July 2012
56 posts
Reblog this if I can go to your askbox and ask you...
Education Rethink: Is Algebra Necessary? →
educationrethink:
I have mixed feelings about the op-ed. He’s right that math has been stripped from context, especially the social, political and economic contexts. Civics and social justice should be part of problem-solving and can fit well within algebra. I teach all subjects and my background is social studies….
This was in response to an interesting op Ed piece in the N Y Times on...
Blogging the opening ceremony
Kenneth braunaugh and Evelyn glennie
Olympic Fever
Olympic Factiodal discoveries:
One of the U.S. Tae Kwon Do competitors, Paige McPherson, is from Sturgis, South Dakota, where I went last year for vacation (The Sturgis MC Rally.)
Tae Kwon Do and Judo should be combined into Olympic MMA. (It was, actually, one of the original sports in the games of Ancient Greece, though it had a Greek name that I cannot remember right now, but the competition...
Mountain Lion Follow up
OS X Mountain Lion, which I installed last night, appears to have settled down a bit. My browser is back to normal and the sluggishness has abated. Not sure what the problem was earlier.
Uninsured Aurora Victim Could Face $2 Million In... →
wilwheaton:
Caleb Medley was shot in the eye in the Aurora movie theater shooting and remains in the intensive care unit in an induced coma. Medley sustained the terrible injuries only days before his wife Katie was due to give birth to a baby boy they plan to name Hugo. She now joins him in the same hospital — just one floor away — where she was set to be induced.
But even if Caleb makes a...
Shiny, happy people....
Well, the day has been filled with social workers coming by the house to check up on my wife, and calls to various agencies trying to arrange support services for her. I worked from home today, but I have to be in the office tomorrow and that raised an issue that appears to have been resolved.
This is all too stressful. Every day now it’s been someone different. Social workers, Visiting...
NYFishergal: I refuse to be political on my views... →
fishergal:
Here is my first and final word on the subject…. and this does not just go for homosexuality…but as a very general statement of my philosophy.
I love everyone, gay or straight. I may not agree with everything that you do, whether you are gay OR straight.
But people make their own choices… people…
This is actually okay. The national issue is not personal views or feelings,...
Mountain Lion has fleas.....
I installed OS X Mountain Lion. It absolutely sucks. Who wrote this, Microsoft? My browser won’t load properly and everything is running sluggishly. C’mon Apple, Steve Jobs hasn’t been in the ground a year and already the standards have slipped.
Anyone else having problems?
I am the smegma
My son is at the age where he learns nifty sounding words without quite understanding the meaning. Thus it is that I just finished fixing his bike, and as he rode happily down the driveway he declared proudly:
“Dad, you’re the asshole!”
I’m guessing he got that from his grandfather.
In Praise of First Responders...
Well, my wife is home. Came home yesterday. Today a visiting nurse visited, and while she was visiting, my wife had a little seizure. Apparently, when I was taking prescriptions to the pharmacy to fill yesterday, I didn’t have the anti-seizure medicine. I got that filled today.
After about four minutes of unconsciousness, the nurse had me call 911. A paramedic showed up. By then, my wife...
Hotel California
I am at the hospital trying to take my wife home. Two hours to check out. It’s like Hotel California here; you can check out any time you want but you can never leave…
SHUT THE HOLE UNDER YOUR NOSE!!!!
sarkastickunt:
Shut it right up.
Right now.
Now.
Do it.
Maybe to cheer things up a bit:
I am working from home today. My wife usually pays the cable bill but as she’s in the hospital we haven’t gotten around to it yet. So the cable company just called the house looking for payment. My son, age seven, answered the phone:
Cable Company: “Hi, this is a call from Cox...
My wife seems to be doing better. Headaches and vomiting have stopped, which is a good thing. So….
She had lost all her hair to chemo but it has started to grow back and she has a stubble. She has a horseshoe shaped scar on her scalp from the port surgery and another scar over her left clavicle from the pacemaker surgery. She kinda looks like Sinaed O’Connor after a bar fight....
maxistentialist:
Martin County Times:
Sleeping Florida man arrested in drive-thru, offers cops taco as I.D. from inside burning car
Headline of the year.
