Are you a veteran? Here is a list of Veteran’s Day freebies that might be of interest, be sure to call ahead and make sure individual franchises honor their parent company’s special. Many business offering specials are located near Hamilton Tech and since there is no class on Fridays, there is plenty of time to take advantage of these deals.

FREE FOOD

Applebees — All veterans and active-duty military eat free from a limited menu on Veterans Day.

Chili’s — Veterans and service members can dine for free from a special six-item menu on Veterans Day.

Golden Corral — Military Appreciation Monday includes a free dinner, Nov. 14, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. for military retirees, veterans, and current service members.

Famous Dave’s — Offers for free or discounted meals on Veterans Day vary by location.

Hooters — All veterans and service members get 10 free wings with the purchase of a drink.

Krispy Kreme — A free donut is available for all service members, retirees and veterans.

McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants — This Sunday, participating McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants are offering a complimentary entree to vets from a special menu on a space-available basis. Online reservations are highly recommended.

Outback Steakhouse — Nov. 7-15, Outback will offer veterans and military a free Bloomin’ Onion and beverage

Subway Restaurants — Free six-inch sub or flatbread available to military vets on Veterans Day.

Texas Roadhouse — Free meals available to veterans from opening until 4 p.m. on Veterans Day.

T.G.I. Friday’s — Veterans and service members can buy one meal and get another free, Nov. 11-13.

UNO Chicago Grill — Nov. 7-15, UNO is offering a 19.43 percent discount on food and non-alcoholic beverage beverages to vets and military. The chain explains that 1943 was the year UNO invented the deep dish pizza.

Abuelo’s Mexican Food — Offers vary by region.

Buca di Beppo Italian Restaurants — Special offers for vets on Veterans Day.

RETAIL DEALS

Amazon.com — A free downloadable MP3 album includes 12 songs performed by military bands and ensembles from now through Veterans Day.

The Dollar General — Veterans, service members and their immediate families can receive a 10-percent discount with a Veterans Day coupon.

Home Depot — Offers a 10 percent discount to all veterans on Veterans Day. Home Depot offers a 10 percent discount year-round to active duty military and retirees.

Lowe’s — All veterans receive the 10 percent discount for purchases of up to $5,000. A 10 percent discount is available year-round to active-duty military and retirees.

Sam’s Club — Nov. 9-11, Sam’s Club will give away collapsible Hugo Canes on Veterans Day to military veterans who need them.

Seven-Eleven — On Nov. 11 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., veterans can get a free small Slurpee.

Cabela’s Outdoor Store — Employee discounts are being offered to all veterans, active-duty military and reserve-component troops, along with law-enforcement, fire and emergency-management personnel Nov.11-12. Discounts vary from 5 percent to 50 percent, depending on item.

Build-a-Bear Workshop — Members of the armed services, including the Coast Guard and ROTC, receive a 20 percent discount Nov. 11-15 on any one transaction at the workshop.

Fashion Bug — Offering 20 percent off all plus-size and misses clothing purchases with a copy of military ID or spouse’s military ID.

Sports Clips Haircuts — Offering free haircuts to active-military and veterans on Nov. 11.

Source: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-701015

All of the evening EET students were host to Mark Green from Consolidated Utility Services.

Mark Green of Consolidated Utility Services

Mark explained the world of utility location, a field that began in 1980. Using a transmitter to create an electromagnetic field which is then picked up by a hand-held receiver. Mark went through a day in the life of a technician: starting with getting all tickets on a laptop equipped with an air card, then moving to the actual art of locating utilities. Students were then given the chance to test out the location equipment after a cable was laid through the lab.

Mark shows off a transmitter and receiver used for locating utilities

Consolidated Utility Services is located in 30 states and employs 140 people in the state of Iowa.  In the state of Iowa, they have 63 utility clients.  For more information, check out their website: http://www.consolidatedus.com/Home/

Mark Green of Consolidated Utility Services shows off one type of cable his company helps locate

Hamilton student tests out the locating equipment

Just yesterday in our Allied Health Program Advisory Committee meeting we were discussing Digital Medical Records and how digitizing medical records affects the jobs of both Medical Assistants and Medical and Insurance Billing and Coding Specialists.

