Off on A Tangent

A Flutey, Epic Limerick

2011-03-04T17:07:00.025-06:00

There once was a man named deMarcos
Who played a mad flute in a band.
He could hit the high "C"
With greatest of ease
And could press all the valves with one hand.

Well, deMarcos could do other things.
He was quite the Renaissance Man.
He could tie a bait fly
Make a mean Mince-Meat pie
And get dark with without having to tan.

To get the idea of his talents
I should also tell 'bout this one time,
When deMarc' had the itch,
and, without even the slightest hint of a hitch,
Wrote a limerick stanza of unmetered rhyme.

But his flute he played 'oft as he could.
For it was his primary passion.
Just like Jethro Tull,
He dreamed in his skull,
When tough, manly flutes would be fashion.

In between his flute session he would
do so many great things for all others.
He'd changed a flat tire.
Clean lint from a dryer.
And he'd fill in for absentee mothers.

But in private he practiced that flute
Be it morning or lunchtime or night.
He would practice his trills
Giving his Pet Snakes the thrills,
'til each Etude was perfectly right.

Out in public he was a great hero,
And the police were quite thankful, in fact
For he solved unsolved crimes
And, yes, there were times
An imposs'ble confession he'd extract.

But the flute he was always a thinking
About playing a grand march by Sousa.
Even though he might be
Helping all the blind see,
He dream of play'n Lollapalooza.

Then one day his big break did come.
The first chair grand flutist was ill.
He was called on to sit
In his chair in the pit.
He was par'lyzed with fear and sat still.

While he gathered cans for the Food Bank,
He thought, "what if I'm not good enough?
Some people will judge,
and they might hold a grudge.
Are my fluting skills all the right stuff?

He was only deMarcos, you know.
and "Of the Marcos" he had came.
His dad was a pheasant,
shoveled crap (not so pleasant),
All he wanted was fortune and fame.

As he saved a man's life in the street,
He told himself that he should toot his own horn.
Though a horn's not a flute,
No one there would refute,
That no better a flutist had been born.

He agreed, with his calendar marked,
and practiced his flute more than ever.
But the President phoned,
Then by Kutcher was "Qwned."
Then he fulfilled a UN endeavor.

Then the big night arrived and he flinched.
First chair in the grand symphony.
Would he find the right breath? Or would he find his death?
In the midst, would he have to go pee?

All these thoughts they did go through his mind,
As he broke up fight in the lobby,
Then he changed a wet diaper,
Milked a poisonous viper,
Then turned down the nose of the snobby.

"I am confident in all I do!
except in the one thing I love.
How ironic is it.
That now do I sit,
In the first chair of Alex Gregov?"

"I do hope that Alex recovers,
and is able to then take his place,
in this tight crucible,
that plays games in one's skull,
But tonight, that just isn't the case."

Then the curtains came up he felt,
that all eyes were upon him so fast,
"Where's Gregov?!" they purr,
"That's a big impostor,
Oh, tonight is a night to lambaste!"

But the flute solo comes just in time,
And deMarcos takes in his breath.
As he plays his third note,
from the crowd comes a bloat,
Some guy had just come to his death.

To make a short story long let me say,
That deMarcos thought not of the flute.
From where he did sit
He leapt from the pit.
To save the dead guy in the suit.

In that moment he thought not of his chance
To get what he always had wanted.
But only of others,
his sisters and brothers.
In these times he never was daunted.

The flute hit the floor with a crash
And the crown sensed the thickening plot.
With only sum gum
And a few nacho crumbs
He revived the dead man on the spot.

deMarcos, of course did not think,
As always he only reacted
What he never quite saw
Was how others in awe
By his acts were profoundly impacted.

Well, the guy that he saved was real big,
In stature as well as in clout.
Turned out the guy knew
A flute band or two.
And arranged him a private try-out.

After solving Fermat's Last Theorem
deMarcos auditioned with glee.
Though he still earned new patents
And peace-talked combatants,
He now played in a band happily.

Lost in Jeopardy

2010-03-08T16:59:00.017-06:00

Question: "Tony Parker, Hugh Hefner, and Kevin Korpi all have this in common?"

Give up? . . . . . .

Answer: "What is 'We won't be playing for the Spurs anytime soon--nor have we been in Cliff Clavin's kitchen.'"

I DID, however, try out for Jeopardy recently.

Inspired by reading A.J. Jacobs "Know It All," in which he tried out for Jeopardy, interviewed Alex in his home (after mistaking him for a friendly gardener), but never got the call to be on the actual show (he did, however, get onto "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," only to lose before the $32,000 lock-in by mistaking "erythrocyte" as "plasma" and not the obvious (answer that wasn't there) "parasite that feasts on erythroes"), I put my name in the hat to audition for the premiere "how much do you not know" game show (even though the money-to-knowledge ratio is MUCH higher on the Millionaire show . . . who, in their right mind would want to win more money by expending less mental energy on an inferior show??)

For the first time ever, Jeopardy was allowing auditions online rather than forcing a bunch of nerds to show at a physical location to take a paper test, much to the rejoice of socially-awkward brainiacs who otherwise would never get a chance to be on the show because it meant getting dressed, leaving the house, and interacting with other people's shoes. I liked the idea because of the convenience and the prospect of putting my 110 wrds-pr-minutz to dud usse withgoooggle as my frend.

I knew that the test would be designed so that even the most-cunning person--who could employ an army of question-googlers at low cost, all hooked up to separate computers, who never thought about what he would do if he ever made air time, other than say "Hi" to his mom before he went into negative land by the end of Double Jeopardy, only to be absent during the Final Jeopardy--would not be able to obtain an advantage over the lesser-cunning but sufficiently-knowledgeable prospective contestant. What I didn't realize is how nerve-racking the show's remedy would be.

Registering online several weeks before the scheduled date (January 27th, 2010 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time--sure to automatically disqualify anyone west of Georgia unable to do the time conversion), I logged onto the website using my secure password ************************* 30 minutes prior to the test beginning. A countdown clock immediately appeared. I thought only to crack my knuckles and to use the bathroom. Now came the wait, what I thought would be the toughest part.

While I watched the clock slowly click down, I sat in front of the computer pretending to take interest in my kids' day ("Daddy, today we got to hold a rattlesnake at school without wearing gloves!" "Wow, that sounds great. Keep up the great work.") and acquiescing to my wife's every whim ("Honey, should we sell the house and move in with my parents to save money?" "Yeah, sure babe." "Honey, how many pints are there in a gallon?" "Yeah, sure babe." . . . etc). I went through my favorite trivia in my head, mainly sports and presidential. I tried hard to go through my knowledge of European kings and queens, but I kept coming back to . . . "did my kid's say 'rattle' snake??!! Did Cleopatra die of a snake??? well, she's not European . . . supposedly . . . or was it Catherine the Great that died from a snake?? or was it a horse . . . or seahorse . . . "

I had 10 seconds to read each new category, read and process the question from that category, then type in my answer (thank goodness we didn't have to type in each of our answers in the form of a question, but if so required, I had my "Ctrl-V" button ready to automatically insert "Is it " . . . Spelling was not penalized, unless obviously egregiously incorrect (i.e. when I type in 'Montseguer' instead of the correct answer of 'Manhattan,' I shouldn't expect the show to neither offer correct spellings nor infer that I'm from Southwestern Alabama (on the very border of the Eastern/Central time zone).

The countdown reached its finale: 3-2-1

I was in a groove for the first two questions. I even had the hubris to answer question two with 10 seconds to spare, so I clicked the "next question" button rather than using the remaining 10 seconds to relax.

Category: "American Authors" Question: "She scored her first New York Times best-selling book 'The Lovely Bones' in 2002." CRAP! I just mentioned to my wife that I wanted to see the movie. CRAP! Ms. Blair was reading this just the other morning in my tutorials. I even commented to her that I wanted to see the movie. The author's name NEVER came up. Think carefully . . . you saw the cover from halfway across the room . . . what was the name on the bottom of the cover?? CRAP! why could the question not ask "What movie that's currently out in the theater are you most interested in seeing?" CRAP! With my wife and kids hanging over my shoulder, n a long shot, I type in "Danielle Steel" with 5 seconds to go, knowing that typing her tricky name in correctly would earn me partial credit with the Jeopardy judges (it's too bad that they don't accept "Danielle Steel" as an alternate spelling, alias, or pen name of the correct answer "Alice Sebold."

I hoped that the conviction with which I pressed the keyboard keys with what I knew was an incorrect answer, I would still by my family's hero. "Great answer!" said my son, who I think knew deep down it was "Sebold," but who I can't fault for being honest to a monetary and financially-free fault.

Only 47 to go.

And so the next 7 minutes and 50 seconds (I dare not hit "next question" ever again, instead using any extra time until the automatic advance kicked in to beseech my family to just "holler out on the next one if you know for sure!" I figured I'd try to cross the knowledge-gap on the actual show when I actually got there.)

When it was all over, I felt tremendously tense and stressed. Questions that I knew toward the end were made impossible by the ticking clock. Answers like "(Is it ) the lost symbol" to questions like "What is Dan Browns most recent best-seller that takes place in Washington D.C.?" (I had just read the book in two sittings not two months prior) eluded me. If it weren't for my calm, collected, acutely-ill, and selectively dishonest wife answering through her sudden cough, I would have missed an easy one! I feel like I answered at least thirty of the questions with certain accuracy (including spelling). I think I made great, educated guesses on another half of the other 20 ("Sanskrit" is ALWAYS a great answer to an "ancient language" question.) On the remaining ten, I was just typing in bogus answers at the remote chance of impressing my family and being correct.

As the test expired, and I was taken to my exit page, congratulating me for my nerdiness and willingness, I expected to see how I did. Instead, I was "greeted" with the disclaimer about how "scores will NEVER EVER EVER be revealed," and prospective candidates can be notified by phone or email within the next calendar year.

WT . . ?

How anticlimactic was THAT?!?!

And so I walked away from the computer on my 36th birthday to have a slice of birthday cake with my family at an hour way after my kids' bedtime, not knowing if I would turn 37 without a phone call from Alex Trebek.

My family still treated my like I was the smartest one in the family, even though my kids know better than to insult their mother so, perhaps because it was my birthday. I wouldn't trade my family for all the Jeopardy winnings in the world.

Two final notes:
1. My son's been watching recorded episodes of Jeopardy with me every night since. He knows who Alice Sebold is, and he definitely knows who Alex Trebek is. Fortunately, he and I get a chance to meet Mr. Trebek in person on April 12th, 2010 at Texas State University. I can only imagine the things my son will say to the "polite gardener."

2. A.J. Jacobs, the insightful, humorous, and great author (yes, great in the fantastic P.J. O'Rourke sense) who inspired me to finally try out (and whose "Year of Living Biblically" I'm currently reading and who's "Guinea Pig Diaries" sits on my desk to be read next) has an insatiable proclivity to "Google his own name," despite it being against the bible's teachings of vanity. I you, A.J., come across this blog, I invite you to email me at mrkorpi@korpisworld.com, subject line "The REAL A.J. Jacobs" (I get emails from those claiming to be you quite frequently). I've got some ideas to share with you, among them, Descartes penchant for cross-eyed women.

An important question

2010-03-04T15:43:00.011-06:00

I've often wondered if my bombastic, loose, witty lessons combined with my adult ADD (easily distracte---boy is it a beautiful day for a run today, if only my knees would cooperate), and minor Turret's (I have a difficult time having unspoken thoughts) help or hinder my ability to teach. In fact, my proclivity to wander off subject, take time out to explore a good joke, or interject random bits of trivia in no particular language is the main reason I entitle my blog "Off On A Tangent," that and that it was a great math pun (oh, yeah, I often say things in class that are punny).

My digressions tend to get worse throughout the day as I get tired, hungry, or begin thinking about what I'll do after school. They even get worse throughout the year, as my educational endurance reaches into its reserves. This year's been even worse having to adjust from a block schedule. I'm pretty much slap happy and sometimes ridiculously delirious by 2:00pm. Compound all that with the fact that I don't eat breakfast nor do I eat lunch (13 years now), relying instead on my morning dose of caffeine via 12 cups of dark, black coffee. By mid-afternoon, I'm not only hungry, my body is crashing. None of this is necessarily any good for my last period class of the day, a class that, more than any other of my classes, requires me to be focused, explicitly clear, and cognitively cogent. That class is BC calculus.

This time of year, in BC, we're getting into some pretty high-powered math, abstruse concepts and often paradoxical results (see Torricelli's Trumpet for an example), but the concepts become even more difficult to understand when they're not presented well. Granted, the students I'm expecting to just "pick up" on the ideas and their implications are among the top math students in the world, which means they'll probably understand in spite of any dereliction of duty on the didactical dictator's part. Everything has always worked out in the end, meaning all have gone on to do well on the AP exam in May, a successful, well-adjusted university career, and beyond. As a result, I've never tried to temper my enthusiasm or ballistic approach, but lately I've noticed that, left unchecked, I've progressed further and further, becoming what might seem more like incompetent lunatic, rather than eccentric math teacher.

I'm beginning to feel the judgmental eyes of the BC class as they wonder if their mathematical future is in good hands. What they don't realize is that I'm trying to come up with wonderful, meaningful examples on my feet, to try to make the lesson "fresher," more "relevant," and "customized," but it's very hard to come up with such examples from the hip. It's even more difficult when your exhausted, hungry, and "crazy." While my intentions are good, many of my impromptu examples have been dead ends, and while I can extract a valuable lesson from each of them (.... soooo this series actually diverges, ......sooooo we should never assume lest we make one of ourselves, .....soooooo here's why you should get plenty of sleep and plan all your extemporaneous speeches in advance), it's hard to save face in the eyes of our society's future top scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, clothing designers, and stay-at-home-parents.

So I'm contemplating the question: should I teach on the straight-and-narrow and lose all the interesting, memorable follies, foibles, and fallacies that go along with learning and teaching a great group of students, or should I continue to teach like I do, running the risk of a few moments where I look like an unprepared, incompetent, mathematician gone bonkers?

Or perhaps . . .

I could just start eating lunch?

Ode to ELA TAKS

2010-03-03T16:39:00.013-06:00

It's madness I tell you, we must be in March.
I'm monitoring so actively, my shirt's losing its starch.

Today is a big day, it's TAKS ELA
and there's so many rules that I have to obey.

No websites to browse, and nothing to read,
it's going to be a long day indeed.

I'll read like a robot in monotone voice
reminding the students to bubble their choice.

Read exactly what's written, there's no script deviation.
(These type performances get no standing ovation.)

"Backpacks to the front, turn off your cell phones.
bathroom's one at a time, you must go alone."

"No drinks except water, hurry, finish your drink.
There's no proof that energy drinks help your brain think."

"Speaking of brain food, have I some for you,
I'll now pass out something on which you may chew."

I then hand out crackers, and a peppermint candy.
"If you're hungry or've got bad breath, they'll each come in handy."

"Turn to page to in your book, No not that one,
Please don't turn at all 'til my words are done."

"Your test booklet's also known as 'the test,'
I'm not 'posed to say, but I will, 'do your best!"

"Your answer sheets the page on which you will bubble.
Please raise your hand if you are having trouble."

"You may begin," I eventually say,
As the ELA students begin to wend their own way

Through a myriad of passages that they all have to read,
it'll be a long day for them, too, quite indeed.

Now time moves so slowly that I hardly can feel it.
I'm watching the clock as if someone will steal it.

The only sounds made are pages turning to the next,
and the occasional grunt from the student whose perplexed.

Now I just sit there, twiddling my thumbs,
looking all around, smacking my gum.

I try to pass time by popping my knuckles,
A student just farted, now I'm suppressing the chuckles.

I'm crossing my legs, one over the other,
and sharpening pencils, one after another.

Humming all kinds of great songs in my head,
stopping only to put a sharp point on a lead.

I can't do much else, lest the students all cheat.
Then I lose my job and have nothing to eat.

No, I've got to keep watching them, I must stay alert.
"Is that boy out of dress code? Should he tuck in his shirt?"

Many times there's eye contact. "Great, they think that I'm leering."
"Wait just a second, that guy's wearing an earring."

Oh the grand thoughts that do go through my mind,
"Did I start them too late, is the world now behind?"

My pacing is wearing out holes in my floor,
Oh great! there's some action, a kid's started to snore.

I wake him up gently and set him on course,
(he looks more bored than I do, now I'm filled with remorse.)

But no one may sleep during a standardized test.
Those without diplomas will surely attest.

If you're not awake, then you can't show your knowledge,
much less can you go to a nice four-year college.

To their every need, I eagerly cater.
Sometimes, though, it feels like I'm just a TAKS waiter.

What's with all the pencils?! I make lots of trips,
I feel I should ask if they'd like salsa and chips.

There's so many students who are sniffling and sneezing,
(perhaps its because I keep my room freezing.)

At least I have tissues, gives me something to do,
walk around with Kleenex asking, "have you nasal goo?"

No, I really don't do that, but I think it, it's true.
They get their own tissues. What's a bored teacher to do?