I hate to admit it, but this could be my brother. I don’t mean that euphemistically either. Oh, to have been adopted…
TED
I have shared this before, but let me do it again. I am a big fan of the TED talks. TED stands for Technology, Education, and Design. Go to www.ted.com.
The talks are short so I can listen while taking a break at work .
Check out the talk by Mina Bissell on cancer research. It is fascinating. It is called Experiments That Point to a New Understanding of Cancer.
Help for my Autistic son
barackobama:
What $85 a paycheck means to lostandfoundliz:
I make “too much” to qualify for assistance with programs that help my autistic teen learn coping skills for life when I’m not here. So $90 a month goes to a Tae Kwon Do program geared specifically to autistic kids. If I lose even a little of my income - which goes paycheck to paycheck - that’s one of many things I’d lose.
Im all for...
Aspirin and Whiskey.....
Went to see my doctor today. I have the body of a 25 year old— if he lived during the Pleistocene Era.
One thing my doctor told me is that six weeks ago they released the results of a study that showed compellingly that daily doses of aspirin significantly reduce the likelihood of getting cancer. This was found for four different types of cancer, so this is considered really really...
“I didn’t mean to create controversy here. Did you hear, there was somebody...”
– President Obama’s favorite Girl Scout cookie: Thin mints. And that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Girl Scout cookie debates: They can get fractious.
(via barackobama)
Thin mints rule!!!
Some Angry and Not So Angry Thoughts: Sometimes... →
littleangrygirl:
Today, I complained about spending $50 for an application to get my permanent teaching license. (See my last post.) I was pleasantly surprised to find a reply and generous offer by jackdogstar to reimburse me for the $50 because he really appreciated teachers. (Go to his page.) I was so touched by his words that I started to cry. Not many parents of my own students have...
Cinema Paradiso
Explaining to my son his Italian roots on my side of the family while watching the movie. Now have to explain that teachers don’t bang kid’s heads against the blackboard anymore…
$50 less
littleangrygirl:
I just spent $50 of my hard earned teacher’s salary to pay the New York State Education Dept so some asshole can review my online application and decide whether I am qualified for the Professional Certificate (my permanent license) so I can continue torturing young children every M-F for the rest of my life and complain that I don’t get paid enough to do it.
It’s the best $50 I...
Ministry of Certitude.....
While sitting here gathering my second wind after having vacuumed the car…
1. Never sign a credit card. Instead, write ‘Ask for ID’ in the space provided. This tip brought to you by the Society of I May Be Paranoid, But No-one’s Gotten my Cards Yet.
2. Never put synthetic oil in a high mileage vehicle. Synthetic oil has a thinner viscosity and high mileage engines by...
Turn on....
My wife is scheduled to come home today. Today, or tomorrow at the latest.
For some reason, I have been compulsively cleaning. I bought a great shop vac (can’t stand those anemic Hoovers) and power vacuumed the house. Probably will do the cars today. And mow the backyard.
Am I turning you on yet?
The Sassiest Kitten: Petty →
thesassiestkitten:
thefyrechief:
When your ex is being so petty and not just giving you the paperwork you need to get her name off the mortgage which is all she’s screamed about since the split. So now - fuck you! you’ll get your check when I get my paperwork
Hey y’all, I see you still reading my blog. Why…
This doesn’t really make sense. Are we talking about taking her off the...
Other good news, this on the economy....
This from the NYTimes this morning…
WASHINGTON — Despite the recent run of disappointing economic data, a broad range of experts and forecasters expect the economy to improve slightly in coming months, thanks to lower oil prices and new signs of life from sectors like automobiles and housing.
Cancer update, with hope for the future....
My wife is doing well. She is probably coming home Saturday. The port is in, placed beneath her scalp. It looks like a small bump on her head, but otherwise is unnoticeable. She also got a pacemaker two days ago and that is going well. Now we just have to see if the chemo works. The cancer has invaded her spinal fluid but not her brain yet, so there is a good chance we can beat this thing.
Single...
Post Op Follow Up......
My wife had surgery to place a port in her skull today. It went well. The port is a reservoir that sits below her scalp and allows doctors to inject chemo directly into the fluid surrounding her brain and spine. That treatment begins tomorrow. By late today, when I left her, she was returning to her usual feisty bitchy self. ;)
Here’s a little factoid. The surgeon found that this fluid was...