Those Little Blue Fn Buttons

  Sometimes features are hidden from me because I don't take the time to observe them.  For instance the little blue Fn buttons on my laptop have been there for as long as I have owned this laptop.  Admittedly I do often use the volume controls on the up and down arrow keys, but otherwise, I have not noticed.  Over Christmas break one of our daughters was given a tablet with a docking keyboard to replace her ailing laptop.  Through a series of mishaps which appeared to indicate that the tablet was broken, she discovered that she had inadvertently disabled the touch pad.  I tried to discover the "secret" to disabling the overly sensitive touch pad on my tablet by using the same method as daughter, but to no avail.  Our tablets are not the same.  Within a couple of days, however, I unintentionally discovered the disable-the-touch-pad button on my tablet's docking keyboard.  This was a wonderous discovery after many times having sent my cursor to unknown locations while typing because I unknowingly touched the pad. And what does this have to do with my laptop's little blue Fn buttons?  Most of you are way ahead of me, for whom it took weeks to make the connection and look for such an item.  Said button is located on the F7 key,  which by the way, is the same location as said button on daughter's tablet keyboard.  Hooray for another "win" for me, finally!

  Speaking of long-time-coming mysteries being solved, after only one week I deduced the cause of last Wednesday's flapjack flop.  In summary, last Wednesday the pancake batter was incredibly different and difficult to deal with, despite my having followed the recipe faithfully.  Then yesterday when I attempted to make blueberry muffins per usual from the homemade muffin mix, I discovered that the muffin mix had been stored in the freezer where the home ground wheat flour should have been stored, and vice versa.  Hence I had mixed up something akin to bread dough with the whole wheat flour which had been sitting on the shelf where the muffin mix ought to have been.  Yes, I did throw out the first wrong batch, mixed up a true batch of muffins and returned each container to its correct "home."  In the wee hours of this very morning, as I was reminding myself to pay careful attention to the pancake making process in order to prevent whatever happened last week. . .you probably have once again already guessed what I realized was the cause.

  Once again the mantra that I find myself repeating to one of my students almost daily in regard to math is one I, too, must embrace:  focus and pay attention to every detail as you work.  Indeed, I will do well to heed this advice.

  I still have so much to learn.


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