On part one, for each student, verbal aid is okay,
Dictionaries, Thesauruses, can help compose essays.

But part two is different, they must spell on their own,
Even if, for them, the true's spelling's unknown.

I move Dictionaries from desk A to desk B,
as I hope my break's coming soon, 'cause I gotta pee.

(dang all that coffee, by now I should know,
that favors are returned ala "quid pro quo')

I've ne'er given potty breaks an anyone lately,
I regret that now that I've got to pee greatly.

Great, just on time, my relief is here,
"I'll be back in a flash! You just saved my career!!!"

Returning refreshed, I can now go all day,
We're all that much closer for ELA going 'way.

But wait, who's on part two and who's still on one?
Part one uses dictionaries, part two uses none!

But while I was out, only one student switched,
(Thank goodness she told me 'bout which one was which.)

The next phase is blurry, I'm not sure how it passed,
I don't mean to say it went by real fast.

As the clock on the wall slowly ticked toward one-o- clock,
We all leaned towards the door like a giant trapped flock.

Then the announcement came, "Students please go to fourth."
and with the announcement, all the students went forth.

To go to real classes, they couldn't wait to return,
Who knew they'd all be so eager to learn.

But learning was hard with such 'breviated classes,
Teachers barely had time to count lads and lasses.

I spent my few minutes with each of my own,
finding the volume of right circular cones.

Then the day finally ended, we were done with the drill.
At least we get to do it all again, come April.

I ain't 'fraid of no Spring

2010-03-01T16:48:00.008-06:00

Today's not only the first day of March (already!) but also the first day of the work week (already!!) and the first day of the 5th six weeks grading period on campus (already!!!). So while it's a day of new beginnings, including this beginning paragraph of my now "plan your mortgage payment around my consistently reliable" monthly blogs, it's also a red-letter day for things coming to an end.

Sadly, the weekend is over once again. It seems like there's always more hours between Monday and Friday than there ever are between Saturday and Sunday (and I guess that's for a reason). I never get the time to do all the things I always mean to on the weekends. With all the practice we have getting used to Monday morning arriving all too quickly, you'd think we'd be great at facing Mondays, but it never gets any easier. At least we had some great weather yesterday and Saturday, and it was so nice to be watching it through a window while labored over a computer writing three more letters of recommendations. I did get some great time with my own two children (and even my wife!), after which I told them that I was "sincerely grateful for the time we spent together, and that I enthusiastically and wholeheartedly recommended them for a scholarship." Indeed, the weekends should be called the "strong" ends.

Good thing I love my job, so Mondays aren't really something I dread. In fact, I was rather excited about going to school today, because today marked the first day of the end of something else: my tenure as interim Statistics teacher. No offense to all the wonderful stat students I got to teach the past two months, and no offense to statistics itself, which is, after all, still math (and boy do I love math at least as much as I love jalapenos, and I DO love jalapenos and coffee (not together, though) (see previous blog entries)). Rather, the relinquishing of statistics to its rightful, maternity-leave-returning teacher gives me much of my free time back, time that can now be spent doing other productive things like blogging, helping my daughter spell "George Washington," trimming Crepe Myrtles, feeding my two dogs (they're so awfully thin!), writing letters of recommendation before 2 a.m., and calculating confidence intervals just 'cause I wanna.

Best of all, the temporary teaching arrangement, which required my department head to teach my 2nd period precal class after observing me teach it 1st period so that she could ensure that my own 2nd period precal class, the one I would be leaving in the hands of the department head so that I could go across the hall to teach statistics to a different class, which I learned to also call "my own," would get the exact same lesson so that when I quizzed them the next day, when I was back, while the stat class worked on a worksheet that covered the lesson from the previous day, would be able to do well on the quiz I was to give them that covered precal material I did not teach them but that they were still, nonetheless, taught. Yeah, all that is over. The department head gets her planning period back, I get my 2nd period precal class back full-time, the returning stat teacher gets her stat class back (albeit much, much smaller since her absence spanned the semester break at which time many stat students dropped), and the stat-teacher's full-time substitute, who was teaching the stat teacher's geometry classes every day but not the stat class but who rather graded geometry papers and entered grades in the stat classroom while I taught the stat class while the department head taught my precal class while the original stat teacher was at home spending deserving, quality time with her newborn daughter, in the house, that incidentally, Jack built . . . I forgot where I was going with this.

Anyway, the smell of spring is in the air, even if we're smelling it outside with our winter coats on, prepared on any given night to still leave our hose-bibs dripping outside during a flash-Texas-overnight freeze. Everything is being reborn and coming out of the winter dormancy (if you're St. Augustine grass or Crepe Myrtles), hibernation (if you're a bear or a lazy math student), of the doldrums (if you're a wind north of the equator of prone to the blaaaahs). There are only 3 very busy and exciting months left in the school year, during which softball and baseball seasons must be played, getting ready for AP exams must be gotten, Swine Flu must be avoided, Prom dates must be finalized, banquets much be planned, and seniors begin to feel both the excitement of graduation and the nervousness that comes with the reality that they will be leaving their household to enter college--the first step into the unforgiving dog-eat-dog world. It's also a time for teachers to dig in their heels and pull each and every student across the finish line. Without the stat class, there are just fewer people for me to have to pull across that line.

Not that I'm not strong enough to do it, I just need all my strength to finish writing all those letters of recommendations.

It's time to step up and spring forward (almost, officially, it's 2 a.m. on March 14, 2010).

Happy Holiday!!

2010-02-01T16:50:00.015-06:00

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day.

I'm so excited, I can hardly wait.

Around my house, February 2nd might as well be April 12th, because although it's NOT "Big Wind Day," (that holiday blows me away) it IS the only day of the year where a giant ground squirrel known as a "Marmot," "Land Beaver," "Whistle Pig," or "Woodchuck," gets a chance to play prognosticator to a bunch of adoring U.S. citizens who are eagerly waiting to see if they get to pack their winter coats in the attic trunk, or if they have a good excuse to overeat and wear silly looking sock hats for 6 more weeks.

It does seem kind of silly to watch a Marmot emerge from his den, decide if his reactions constitute him NOT seeing his shadow, then inferring that it means that the cold snap is soon to end, and to infer that if his reactions imply that he HAS seen his shadow, that we are due precisely 1.5 months of Winter. Silly, perhaps, but people have been married and wars have been started over much sillier concepts (take the American Revolution, for instance, where England, WAY over there across the Atlantic told American Colonists to follow its rules, to send them most of their money, to not brush their teeth, and to drive on the left side of the road--Outlandish!!!)

Now, if it were any old groundhog (do you think they got their name because they ran off all the moles, rabbits, and other burrowing animals??), then my family and I wouldn't take any more stock in the annual holiday than we do with the evening forecast on the local news channels. But this is not an ordinary Marmot, no! It's Punxsutawney Phil, a dapper little rodent from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, a city renown for its funny name, the proclivity of its local men to don overcoats and top hats, and their bizarre fascination for Whistle Pigs.

With Christmas and New Year's recently behind us, I'm excited about the next BIG holiday. While it isn't a day we get to miss work and school for (officially . . . YET), my family and I still adorn our house with a myriad of Groundhog Day decorations (quit laughing. yes, they DO make them). With lit candles (rodent scent), we festoon the small crawl space in the hall closet beneath the stairs with brown streamers to simulate the actual "Gobbler's Knob" where the "Real" Phil lives (I hear they replace him every year, and that he lives in Jersey on the other 354 days of the year). Our hand-made banners are strew throughout the house stating our individual result preferences of what Phil will do (we tell ourselves that we can "agree to disagree.") Phrases like "Shadow Please. I LOVE to sneeze" or "No Shad-OW, Cold's gotta go" become rallying points as my son, daughter, and wife align against me (if it weren't for them, I'd live in Montana and have my own pet woodchuck, whereby I'd teach him chuck wood.)

What my family doesn't realize is that I REALLY want winter to continue NOT because I enjoy having all the "dead from not being watered and not from being frozen" plants in my garage taking up my wood shop space in my garage, but because I simply don't like to sweat, and by "sweat," I don't mean work (like the work involved in taking all the dead plants back outside again), but rather the actual act of having to perspire because I'm HOT. This is the same reason I keep my classroom as cold as possible (it also helps to preserver the math). Besides, if it stays cold for another 6 weeks, that's more time to snuggle and spoon . . . but I've said too much.

So anyway, tomorrow might be just another February 2nd to you, and winter is going to come and go as it pleases (several times a season here in Texas), but to ME, its a day that pays homage to the fact that prediction, especially about the future, is so easy, a cute rodent can do it, and how we, as humans, have an inherent desire to look forward and report/talk about things, even if it means looking forward to something we don't desire.

At least we always have something to talk about: If Phil's correct, we marvel at how nature enables it's creatures with innate, accurate instincts. If Phil's wrong, we marvel at how grown men in tuxedos can place all their beliefs in the animalistic whims of a rodent.

Gotta go.

It's time for me to light the "Rodent-smelling" candle and dust off my top hat.

Addiction

2010-01-26T17:04:00.011-06:00

I've heard that pregnant woman sometimes get cravings for some pretty outlandish, unconventional combinations of things to eat. . . whether they're edible or not. Mac and cheese with lobster tail is quite common. Grilled cheese with Gain laundry detergent . . . not so much. These cravings usually pass, and a normal diet is resumed (even though the husband has a much harder time getting off his "empathy diet for two").

Well, I know I'm not pregnant (I hope), and although I LOVE the smell of Gain, I haven't had the urge to sprinkle it all over my Post Toasties in the morning (I really don't eat any breakfast, but I thought the imagery would work for the general reader). What I HAVE had an insatiable craving for lately (3 months now, qualifying it as more than a craving, fad, or "Tonight Show" host guarantee) is for something with much less "dirt-lifting" capabilities as any laundry soap. I've truthfully been addicted to

jalapenos

(I don't know how to type a Tilda. Perhaps I'll figure it out by the time I'm through with this post and these three plump, verdant, spicy jalapeno peppers currently in front of me). By addiction, I mean that I can't even do a decent math problem anymore without a fiery sensation in my mouth and some masticated seeds in my belly.

I've eaten so many lately that I can't even support my habit by shopping at the local HEB, not only because it was eating a hole in my wallet, but because they weren't eating a big enough hole in my stomach (weren't hot enough). I've resorted to shopping at CostCo, a place I used to make fun of for stocking a 5-gallon tub of mayonnaise. Now I've embraced their 6 pound, 4 ounce container of pre-sliced AND whole jalepnos (not yet) which are both cheap ($6) and sufficiently hot (4600 Scoville heat units).

My first trip to the warehouse superstore, I bought two containers and was barely able to make it through the check-out line before I dug into the one containing the whole jalapenos (wait for it). How embarrassed was I when I hit the exit door and had to explain my pepper addiction to the lady with the Black Sharpie, and that the two "unaccounted" jalepeños (DID IT!) were evident on my breath. Talking to her up close avoided me a nasty confrontation with CostCo security (who incidentally wield MUCH larger and MUCH sharper Sharpies).

On my second trip to the store (after I ran out of the first batch), I was determined to buy enough jalapeños (Two in a row!) for any pepper enthusiast trapped in a bomb shelter. I bought a thousand containers!!! (actually, it was only 4, but the cashier looked at me as if it were 1000 and that I had plans to use them in some kind of chemical warfare . . . perhaps the look was because of the 5 gallon jar I mayonnaise I bought that day--who uses all of THAT?!)

With every meal, I found myself loading up with heaps and heaps of the glorious peppers.

Breakfast: Breakfast tacos? Make mine a harvest of jalapenos (missed one), oh, and if you can wrap it up in a tortilla and add a few scrambled eggs and a strip of bacon, that would be great!

Lunch: I usually only drink water for lunch. Now I was eating at least two full peppers and, surprisingly, less water (the heat never seemed to bother me, and whole jalapeños (redemption) are so moist that you actually end up squirting an unsuspecting victim no less than 5 feet away as you bite into one.

Snack: A new eating time of day I have devoted exclusive to munching on whole jalapeños.

Dinner: This is usually with the family. It doesn't matter if it's Hamburger Helper (business idea: "Jalapeño Helper"), New York Strips, Deluxe Cheeseburgers with Jalapeño Jack Cheese marinated in jalapeño juice with fried jalapeño slices on top, I add I giant heap of sliced jalapeños to the top of everything. Surprisingly, no one in my family wants to kiss me after dinner, not even my two dogs.

I can't explain the sudden craving and tolerance for this pepper. I don't want Habañeros, Serranos, or ghost peppers--they're just painful. I just want the heat and taste of the jalapeño, but that's just as odd. Growing up, even though it was in the Rio Grande Valley where everything was Mexican Cuisine and Salsa was king, I had ZERO tolerance for heat ("pica" not "calor"). I was a lightweight "Bolio!" My friend once "tricked" me, in 2nd grade, into eating a whole jalapeno (he told me it was the non-Tilda type, which was more like a pickle than a jalapeño . . . not to mention the fact that he was going to give me a "Washington" for my daring feat. Aside from getting a piece of popcorn stuck in my throat for over a week, it was the worst childhood experience of my life. I got my quarter (not even a dollar!), but I spent the rest of the night doing the "Curly Shuffle" all over the living room floor as my stomach distended from gallons of water I thought would quench the fire.

Since then, I've stayed as far away from them as I could. Pickles were too similar in texture, crunch, and color that I couldn't even watch "Larry the Cucumber" on "Veggie Tales" with my kids when they were young (I know . . . he's a cucumber, not a pickle), thereby missing an important chapter of their lives because of a disturbing chapter in mine.

NOW, I'm buying my own raw peppers at a farmer's market, pickling them by the pounds, and storing them in my garage as if I were some colonial Puritan, eagerly anticipating the day whereby I can open them and chomp them down jar by jar. Not only can I not explain my sudden appetite for them (like I can for the Jonas Brothers' music--my KIDS like them), but I have no explanation why I have a new-found tolerance for "pica" heat.

Why just a couple of days ago, I was at an all-you-can-eat Chines buffet (please don't ask why, just realize that I have a HORRIBLE short-term memory) with some friends, and I had loaded on my plate all the "spicy" crusty entrees that were coagulating under a heat lamp. From "Spicy Joe's Chicken" (is Joe a Chinese guy?) to "Chicken with Brocolli and Jalapeños," I had my plate piled with the spiciest, least-fresh (apparently most people avoid these types of food, so they're the most likely to be left-over from . . . . last week), I made my way to the sushi. Now, I have an even more horrible experience with Sushi than I ever did with jalapeños (and I've yet to get a sudden, irrational craving for it), but next to the Sushi was a small tub of green paste which resembled guacamole sauce . . . and I absolutely LOVE guacamole, especially if its got jalapeños in it.

Knowing it was actually Wasabi, I piled a giant scoop of it onto my fried Won-Ton and headed back to my table with a practical joke of my mind. Back at the table, I commented how funny it was that a Chinese restaurant would have guacamole on its buffet, as I slid the corner of the fried Won-Ton containing the gigantic gob of Wasabi into my mouth. The looks from the table were noticeably those of alarm and concern as they grabbed for their cell phone to dial 9-1-1.

"That's . . . uh . . . not guacamole! Spit it out man." The effect was exactly as I had hoped. Not only did my sinuses immediately open and my eyes began to flood with tears that would make Niagara falls look like "Stinky Falls" (a local falls much smaller and less impressive as those in New York). I held my ground and acted like nothing had happened. My jalapeño training had prepared me for this.

To make a long story short, I now have to budget for 6-pound containers of jalapeños, I'm currently saving for a separate room to store these containers, and I can play funny jokes on friends at restaurants.

I can't explain why all this is so. Perhaps it's because I'm getting older (I turn 36 tomorrow), or because it's because I got kicked in the head by a mule a few months ago. All I know is that I'd LOVE to see that childhood "friend" of mine again, accept his bet, and DEMAND a dollar bill--that would go a long way towards my next 6-pound tub.

Mathematical Musings XVIII

2010-01-22T07:03:00.005-06:00

I hear a lot of things in my math classes like, "When is the bell going to ring," "Can we use our calculator," and sometimes even things like "I wish Mr. Korpi would assign more homework," and "Wow! I think I actually understand this stuff." What I hear, though, is nothing compared to what my poor students have to hear coming from my mouth. Here's another installment.

Math is the language of the Universe. This means it is the language of love, too. So, for Valentine’s Day, I wrote my wife the following poem:

My love for you is like a one-to-one monotonic increasing function.

Together we have passed the Vertical and Horizontal line test.

For each of me, there is always only one of you.

But it’s your Vertical Asymptote that I like the best.

(After she read it, you’d have thought I had divided by zero!!)