Hamilton has just recently also implemented more elements of using an EMR into their training programs in both the Medical Assisting and Medical and Insurance Billing and Coding Specialists programs.

Today on mashable.com, Lauren Drell discusses the history, benefits and future of digital medical records as to how they relate to patient safety.

Click here to read the full story on Mashable.com

source: mashable.com

One of the Electronics Faculty sent me this link to an article about a handheld projector concept that allows a person to project and play a game from ones iPod on any flat surface.

http://www.creativeapplications.net/games/motionbeam-ipod-touch-c-games/

Sunday evening, 10/16, Hamilton Tech participated in a Flu Free Quad Cities telethon at WQAD Channel 8 studios.  We want to thank the 20 medical students and faculty that helped answer telephones and take pledges.  Thanks to all students and staff that helped with last night’s telethon.  Maryanne was interviewed on air and Maryanne and I presented a donation from Hamilton Tech to the Genesis Foundation in support of Flu Free Quad Cities.  Hamilton Tech has sponsored flu shots for all the students at McKinley elementary school in Davenport again this year.  Thanks again for your help with the WQAD telethon.

If you’re the medical type and get into new science this is an interesting article from the Wired website…

If some twisted genius vaporized all 10 trillion cells in your body—along with the hair, the fingernails, and other tissue they create—it would not leave empty space behind. A body-shaped cloud made of bacteria, viruses, and other former stowaways would hover briefly in the air. The cloud would outline your skin, delineate your lungs, trace your digestive tract. You might be gone for good, but your shadow biosphere would remain.   From www.wired.com by Carl Zimmer.

here’s the link to the article http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/09/mf_microbiome/

Noah Jones, Tim Gipple, Melissa Hardy, and Jamesia Jones (left to right)

Working frantically to get robot running -- This team placed 4th out of 10 teams.

Davenport West H.S. Students and Teachers Headed to Washington, DC to Receive National Honor, Showcase Classroom Projects and Participate in Special Vex Robotics Competition for PLTW Students

I have had the pleasure of participating on various boards and committee with the Davenport Community Schools over the years.  None have been of the caliber or quality of the Project Lead The Way Advisory Committee (PLTW).  The faculty, staff, engineers and other members of the Committee are a very dedicated and hard working group.  Why?  We see the value that students receive from a program like PLTW.  All 6 of the course have been implemented in the areas of engineering and engineering technology, with over 300 students participating at Central, North and West Highs.  If you would like to learn more about PLTW visit www.pltw.org .  The 4 students representing Davenport West were Tim Gipple, Noah Jones, Melissa Hardy and Jamesia Johnson, the instructors who traveled with the students were Jason Franzenberg and Duane Stahl.  Hamilton Tech was pleased to be able to sponsor the shirts the team wore while in Washington D.C. Congratulations to everyone who helped make this terrific success possible from all of us here at Hamilton Tech.

Mark Christy
Director
–

Davenport West’s PLTW team thought the trip to the PLTW National Innovation Summit and the USA Science & Engineering Festival held in Washington, DC October 20 – 24 was wonderful. The team went there to receive their Model School Award, one of only 10 given in the nation. While there, they were told that a major factor in receiving the award is our PLTW Advisory Council and the great work it has done to implement a quality program. Our Davenport West team was a finalist in the Vex Robotics competition placing 2nd out of 25 teams from across the nation. Unfortunately, their drive train broke in the finals leaving their robot in a tail spin. They ended up getting beaten by a team from Arizona. The top 4 teams are invited to Florida for the team championships in 6 months. The kids want to go, of course, but expense will be a deciding factor.
–

