on the radio waves. It supposedly happened on July 1, 2004 in at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference in the Women’s Event.

There's only two problems:

1. That meeting wasn't at the church; it was at the Chicago Sheraton.
2. Michele Obama wasn't there.

So, back to the question in my title: Did you hear Michelle Obama talk trash about "Whiteys?" No. No one did, because she didn't. It's just part of the smear campaign...

Heard some other rumor? You can probably find the truth here: Fight the Smears


© My Hobo Soul

Visit to Redhouse, Md.

We got up Saturday morning (June 14th) and drove to Redhouse, Md., where Cheryl's Dad lives. Cheryl finished work for the year on Friday. I was out of school but still working on a graduate course.

On June 13th the Bluebirds started their second nest of the season. When we got home yesterday they'd finished the nest and had one egg in it. They laid a second egg last night. We'll see if they make it to five again...

We drove through heavy rain in a few spots to get to Redhouse. Benny (Cheryl's Dad) has been working on his garden. He picked a pint and a half of strawberries on Monday. And we made a couple of trips down to look at the orchard and garden in between the thunderstorms that hit while we were up there. The weather was generally cool and wet.

While we were there we got word that my cousin, Chase Stillwell, was killed in a motorcycle accident. Chase was almost 20. It was sad. We went to his wake at the funeral home tonight. Tomorrow is the funeral. My daughter, Hannah, should be here this evening late and will go with us tomorrow before returning to Asheville.

Then Friday we leave for Myrtle Beach.

I finished the graduate course today and I am now more or less free until July 7th when I start a second class.

Arianna Huffington on John McCain...

I saw Huffington on Jay Leno last week and enjoyed what she had to say so much that I decided to look around for more stuff by her.

Huffingtn was promoting her new book: Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe. She offered a money back guarantee on the book on Leno: if you're a McCain supporter, and you read the book and you're still a McCain supporter, she says she'll give you your money back.

Here are two YouTube videos of her talking about McCain and about politics.

Arianna Huffington on John McCain - "Hijacked" by the Right?


Arianna Huffington - The Problem with Polling

A Plague of Locust

Okay, it's not quite a plague, but the hills are alive here - with locust. We have a species of 17-year-locust (or cicadia) that's been underground now since 1991. Now that they're up, they're making noise!

The Logan Banner has an article on them. Click on the picture and you'll get a few more shots of them.

I hear they're good with honey. I just don't know whether you're supposed to cook them or eat them raw...

A Note for Hugo Kerr

A week ago, on June 1, Hugo expressed some concerns on the reading teachers listserv - concerns over the fact that I had decided to blog about my experiences on the listserv and, more specifically, about my conversations with him and what I thought of his position on dyslexia. You can read those concerns, in his own words, here in the listserv's archive (hosted by the International Reading Association).

Hugo's concerns are summed up in this statement from him (from his posting):

I have no redress or protection from quote or misquote – I certainly feel I cannot rely upon being fairly dealt with on this site.

I thought I had addressed that concern somewhere, but in looking back over my blog posts here and at Constructivist Leanings, and after going through my own postings to the listserv in the days before I left, I can't find where I did that. So I'll do it now...

Hugo (along with anyone else) is welcome to reply to anything I write by simply commenting on the blog post he wants to respond to. I will gladly publish his comments (and anyone else's) unedited, as he submits them. The only exceptions to that policy that I can think of are that I would not publish comments that included threats (expressed or implied) or personal attacks (that is to say, attacks on my character as opposed to my position). Of course, Hugo is a gentleman and a nice enough guy that I can't imagine either of those things being problems with any comment he submits; but there are other people in the world...

If that's not fair (the idea that I'll publish comments unedited, as they are submitted), I don't know what is.

I also reserve the right to not publish anonymous comments (though I have never exercised that right). While your name is probably enough (especially if you're a reading list member), you can create a Google ID for free here in a couple of minutes.

I talked previously about reaction to the idea that I might actually quote things that had been said on the listserv. In regards to that, Hugo said this when he expressed his concerns about my blog:

It is absolutely disingenuous to claim that a posting on this list can be quoted (perhaps even misquoted) then be referenced and pass muster for academic discourse purposes.

And yet the Modern Language Association's (MLA) style guide describes a format for doing just that - referencing listserv postings. So does the American Psychological Association and the International Organization for Standardization (see section 5.3.1).

But I suppose the broader question is whether my blog is academic discourse. And the answer to that is this: my blogs, here and elsewhere, are just blogs. They are personal in nature (they're about my thoughts), informal and conversational. This is not a peer reviewed journal or a paper to be presented at an academic gathering.

Clematis in Bloom

My wife, Cheryl, loves this clematis plant. And this year it seems to be doing fairly well. At the moment it is in bloom...