Jimmy Carter Plumbing: Getting you out of sticky situations Peanut Better than any other nut out there
My first T-ball practice went great! Of the ten kids, there was only one kid who wasn’t doing what I asked. He was running around, going to the bathroom, playing on the nearby stacked drainage pipes and playgrounds instead of playing the field like all the other boys and girls. When we got home after practice, he got in BIG trouble.
Gabriel’s Horn is a paradox: It’s like a bell of a trombone that extends to infinity, but it holds a finite amount of paint, however, you could never buy enough paint to give the outside a single coat!
Don’t just do something!!! Stand there!
If you liked that last problem, you’ll love this one! If you didn’t like the last problem, you’ll still love this next one, because you should have liked the last one.
Since we’ve had a quiz every class for the last two weeks, we definitely won’t have a quiz next time in class . . . . . . . . . . . unless it is a pop quiz.
If you forgot to put the “+C” at the end of the problem either take off 5 points or add it there really quickly so that I don’t know you left it off. Also, it the second case, please also hit yourself violently in the head and yell, “Geeeeesh, I’m not going to THAT again.”
I’m giving out truckloads of free advice and help Monday through Friday each week and some of you come in here without a container to put it in!
Of course this integration stuff is difficult, lest you become bored and sick of it all!
I have already not said that before. Now please, don’t make me not say it again!
The other day, I twisted my ankle playing with my kids. I tripped over a hole that was sticking up out of the ground.
Student: Korpi, are you going to skip tomorrow and go the soccer game? Korpi: Go to the soccer game, I might, but unfortunately, I cannot skip anymore . . . bad knee.
If you're not confused, you haven’t been paying attention.,
I’m right 95% of the time. I don’t worry about the other six percent.
Oh, Discrete Math!! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
OK, if I have ten marbles in a bag, what’s the probability of drawing out a red coin on the first throw?
Anitsesquipedalian is a make believe word that means ‘to be opposed to the use of large, imaginary words.’
Think Five. High Five. Five-Alive. Math Power to all. Go AP!!
I mean that it’s not so much the mode as the median.
I think all my jokes are funny. Funny, weird, though. Not funny, ha, ha! Weird, isn’t it?
Let’s just do this example for kicks and giggles.
OK, let’s stay focused and not waste our time engaged in idle discourse . . . hey, where’d you get that shirt?
In Mathematics, they seldom don’t never not disprove things by not concealing the fallacy of the negation of the opposite of a statement. For real!
Ever since my son was severely burned by the hot frying oil, he has a newfound respect for heat. He is now much, much more careful when playing around volcanoes.
Why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 devoured 9, or something like that, I think it was 9.
In middle school, I played trumpet in the jazz band. It was a blast!
I may do foolish things, but I do them with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the key.
I don’t want to over generalize, but every teacher in the world who uses this method, uses this very method.
I only do math on days that end in “y,” and every other day in between.
You either get this stuff, or you don’t. Most of y’all fall into one of these two categories.
For your next test, please learn the material well enough to get an “A,” or learn it just well enough to fake getting an “A” so that I cannot tell the difference.
Boy, if I had a nickel for everytime I heard that, I wouldn’t have enough nickels to rub two of them together.
So, when you tell me you don’t “understand anything,” what specifically do you not understand?
Could you possibly imagine a day without doing math????!!!! Well then, if only your math skills were as strong as your imaginations, we wouldn’t have a problem.!!
Student: Mr. Korpi, I didn’t do my homework. Korpi: Ha, ha, ha, ha. That was a good one. . . . Wait a minute. What did you say? For a second there, I thought you said you did your homework.
I can guarantee success on the next test if you follow these simple procedures: Pay attention in class, take good notes, do your homework, and work your review sheet 22 times without any help from me, friends, or notes. Yep, that should do it.
Guess, what?! If you only focus on the grade and not the learning, you only get the grade, you don’t get the learning. The grade only lasts you through the next report card, the learning last at least 3 days longer.
I’m sorry, am I teaching over your head? Well, it would help if you weren’t ducking at everything I said.
Sure, it’s easy for me because I’m the teacher. Do you think I was born a teacher? NO!! I had to actually DO the math to learn it, just like you . . . errrr I mean, NOT like . . . well, do you get my point? Probably not. The answer is 5. Next question, good luck in the real world.
Why do I like math so much? The answer is quite simple, it’s because it is so easy to teach, and it makes teaching so easy. It is the only subject that practically teaches itself, that everybody understands, people are naturally fired-up about math. All I have to do is point, and my job is done. So why do I like math? Out of selfishness, laziness, economy, and greed. Why are you in my class?
So converting three feet gives us approximately, no exactly, 15 toes.
Let’s see. 36 + 7. That’s . . .Ok . . .carry the one, divided by . . .borrowing from the neighbor . . .divided by . . . times . . . taking the log .. . . verifying . . . ok . . . that makes . . . oops, forgot to round . . . ok. . . approximately 43.0000000.
Life sucks, then you walk into math class. Guess what?! Get over it!! This is an elective
I don’t know how to ask you any nicer to “shut the heck up” than to say, “please, shut the heck up, or I will assign math problems until you understand it.” You certainly don’t want that, do you?
I’ve noticed that as the years roll by, I’m more interested in bread.
As time goes by, I become more jaded, more cynical, more fat, and more old. I wish I wasn’t so jaded (and that I could use my comparative adjectives poetically-er).
Did you hear the great news????!!!!! I bet not, since your mathematical confustication has you screaming at the top of your lungs.
I’m doing super-bum-ously great . . . but fear not, I’m getting much better.

In defense of mathematics

2010-01-21T16:10:00.007-06:00

Today I got an email from a former student whose college professor had them takes sides in a letter written by a pre-law student, who, thinking that math was irrelevant to his career, was asking to be "excused" from having to take any more math courses.

Naturally, my former student decided NOT to defend the student who had written the letter, but against the idea that math is not important for becoming an attorney. She, along with about half the class, had to defend their position (not a bad assignment), but was shocked to hear after the assignment that her own professor not only defended the student, but actually took sides AGAINST the students that took sides against the letter-writing student, citing reasons, among others, that a student shouldn't have to waste what would amount to an extra year of undergraduate studies taking unnecessary math courses if their profession of chose didn't use math.

I got a plaintive letter from this student who was bothered by her professor's immediate dismissal of her group, not to mention the professor was WRONG!

She asked for my opinion, and here's my response:

First of all, it's a poor student who has to take another year of college simply because of math credits. A REAL student, pre-law especially, should be crafty and slick enough to fit those courses in without having to take extra an extra year. Just take 18 instead of 12 hours, and cut out unneeded electives like "ballroom dancing" and "Advanced Golf."

Secondly, people with great math skills who also have great communication skills make great lawyers. Mathematics requires deductive reasoning, drawing sound inferences, creatively conjecturing as well as demanding patient pertinacity, attention to detail, the discipline of concentrated daily efforts, and forges the habits of mind I would hope any lawyer defending ME would have (not that I plan on needing a lawyer).

In fact, I took the LSAT once and scored quite well on it. The test had many, many questions requiring the skills mentioned above, especially logic (which is a branch of mathematics). I attribute my great score to my math background.

True, you'll probably never have to find the integral of a trig function in order to save a client from death row, but anyone who says that the benefits of taking math courses would not help him become a better attorney, for reasons already mentioned, will probably end up being the type of attorney that advertises on TV and in phone books.

The best attorneys, like the best doctors, and any other professional, don't need advertising and AREN'T in it for the money.

I hope that answers your question, if not settles the debate.

Feel free to share my response with your professor.

By the way. I took the LSAT out of curiosity, not necessarily because I wanted to be a lawyer.

The Anti-Santa

2009-12-17T16:48:00.003-06:00

Sung to the tune a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

(Let me hear you now, with feeling!)

Atnas the Christmas burglar,
He cased out a family's house.
Waited until the dad left,
And the daddy's pretty spouse.

Knowing that no one's home now,
He proceeds onto their land,
Atnas the Christmas burglar,
implements his rotten plan.

He begins out on the porch, taking stereos.
Then he moves into the back,
Stuffing things into his sack

Then he went for the tool shed,
Taking all my garden stuff,
He probably pet my dogs' heads,
'Cause the neighbors never heard them "rufff."

Instrumental (as the criminal loads his car in my circular drive and gets ready to leave the property)

Atnas the Christmas burglar,
has things that belong to me.
He's really made me angry,
although he's made my dog's happy.

I've searched through all the pawn shops,
Haven't found my trimmer yet,
At least I still have my family,
including two bad watch dog pets.

Thank you God, at Christmastime, amid our shopping sprees
Nothing's as important as
A good insurance policy

Now I just hug my children,
and I also kiss my wife.
But I sleep with eyes open.
Take my stuff but ne'er my life.

Evil Santa

2009-12-15T15:44:00.007-06:00

You've gotta love the environment around a high school campus on the last day of class before final exams leading up to Christmas break. While the majority of students are exempt from their final exams, the halls are as dense and as festive as they are going to be until next year when everyone comes back to school rejuvenated with a hankering for mathematical instruction. Indeed, if there was ever a day where students could use an extra minute in between classes, today would be the day as they casually mender to and from their classes, not worried about being late and missing the first part of the in-class movie.

Not all classes, though, are showing movies. No, some are dedicated study halls where 28 out of 30 students play cards, chess, or draw festive pictures on the board while of the 2 students who actually have to take the final exam, one is asleep in a pool of slobber on his desk no doubt dreaming of working his review problems, while the other student is absent.

There are some classrooms, however, that are the exception to the "dead week" rule: those that forge ahead with new material up until the bitter end. These classes are, of course, the "uncool" classes with the "tyrant" teachers who never give students a break. These tyrants, realizing that most of their pupils (students, not eye parts) are not studying for the finals from which they are exempt anyways, uses every instructional technique in his arsenal of torture to hold the students' feet to the fire until the bitter end. Having quizzes and new lessons for which he, the unfavorable despot, will hold the kids accountable upon their return in January.

"It's not holiday break yet," he's heard to say as a faint, almost inaudible "muuuuuuuhaaaaahaaaaa" enters the consciousness of the forlorn students in attendance, their plaintive cries falling on deaf ears. "Trust me, I'm not only a ruthless dictator, I'm a professional educator," the oppressing autocrat sneers as his pupils (eye parts not students) dilate in ecstasy. It does no good for the already-crushed spirits of the students when the slavedriving wet-blanket of a teacher points out that if he were to allow partying and festivities in his classroom on an instructional day, not only would he be a terrible ward of the taxpayers and their parents' money, but he would have to compensate by giving a classroom lesson on Christmas morning in each students' home in their living room in front of the tree (quid pro quo), and logistical nightmare almost as daunting as Santa's himself, but an egregious violation of church and state. This message falls on deaf ears, much like the ensuing lesson.

So what sort of teacher would do such a thing on such day as the day before the day before most students begin their weeks-long vacation? A teacher that has the students' best interests in mind. A great teacher who has his eyes on the horizon and not just the ground in front of him (this is a great skill to have, but you have to have your eyes on the ground in front of you too, or you're likely to trip on a pothole while jogging on an unrepaired road at night at college right in front of a sorority lawn party . . . . you don't want to learn THAT the hard way . . . like some person I know).

Yes, I'M the person who has done all these things, quizzes on the day before finals AND the tripping thing. Luckily, my students know we very well, and they expected nothing less. Hopefully they also comply (somewhat) willingly because they actually REALIZE that I have their best interests in mind, that I LOVE math, and that there's no greater gift than the gift of knowledge.

It was very rewarding these past two days being the tyrannical, mathematical Santa. Let me just recite the final part of the quotient rule in calculus by saying . . .

Ho Ho.

If cavemen could speak

2009-12-14T17:16:00.007-06:00

I hate to always rant and rave about the negative, but stupid people and stupid rules get me much more agitated than the smart, competent ones. Although blogs about the wonder of rainbows and the joy of a long-awaited and much needed rainstorm do wonders for increasing our awareness of the good things in life and help us to "count our blessings," they don't do NEAR enough to help us get those chips off our shoulder.

I'm convinced language was invented out of man's innate need to complain about things that effected and affected him.

(rock hits caveman on head)

without language: caveman rubs head and tries to look up at spot on head only to realize he can't see it. continues to rub head.
with language: caveman yells "WTH!!" and feels better instantly

(caveman told to do something asinine lest he lose his caveman status)

without language: caveman rubs his head and wonders what the rubbish of sounds coming from the caveman making the threat actually mean and how he can actually lose his "caveman" status.
with language: caveman yells "WTH!!" then points out that the person making the demand is nothing but an unintelligible caveman and that he would actually PREFER to lose his "caveman" status, if it were even possible, so that he wouldn't have to be associated with such asinine cavemen.

(caveman told to quit making high-quality tools out of flint to attend a seminar put on by another caveman on how to make high-quality tools out of flint, whereby the presenter has never actually made a high-quality tool out of flint, but has rather only read about them in "books," incidentally carved into stone tablets by tools developed by the man forced to attend)

without language: caveman forced to attend points to his arsenal of tools and grunts puzzlingly.
with language: caveman forced to attend yells "WTH!! Have you ever actually noticed what I'm doing here?! I'm making the darned actual tools you caveman! Look here! Tools. They don't make themselves, but then again, seminars don't attend themselves, I get it. Why wasn't I at least asked to lead the seminar on tool making. I could have actually brought some of my samples. By the way, did you know that saber tooth tigers salivate when they hear about cavemen seminars? . . . What's that???!!! You want me to bring my stone carving tool that I made to the "tool making" seminar that I'm forced to attend so that all the other caveman in attendance can use it to sign in so that their attendance can be well-documented!!!

I'm guessing that since we as a civilization are well passed the caveman era, that we DID eventually begin to speak, and that we developed because bad ideas were voiced and pointed out. This is why caveman committees are not read about and why the saber tooth tiger is extinct. Unfortunately, we are forgetting common sense and our voices are falling on deaf ears. The process and "knowledge" of tool-making is transplanting the product, the importance, utility, and palpability of something real and meaningful, itself.

In a world where students are expected to train to build tools by reading about the process, then being tested on the process itself, it's no surprise that they, when thrown out into the tool-building world, must finally begin their education. It's also no surprise that the teachers actually skilled in tool building who try to teach the physical craft to their apprentices, when constantly required to attend (and document that they attend) tool-building seminars, are exiting the profession.

No extinct species can ever return from their ultimate demise, but I think the caveman is making a strong case to the contrary. If this happens, the saber-toothed tiger will soon follow. Perhaps we need more saber-toothed tigers on the loose BEFORE we all become cavemen again.
Hey, I think it's raining outside . . .

A perfect way not to spend a day

2009-12-09T17:30:00.008-06:00

There are two things I simply cannot do. I cannot sit standing, and I cannot stand sitting.

Although they are both physically impossible (send photo evidence to the contrary and I reciprocate by showing you evidence of division by zero), the latter is something I also cannot tolerate, and booooy did I get to practice my patience today.

As a self-diagnosed adult with ADD (among other ailments), my mind tends to wander without much effort. Although this can be a source of constant creativity and insomnia, there are other side-effects, namely my inability to sit still for extended periods of time as well as my lack of interest in people who ramble, babble, talk incessantly, go on and on, are redundantly repetitive, . . . Being the adult and professional that I am, there are times where I can focus my attention with the skill of a veteran Yogi and feign enough interest so that it appears to those around me that I DON'T have ADD, but perhaps only suffer from a pinched nerve in my coccyx and neck. Today was one of those days.

Attending the second of three installments of forced professional development by my school district, I missed an entire day of instruction to attend a seminar on how to be a better teacher. Much to my dismay, the first rule of the day was NOT "Be in the classroom with your students." Rather, the seminar focused on how we math teachers who teach at levels below calculus can implement calculus-type problems in levels all the way down to algebra I. Luckily for me, my training and experience have afforded me the opportunity to teach at all levels, so many of the ideas at the session were ideas, lessons, and strategies I already know and use. But I'm not above thinking I don't have anything to learn, I try my best to be attentive and to contribute to the conversation so that it's not a waste of time. This becomes increasingly difficult as we work through problem after problem after problem, hour after hour after hour, problems that I easily could have written.

It's days like today that I empathize with my own students and how THEY must feel sitting in my class each day, but then again, it only makes me realize more that if I'm the one in front running the show, I'd better make it entertaining if not interesting or I'll lose my audience. Unfortunately, not all presenters realize or are capable of this. Nothing against this presenter, per se, she was very knowledgeable and capable, but she WAS teaching down the middle to the crowd, and I've never fit in well with crowds. I know that if I cannot first capture my audience's attention, I'll never capture their imagination. Additionally, I must sustain their interest to keep them captive, all while keeping them moving in a direction that I want them to go in.

There were many times today that I felt that all I could do to endure the day was to jump up in front and start leading the seminar myself (this was AFTER I drank down my fair share of "complementary" coffee from the employee lounge.) It got to the point that I took long bathroom breaks even when I didn't have to go to the bathroom. Believe it or not, as many times that I got up to stretch my legs, I never missed a beat when I returned to my seat. It was like watching one episode of a soap opera every two weeks--you still pick up on the plot (even though the infants are now teenagers.)

Luckily, I did get to excuse myself a bit early because of a subsequent engagement--the Math Club Christmas party back at the high school (I hope they're not still waiting for me to come out of the bathroom). I felt so liberated as I walked out the double doors, with Nietzsche's quote resonating in my head: "If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger." I felt like the Incredible Hulk.

