Category: General

You can't make this stuff up.

A Developmental Math teacher at UVSC received an email from one of her distance learning students. Here's the unedited email (with the student's name removed to protect the guilty):

I have a question you may think is a bit strange...or maybe you've heard this one before. Is it considered cheating if I have the Quadratic Formula tattooed somewhere on my body that is visible while I take the test?

I'm asking because it seems like I've had teachers who didn't care if we brought a paper in with us to take the test, as long is it only had the formulas we might need and not the actual answers to the test.

Besides, I'm trying to get into engineering, and it just seems like having the most useful formulas tattooed somewhere on my body would make my life SO much easier in the long run.

I'm absolutely serious, so I'm hoping for a reply...no matter how funny it sounds :0) I just don't want to get in trouble, so if it's not allowed, then I'll hold off on getting the tattoo.

Wow.

Just...

Wow.

Some years, we get a leap second or two.  You probably didn't even notice, did you?

Actually, the last leap second we had was in 2005 when 1 second was added to the 31st of December.

Why?  Broadcast standards for civil time, called "Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)" is measured by stable atomic clocks.  Solar time is determined by the angle of the sun in the sky.  The problem is that the rotation of the earth is continually slowing, though at a slightly variable rate.  This means that UTC and solar time aren't exactly the same.  So once in a while, to keep UTC and solar time in step with each other, they add a leap second.

There's your interesting tidbit of information for the day.

Happy February 29th.  These only come around every four years you know.

Well... except for century years.  Those are only leap years if they are divisible by 400.  That means that the year 2000 was a leap year, but the year 1900 was not, neither will 2100 be.

There is an old English tradition that women may make a proposal of marriage to men, only in leap years.  Some cases restrict this even further in that the proposal may only be made on February 29th.  If the man rejects such a proposal, he should soften the blow by providing a kiss, one pound currency, and a pair of gloves (or sometimes, a silken gown).

So ladies, go out and propose to your man today.  At the very least, you'll get a kiss, a couple bucks, and a pair of gloves or a new dress.  Unless, of course, your man is a complete cad.  In which case, WHAT ARE YOU DOING PROPOSING TO A COMPLETE CAD??

Happy Leap Day!

A–Attached or single: Very much attached. In fact, at this very moment, I'm madly, passionately, and wildly in love with my wife.

B–Best Friend: Look at the answer to A and you have the answer to B.

C–Cake or Pie: If I HAVE to choose, I'll pick pie, but I really like both. I made a homemade apple pie a couple of weeks ago that turned out WONDERFULLY.

D–Day of Choice: I love Saturday date nights with my love, and I love Sundays that I don't have tons of meetings.

E–Essential Item: Usually a computer. It's a source of both income and recreation for me.

F–Favorite Color: Blue

G–Gummi Bears or Worms: I enjoy worms more than bears of the gummi variety.

H–Hometown: I was born and raised in Billings, MT, but I now consider Pleasant Grove, UT my home. I've lived in Utah Valley since 1991 and in Pleasant Grove since 1998.

I–Indulgence(s): Food, food, and more food. I love cooking new foods and savoring every bite.

J–January or July: July. There are more paid vacation days to look forward to in July than in January. In January, they're in the too-recent past.

K–Kids: Two. I have the two most wonderful sons a person could ask for.

L–Life is incomplete without: a way to be the center of attention. I teach and do theatre for that particular purpose. :)

M–Marriage Date: June 7, 1991.

N–Number of Siblings: 4 brothers. All of our names begin with the letter D. Dad sometimes called us Big D, Big Middle D, Middle D, Little Middle D, and Little D.

O–Oranges or Apples: If the orange isn't bitter or off-tasting, I'll take it over an apple...unless the apple is grainy. I'd settle for clementines. They're ALWAYS juicy and tasty.

P–Phobias or Fears: Heights. Well, not so much heights as falling from them. Well, not so much the fall as the sudden deceleration at the bottom.

Q–Quote(s): "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be." --Douglas Adams

R–Reason To Smile: I'm in a play with my older son.

S–Season: Spring.

T–Tag Six: If you read this, you've been tagged.
U–Unknown Fact about Me: Another one of these?? Hmmm. You didn't know that I had Marshmallow Mateys and milk for breakfast today.