PRESS RELEASE
Project Lead the Way (PLTW), the nation’s leading provider of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, chose West H.S. as a PLTW “Model School.”   West is one of just ten PLTW schools in the nation to be named a model school for its innovative approach to engaging students in STEM education.  As part of the award, West PLTW teachers (Jason Franzenburg and Duane Stahl) and 4 PLTW students (Tim Gipple, Melissa Hardy, Jamesia Johnson and Noah Jones) got an all-expense paid trip to Washington, DC to participate in the PLTW National Innovation Summit October 20 – 22 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel and the USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo October 23 – 24 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  The National Innovation Summit, hosted by Project Lead The Way, brought together the nation’s leaders in science, technology, engineering and math to re-energize STEM education in America. Students showcased their work for educators, members of Congress, and leaders in STEM fields. In addition, they participated in a student-focused conference, attended panel sessions, and participated in a special Vex Robotics competition with other schools from across the country. They also had the opportunity to visit Capitol Hill and tour the national monuments.
 
“There are thousands of PLTW schools around the country that are engaging students in learning through imagination and innovation,” said John Lock, CEO of PLTW.  “Only ten were named model schools and we congratulate West teachers and students for the incredible work they’ve accomplished over the last year.  West PLTW classrooms demonstrate what is possible when imagination and innovation are ignited through learning.  Students are creating, designing, building and developing the problem-solving skills they need to be successful in the future.  Davenport West truly is a model for the entire nation.”

Hamilton Tech’s electronics instructors, Craig Wright, Lyle Andersen, and Larry Bradley, as well as Mark Christy, Director, participated in the first day of PLTW summer camp by providing a basis introduction to electronics. Twenty four 8th grade students arrived at St. Ambrose University campus at 12:15 following a tour of the Eastern Iowa Community College John Blong Technology Center. The first day of camp was to give the students an opportunity to participate in some type of engineering or engineering technology education. The Blong Center exposed the students to to the machining and industrial technology programs. The students were also given an introduction to the “green technology” programs that are now a part of EICC. Continue Reading »

Wolfram|Alpha is a “computational knowledge engine” developed by Wolfram Research and publicly launched in May of 2009. The site provides a free, interesting, and useful new tool, but in order to put it to good use, it is important to understand what it is and what it is not.

Wolfram|Alpha is not a search engine. It does something entirely different from sites like Google. Web search engines take your query and provide a list of links to other pages and sites across the web that may provide related information. This is not what Wolfram|Alpha does, and it cannot be used in the same way or directly compared to things like Google.

Wolfram|Alpha has its own knowledge base of structured data it searches when a user makes a query, and it uses this base to attempt to provide concrete answers to specific questions.

Wolfram|Alpha is still in development and is still changing and growing, so we can expect that its capabilities will expand in the future. At the moment, it seems best utilized to obtain specific answers to precise questions.

For example, Wolfram|Alpha can be used to
-solve algebraic equations
-compute resistance from resistor color codes
-compute estimate risk of heart disease
-find a diagnosis corresponding to an ICD-9 code

These are just a few examples. The best way to get a feel for the uses of Wolfram|Alpha is to explore it and try things out for yourself. The main example page is a good place to start.

Wolfram|Alpha looks like a great tool for easily answering questions or problems for which there is established facts and data. It is less useful for broader research as it does not provide links to other information sources and the sources for its own data is not always readily apparent. For searches in which both a list of related websites and more narrowly-focused answers may be useful, there is a site that combines them and searches both simultaneously called, appropriately, Goofram, though I suspect in some cases, the wildly different ways Google and Wolfram|Alpha interpret queries might make this less useful than just using one or the other separately.

Negative Effects of Financial Stress

Health

Financial stress can effect our physical and mental health.  It can cause anger, depression, and fatigue, especially if you are staying up at night.  More extreme cases can cause headaches, upset stomach and muscular tension.  An AARP survey found that 20 percent of persons reported health issues due to financial stress.

Lashing Out

Financial stress can cause us to lash out at family and friends.  In extreme cases, can lead to domestic violence.  The national domestic violence hotline ran a 6 wee study on the link between financial stress and domestic violence, and found that 54 percent of victims who called the hotline reported a change in their financial situation in the past year.

Self Destruction

Financial stress can lead to self destructive behaviors such as drinking, drugs, over-eating, gambling and even additional spending.  These behaviors can start effecting one’s work, school or home life negatively.