Arriving back at school among all my students who were filled with yuletide, mathematical spirit, I felt once again back in my element. I don't know who was happier to see who. For motivated students who love to learn and for an enthusiastic educator who loves to teach, we all agreed that I should miss school a lot less often. After all, that's what good teachers do, even if they're "weaker" for it.

Perhaps for the final session, I'll pull one out of Tom Cruise's book. No . . . not jumping up and down on a couch, but rather THIS one . . .

Of COURSE I'm awake!

Coming Clean

2009-12-07T18:29:00.003-06:00

Forgive me readers, but I have sinned. It's been too long since my last blog entry. In fact, my computer's cache memory did not even recognize me, and I had to retype my username (although it then IMMEDIATELY pulled up my password with an--I could have sworn I heard--"Oh yes. . . of course . . . welcome back most eminent sir.") So much has happened since I last blogged, writing a poem about the rain (if you'd like to read it, log on to the blog that has been posted for the last 3 millennium). Ironically, opposite of what you'd expect, since my "Ode to Rain," it really hasn't stopped. Of course it has transitioned from HOT rain to COLD rain, as the time frame between posts has spanned several seasons, we've been fortunate enough to have had to use the "Resolve" carpet cleaner since then to clean up all the mud spots on the carpet in the house caused by the mixutre of all the formerly DRY dirt with all the WET rain on the lawn.

So what's happened since then? Not a whole lot. Obama is still president (although at the time of my last post he was still then just a president withOUT a Nobel Peace Prize). Since then, 30,000 more troops have been ordered to Afghanistan to fight the chimeral, elusive Taliban by the winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize. (NOTE: the inventor of the prize himself is rolling over in his grave, not only because he is laying on an uncomfortable rock, but because he invented Trinitro Touline, alson known as TNT, or dynamite.)

I blame the lack of pedantic blogging on the current school schedule in which I am forced to operate. Having taught for 10+ (where + means "greater than or equal to 1 second") years under a 90-minute block schedule, meetin each class every OTHER day, this years regulare "work you butt off" schedule has been quite an adjustment. Meeting every class every day but for only 50 minutes has thrown my Circadian rhythms waaaay off. I've been trying to adjust, but I can't help but still being rudly interupted by the dissmissal bell about 2/3 into my lesson, usually right when I'm about to reveal the whole kernal of the lesson. How anticlimactic and unfulfilling is THAT to the studetnts??!!

I'm still in 90 minute mode, but every day.

They say this is better for the students, which I'm OK with. If they get 2/3 less math every day but they get it EVERY day, that's more math in the long run and in smaller chunks . . . provided they are doing their homework. Which brings me to the OTHER change this year.

Homework is worth 0% of their grade, which means it doesnt' count towards their final averages . . . numerically. Try convincing an over-extended teenager that they don't have to do homework but that it is as important as going to the dentist, and you'll have a lot of happy students with excessive plaque build-up. Add to the fact that when they finally DO go to the dentist, he'll not only CLEAN their teeth to a brilliant white, he'll also fill any cavity caused by lack of brushing. Well, I've become the mathematical dentist.

When it comes time for the test, I finally have chance to see, much to my DISsupprise, that many students aren't "brushing." In other words, MOST FAIL (at least according to my standard of brushing 3 times a day AND flossing DAILY). It's obvious that most are brushing once a week, in between episodes of "Glee" and "Grey's Anatomy," (I'm beginning to wonder if I should rename my two math shows to start with "G," or at least be aired on major networks.) As their "dentist," when I finally assess their "teeth," I feel the need to fix everything first, then gently reprimand. This means a generous curve to the scores and a stern talking to, whereby I vow to hold them in "low esteem" if they don't turn their habits around.

I have about as much recourse and influence as an eccentric dentist who happens to make it "cool" to brush constantly, floss daily, and who gives low-fat, tastless, hard, dry (but free) candy on the way out the door.

Consequently, I keep cleaning "more and more," while the teeth get "dirtier and dirtier," simply because no one at home, or in a position of real authority wants to deny children from enjoying their candy.

Draw your own inferences from this fable, the moral of which is: DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

Good luck Unicorns this Saturday. May you beat the Katy Tigers with the cleanest of teeth.

Very Much Needed

2009-09-10T17:31:00.005-05:00

Rain, Rain came today.
For all too long you've been away.
Arid creatures want to play.

Rain, Rain you fell from high.
Big fat drops fell from the sky,
Wetting all that time left dry.

Rain, Rain you quenched our thirst.
We were thinking we had been cursed.
It's been so long, it's like the first.

Rain, Rain please hang around.
Keep sending moisture to the ground.
Turn to green all that is brown.

Rain, Rain splash on my face.
Slake me in your cool embrace.
All that is gone, please do replace.

Rain, Rain you're geographic,
You cause problems with our traffic.
But I'm grateful you're not holographic.

Rain, Rain you've got your own Rhyme
From Mother Goose, how sublime.
I'm so jealous. Is that a crime?

Rain, Rain you even get your own Blog!
You sure can be a publicity hog.
Now I can't even go for a jog.

Rain, Rain you have such great powers.
You can cause the death of millions of flowers
When you selfishly withhold your life-giving showers.

Rain, Rain so where have you been?
We've been down here on Earth taking one on the chin.
Now that you've come, I sure hope you have a twin.

Rain, Rain our umbrellas' been forlorn.
With your arrival, our apparati we adorn.
We just wish they were a bit more worn.

Rain, Rain without you we yearn.
Your long term absence gives us much concern.
For our garbage and tree limbs we, by law, can't burn.

Rain, Rain it's feast or its famine.
May you last longer than a spawning salmon.
Stay for a while, won't you? A-men.

Rain, Rain you've come down in tons.
And I hope that your presence has only begun.
But if not, you've had your day in the sun

Tower of Hanoi

2009-09-09T17:47:00.008-05:00

Long ago in Brahma, or was it Bali, maybe it was Burma, definitely NOT Boston, the god was Brahma, or was it Buddah, definitely not Bob, a group of Hindu priests were charged with the daunting task of moving 64 giant golden disks stacked on a giant pole to a different pole. Why? 'cause they were told to by someone of great importance. The disks were originally stacked so that the largest disk was on the bottom, and each successive stacked disk was slightly smaller in diameter (radius, circumference, surface area, and volume too). The priests had to not only move ginormous golden disks, but there were rules too! Arrrg, rules.

In the process of moving disks, there were only two other poles on which the could (and had to) temporarily stack the disks. Additionally, and this one's the real kicker, no disk of larger radius could be stacked upon a disk with smaller radius. Great.

As if that wasn't enough for them to decide to abandon the project and possibly their religion, the great, superior being that ordered them to do such a random, arduous task instructed them that upon completion of the restacking, the temple would turn to dust and the world would VANISH, including all the fruits of their ridiculous labor.

With blind, faithful religious fervor, they set out, never bothering to "hustle," or to actually calculate how long the task would take them.

That's where I come in.

Before determining how long it will take them, we need to determine how many moves they will have to make with the disks. For the sake of clarity and conserving energy, I'll start small.

A typical modern puzzle has 6-10 smaller disks with 3 dowel rods. Something like this:
One way to see if there is a way to "count" the number of total moves for n disks is to start with one disk, then two, then three, etc. and look for a pattern. A mental or actual experiment would yield the following results:

one disk takes one move
two disks takes three moves
three disks takes seven moves
four disks takes fifteen moves

Continuing in such a manner will eventually lead one to the formula that for n disks, it will take 2^n - 1 moves. For example, four disks: n = 4. 2^4 = 16, and 16-1 = 15. This equation can also be mathematically derived by defining a recursive relation, then reducing it down to the finite sum of a geometric series. I won't get into that here, but ask me to show you in person some time . . .

So as it turns out, in the case of the Hindu priests, it would take one move less than 2^64. Wow. In case you're wondering, that comes out to

18,446,744,073,709,551,615 moves!

That's JUST over 18 quintillion moves. Assuming these priest worked in shifts around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, not even taking leap day off, not even taking time out to update their Facebook status, making an astounding and doubtful ONE MOVE PER SECOND, it would take them a shad (shade + tad) over 580 BILLION years pull it off . . . only to be reduced to ashes at the end.

Totally anticlimactic. Think about THAT next time someone knocks over your house of cards or destroys your sand castle.

A day in the life

2009-09-02T17:20:00.006-05:00

Now that school has started back up, I'm trapped in my daily routine of unfulfilling minutia. Do this, then that, then that, then that again, then do it all over again the next day. Each moment is filled with actions that repeat themselves Monday through Friday.

Get up at 5:00, make coffee, check for the newspaper, watch Sportscenter, check for the paper, drink coffee, check for the damn paper, feign interest in the Houston Astros season, get the paper, look at the paper's pretty pictures, do the crossword, pretend to care about the American League highlights, feed dogs, personal hygiene, put on clothes the wife set out for me the night before, wake up family, get kids ready for school, see the wife off to work, feed the kids chicken Cordon Bleus for breakfast, watch SportsCenter top 10 highlights again, finish coffee, get in the car and drive away, turn around to make sure I closed the garage door and turned off the coffee maker, go by the in-laws' house so my kids can say "hi," get in the line to drop the kids off at school, make room for someone trying to turn into the drop-off line from the wrong *friggin*lane, give the kids kisses, hugs, and priceless advice, drop them off, get to the high school, curse when I find out my classroom hasn't been cleaned, greet the 1st tutorial student of the day, resist the urge to tell them they are there 15 minutes before tutorials officially begin, TEACH MATH AT A FRENETIC, EUPHORIC, NON-STOP PACE, watch the clock for 20 minutes until my contract day ends, go to the in-laws to pick up the kids, spend 20 minutes telling my kids "we're leaving now, come on, I'm leaving without you, get your stuff, just 1 more minute, I'm serious, you can walk home, give Grammy and Poppy hugs and kisses, where are your shoes? and socks? do you have your bag? your homework? I'm leaving. . . . ," get home, check the mail, put the kids on their homeworks, sign their folders, listen to the stories of their day at school while I do a little housework to impress the wife before she gets home, feed the doges, feed and water the chickens and check their eggs, tell the neighbor girl to go home 'cause the kids are doing homework and that 3-year-old girls shouldn't come over to play without an adult, tell my son to practice his piano, make subtraction worksheets for my daughter, listen to the sound of no piano playing, yell a bit, check homemade math homework for correctness, correct a misplayed piano note, greet the wife when she gets home, help with making dinner making next-day's lunches and picking out next day's clothes (except my own), eat with the family while we talk about all the upcoming events that we need to fit into our schedule, I clean the dishes while the kids dote on their mother as she sits in the recliner relaxing while ET and the local news play, coerce my kids away from their mother and "encourage" them to take the dogs for a walk around the block with me, I take the dogs for a walk by myself, water the dogs, get the kids into the shower, listen to the wife's monologue about her day, nod in period affirmation while the wife speaks while trying to determine in the back of my mind if my child has spent too much time in the shower wasting water, I yell "hurry it up in there!! You wanna turn into a raisin??," get the kids dressed, make them read on their own a bit, do a bit of grading/planning for school while the wife watches primetime TV, tell the kids to go to bed, recreate on the world wide web, tell the kids to go to bed again, check the Astros score on the internet, tell the kids if they don't go to be now they can sleep outside with the dogs, personal hygeine, tell the kids they are WAY up past their bedtime, check out ESPN on the tube while doing crunches, burpees, and pushups, demand that the kids go to bed or I'll take away their birthdays, personal hygiene, read a book while the wife watches the evening news, turn off the TV that plays to a sleeping audience, finish the chapter in my book, check on the (finally) sleeping kids, lay in the dark in bed thinking about all the things I didn't get done today and all the things I have to do tomorrow, finally doze off only to be awaken every 3 hours by the incessant noisome barks from my ADD yellow lab, wake up WAY TOO SOON.

At least today is almost behind me and tomorrow's another BRAND NEW DAY.

Thoughts on a particular color

2009-09-01T17:26:00.009-05:00

Green is . . .

not my favorite color.
the color of my envy for those whose favorite color is green.
verdant.
associated with Martians, even though Mars is red.
is a noun, adjective, and a mistaken adverb.
is the best color my kids can get at school for their conduct.
is the worst color my kids' hot dogs can be in their school cafeteria.
is the actual color of my kids' hot dogs in their school cafeteria.
is nearly chartreuse
the latest fad.
very expensive.
something worth going.
not easy to be.
the old color of my grass before the summer of 2009.
an unnatural hair color.
a signal meaning "go" for a grape, "wait" for a banana, and "stop" for a school hot dog (a la Mitch Hedberg).
is a funny color for a lantern.
the color of some bugs (see photo above or click here.)
the only color that can get you pinched if you're not wearing it on one particular day.
a color that often appears in the loo after a fresh insertion of "2000 flushes." (oooh gross . . . )
a difficult topic for an entire blog.

Tell me what green is to you by replying.

An amazing, humbling gift

2009-08-18T16:46:00.007-05:00

Today I got one of the most thoughtful, cherished gifts I have ever received as a teacher. In fact, in all my years as a son, student, construction worker, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, and starving unpublished poet, I cannot recall a gift as the one I opened today. Aside from my job as a parent (which I really don't view as a "job" per se, especially since the hours are horrible and the pay is even worse) today's surprise was almost as good as the time my kids cut up my Larry Bird rookie card and put my face where his was (previous incident embellished for dramatic effect--I did that very thing for my OWN father in 1984).

The best part about today's wonderful reward had nothing to do with the hours and hours and dollars and hours of time spent in creating the handmade gift over a course of two years. Neither did it have anything to do with the fact that it was a 30-page book with letters etched into gold-plated papers strewn with diamonds and rubies inlaid around the perimeter of each page (again this is exaggerated, but the fact that everything was hand-typed, as opposed to "typed by the hoof of a team of oxen" and professionally bound in a tightly-wound spiral spine lead me to see the precious jewels nonetheless).

The best part was that the two girls who collected, compiled, and collated the copious amounts of ~~crap~~ considerable content did so not only for ME, but for three of my closest, most respected colleagues. To give such a memorable gift to four different people, with the same covert comprehensiveness as these two girls did, it's amazing that they not only graduated at the very top of their class but made perfect scores on their AP test. If I, myself, had been charged with collecting the "non-critical curricular content" as they, I couldn't have concentrated, much less mastered, what the collection of material was actually trying to convey.

To keep the gift more personal, I will not go into more detail about what it was that was actually given, only to say that it was a book of collected mutual experiences over a span of an intimate academic year (or even two or three!) between awesome students and proud, passionate, pokerfaced teachers: a gem that will survive for posterity and will serve as an amazing, salient, and palpable reminder when times aren't so rosy of why people like the four of us fortunate teachers get into the business to begin with.

I'm proud and humbled to have received such an honorable and amazing gift that I can share with me, myself, I, and my family, and although I will miss the daily interactions with these and all my other amazing former students, I know they will continue to do well and succeed in each and everything they do if only they exert and exhibit a fraction of the effort and enthusiasm they put forth while under my tutelage.

As they each get older, wiser, more experienced, and richer, I only ask that if I'm NOT invited to the eventual wedding, that I am at LEAST invited to be their Facebook friend.

We're such animals

2009-08-14T11:04:00.010-05:00

Want to hear about my trip to Disney World this Summmer?

Are you all ears. . .?

. . .what a time spent at Disney World again this year! With four parks and so much to see, this year's summer vacation was like an entirely different destination than last year's trip to the same wonderful place. But this year's experience was not only enhanced because of the insight gained from last year's trip, but also for a number of reasons.

For starters, the day we got there, it began to pour down in buckets, closing the pool at the Animal Kingdom Jambo House Lodge, much to the disappointment of my restless, traveling-in-a-car-for-hours weary kids. Coming from the nationally recognized drought-stricken area known as Central Texas, seeing rain (I THINK it was real and not just an elaborate Disney effect) was so magical, I felt like going to the Magic Kingdom and just walking up Main Street with my tongue held out.

It rained much more during our 8-day stay, and I'm proud to report that the pre-purchased ponchos from the Dollar General store in good ol' NB worked as well as the $8 ones with Mickey's mug that permeated the park during a downpour like cash permeated the register drawers in the park.

Last summer, on day two, my son got sick, really sick, and we spent our entire third day in a non-Disney minor emergency center watching a "Reba" sitcom marathon amongst Orlando's indigent just to get an overpriced script of antibiotics that weren't covered by insurance. And I thought Mickey set a Human trap! The rest of the trip was only tolerated as my sick, infected son melted in the son and forced smiles when I made him take pictures with the characters. This year, he (and everyone else) was as strong as Hercules (a character seldom seen or marketed at the park).

Additionally, last year, my then 5-year-old princess had the legs of a newborn Bambi, as I had to carry her most afternoons and evenings. This year, even though we came prepared with a stroller, she galloped through every park from opening to close often going through what looked like an epileptic fit of joy on the evening shuttle bus rides back to the lodge. Her mother and I met a lot of new people on the bus because of this, even though they were moving away from us as we befriended them . . .

