The trees had dropped their leaves. The sun was pale through the window. He sat hunched in his desk looking at his trigonometry textbook. Actually, he was looking at the slip of paper on his text:

Ballot it read.

"Please nominate the top five males and top five females for Winter Homecoming Royalty."

His mind had gone blank. Five? Which five? Then a smile crept across his face. "Hey, everyone," he said loudly. The classroom turned to look at him. "Put down Luke Holzmann."

There was a moment of silence.

Then his friends turned back to their ballot, shrugged, and started scribbling. A few months later he was crowned king by default because the football player he had tied with was at a game that night.

My fifteen minutes of high school popularity were courtesy of a whim and a technicality. I couldn't have asked for more irony (except, of course, that the queen was one of my good friends and leader of our weekly prayer meetings).

I had come a long way from the kid who ate lunch by himself in the Cross Country locker room. I had risen from the new kid who was loud and odd to "that tall, loud guy" whom everyone at least could recognize. I had restarted the swim team. I would be captain of the Cross Country team next year. I lead FCA. I participated in musicals. I wrote for the school paper. I was everywhere. And while I had many acquaintances, I didn't have any friends.

At least, no true friends that I would bother to contact after I graduated. None that I hung out with outside of school.

I was popular enough with my peers, the other slightly nerdy yet incredibly involved and successful students. I was mostly comfortable in my skin. I was overly zealous in my convictions. And I was homecoming king.

I realize very few of you have time to browse my Other Posts of Note, but one by Janine Cate really got to me today. Well, the post is great, but the linked article absolutely blew me away.

Definitely worth reading. It's long. But so, so good. Please go read Paul Graham's article on popularity. It brought me back to some of those moments in high school and reinforced the incredible benefits homeschooling has when it comes to socialization.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

I've heard that Colorado gets around 300 days of sun every year.

And that's nice.

Today it's supposedly 60° out there, but the breeze was cool while we ate at the picnic tables. Still, that's a lot warmer than it's been recently. And it was nice to eat outside again. The solar energy felt great on my pasty white flesh. Vitamin D is a very nice thing.

While we ate, refueling after a morning's work, something else was soaking up the rays:

Sonlight's Solar Power Array

It's been going since noon, so the data is a little sparse right now. I'll definitely give you a better link when we've had a chance to get all the monitoring stuff working properly.

I'm not a huge fan of the political side of "Going Green," but I am a major proponent of caring for what we've been entrusted with. That's why I'm so pleased with how much Sonlight recycles, and this latest solar initiative is another great opportunity to be a good steward of what we have been given.

Sonlight: now partially powered by sunlight.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

I once wore t-shirts all the time. But now my wife has me wearing polos. And, I'll admit: I look better in a polo.

But given the right opportunity--like a a Saturday, or every evening when I get home, or the perfect outing to sport a Myst t-shirt--and I'm wearing one again.

Old habits die hard.

Are you looking for a great reason to wear a t-shirt again?

I thought so! That's why I'm giving you the perfect opportunity to wear a t-shirt: Sonlight's 2010 T-Shirt Design Contest. After we get some entries, pick a winner, get the shirts made, you purchase one, it arrives at your house... well... then, then will be the perfect time to wear a t-shirt again. You could wear this t-shirt with pride to:

• a homeschool convention
• your school reunion
• a rock concert
• the Sonlight picnic
• your book club meetings
• to bed
• while cleaning the bathroom
• the possibilities are only limited to the number of outfits you will wear in your life...

T-shirts are very versatile.

But here's the deal: We need some submissions.

Do you need to be an awesome artist?

No.

Here's proof:

Luke's Submission to the 2010 Sonlight T-Shirt Design Contest

And that sweet-awesome logo that I used? Yep--you can download it on the t-shirt design contest page. Don't have an incredible graphic design program? No problem! We point you to a couple really cool--and free--options on the contest page. We give you templates and encouragement, links and specifications, not to mention information about what we're planning on doing whenever someone buys a shirt. So, come on: Check it out!

Update: Winners

The R. Family
Barb, Joe, Joe Jr, Matt
Sherrie, Sarah, Amanda

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

P.S. I almost put "t-shirt contest" in the title, but added the word design to hopefully stave off google searches that would prove to be less than fruitful for those looking for something more... er... umm... non-Sonlight related.

I just got my tablet hooked up, so I felt I needed to draw/sketch/write something.

But what?

How about a little blog recognition of my readers?

Thanks for Reading Sonlight's Blog

As I looked at my scribbled message, I realized something: When my penmanship is legible, I like it. The slanted scrawl has personality. That, or it's just mere exposure effect.

But my handwriting hasn't always been very legible. In fact, it got so bad in high school and college that I had to resort to drastic measures.

I started taking notes in my own cipher.^*

A Luke Cipher Sample

Writing this way slowed me down enough that I had to be more precise than my perpetually slurred cursive. Slowing down allowed me to produce very legible results... if only I could remember the cipher and figure out what I was trying to spell later on. Misspelled words didn't look wrong in cipher, so mistakes were harder to catch.

This adaptation was unique to me among my classmates. I'd like to think that my confidence in adopting a new method of note taking had something to do with my homeschool background. I didn't feel the need to conform to the way you were "supposed" to take notes. I found a method that worked for me and ran with it.

May your children do the same!

So... did you figure out my secret message?

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

^*This was before I started typing my notes on a 42lb extremely portable laptop with a one half of ten minute battery life.

Tractable: easily managed; amenable

Brought to you by Ken Chapman

Today was a big day for me:

1. I decided to really start using Twitter.

Sure, I've had the tool for a while now. Twitter's been "all the rage" in the social media world for quite some time. And since I'm the media relations guy here at Sonlight, well, I had to at least have an account. But I'm too busy blogging to be tweeting.

But today, here near the start of 2010, I've made a change. I've long been providing Other Posts of Note for my blog visitors to peruse. But my fellow bloggers weren't getting enough link love from me. So Twitter will now tweet my Other Posts of Note under the #OPoN tag.

Which is sweet.

If you're following me on Twitter you'll also get an update when my latest post goes live. Which is redundant for all of you subscribed to my blog via RSS or email. I realize this. So to make sure you felt like you were in the loop...

2. I updated my FeedBurner feed.

You don't need to resubscribe or anything... but you certainly may. I've updated my email welcome message so it's a little more personal. I've adjusted a few settings so it better reflects this blog. Nothing major. But to the 72 subscribed through FeedBurner... this is a shout-out for you.

3. I've started work on cleaning up the FAQ section of Sonlight.com.

This is proving to be much harder than I initially thought. But I'm working diligently to make that section of the site clearer and more helpful. Unfortunately, it's rather like running through peanut butter.

Chat with Bo

Bear with me...

Not too shabby a start for the new year. What other exciting things will happen in 2010?

Follow along--via Twitter, RSS, Facebook, email or otherwise--as we find out!

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father

Download Sonlight samples here.

That's right: You can see sample pages from Sonlight's Instructor's Guides as well as many other products. Get a feel for how Sonlight handles schedules and notes. Discover the incredible amount of information included in every one of Sonlight's teacher's manuals (what we fondly call "IGs"). Simply download a free sample from one of Sonlight's many programs.

Just posting this in the off chance you were not aware that Sonlight has .pdf samples available for download.

And thanks everyone: I'm feeling better today. Hope to be 100% tomorrow.

 ~Luke Holzmann
Filmmaker, Writer, Surrogate Father