V–Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: If we weren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat? I LOVE a well-aged, properly prepared steak. I watched animal activist videos of meat slaughterhouses. It made me HUNGRY. It's been a while since I've had a good steak. But I also like Heidi's substitution of this question, so I'll answer that one too!

V–Venice or Florence: Can my wife and I come along on the trip to Venice first, THEN Florence. Then Venice again, with a side trip to Murano?

W–Worst Habit: Tuning people out when I concentrate on something.

X–X-Rays or Ultrasounds: I've had many x-rays. The only broken bone ever found was a cracked rib. I've had an ultrasound that diagnosed my gall bladder disease and made it necessary to have abdominal surgery. I also had an ultrasound on the Plantar Fascia of my right foot.

Y–Your Favorite Food: As I mentioned above, I love a properly aged, well-prepared steak. I wish I could afford Ruth's Chris.

Z–Zodiac: Virgo. But I haven't read a horoscope in years and years and years.

If my fever doesn't go away in the next little while, I'm going to go have a strep test done.  I currently have a deep chest cough, a 102-degree fever, and all of the associated congestion, headaches, etc.

Sucks to be me right now.

I just have to keep reminding myself that things could be SO much worse.  It's JUST a cold, right?  I don't have to have surgery or chemotherapy or may many other MUCH more unpleasant things.

Still...  I'm sick of being sick.

7:00 am - Alarm clock wakes me up. Roll over and remember that my wife is already at work.

7:10 am - Check to make sure that older son is up. Start making breakfast

7:15 am - Add some red food coloring to the waffle batter. The kids will get a kick out of that.

7:20 am - Wake up younger son and remind him to play his violin before school.

7:25 am - Remind older son to dress up for the music festival he'll be attending. Spend a couple of minutes grading quizzes that I'll have to return today.

7:35 am - Remind older son that we have to leave in 5 minutes.

7:40 am - Find out what older son is doing. He's not ready yet due to extra time needed to get dressed up.

7:45 am - Tell older son that we're already late.

7:50 am - Finally get out the door. Walk to car and realize that I don't have the keys. Rush back inside, grab them brush snow off of car.

8:00 am - Drop older son off at school.

8:10 am - Make breakfast for younger son. While he's eating it, improvise a couple of little packages of conversation hearts for younger son to tape to valentine cards since he was a couple of packages short.

8:25 am - Younger son asks if he can go to the Space Center for his school's overnight trip. Tell him that he can go, but realize that I don't have the checkbook, so I can't write out a check.

8:30 am - Try to take a quick shower, but get interrupted several times.

8:40 am - Finally get in the shower. Younger son is finishing getting ready for school.

8:47 am - Rush out the door with younger son. Drop him off at school about a minute before the bell rings.

9:12 am - Arrive at work. Walk inside. Answer cellular phone. Younger son forgot his Space Center form as well as the red vine licorice that is crucial to his class Valentines Day party.

9:13 am - Leave work to go home and get the stuff younger son forgot.

9:35 am - Drop missing stuff off at younger son's school.

10:05 am - Arrive at work AGAIN. Work frantically to catch up on stuff.

12:00 pm - Realize that during the frantic morning, I forgot to make a lunck.

1:00 pm - Meetings that last altogether too long

2:30 pm - Go back to desk and continue to work frantically.

4:30 pm - Leave work and go to school to do an exam review for my class.

4:50 pm - Get to my classroom and realize that the quizzes I graded that morning aren't in my school bag. Ugh.

5:00 pm - Teach my class.

6:25 pm - Class lets out. There are a hundred billion questions and issues.

6:40 pm - FINALLY head for home.

7:00 pm - Arrive home and heat up leftovers from yesterday's dinner.

7:30 pm - Try to spend a minute or two with my wife amid constant interruptions from both sons.

8:00 pm - Decide to get the boys ready to do whatever they need to for the rest of the night so I can watch a movie with my wife.

8:01 pm - Older son needs to talk with us. He's (understandably) stressed because of having been sick recently and has so much make-up work to do.

8:25 pm - Older son feeling better about things. Heads off to play his violin. Younger son now needs to talk.

8:50 pm - Younger son feeling better about things. Send him off to get ready for bed.

8:55 pm - Movie isn't going to happen. Put on an episode of M*A*S*H and watch it with only 3 or 4 interruptions.