On the bus with Jenna

With all the rich experiences (that leave you poor) we had this summer, by far the best part of trip was all the food and dining experiences. The smartes adjustment we made from last year, in addition to bringing our own antibiotics and the stroller, was to pack only pants and shorts that had expandable waistbands. Purchasing the dinner plan, our entire experience was planned around where our breakfast, lunch, and dinner reservations would be. The buffets were amazing, and not just because they had sneeze guards over the food, but the food itself was culinary cuisine. The African themed buffet at our resort was by far the best. "Boma" is a smorgasbord of authentic dishes that tempt the pallet and stuff the belly (almost all of which is either already off the bone, or at least killed and skinned in advance). Who knew falafel was so delicious or that one could eat 25 falafel balls . . . after a full course of other exquisite entrees? One really gets in touch with his saber-toothed tiger (a saber-toothed tiger with a wallet) at a restaurant like that. Then there was dessert and those addicting Zebra Domes. How dare they make them so delicious and bite size?! Thank God for elastic waistbands.

To make a long blog short, if you've never been to Disney World, you've gotta go. Unfortunately, you've also gotta come back (they actually have fine print on their literature that says their resort hotel rooms CANNOT be permanent addresses.) 'Tis the most magical place in the world where everyone is so happy and friendly, food is amazingly tasty and plentiful, landscapes are impeccably manicured, T-shirts run under $30 ($29.99) standing in line for rides is an air-conditioned educational experience, everyone wears Oakley's, you don't need long ears to be Goofy, and, of course

it rains!

TV Trip

2009-07-09T11:31:00.007-05:00

I was very disappointed and confused last night when I turned on the boob tube (if that's what you call a 52-inch plasma, high-def, digital television).

Sadness came to me, but it wasn't because I didn't find myself winning the million dollars on GSN's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire."

I was perplexed, but it wasn't the result of the dials on my remote control being mysteriously rearranged.

I felt a bit blue viewing the idiot box, but not as a result of the much anticipated mid-season premiere of "GHI" being a major let down, but for the new "Ashley" investigator.

The puzzling scenario had nothing to do with the fact that my kids wanted to watch something other than "Hannah Montana."

You might think I'd be disapointed with television when I can can't tune into any new episodes of MacGyver, Stargate SG-1, or the Golden Girls, but that wasn't it either (besides, I've got all but one of those series on DVD).

It would be enormously confusing during a tv-watching session if, while flipping throught the hundreds of available channels, there was actually something worth watching, but that didn't throw me off last night.

Most people would cry tears if the batteries in the remote finally went dead (have they EVER been replaced), meaning we'd have to either change the channels manually or get up to find new batteries, however, my batteries were fully-charged the evening prior to tonight.

How bizzare it would be if the food on the Food Network actually wafted their glorious aromas into your living room, but unfortunately, all I smelled during "Man vs. Food" was my own armits.

Melancholy might set in if I was watching a show on the DVR, only to miss the last 5 minutes because the recorder ran out of space, and bewildered I'd be if the reason the DVR ran out of room wasn't because of month's loads of Hannah Montana episodes hadn't been deleted. But last night, the only show in the DVR recorded list was "The Real Lincoln."

If anyone would need comforting if they tuned in to watch their favorite show only to find it was pre-empted by a State of the Union Address, but the evening after two night's ago was not a night Obama spoke to the nation.

A distressing dither would no doubt manifest if a television network ran one of those ". . . this is a test of the emergency broadcast systems . . ." but it was actually NOT a test. But yesterday's evening didn't even bring me a routine false alarm.

So what had me so despairingly dejected and perturbedly puzzled while watching television last night?

I couldn't find ANY Michael Jackson programming!

Maybe I didn't try hard or long enough, or maybe things are returning to normal.

Thank God there's Youtube.

Greatest Metal Vocalists of All Time!!

2009-06-24T16:25:00.006-05:00

After not blogging for some time, I wanted to come back with something that was thought-provoking, comprehensive, and a bit controversial. I've spent the better part of the day coming up with my list of what I think are the best rock/metal vocalists of all time.

I came up with a list of 100 people, which was surprisingly difficult to assemble (many were left off the list), listed in descending order from greatest to 100th greatest. I paid no mind to popularity, albums sold, length of hair, sexual orientation, etc. but instead rated them on their soulful ability to hit the notes, passion, and their ability to emote the music. Many of them have octave ranges of either 4 or 5 and can crack glass without effort. Although I can handle the second on the rare occasion I do the dishes, I can't compete with them with my paltry 0.43 octave range, even though the gene is in my blood, as quite a few gentlemen and gentlewomen from my ancestral land of Finland (you'll notice their names when you read them)--the homeland of Progressive/Symphonic Metal--make the list.

I case you haven't heard of some of the guys, look them up on Wikipedia. Check some of these guys out when you have a chance. They're all worthy of a download and listen. Feel free to disagree and/or come up with your own list, but don't knock 'em 'til you've tried 'em.

Let the discussion begin . . .

My top 100 Rock/Metal vocalists of all time.

1. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
2. Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica)
3. Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave)
4. Steve Tyler (Aerosmith)
5. Layne Staley (Alice in Chains)
6. Geoff Tate (Queensrÿche)
7. Hansi Kürsch (Blind Guardian)
8. Axl Rose (Guns ‘N Roses)
9. James LaBrie (Dream Theater)
10. Jon Bon Jovi (Bon Jovi)
11. Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath)
12. Ivan Moody (Five Finger Death Punch)
13. Timo Kotipelto (Statovarius)
14. Sebastian Bach (Skid Row)
15. Matt Barlow (Iced Earth)
16. Phil Anselmo (Pantera)
17. Glenn Hughes (Black Sabbath, Deep Purple)
18. Paul Rodgers (Bad Company)
19. Tony Harnell (TNT)
20. Corey Taylor (Slipknot)
21. Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
22. Dave Mustaine (Megadeath)
23. Klaus Meine (The Scorpions)
24. Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
25. Miljenko Matijevic (Steelheart)
26. Glenn Danzig (Misfits, Danzig)
27. Ari Koivunen (Finnish singer)
28. Bon Scott (AC/DC)
29. Freddie Mercury (Queen)
30. David Draiman (Disturbed)
31. Jarko Ahola (Teräsbetoni)
32. James Hetfield (Metallica)
33. Maynard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle)
34. Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
35. David Coverdale (Deep Purple, Whitesnake)
36. Sammy Hagar (Montrose, Van Halen, Chickenfoot)
37. Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath)
38. Russell Allen (Symphony X)
39. Lance King (Avian, Balance of Power, etc)
40. Philip Labonte (All That Remains)
41. Marco Hietala (Nightwish)
42. Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge)
43. Lemmy Kilmister (Motörhead)
44. Jonathan Davis (Korn)
45. Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, etc.)
46. Michael Sweet (Stryper)
47. Eric Adams (Manowar)
48. Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
49. Andi Deris (Helloween)
50. Brian Johnson (AC/DC)
51. Geddy Lee (Rush)
52. Mark Slaughter (Slaughter)
53. David Defeis (Virgin Steele)
54. Tarja Turunen (Nightwish)
55. Amy Lee (Evanescence)
56. John 'Gio' Cavaliere (Black Majesty)
57. Serj Tankian (System of a Down)
58. Steve Perry (Journey)
59. Jeff Keith (Tesla)
60. Roy Khan (Kamelot)
61. Chad Kroeger (Nickelback)
62. Bono (U2)
63. Yama-B (Galneryus)
64. Howard Jones (Killswitch Engage)
65. Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth)
66. Robin McAuley (MSG)
67. Michael Kiske (Helloween)
68. Tim "Ripper" Owens (Beyond Fear, Yngwie Malmsteen)
69. Chuck Billy (Testament)
70. Jeff Scott Soto (Yngwie Malmsteen, Journey)
71. Joe Lynn Turner (Yngwie Malmsteen, Deep Purple)
72. Rob Zombie (Rob Zombie, White Zombie)
73. Wayne Static (Static X)
74. Pepper Keenan (Corrosion of Conformity)
75. Billy Corgan (The Smashing Pumpkins)
76. M. Shadows (Avenge Sevenfold)
77. King Diamond (King Diamond, Merciful Fate)
78. Randy Blythe (Lamb of God)
79. Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering)
80. Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe)
81. Chad Gray (Mudvayne, Hellyeah)
82. Blaze Bayley (Iron Maiden)
83. Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)
84. Don Dokken (Dokken)
85. Joan Jett (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts)
86. Ian Astbury (The Cult)
87. Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom, Warmen)
88. Dennis DeYoung (Styx)
89. Anders Fridén (In Flames, Dark Tanquility)
90. Cristina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil)
91. Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society, Ozzy Osbourne)
92. Paul Di'Anno (Iron Maiden)
93. Roger Daltrey (The Who)
94. Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie)
95. Zack de la Rocha (Rage Against the Machine)
96. Lajon Witherspoon (Sevendust)
97. Tom Araya (Slayer)
98. Ryan McCombs (Soil, Drowning Pool)
99. Shagrath (Dimmu Borgir)
100. Josh Todd (Buckcherry)

Predicting with confidence

2009-05-22T05:00:00.008-05:00

If you've ever read time off of a clock, then you're familiar with something mathematicians call modular arithmetic. You might also think that modular arithmetic is science of counting all the possible ways you can configure an office using cubicles, and you'd be clever, but you'd be wrong. Modular arithmetic is simply ordinary arithmetic (adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, exponentiating) performed on numbers whereby you reduce the result to an equivalent number based on something called the modulus of the arithmetic. What does this have to do with a clock?

Well, let's say that it's 8:00 in the morning. You have to be at an important place in 5 hours, or 1:00 in the afternoon. Without much thought, you just did the following arithmetic operation:

8 + 5 =1

Writing it like that makes if feel strange and dirty and absolutely false, but yet it's true. . . in modular arithmetic. If you were in the military, or were one of those strange non-military people who prefer "military time," or a 24-hour clock, you would say that your important destination must be arrived at at precisely 1300 hours, or 13 o'clock. Because most people use the 12-hour clock, you're likely to get a few strange stares from people when you announced it, and you'd probably have to "do the math" for other interested, mathematically illiterate bystanders.

But it's exactly because clock values repeat them self in regular intervals of twelves that clock "arithmetic" is simply modular arithmetic with a modulus (abbreviated simply as "mod") 12. Because 8 + 5 really is 13, we can rewrite the above statement in modular form as

13=1 mod 12

We actually would read this as "13 is congruent to 1 modulus 12," which is a fancy way of saying 1300 hours is 1:00pm to most of us. Now that we've established this new math, let's say that we were big dorks, and one day we decided to not only abandon telling time on a 12-hour clock, but we wanted to keep track of the elapsed hours over a one year period. Imagine the strange looks we'd get if one afternoon 4 months later later, some stranger asked us for the time and we responded with "1841 o'clock . . . . on the DOT!" Would there be anyway to figure out the answer quickly without subtracting out full days at a time? Well yes.

What we'd really want to know in this case is the answer to the question 1841=? mod 24 which would give us the current military time, or, since we know it's in the afternoon, 1841=? mod 12, which would give us the current time p.m. The answer, as it turns out, will simply be the remainder obtained when dividing the given number by the given modulus, 1841/24 or 1841/12 here.

I turns out that 24 goes into 1841 76 times with 17 left over (1841 = 24*76 + 17). So 1841=17 mod 24. That means it's 1700 hours, or 5:00p.m. Using mod 12, we see that 12 goes into 1841 153 times with, you guessed it, 5 left over. So what time is it? Time to have that drink.

It turns out that MANY numbers are equivalent to the same number for any given modulus. For example, 5, 17, 29, 41, 53, 65, 77, 89, 101, etc. are ALL equivalent to 5 mod 12. For all such numbers that are equivalent to each other, we say they are elements of the same Residue Class.

Modular arithmetic works for other things too that occur in regular intervals. Take the world of competitive skate boarding. Imagine a shredder pulling off an AMAZING "7863" rotational trick. Since 1 rotation = 360 degrees and 7863 = 21*360 + 303, we know that so the skater did 21 full rotations plus an additional 303 degrees. Stated mathematically, we can write 7863 = 303 mod 360.

Modular arithmetic also pertains to the days of the week, with a modulus, of course, of seven. Perhaps you'd be interested in knowing what day of the week it will be exactly 1,000,000 days from today. Not that you'd be around to enjoy that day, seeing how its more than 2,739 years from now, but you're such a dork that you ponder these things. How could we do THAT calculation using modular arithmetic?

Let's start with today. Today is Friday (woooo hoooo! is it 5:00 yet?). From here, it requires a little more cleverness. Since 1 million is a power of ten, we will start the computations with the following, seemingly non-intuitve equation, and try to build up the left side, simplifying the result (mod 7) as we go.

10 = 3 mod 7

Feel free to verify this by dividing 10 by seven and finding the remainder. Now in any equation, even if it's modular, we are allowed to square both sides. Here we go.

100 = 9 mod 7

From here, we'll note that 9 = 2 mod 7, so we replace it in the above equation.

100 = 2 mod 7

We can now make a big jump to a million by cubing both sides. Since 100 cubed is 1,000,000 and 2 cubed is 8, we obtain the following.

1,000,000 = 8 mod 7

Now because 8 and 1 are in the same Residue Class, they are interchangeable. Performing the interchanging act we finally reach our desired equation.

1,000,000 = 1 mod 7

So how does that tell us what day of the week 1,000,000 days from today be? Well, the equation tells us that it will be the same day of the week that ONE day from today will be. Say it with me now, "If today is Friday, then tomorrow is . . . Saturday!"

Wasn't that a lot more fun than using a calculator? (Just say "yes.") Besides, our method works for numbers that are beyond the calculating capability of your calculator. If you don't believe me, tell me quickly what day of the week it will be 10 to the 100th power(that's called a "google" baby, a 1 followed by one hundred zeros) days from now.

If you you said "Wednesday, " you're calculator is lying to you.

Feel free to get back to me on that.

Answer For The Ages

2009-05-21T10:28:00.015-05:00

Yesterday I posed a mathematical puzzle in which I challenged you to determine the ages for three children based on some loose, esoteric clues. Due to the overwhelming lack of response, I assuming that either no one read it or I was able to sufficiently stump you.

For those of you who DID give it a go, did you determine that the woman had twins? Did you figure out which one had blue eyes? Do you now know what the census taker ate for breakfast?

Let's explore now how the census taker, after a hearty morning meal of bacon, eggs, and grits, was able to complete his inventory of the house of the enigmatic mother of three.

For the first clue, the woman said that the product of ages of her children equaled 36. If we assume that none of her children are age "zero",as I used to muse about my 6-month-old daughter, and if we also assume that we're talking about integer ages of kiddos, then there are only a small, finite number of possible ages that fit the equation. A careful attempt can yield all eight possibilities. Here they are. Check my work. Make sure they're the same as yours.

Although it would be highly unlikely that the woman would have a pair of one-year-old twins and a another 36 year-old rug rat, but that still leaves seven respectable possibilities. It's obvious why the man had to ask for the second clue. But with the extra hint that the sums of the ages totaled the address of the house across the street, how does that help us? The census take actually got to SEE the number of that house, while we were kept in the dark. Well, it turns out that we don't even need to know the number of the house!! So why have that clue at all, right? To answer that, we'll need to look at what the sums of all the above combinations yield.

Do you notice anything peculiar about the sums? You should see that all but ONE of the sums are unique. The sum of "13" actually appears twice! This means that the house across the street MUST have been house number thirteen. Duhhhhh! Right? Why's that? If it's not obvious to you, I'll explain further. This fact has nothing to do with the numbers of the mathematics of the sums AT ALL. It comes from a clue from the puzzle scenario. Remember that the census taker needed a third clue in order to conclude his detective work. Had the sum been any of the other combinations, he would have had his answer, but because 13 appears twice, he needed further clarification as to which of the remaining two options were the actual ages.

Even though the woman was put out at the man's final request, comparing his annoying unrelentingness to her eldest child, and refused to offer her assistance any more, she unwittingly provided him with all the information he needed.

Do you see it yet?

Her children now had possible ages of 1, 6, and 6 or 2, 2, and 9. Because the woman has an eldest child, we can infer that she has a pair of two-year-old twins and one, eldest child age nine!

A pretty nifty piece of mathematical detective work, huh.

Well, stop the presses. Just like Andrew Wiles's origianl proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was later found to contain a flaw that was overlooked by everyone, so too does my little scenario contain a tiny glitch. My wife immediately pointed out that the ages could be a 1-year-old and a pair of 6-year-old twins, since even twins, apparently, are born ONE AT A TIME, so that even though they are the same "age," there is an OLDER twin and still an ELDEST child.

D'0h!

Andrew Wiles eventually fixed the error in his proof, and now it stands as rock solid. I'm hoping I can reconcile this tiny inconsistency as successfully as he was able to. Perhaps I can go back to the original scenario and somehow cleverly work in the necessary condition that all ages be rounded to the nearest year, or maybe I'll just rewrite it so that the status taker never even offends the woman at all, with her simply telling him, "two, two, and nine. Goodbye."

