The Activity Room Learns How to Celebrate

For the past few months, we've been playing all different kinds of hockey in the Activity Room, from knee-hockey to street hockey outside at the park.

When we first started playing, for most of the kids hockey was a foreign game to them, one that they'd heard of but didn't know much about. After just a couple of days of playing, however, many of them were hooked.

However, we'd never really practiced one of the most important things (kidding, but it is important) about hockey: how to properly celebrate scoring a goal.

After most goals, the players come together in a pile and tap each other on the helmet; nothing major. But we wanted the kids to get some practice having fun after scoring a goal, so we went on to YouTube to find audio clips of NHL goal horns, the extremely loud (and sometimes obnoxious) sounds and songs played after every home-team goal.

We chose the horns of the hometown Boston Bruins and the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, cued them up to play when Adem, Ibrahim or Nebil scored, and then just let the kids go nuts.

Below are two videos of the goals and the subsequent joyous celebrations.

Needless to say, these youngsters are well on their way to NHL stardom.

Georges Island!

This past Tuesday, JRyan Solutions took the kids of 808-812 Memorial Drive on what has become an annual tradition: the yearly summer field trip!

This year, we decided to go to Georges Island, just one of the many Boston Harbor Islands. After taking the Red Line from Central Square to Downtown Crossing, we walked to the waterfront where we boarded the Harbor Islands Ferry (not before spending some time playing in the fountains on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, of course). For many of the 20 or so kids who took the trip, it was the first time they had ever been on a boat of any kind.

After a 20-minute boat ride across Boston Harbor, during which we saw planes landing at LoganAirport, people fishing off of Castle Island and numerous lobster pots, we arrived at Georges Island, arguably the most famous of the Boston Harbor Islands.

We ate a quick lunch at the island's snack stand, and then used the rest of the afternoon to explore the island, which is dominated by a Civil War-era fort, Fort Warren. The kids were able to walk to beaches, explore every nook and cranny of the fort and even go on top of the ramparts, from which the views of the city of Boston and the harbor were spectacular.

We also scoured the beaches for nice pieces of sea glass, sea creatures and perfect flat rocks for skipping. By the time our return boat arrived a few hours later, most of the kids were wiped out from an afternoon full of fun and exploring.

As the boat made the return trip across the harbor, one of the kids, Ayoub, declared that afternoon's trip to have been "the best field trip ever!"

Here are some of the other kids' answers to the question "what was your favorite part about the whole field trip?"

"The boat ride, because it was mad fun, speeding and driving crazy."
-Adem

"Going to the beach, it was better than everything."
-Nebil

"The dark caves [in Fort Warren]."
-Doodie

"Going inside in the dark and hearing the people scream [from others trying to scare them]."
-Shahir

"Getting scared in the dark places...I like getting scared."
-Sirak

Below are some photos of the field trip, but these are just a few. A YouTube slideshow featuring tons more pictures can be seen at the very end of this post as well.

All-in-all, it was a great trip, one that the kids will hopefully remember for a long time.

Above: The kids playing on the beach and in the water.
Below: A view of the harbor and of Boston from the outer edge of the island.

Above: Ayoub posing for a picture inside of Fort Warren's jail.
Below: The Boston skyline from the back of the boat as we headed to Georges Island.

Connect With People Across the World, All Without Leaving Memorial Drive!

At its best, the Internet serves as a means of connecting people with different ideas, cultures and people from all over the world.

We had a perfect example of that here in the Computer Lab last week. An adult was trying to talk to her brother through Microsoft's Live Messenger, but wasn't having any luck because her brother didn't have an "@live.com" or "@hotmail.com" email address.

A CLC staff member suggested using Skype, an internet-based chat and phone call service. Skype charges money to makes calls from a computer to a landline or cellphone, but doesn't charge for internet-to-internet chats or "phone" calls.

Using a microphone available in the CLC, this adult was able to speak to and hear the voice of her brother, who was literally thousands of miles away. Skype is wonderful technology (and free to download), and allowed her to have a real-time conversation with a family member that, according to her, she hadn't seen in over seven years!

That's just the magic of the Internet, huh?

Image Editing Tips

Recently, we had a patron in the Computer Learning Center who was interested in learning how to edit pictures so that she could make them a custom size, add text to them, etc. and post them to a new website or message board.

While image editing is a handy tool, it's often hard to learn how to do due to the complexities involved in changing a picture.

The preferred image editing program here in the Computer Learning Center is GIMP, a free program designed to be an alternative to the expensive Adobe PhotoShop. However, GIMP is a confusing program to start out with, and can be tough to use if one doesn't know what he or she is doing.

Surprisingly enough, simply using the image editing program that comes standard on almost all personal computers, MSPaint, will usually suffice.

There are a variety of websites out there that offer tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your MSPaint experience, but here are a few favorites:

• MSPaint Tricks
• Neat Tricks in MSPaint
• Tips & Tricks for using paint

By following the above tips and getting lots of practice, one can become very skilled with MSPaint, and he or she can be creating fascinating works of computer art in no time.

Don't believe it? Check out the video below to see what MSPaint can do.