9:25 pm - Watch one more episode of M*A*S*H while my wife falls asleep.

9:45 pm - Realize that I've spent all of about 15 waking minutes alone with my wife on Valentines Day. Get up to blog and play my guitar.

Happy Valentines Day.

On Friday afternoon, I started having some pain in my stomach area.  It was "lower right quadrant" pain, so I was suspecting the worst: appendicitis.

The pain didn't get any better, so on Saturday, I went into the instacare.  Fortunately, my doctor's office has an all-day urgent care clinic.

I was happy to find out that I DON'T have appendicitis.  Almost 10 years ago, I had my gall bladder out.  The pain was probably caused by adhesions of scar tissue from that previous abdominal surgery.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that if this pain doesn't go away, there's not much else they can do other than go back in and cut the adhesions, but that's another surgery, causing more scar tissue, which could then cause problems like this in the future.  Ugh.

Fortunately, I'm feeling somewhat better today.  I can stand up straight without being in pain.  Hopefully, the pain will be gone in the next couple of days.

For now.

The summary of my thoughts today:

I'm sooooooooooo sad for us.

I'm sooooooooooo happy for him.

*grateful tears*

Most of the people I work with I consider to be professionals. I work in a white-collar field with people that, for the most part, conduct themselves with professionalism and dignity.

Most.

One particular person that I don't often see in person (because he works on a different continent) is an enigma to me. Let me state up front that he's brilliant. He has no formal training in Computer Science, yet he's an incredibly good software engineer. He knows his stuff and his results speak for themselves.

But this guy has a MOUTH on him. Whoa!

Edited excerpt from a work-related chat today:

Me: (I explain the error message I'm seeing)

Him: f***ity f***ing f*** f*** f***
Him: that's f***ing retarded
Him: don't know what I was thinking

No, he didn't use asterisks.

When I have worked directly with him in the past (I got to spend a whole week with him in October), it's a never-ending stream of this profanity. If I were writing a review of the week for screenit.com, I'd rate "Profanity" as "Extreme." It would read something like "At least 169 "f" words, 63 "s" words (27 used with "house"), etc."

I just have to shake my head. I'm sure he doesn't even realize it. These words have become such a part of his language that he doesn't even realize that it might be considered profane.

I'm just glad I don't have to deal with him more often. Not that I don't like working with him, because without him, I'd have a much more difficult time doing my job. It would just be much better if EVERYTHING were kept on a more professional level.

In honor of starting guitar lessons today, here's a song by Bread:

Who draws the crowd and plays so loud,
Baby its the guitar man.
Who's gonna steal the show, you know
Baby its the guitar man,

He can make you love, he can make you cry
He will bring you down, then hell get you high
Somethin' keeps him goin', miles and miles a day
To find another place to play.

Night after night who treats you right,
Baby its the guitar man
Who's on the radio, you go listen
To the guitar man

Then he comes to town, and you see his face,
And you think you might like to take his place
Somethin' keeps him driftin' miles and miles away
Searchin' for the songs to play.

Then you listen to the music and you like to sing along,
You want to get the meaning out of each and evry song
Then you find yourself a message and some words to call your own
And take them home.

He can make you love, he can get you high
He will bring you down, then hell make you cry
Somethin' keeps him movin', but no one seems to know
What it is that makes him go.

Then the lights begin to flicker and the sound is getting dim
The voice begins to falter and the crowds are getting thin
But he never seems to notice hes just got to find
Another place to play,
Anyway got to play, anyway got to play.

I'm excited!  This should be a lot of fun.  And if I don't blog for a little while, I'm either practicing or I'm complaining about sore fingers!

I'm not necessarily a tall person, but I'm not a short person either.  The last time a doctor measured my height, he said, "Six feet tall exactly.  It doesn't get any six-footer than you."  I'd say that being six feet tall works fine for me.

Not that I really put a lot of stock in someone's height.  It's not like anyone by "taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature."  It's a complex combination of genetics and other factors that determines how tall one becomes in life.

The interesting thing is that I noticed the other day that I'm nearly the shortest person on my team.  My boss and four of the five other team members are all taller than me.  The other team member is only about an inch shorter than me.

I'd say that's a tall team, and a situation I'm not used to.  It makes me want to reiterate:

No.  I'm NOT short.