A Puzzle For The Ages

2009-05-20T08:41:00.013-05:00

Here's a delightful puzzle to help you get over the Wednesday hump, or maybe it will get you stuck there. Either way, delight yourself in mathematical detective work to see if you can figure it out.

A member of a census organization is going door-to-door collecting information. He comes to a house where a woman answers the door. After introducing himself, he asks her how many adults live in the house. "Just me," she replies, as the screaming and yelling of children pierce through from the living room. "I'm guessing you have children," he astutely asserts, "how many?" "I have three, and they're about to drive me out of my mind. How many of them do you want?" She asks back. "Um, ma'am, if you'll simply allow ME to ask the questions," he rudely replies. "Now if you could please tell me the ages of your three children, I'll be on my way." Feeling slighted, the woman becomes irritated and less cooperative. "Absolutely NOT," she retorts. "You're gonna have to work at it now Mr. Census man. Here's a clue. If you multiply all their ages together, you get thirty-six." She then slams the door in her face.

The census man pulls out his calculator from his pocket and punches a few numbers, then knocks on the door again. When the woman answers the door this time, she is even more irate as the sounds of obstreperous children spill out of some hidden room in the house. "Sorry to bother you again, ma'am, but could you please offer me one more hint as to your children's ages? "If it'll get you off my doorstep, you should know that the sum of their ages equals the address number on the house across the street." BAM, slammed the door.

Determined to get this information, the census taker runs across the street and peers at the number on its mailbox. He again pulls out his calculator, punches a few keys, then scratches his head a bit. With a determined temerity, he knocks on the woman's door once again. "I'm so sorry to bother you again, but I need to have just one last clue and I'll be our of your hair for good." (Screams emanated from inside the house) "You're just like my oldest," she said "unrelenting!" Then she retreated back into the house and was gone.

Now the census man may not be suave, but he's no dummy. From her last, subtle clue regarding her child's temperament, he is able to discern the ages of each of her three children. Can YOU figure it out?

Answer and explanation tomorrow. But you can't read tomorrow's answer if you haven't mentally sweated over it today.

Returning policies

2009-05-19T07:54:00.021-05:00

Right now at school, we're in the process of tying up all the loose ends to what has been a very productive and interesting academic year. As teachers try to simultaneously squeeze in one last test while preparing students for a final exam from which they know most students will end up being exempt, students are making summer plans. One of the most celebrated orders of business that students must tend to is turning in their textbooks.

A bitter-sweet thing, no doubt, this year our campus is returning to an old tried-and-true procedure for recollection: turning them into their teacher!!

The past few years, the gymnasium has been set up like a long corridor where students would bring all books to one specific class, then be released via a pre-determined schedule to the gym, where they would make their way through the "buffet" line, finding the appropriate pile for their individual textbook, and dump their cargo one book at a time. This procedure was very efficient, but it also had a few drawbacks.

First, the basketball team had to recreate in the other, smaller practice gym. Second, books inadvertently ended up in the wrong pile. For example, a student fresh out of failing his English class might put his spelling book in the Algebra I stack. Or, a lazy student might put both of the books he actually remembered to bring that day in the very first stack he saw. Third, there was no way to actually know if a student actually turned their book in. Because the books weren't scanned in as they were TURNED in, students who ended up owing $85 for a math textbook they probably never cracked could simply tell the ~~authorities~~ administrators that the "put it in the gym." It was creating a too convenient excuse for the apathetic, the dishonest, and the unfortunate victims of random textbook thievery.

This year, students must physically turn in their books to their respective teacher, and we teachers must document which students have and have not done this. Yes, it means more work for the teachers, but at least we don't have to go through every single page and add up a list of nickels that students owe us for every tiny stray mark or tattered pages like it used to be when I was a student, although we are still required to look for errant mustaches drawn on historical figures.

Being the collector of the precalculus and calculus textbooks for my students, this new-again procedure has afforded me the opportunity to interact individually with each student one last time before they hit the swimming pools. It also gives THEM a chance to finally write their name on the inside cover. I'm surprised how few of them ever took the time to do that originally. When I was in school, writing my name in my book was not only required, but it was like I was signing a contract for the course, making me feel a heightened sense of responsibility for its safe keeping and appropriate use. Back then, we also enjoyed looking at the long history of names that preceded ours. "Awwwww, I got a 'dumb' book," we might say if we saw that 7 years previously our neighbor down the street with the barking dogs and the appliances on his lawn had our book. "Alright!! Easy 'A' in this class," we would rejoice if we happened to get last year's Valedictorian's book.

It is interesting to see the various reactions from students as they hand over their heavy tomes of information. It's like a great burden, an immense weight has been lifted off their shoulders, and the stand a little taller afterward without their backpack weighing them down. It's also surpising how few of them even need to use the Kleenexes I offer them as they part with there "loved one." Most aren't even interested in saying their final goodbyes. I don't hear, "So long page 273, I'll miss you!" or "Adieu back-of-the-book-answers-to-odd-problems, you spent so many homework sessions with me." I don't even hear the failing student, "Adios stranger, I didn't even get a chance to know you."

What I DO hear alot, though, is "What on Earth is a book cover anyway?"

If they only knew . . .

You Go Girl!

2009-05-18T07:36:00.016-05:00

Did you hear what happened over the weekend in the fascinating, thrilling, unpredictable world of thoroughbred horse racing?

At the 134th running of the Preakness Stakes at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland, for the first time ever, track officials didn't allow the spectators to bring in their own beer, so the thrill and buzz seekers went to the NASCAR races instead.

A forever-lost Preakness Tradition

Also. . . .

A little girl beat the blinders right off of the 12 boys she was running against.

Coming out of the 13th slot, the 3-year-old Filly named Rachel Alexandra became the first female to win the event in 85 years, since Nellie Morse made the boys cry way back in 1924. Not even Nellie Morse's daughter, Nellie Flag, could accomplish what only 5 females have been able to do.

When asked after the race how she was able to leave all the men in her dust, Rachel, who could have truthfully gloated about how the rest of the competition were a bunch of losers, instead tactfully responded with just an enthusiastic whinny. The comment was later translated into, "All the men were horsing around, making dismissive jokes at my expense before the race, commenting on my manicured nails, trying to make me feel self-conscious about the white spot on my forehead, and my "unlucky" number 13, telling me that I belonged in the WNBA, which didn't even make horse sense. I just used all that energy to motivate me to prove to them, that although my name was not Babe Didrikson Zaharias or Ruffian, it WAS Rachel, and I had every right to be there." Indeed, it was a loooong whinny.

Finishing right behind Rachel was Mine That Bird, the Kentucky Derby upset winner, who made his characteristic late charge from the rear only to come up full length short of the galloping gal. When interviewed after his galiant but futile gallop, Mine That Bird was tight lipped in his response and gave only "genetic predisposition" for his noticably long face.

Now with two of the three major races out the way, each with a different winner, there will not be a Triple Crown winner again this year. Nonetheless, the Belmont Stakes, the final and most challenging race of the three, is shaping up to be as exciting as an NBA game seven between Magic Johnson's Lakers and Larry Bird's Celtics. After a gruelling test at the first two races, the showdown at the 1.5-mile track between the Kentucky-slighted Ms. Alexandra "the Great," and the Preakness-slighted Mr. That Bird will will be exciting to watch. Who will win the two-out-of-three battle of the sexes? Will Ms. Alexandra be the Billie Jean King of the Belmont or will Mr. That Bird be the Peter Sellers of the classic British comedy, or will it be more like the upcoming collaborative album by Ludacris and Shawnna?

Although neither horse will have a chance to win the coveted "Triple Crown Oats Bucket" this year, there is still possibility that a Triple Crown winner will be crowed. How can that be? It turns out that Mine That Bird's little jockey in the Kentucky Derby, Calvin Borel, didn't ride him again in the Preakness. Instead, Mr. Borel mounted a different horse (with the help of a ladder) for the second race. That horse was Rachel Alexandra. This begs the question: how did he KNOW to do that? Is Mr. Borel so talented that he can race ANY horse to victory, or did he just get lucky in sitting on two animals who would have with a 120-lb sack of flour on their backs? I guess we'll just have to get the answer to that question in a few weeks at Belmont. It would be interesting, although highly unlikely if a 120-lb sack of flour existed and also entered the race, and if Mr. Borel mounted a thoroughbred by the name of "Born To Lose," or "Congenital Defect."

I wouldn't bet on it.

Productive Day

2009-05-16T21:50:00.003-05:00

Some simple things I learned today:

John Michael Montgomery's brother IS in the Montgomery-Gentry duo, but he's actually the OTHER guy from who I thought he was.
Even make-up games can get rained out.
It doesn't matter how much compressed air you use after a haircut, you'll never blow all the tiny pieces of hair off your body.
Taking a shower with your watch on feels as awkward as sleeping with your socks on.
You NEVER want to run out of chlorine tablets for your septic gray-water.
It's okay to take a nap in the middle of the day in the middle of a rhythmic downpour, as long as you're not wearing your socks.
Any attributes that qualify you for delivering a graduation keynote address are the same attributes that qualify you for an honorary doctorate degree.
It's no fun to follow basketball if your team's out of the playoffs, nor is it fun to watch baseball when your team is the "Bad News" Astros.
Some coffee houses DO still understand an order as simple as "Tall Black Coffee."
Macaroni and White Cheddar is nowhere near as delicious as regular mac & cheese.
Dead bees can still sting.
The quality of my golf game is inversely proportional to the amount to time I practice it.
The same is true for everyone who is at a driving range on Saturday morning rather than on the links itself.
"Barack" moved up 10,126 places last year on the list of "popular boy names." Unfortunately, it is still in 2,409th place.
Making homemade toothpicks is a waste of time.
A $500 diamond ring can bring a smile to woman's face.
Plastic lag screws are a fast, cheap substitute to using Tapcon Masonry screws. By the time the box falls of the exterior of the house, the cable man is long gone.
It's best not to try to guess the mysterious liquid accumulated at the bottom of the kitchen trash bin or how it penetrated the "Force Flex" tough Hefty bag.
Did I already mention that you NEVER want to let your septic run out of chlorine tabs?
Fruit bowls are just a place to hold rotten bananas.
Anything you want in life, you can purchase a "Hannah Montana" version of it.
Even though the traffic signs say, "Watch for Water on Road," I notice a LOT of don't even try.
Sonic Drive-In boasts 168,000 possible drink combinations, one of which is "Large Tea with sweetener in a cup with ice and a lid and a straw."
Lifetime warranties on sunglasses don't cover you losing them, 'cause, technically, they're still "alive" somewhere, just not on your face.
Taking naps makes you sleepy.
Disney character shirts make my look Goofy.
Some landscaped commercial areas have crosswalks that lead directly up to them for no apparent reason.
Few things are as ephemeral as a clean childrens' playroom.
"Pink Panther I" and "Pink Panther II" are some of Steve Martin's best work.
Blogging about underwear is less interesting to readers than blogging about my drab, boring "Mathematical Musings."

Look under THERE!!!

2009-05-15T17:01:00.005-05:00

Did I just make you say "underwear?!!" Tee-Hee.

Here's a short poem to commemorate.

I met a man one day
who had a notion in his mind
to give me all his underwear
at least, all that he could find.

I thanked him very much
and said, "That's very kind and all,
but I have plenty in my drawer.
Besides, you're kind of tall."

"Your underwear won't fit me,
only cover up my FACE :0
That's not the way they're 'possed to fit
That's not their common place."

"Besides, yours have tears in them
and holes inside and out .
You should, instead of offering them to me
just go ahead and throw them out."

"Okay," he said
as he put them in the trash.
"You wouldn't want 'em anyway,
'cause I've got this ugly rash."

So off he went away from me
to carry on his life,
to the one who washes all his drawers,
his kind and underwear-buying wife.

Mathematical Musings: XVII

2009-05-14T18:23:00.005-05:00

Again, another installment of the silly things I've said in class, although I'd deny every bit of it.

Hurry up and wait your turn.
I scheduled my alarm for 2:17 so that I’d remember when to turn my alarm off.
Student: Look Mr. Korpi, I have an idea. Since the schedule this week is all messed up, why don’t we split the assignment up in two. We can do part today and part tomorrow. I think this would be a good compromise. Korpi: What are you—the Henry Clay of Calculus Class
Today is the first day after the second day before the next day that comes after the previous day last time.
Please live each day to its fullest. Another Wednesday won’t come around for another week
When it comes to teaching Calculus, I’m like Pavlov’s dog. When I hear the bell to start class, I start salivating.
My wife and my favorite time of day is dusk: when our son goes down. He is such a dynamo.
SURE we can watch a movie next time in class. However, I don’t have a VCR, so we will just have to sit around and stare and the cassette tape. I hope it’s a suspenseful movie!
I love to get up every morning and look at the photos in the local newspaper. After all, it is the journalistic equivalent of a children’s picture book.
f I was any stronger in will, I might have the power to consider saying “No”—to nuclear arms.
Today after school, I will be giving an AP review. If no one shows up, I will still give the review, because that’s just the way I am—a man of my word. Please feel free to walk by and laugh at me through the window.
The next time I have surgery, I’m going to pay the extra cost to have a STERILE room. It’s money well-spent. And that extra $5 to be off the floor, the cost-benefit-analysis has been DONE, and you should DO it! Unless you like hospital food.
Student: when is all this weather supposed be good. Korpi: Tomorrow . . . . . . . If you think rain, thunder, mud, wind, and cold are good.
Welcome 4th period . . . . . . I’ve been expecting you.
Hurry, hurry on in to class. Seats are going fast!
Ouch!!!! That look like it hurt worse than dividing by zero!
This world needs more saber-toothed tigers.
It appears that all you need to do to be immortalized on the front of Beer-lover’s T-shirts is to come up with a divine sanctioned quoted condoning the consumption of the frothy ale. The only competitor is Ben Franklin. Here’s my contribution. "On the sixth day, God also made beer; this is the primary reason he did nothing on Sunday."
It’s a sign of our times, and perhaps our self-incrimination, that our 4 \-year-old son knows the meaning of being “voted off” of a television reality show.
Student: How long will the test take today, Mr. Korpi? Korpi: Well, at least the whole period . . . . or less.
OK, I know we’ve worked a lot of examples today, so this will be the last one. . . before the next one.
Feel free to burn me in effigy over the weekend.
Today as you work on your semester review, think of me as Mr. Radio Shack: you have questions; I have answers. I'll be over here behind my computer chatting with Trekkies.
Because I accidentally made the final exam a little longer than usual, you will unfortunately not be able to finish it. But the good news is, I will still grade the ones you don't do.
Man, I feel like Santa Claus in a shopping mall around semester review. This long line of students at my desk waiting to talk to me.

Blloggoggoggaggoggagghogg

2009-05-13T10:44:00.011-05:00

Do you see anything wrong with this sign?

Could it be that the depicted Indian is actually a Cayuga and NOT a member of the Nipmuc tribe? Perhaps the NIPMUC INDIANS ESCHEWED THE USE OF ALL CAPS? Maybe the sign incorrectly overstates the power of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority? Maybe the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce had nothing to do with the sign.

NO, to all of the above. There IS and error, but it's much more subtle.

Did you catch the misspelling? (Yes, "misspelling" has two "s"s).

Believe it or not, Lake "Chargoggagoggmanchaoggagoggchaubunaguhgamaugg" should actually be spelled Lake "Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg." That means there's actually TWO mistakes, not just one.

Now before you demand that the typesetter at the sign company be fired for being so blatantly incompetent, realize that he CORRECTLY place 43 of 45 letters correctly, which means that at almost 95%, he's likely to have been the salutatorian of his typesetter class. Think you can do better?

Besides, what kind of name is Chargoggagoggaggoggmangg . . . whatever, I'm not getting paid to typeset (it that's even how they MAKE signs, nor am I paid to blog)? As you probably guessed, it is from the Nipmuc (not Chayuga) language for "unnecessarily big name for a relatively small body of water," at least that's what I deciphered it as after my ~~extensive research~~ quick Google search of Nipmuc language. But after a much smarter search of Google, utilizing the "always accurate" Wikepedia.com, I realized that I was off in my translation (so much for using "context clues" like my English teach had taught me so many years ago). Apparently, the translation is different, but no less humorous, than my primitive interpretation. What some "expert" linguists (and conspiracy theorists) believe the name means is "you fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fish in the middle."

What selfish indian fisherman! I why exclude indians with the advanced skill of "boat making" from participating in the "feeding of their belly?" Imagine if I took the same approach to my AP Calculus class, renaming it "AP callcallullaaccittucctticcuus" which would translate in my own, made-up language called "Grumpyoldmanese" into the phrase "Smart people take, dumb lazy people don't take, and everyone else give my $20." Those Nipmuc indians were the original semantical warriors.

