Pulling it all Together ...

I have submitted the test booklet for printing ... and it should be ready by next Friday ... 1,000 copies.

La has finished the DVD slipcover art and the art for the DVD itself and I took it down to the DVD printers today for them to make sure it is as it should be. The art looks really good. Very Professional!! I should be hearing from the printers about that today or Monday.

We re-shot several segments of the DVD last weekend and that seemed to go well. I actually got to see some filmed footage on the big screen TV here ... and it looked pretty good!! I am thicker around the middle than I see myself being in my mind's eye ... but still ... I looked like a cool teacher! My goal!

I got a Tax number yesterday .... which allows me to collect sales taxes .... AND which keeps me from having to PAY sales taxes on getting the DVD and booklets printed!! That is a BIG SAVINGS!!

Tom is working on getting my website set up to sell DVD's and accept credit cards .... we are hiring it done ... to be sure it is done right!! It needs to get done soon!!

Tutoring is going great! I have about 25 hours a week scheduled right now and that equates to about $1,000 a week .... which is pretty good!! But May is the last month of that until Aug/Sept ... so I need to be able to sell DVD's at the rate of 25 per week to make up for the loss of tutoring! When I put it that way ... it seems doable!! Especially considering I can sell them all across Texas via my website. We need to sell 250 DVD's to make back what it has cost us to make the DVD ... then 25 per week or so to keep me solvent ... anything above that is gravy!! Investment in future DVD's!! Investment in future retirement!!

Also ... TEA has contacted us and decided to offer us the rights to use the Study Guide materials!! Too late for this DVD .... but GREAT for future possibilities!!

All of this is VERY positive!!

I'm nervous ... but also very excited!!

DVD is Coming Along ....

The DVD is coming along. Bob is working on editting and he has seen some things he would like to re-shoot .... so we will do that this coming weekend. He says that for the most part, it looks really good and he is pleased with the way we used two cameras .... one aimed at the board and one on me. Bob seems to be a bit of a perfectionist .... which is a VERY GOOD thing ... but it could delay the release of the DVD by a week or more .... he wants everything to be perfect ... and I understand that ... so do I!!

La is working on the DVD cover art and it is coming along nicely. She is designing the face of the DVD itself and the front and back of the DVD cardboard pouch. Everything is pulling together nicely.

Tom is working on getting the webpage up for accepting credit cards. That requires building an entirely new web page .... so the look of http://www.Math-Matters.org is going to change totally soon. Tom is also putting together lists of newspapers and radio stations and TV stations and we will be sending out Press Releases THIS WEEK ... because this is TAKS TESTING week in Texas. We will also send out a different Press Release in May when TAKS results come back.

OH!! And the Texas Education Agency has decided that it is okay for Pearson Educational Measurements to offer us a proposal to use the Study Guide in our DVD .... isn't that swell of them?? I'll be talking to them tomorrow and get further information. We have already filmed about 50 of the 102 questions from that Study Guide ... so we may come out with a 2nd DVD next year WHEN money starts coming in from this DVD.

The Borders thing can't happen for awhile ... we need to send a completed DVD to them for preview .... and the DVD won't be completed until mid-May at the earliest .... I think we can still get it on their shelves ... but not sure when. We have a UPC code for the back of the DVD and the booklet .... makes it look all official!!

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On a side note: While teaching one of my HomeSchool classes at HERS, a local CBS news crew came to interview HERS owner, Hope, on homeschooling. I guess they will be doing a weeklong series in May on Homeschooling in Texas. Anyway .... they wanted to see a class, and my class (of two kids) was the only class there ... so they ended up filming me and my students in my Saxon Algebra I class. They also interviewed me when they found out I had been a public school teacher for 22 years. I had no make-up on. No special clothes. Totally unprepared. But Hope thought it went really well ... she watched the whole interview and seemed very pleased with it.

I slipped the reporter my card and wrote on the back of it info about my DVD .... well see if anything comes from that!