Most politically correct experts of the Nipmuc language, whose name is Frredd, claim the name, which is incidentally the longest name of any official place in the Americas, not counting the unofficial name that many students give to calculus of "Calc@##$%&*!!@#*$%$%^&#@*&*%$$#@^&^@#*&^%##**&^@#$%!**$%&*@#$%! . . . (#*&$$^@&*%(!@#*$&%&$&lus," seem to opt for the less curmudgeonly-sounding "Fishing Place at the Boundaries -- Neutral Meeting Grounds," which makes the lake sound more like a meeting for a boring convention rather than a recreational fishing hole.

Then there are some boring, uniteresting people in the nearby town of Webster, Massachusetts who simply refer to the lake as "Lake Webster." These are the same people who eat Hamburger Helper for dinner every single night and know not when (or at what temperature) to serve white wine, primarily because Boone's doesn't make white wine. That type of oversimplifaction not only denies the lake of its cultural legacy and therefore its place on the map and blogs across this great land, but it is the same attitude that failing students of mine have when the approach Calculus as if it were entitled "Adding single digit integers on you calculator"--doomed to scornful looks, derision, and a good laugh. Good thing that THESE type of individual are not the official people in charge of things.

The good news for the lake, though, is that Massachusetts OFFICIAL officials have admitted to the two misspellings and have vowed to have the signs changed to reflect the correct spelling of the lake. State officials have already begun interviewing for the job of making the new sign, beginning with the Valedictorian of the "typesetting class," a Thai student with the successful completion of a sign bearing the the native name for Bangkok, Thailand on his resume:

Krungthepmahanakonbowornratanakosinmahintarayudyayamahadilopo-
noparatanarajthaniburiromudomrajniwesmahasatarnamornpimarnavata-
rsatitsakattiyavisanukamphrasit

Gone to the Dogs

2009-05-12T06:59:00.010-05:00

Imagine that your dog Rover wants to go see friends in Seattle. What do you do? Do you let him venture off like a stray, navigating his own way through the concrete jungles, relying on his internal compass and instinctual methods for finding food, shelter, etc.? Do you arrange for the dog friend in Seattle to meet Rover halfway? Do you take him yourself, then sit by awkwardly as the third wheel in this dog reunion? Do you just put him on a plane by himself and say, "Arf voir."

Wouldn't it be great if, assuming Rover can save up the airfare, you COULD just put him on a plane to his desired destination? Perhaps you can do that now. But what if Rover didn't have to fly in cargo, but rather was treated like a regular fair-paying passenger, getting those tiny pillows and pack of peanuts?

I can see it now. You take Rover to the terminal, then had over his leash to a "Pet Porter," who introduces him to Fido, Fifi, and Ferdinand. As you leave your beloved pet, you have the comfort of knowing that Rover is in good hands, and that his safety is all but guaranteed as all dogs are subjected to metal detectors and stool samples. As Rover and his new friends await to board their own private 19-passenger Beechcraft, they are walked, watered, and combed.

As it comes time to board, they are individually walked down the red-carpet gate where they enter the plane, greeted with a friendly "Bark, Bark!" and a quick sniff from their Captain and his St. Bernard co-pilot. They are taken to their window seat, where they enter their own private pet carrier, that is safely fastened to the floor. As the plane departs, a "Pet Attendant" walks up and down the isles, assuring the safety and comfort of all the animals, making sure none make any noise while the "No Bark" sign remains lit. All through the flight, the animals relax in comfort in a pressurized, climate controlled environment with fresh air constantly circulating. "Paw"sengers, as they would be called, have their choice of the in-flight movie: "Beethoven," "Beethoven's 2nd," "Beethoven's 3rd," "Beethoven's 4th," "Beethoven's 5th," or "Beethoven's Big Break." In the event that Rover needs to use the lavatory, an attendant escorts him to the back of the plane, where yesterday's newspaper covers the floor. Thank goodness for that circulating fresh air!

Upon landing, Rover and the other pawsengers are given the local time, weather conditions, and locations of historic fire hydrants. Once they remove their carry-on bag containing their squeeky toys and Milk Bones from the overhead compartments, they are individually escorted to the terminal, where they are greeted by their pet friend and their pet freind's family. For dogs without a host family, rental cars are available for them to chase to their desired location.

Wouldn't it be great if such a service for pets existed? It would be nice, but probably not realistic, since, well you know, a flight service just for dogs and cats? It's doubtful if there is a large enough market for such an exclusive service. That's just a ficticious scenario right out of "Beethoven's 10th," right?

Actually, it describes, for the most part, the real service soon to be provided by a new company called "Pet Airways." For $149 for a one-way ticket, owners can book individual flights for either their dog or cat. Currently there is no option for first-class, but cats and dogs shall be separated within the aircraft, for obvious unknown reasons.

Now before you think that this service is "for the birds," be forewarned that the airline currently does NOT accomodate our feather friends, standing behind their current policy of "Birds Can't Fly, silly!" (Note, that is not actually the company's slogan). As of right now, birds are only allowed to follow outside the plane. The company, though, is NOT against expanding their "pawsenger" line to animals that don't have paws, they just have to find a cute and clever name to call them first.

Let's help them out. What type of animals would YOU allow on your plane, and what would you call them. I'll get you started:

Allow Gerbils on board. Call them "passengerbils."

I'd still be a Pawsenger, idiot!

How to keep 'em hooked.

2009-05-11T12:32:00.012-05:00

As the school year draws to a close, students and teachers alike are excited, to say the very least, about being free from each others' bondage. With only three weeks left of school, some have resorted to crossing days off there calendars. Others are crossing off minutes. Yes, I DO have such a calendar.

With the disruption the Swine Flu break brought us, these last three weeks are even more stressful and eventful than usual as we try to finish AP exams, squeeze in those darned TAKS tests, not to mentioned Prom, awards assemblies, and end-of-the-year banquets for every possible student group on campus (excluding the small start-up organization called "Students Against End-Of-Year-Banquets").

As a teacher who is too lazy to plan nothing, it's been increasingly difficult lately to impart my mathematical knowledge, and as usual, I am relegated to the role of "coaxer," "cajoler," desperately trying to pull each and every student across the finish line. Threats of "holding them in low esteem," or "taking away their birthday," are of little consequence. Even for some of the most conscientious senior students, the threat of a string of zeroes in the grade book becomes a moot motivator, as senior class rank came to a close at the end of the last grading period.

For those students who are still awake in class, it has become amusing to hear their private conversations that are taking place while I'm lecturing about volumes of solids of revolutions and central angles of pie charts. They're giddy over prom, excited about their new tan, and sad that the television season is showing its finales. Some are still giddy over the math itself, or maybe it's just me being extraordinarily silly, entertaining, bombastic, sarcastic, and "creepy." With ears in the back of my head (and behind my kneecaps. . . . . nevermind), I can still hear all the individual conversations over the roar of my loud, exaggerated voice and dramatic antics. Occasionally, I hear something so salacious or something I can deliberately misinterpret that I stop myself mid-leap, mid-sentence, mid-equation and draw attention to the conversation in a way that leaves the conservationists feeling embarrassed, guilty, and impressed with my ability to do things like that. Everyone else just temporarily stops their conversations and gives each other that "look" that says, "Wheeew. I'm glad he didn't mortify US," and "What a crazy, psycho ~~with strange-looking ears behind his kneecaps~~ we have as a teacher."

But I digest, especially after lunch.

I think the real key for any teacher this time of year is to realize that although you WISH the students would respect you and owe you their attention and best efforts by now, that it is still our responsibility to capture their attention first, to instruct second. Additionally, a savvy teacher does not give students the slightest chance to "drive the bus," but must rather set the tone from the moment the students enter the class. Keep them on their toes. Keep them off balance. Keep that fire stoked beneath their little tootsies.

But there's a method to my madness.

If that means having them think that you forgot to take your medicine that morning, so be it. How fun is it to be totally understood by everyone anyway? If it means not actually taking your medicine that morning, be careful. How fun is it to be misunderstood AND depressed with a bad heart and a bad case of foot fungus?

No. We definitely want to life to teach another day. Another year. It's why we got into this business to begin with. But that doesn't mean we don't enjoy our summers!

But I digest . . .

What's in the suitcase?

2009-05-08T07:12:00.029-05:00

We all love puzzles, right. I'm not talking about jigsaw puzzles, but puzzles of the riddling variety. These types of puzzles are like mental challenges that put our egos and abilities to the test, so that by solving them, we have gained some insight or disciplined skill which will help us wend our way down the path of our life. But certainly anyone who has ever been challenged with a puzzle knows the frustration that comes with each new puzzle. We sometimes find ourselves refusing the challenge or perhaps even running away before we get too involved even though we know the they are "good" for us, in much the same way that I fled from Carob as a kid when my mom thought it was a healthier substitute for chocolate.

It may start with the same letter, but it's NOT chocolate.

A good puzzle not only challenges us and forces us to try and consider things we otherwise wouldn't, but they're also beneficial because the spark our imagination and summon our curiosity. In the case of math puzzles (the BEST kind), they make math more palpable and interesting. They are miniature lessons in reason and independent thinking, which helps the victorious puzzle solver build self-confidence. The ability to solve these types of puzzles quickly and calmly can also save your life and the lives of hundreds around you, making you a bona fide hero!

If you've ever seen Die Hard with a Vengeance with Bruce Willis, you probably remember the famous "Water Puzzle" scene in which the characters played by Willis (McLane) and Samuel L. Jackson (Zeus) must measure out exactly four liters in less than five minutes to prevent a bomb from going off. No problem, right? Well, the catch was that they only had a five-liter jug and a three-liter jug. There is no convenient four-liter container anywhere to be found. The clock is ticking. Your life's at stake. Good luck . . . don't mess up!

Sorry guys, you're not allowed to "phone a friend."

This puzzle was not new to the movie, except maybe the exaggerated consequence of failing, but has actually has been around since the 11th century, when Bruce Willis was still an up-and-coming actor on "Moonlighting." Can you do it? Let's eliminate the bomb and timer aspect and see how we can go about solving this timeless riddle.

Method 1: Trial and error. This is perhaps the most primitive method that a monkey can be trained to do. It also requires real, physical buckets and liquid. Good luck finding a perfectly calibrated 5L and 3L bucket at your local Home Depot. But let's say you DO have the buckets and the liquid, if you keep filling and pouring, filling and pouring, you'll probably not ever produce the entire works of Shakespeare, but you will likely get your desired four liters. So what's "wrong" with this method? Well, it kind of takes as the fun out of the puzzle to begin with, and although it might get the job done if there ever was a real-life, stressful scenario in which your reptilian brain was all that worked, it requires a lot of time. Not the best method of the clock is ticking or the saber-tooth tiger is nearby.

Method 2: Google the solution. How resourceful! Cheater! You get NOTHING out of the puzzle except accelerating your carpal tunnel syndrome.

Method 3: Do the experiment in thought only and save yourself the cost of buying two buckets. Think the problem through prior to conducting your "gedankenversuch." Try it. You'll benefit from the process even if you're unsuccessful in solving it. As Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr. twice said (they didn't quite hear him the first time), "A man's mind, when stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original size," which I guess is only a bad thing if you like wearing expensive hats.
Here's the answer: Fill the five-liter jug and use it to fill the three-liter jug. You now have two liters in the five-liter jug. Empty the three-liter jug, then pour the two liters from the five-liter jug into the three-liter jug. Refill the five-liter jug, and then top-off the three-liter jug (this will take one liter). Congratulations! You now have four liters in the five-liter jug.

Did you get it? Did you do it a different way? IS there a different way? Of course there is. Just like you can get from Austin to San Antonio, Texas by traveling south on IH-35 OR by traveling north (albeit it is a much longer, more scenic route), many things in mathematics can be solved in several different ways. The real mathematical challenge is finding the most simple, beautiful, elegant, and efficient solution.

An elegant and beautiful bathroom solution

Here's an alternative method. I'll let you be the judge of its pulchritude.

Fill up the three-liter jug, then pour it into the five-liter jug. Refill the three-liter jug, then use it to top-off the five-liter jug. This requires two liters. Empty the full five-liter jug, then pour the one liter that remains in the three-liter jug into the empty five-liter jug. Once again, refill the three-liter jug, then pour it into the five-liter jug. Congrats again! You've got yourself four-liters there partner.

Mathematicians never leave well enough alone. We're not content with specific solutions to contrived problems, but rather, we are interested in generalizing techniques and solutions to bigger and better problems. Sure, the process gets more onerous, and requires organized, discipline habits of mind, but they force you beyond simple "guess and check" methods and get you actually thinking! We're really not interested in jugs and water. We're interested in abstract patterns. Therein lies the true, abstract poetic beauty.

Some natural follow-up questions would be,

"Is it possible to measure out exactly ONE liter?"

"What if you had the same scenario, except with four- and nine-liter jugs?"

"Can you get all all quantities from one liter through 13 liters?"

"When is it possible, and when is it NOT possible, given to containers of capacity a and b liters to measure out exactly n liters?"

Answering the last question is what real mathematicians do. They solve things in the general case. They provide rigorous proof to theorems and conjectures, which is essentially decoding the natural universe and the handiwork of The divine creator!

Perhaps we should have listened to Samuel L. Jackson's Zeus character's advice and never have opened the suitcase in the first place. What a Pandora's box it turned out to be.

Give me n liters to go, and put it in my suitcase.

A man you should know about

2009-05-07T12:21:00.026-05:00

There once was a man name Leonhard Euler (pronounced "Oil-er"). No other man in the history of mathematics, with perhaps the only exception being Newton, has his named attached to so many ideas, postulates, proofs, and former NFL football teams than the Master Euler. Without a doubt, he was the most prolific writer of mathematics ever, his total works filling at least 100 volumes (and still counting). He averaged about 800 pages of new work each year during his long, productive life. It is said that it would take an entire volume itself just to publish the table of contents for his works.

He left his mark on virtual every branch of mathematics in such diverse fields as number theory, analysis, hydrodynamics and mechanics, topology, cartography, astronomy, and even dabbled in the seemingly unrelated fields of science, public affairs, philosophy, and even theology. Without his passion for discovery, the world would be much less advanced than it is today, and common mathematical symbols like i (the imaginary unit, equal to the square root of negative one), π (pi ~3.14159...), f(x), and e (called Euler's number, or the natural base ~2.71728...) would likely look more like numbers rather than those sneaky symbols that look like letters. Because of Mr. Euler, I can write my name like this:

Euler's most important contributions were so vast and numerous that if I referred to something as simple as "Euler's formula" or "Euler's theorem" people would either look at me like I was a dorky math nerd, or if they were a dorky math nerd themselves, would chuckle before incredulously saying, "which one?" (We mathematicians love the humor brought about by an elliptic statement, like the previous one, or hyperbolic statements, like, "Have you ever heard of Korpi's theorem??") Depending on the context in which you refer to the greatest mathematician of the 18th century, his "formula" or "theorem" can take on many, many different meanings. Just in mechanical physics alone, one has Euler angles--which specify the orientation of a rigid body, Euler's theorem--simply stating that every rotation has an axis, Euler's equations for motion of fluids, and the Euler-Lagrange equation--arising from the calculus involved.

Despite what you learned growing up that there are only two types of numbers in the whole-wide-world: the number Zero, and numbers that aren't zero, there are actually many types of numbers. In fact, when it comes to Euler, there are both Euler numbers and Eulerian numbers, and Euler's number (the number e already mentioned), and they are NOT the same thing. Some numbers resemble the three previous types, but are not those types. These numbers I have personally named Euleresque numbers. Euler's study of the Bridges of Königsberg can be seen as the beginning of combinatorial topology (which is why the Euler characteristic bears his name, but to make matters worse, the Euler characteristic is sometimes called the Euler number too!! I told you it depends on the context). The Bridge problem itself lends itself to defining what's called an Euler walk.

Can you cross all yellow bridges only once??

If you were to ask any advanced calculus student what the "Euler Formula" is, they might give you two different answers. On one hand, it can refer to the equation that defines the exponentials of imaginary numbers in terms of trigonometric functions. But there is another "Euler's formula" that (to use the modern terminology adopted long after Euler's death) gives the values of the Riemann zeta function at positive even integers in terms of Bernoulli numbers. Wow! That's a mouthful. My BC calculus students would tell you that Euler's Formula is something entirely different.

They would tell you that it's the equation that proves the existence of God! That's right, they have a good teacher. Sometimes called Euler's Identity or Euler's Equation, it can be derived from the first context of Euler's formula above evaluated at π, we can arrive at the following equation via infinite series:

Why does it proves God's existence? Well, it would fall under the Teleological argument of creation by design. The equation is too perfect and beautiful, not to mention TRUE, that it couldn't have existed unless it was created by a god, by THE God. The equation itself contains the three basic arithmetic operations occuring exactly once each: addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. The equation also links the five fundamental mathematical constants: 0, 1, π, i, and e itself. Like the likelihood of a finely-crafted, precision Swiss watch just coming together by a random arrangement of its parts, or the probability of the monkeys at typewriters producing the complete works of Shakespeare, the equation itself had to have had a creator, a divine one.The creator is God. Euler merely discovered it.

Are you still not impressed with this guy?

It was said of him that he "calculated without apparent effort, as men breathe, or as eagles sustain themselves in the wind." But don't think that an industrious brainiac was all seriousness. He also had quite a sense of humor too. For instance, late in life he went blind in one eye, and when asked how it would affect his math studies, he quipped, "Now I shall be less distracted." Talk about making lemonade out of lemons. In fact, he soon thereafter became totally blind in both eyes for the last 17, and MOST PRODUCTIVE, years of his life. This gives entirely new meaning to being "in the dark" when it pertains to mathematics.

Euler's powers of memory and concentration were incredible and quite legendary. He could recite the entire Aeneid, all 12 books!! word-for-word. I have trouble just remembering how to spell Aeneaid. A guy who spent so much of his waking hours in his study discovering and writing mathematics still had time to father 13 children with two different wives. He was not troubled, however, by all the distractions, interruptions, and little league baseball games. In fact, he did most of his work with his children playing at his feet, never kicking them away. His mind was a human calculator, capable of doing prodigious calculations in his head, which he increasingly relied on after he went blind. Apocryphal evidence tells the story of two of Euler's students who had independently summed seventeen terms of a complicated infinite series, only to disagree in the fiftieth decimal place; Euler settled the dispute by recomputing the sum in his head.

Genius like Euler comes once a century, if that, and although he and I are so very different, we do have one thing in common besides our sense of humor . . . we're both Yankee fans.

Come on, Ump. A blind ma . . . I could have made that call.

Life-saving Math Skills

2009-05-06T06:50:00.020-05:00

Suppose that . . .

You're stranded on desolate island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with nothing but an unlabeled canned good and your TI-83 graphing calculator housing dead batteries. A rescue boat filled with Humanitarian Mathematicians finds you and offers to rescue you if you can answer the following question:

Which is bigger, the square root of two or the cube root of three?

What an irrational question involving two "random" irrational numbers! Why on earth would answering a question like that be required for rescue? Remember, these are not just selfless Humanitarians, they are Mathematicians trying to save the world one stranded, computationally-illiterate at a time. Their boat. Their rules.

Do you want to rely on the 50-50 odds of guessing *gulp* incorrectly? Are you brazen enough to ask the Mathematicians if they have four healthy AAA batteries you could borrow temporarily? Is there a way to definitively determine the answer just by doing a couple of quick calculations in the sand? Your life depends on it.

Your instinct might tell you to go with "cube root of three" since, as Shel Silverstein wrote about in "Smart," "three is more than two!" But with any good question posed by a boat load of mathematicians, the answer may be counter-intuitive. In that case, perhaps going with "square root of two. . . final answer?"

The problem is that, although three is bigger than two, taking the cube root of it takes more of the number "away" than taking the square root of it. Therefore, although the two is a smaller number, there is more of it "left" after the indicated operation. Since the numbers two and three are relatively close to each other (with only an infinite number of real numbers between them), the answer is not as obvious as one would think.

Luckily, there is an easy way to answer the question definitively correctly, but it does require a little cleverness, insight, and talent, the same things that enabled Picasso and van Gogh to paint their masterpieces and the same qualities that allowed Bach to compose and Keats to write. The solution is beautifully efficient, artistic, and like a good magic trick, is easy once you know how.

So clear of a space in the sand and grab a shard of seashell and let's work on getting you off the island and into that boat with those creepy Humanitarian Mathematicians.

First Let a equal the square root of two and let b equal the cube root of three. Working with single variables will be much easier than working with radical expression .
Next, rewrite each radical expression as an equivalent expression involving a number raised to a rational exponent.
Now comes the clever part. We will change the value of each expression by raising each number to the power of n, where n is the least common multiple of the bases, two and three. In this case, n is 6.
Simplifying each new expression using basic rules of exponents (the boatload of mathematicians are very happy that you know when to add exponents and when to multiply them, for sure), we arrive at two easily comparable integers.
Now for sure, it is obvious that 9 is greater than 8, so b to the sixth is greater than a to the sixth.
Since the numbers are positive, we can now take the sixth root of each side (raising to the 1/6 power) without altering the inequality.
Now we arrive at the solution we originally desired. The answer is now so obvious. Since b is greater than a, the cube root of three is in fact bigger than the square root of two.

As you stare at your beautiful artwork, your masterpiece in the sand, you are filled with the satisfaction that you're a genius, a very hungry, dirty, unkempt genius, but a genius nonetheless. As the Humanitarian Mathematicians congratulate you and welcome you on to their boat, you hesitantly leave your creation behind, undisturbed in the sand.

You are saved, hurray. Surviving the boat ride to civilization with a boatload of mathematicians is another story altogether, but at least you saved yourself through your own ingenuity and persistence. It could have been much worse, you know. They could have asked you what was inside the unlabeled can!

By the way, in case your batteries are dead in your calculator too, the decimal values of the two numbers are surprisingly close.

A day to remember

2009-05-05T10:08:00.012-05:00

Today is a very special day for anyone looking for an excuse to drink margaritas, eat chips and salsa, and give thanks for the Swine Flu "epidemic." Today is Cinco de Mayo, which to those unilingualists out there means, "The day after the fourth of May." With more independence day celebrations than Zsa Zsa Gabor, today Mexico has reason to raise their blue-cloth masks high into the contanimated air and celebrate their pride and heritage. Although today certainly is no "diez y seis de Septiembre" (translated as "a week and three days prior to September 26th"), which is the Mexican National holiday commemorating their official independence from Spain, it does signify the huge victory of the small Mexican town of Puebla's victor against a much larger, better equipped, well-dressed legion of French soldiers smoking fancy cigarrettes. It's essentially their "Alamo," except they actually won (only to lose later, whereas we lost, only to win later.)

The day is still of significance in parts of Mexico, including Mexico City, which, ironically, is where the French eventually won the war and placed French Emporer Maximilian I on the Mexican throne. Rather than celebrate their defeat, enthusiasts celebrate their neighbor's victory by dressing up in hot polyester uniforms and reinacting the entire Puebla battle under the smoggy air around them which simulates rifle smoke.

Just up the road in Seguin, Texas, the town named after the Spanish General responsible for inspiring his Mexican troops that day back in 1862 to "wake up and fight (translated)" the kids who are home due to the Swine Flu are likely celebrating the day out in their yards flogging pinatas made to look like pigs and French Legionnaires.

In St. Paul Minnesota (see left), thousands of miles from Puebla, Mexico, little ninos and ninas are marching through the streets, ya know, wearing sombreritos (little sombreros) with what appears to be their hands handcuffed behind their backs doing folclorico dances.

Even farther north, across the other border (where they speak French) in Vancouver, they are celebrating Cinco de Mayo (and the French defeat?) via a skydiving exhibition. Apparently, the skydivers dress up as their favorite candy treat and jump out of a plane decorated as a pinata. Upon landing safely on the ground, the onlookers storm them and shred their costumes to pieces! For real! I'm ~~not~~ making this up.

In Portland, Oregon, more than 300,000 people attend a festival dedicated to this day. During the festival, people of Mexican heritage sell their crafts and wares while continuous Mariachi music plays loudly in the background while attendees stumble around drunk on Mexican beer trying to sing along to the Mariachi music with slurred lyrics in a language that is NOT Spanish. A similar spectator event is held at Civic Park in Denver, Colorado that also includes a green-chili cook-off and a ~~holding facility~~ play area for kids.

Even the British get in on the celebration in the Cayman Islands. At the local Hard Rock Cafe, you can drink enough discounted Corona beer until you get the courage to enter in their "Cinco de Mayo Air Guitar competition extravaganza!" Aside from the discounted imported Mexican beer and the day on the calendar, the event has nothing to do with Mexico, although you DO get
extra points in the competition if you throw in Air trumpet while wearing a giant black mustache and hoot a couple of "Aye, aye, ayes"

Last year's winner celebrating Hendrix style

As for me, I think I'll celebrate the day myself in a more subdued, yet honorable and flavorful way: Mexican food and a Negra Modelo(s) for lunch, followed by a looooong siesta. Thank you General Seguin and Swine Flu for making it all possible.

May everyone's tacos and enchildas of today not be the hearburn and gastroenteritis of tomorrow.

Uncaffeinated

2009-05-04T16:37:00.018-05:00

Did today really happen?

This morning I administered a 4-hour AP Government exam in an otherwise empty high school. With limited people on staff and being entrusted with "top secret" testing booklets, answer sheets, and a hermetically sealed "Red Folder," I knew that getting a bathroom break during those morning hours from 7:30 to 11:30 was going to be about as likely as everyone showing up to their test this morning on time--not going to happen. With no one available to relieve me so that I could relieve myself, and not wanting to to breech the security of this all-important exam, I had to adjust my usual routine. Thankfully, my ability to plan in advance is keener than my addiction to my morning pot-o-coffee. So I thought . . .

Consequently, I drank just two cups of the stimulating diuretic, which means that a) I didn't have to bring the entire class of test-takers to the bathroom with me, and b) I remained in a hazy fog all morning. With a 17-year pattern of sipping pots of highly-caffeinated java in order to jump start my brain, having only fraction of my usual amount is like letting a Facebook addict update their status only ONCE a day. Although I was able to read the testing script like a more "animated" robot and keep at least one eye on the AP testers, it was a good thing I didn't have to stand and teach. The entire morning felt like something I was dreaming rather than living. If it weren't for the massive headache I was slowly acquiring, I might have thought I was actually inside of a caffeine-deprivation nightmare.

After testing, I thought a chopped-beef sandwich, 64-ounces of caffeine-enriched sweet tea, and stimulating lunch conversation with my wife would be just what I needed. Well, the BBQ was delicious, the conversation was cathartic, but all the tea did for me crave the bathroom, which I was at least able to use without an entourage.

Still sleepy. Still in a fog.

Back at the house after picking up the kids (how did I get there? Autopilot? Did my son drive? He's only 8, but he IS awake . . . ) my kids wanted to play in the sprinkler. Great! What better way to finally wake up than a shower of cold water combined with running to and fro. Do you know how difficult it is to run when you're sleepy and wet and cold? My headache was really pounding now and was only accentuated when muddy kids' feet found there way into the house.

Then, get this, my kids wanted to watch a movie and dress in their pajamas! I don't know if they sensed my desire to just go back to bed, or because I was already wearing my loungewear, but I wasn't about to deny my kids the happiness and joy that comes from an afternoon PF party. I put a DVD in the bedroom (dark, cozy, inviting bedroom with a giant comfy bed) and we got underway. Then I started feeling guilty. . .

I left the kids with their movie and began my P90X Plyometric workout. If 60 minutes of jump training with Tony Horton wouldn't cure my of my lethargy, nothing would. As I began, I thought of my old college roomate who used to do situps in his sleep. We never knew how he got those 6-pack abs until I caught him one night while I was suddely awoken from choking during one of my "sleep eating" episodes. Exercising in your sleep is great if you are not consciously aware of it. Exercising while you're SLEEPY just plain sucks.

With that, I gave up all hope and went to finish the movie with the kids. I was asleep before my son finished filling me in on the plot.

I awoke later when my wife came home, still with a headache and still in a funk. With the movie long over, luckilythe kids were still in the house and hadn't started any fires with the food they were making on the stovetop.

All in all, I've had a miserably exhausting day doing pretty much nothing, and it all started with my intellect solving a problem of strategic bladder control. I'm going to try to survive the evening, with the help and support of my alert, cognizant family.

Tomorrow, I don't care if I have to take a busload of strangers to the bathroom with me, I'm getting back into my routine of having that pot of hot, steamy, aromatic, Black Silk coffee and enjoying the buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Can you just GO so we can go!!

Setting the Record Straight

2009-04-30T16:01:00.016-05:00

There have been lots of rumors going around lately regarding the swine flu. Who has it, who doesn't have it, that it's a giant hoax put forth by the makers of Tamiflu, and (my favorite) that school is closed until May 11th! Now some rumors are true (like that last favorite of mine) but more often than not, the rumors are nothing but sensationalized hearsay fabricated my scandal-mongers for the sake of having "something" to talk about. Heck, weathermen do it all the time, reporting that it's going to rain only so that they can report that it didn't rain like it was "rumored" to have supposed to--but that's another story altogether.

Looks like the forecasters were wrong again. Good thing I was drinking a Mai Tai

Teaching in a high school with throngs of loquacious, social adolescents who thrive on high drama, I hear my fair share of things whispered throughout the halls. This is mainly how I learn about John breaking up with Sally because he's "gay," and how Timmy almost died from smoking a whole garden full of Salvia. Most of the time, the rumors are innocent enough, even when they're about me, like the time everyone thought that I really hated precalculus students, which was so ungrounded that it was humorous: I didn't hate ALL of them.

But there are times when words can hurt as bad as sticks and stones, and there are times when even the most preposterous rumors are perpetuated for far too long that they cease to be amusing, kind of like when students asking more than once if they can have a "Free Day" in class. But long before there were hints, lies, and allegations being spread about every sneezing person on campus having swine flu, there was an informational invention about ME being chattered about all around my perimeter and even in the grocery stores on Sunday morning. While I guess I should be flattered to have my name come up in the same conversation as Jesus and "Uncle Ben," but being the butt of an ongoing, untrue allegation, even if it's not damaging to my reputation, is a bit frustrating, annoying, and disappointing.

Rumors DESTROY the flavor of rice

For several weeks now, I have been asked if I and a close colleague and friend of mine are leaving our teaching positions to accept a "better" job in a "better" school district. It sounds harmless at first, maybe even somewhat flattering, first to think that there IS a better job or better school out there, and second, that I have been recruited, courted, and seduced into teaching at that educational Eden. But after I've continually dismissed the rumor and reassured my students that I have no such plans or aspirations and the questions still come at me, I've got to wonder if there's some sort of covert plan to GET me to leave!

What makes this situation even more appalling is that my colleague and I DID, in fact, visit another campus to speak with the principal about the possibility of the marriage between their needs and our talents. The visit was mainly to case their school and bring back good ideas to make OUR school better. Although we didn't get any panacea for handling tardies, we did bring back some useful insights. This visit took place early LAST SCHOOL YEAR!!

We obviously returned to our teaching positions this year, and since then have attacked our curriculum with more fervor and dedication than ever before. With both of us being alumni of the great school we now teach at, we were NEVER serious about leaving, but now, a year later, long after we even forgot we visited that campus, someone let's the cat out of the bag. Well, that's one dead cat. Time to put it bag into the bag and bury it next to Schrodinger's fated feline.

In an age of instant information, where students text message each other continuously about every tiny detail of their existence, it's rather strange that this type of message took so long to grow into the weed it now is. If this rumor was a student, it would be a junior student who goes to the bathroom during 1st period precalculus only to return without washing his hands just in time for his senior final exams!! Talk about a tardy problem.

So officially for the record. I'm going to set the record straight:

I am NOT leaving New Braunfels High School (except occasionally on the weekends to see my family).
I am staying on board to continue to teach at my alma mater.
I'm a true-blue ~~Mule~~ Unicorn who bleeds red (sorry, I only WISH it were blue).
I am NOT a Jedi.
Not ALL those Facebook "friends" are my friends. Some are relatives.
That was NOT me coming out of that bar
YES, I HAVE thought about joining the alien circus.
No, I DON'T do math all the time at home (sometimes I throw in a little physics)
YES, those ARE my real Biceps
NO, I'm NOT addicted to knee surgeries
YES, I AM addicted to coffee
NO, I CANNOT divide by zero
YES, I have NO outstanding warrants for my arrest
And NO, I do NOT have the swine flu (yet)

The "Piggyfly" Effect

2009-04-29T08:47:00.017-05:00

In early April in La Gloria, Veracruz, Mexico, near the "manure lagoons" on a giant pig farm, 4-year-old Edgar Hernandez gets the swine flu. Today on the other side of the continent, an entire community closes it's schools for 10 days.

Talk and hype of this new Swine Flu has already made more people sick of hearing about it than those who have actually been afflicted by the virus. Even with the historically recent epidemics of the Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, SARS, and the Avian flu, I never thought that such an outbreak would ever effect or disrupt my life as this swine flu has. Being a perpetual "hand washer," "sneezer into the crux of my elbow," and being around so many surgical masks (unfortunately), my family has always done our part to keep germs at bay, going so far as to steer clear of annoying neighbors. In fact, I thought that being a teacher and being exposed to the communal germs brought to campus by the students of various hygiene habits actually increased my immunity against infections in much the same way allergy shots are designed to work.

I've rejoiced (silently) when school closed down for a day or two because of a couple of ice crystals on a bridge. These rare moments were an opportunity to frolic with the kids without the serious risk of breaking the flow of obligations. But a school closing for 10 days because of an unknown, morphing strain of influenza virus? "Never will that happen! That's movie fodder!!" "When pigs fly," I thought. But now it's official: "Pig's flu!" Who knew?

Ten days is an awfully long time, just long enough to get used to new habits, like sleeping in until 6:30 a.m., actually eating breakfast, laying around in lounge shorts, delegating chores to my children ("Tate, come press this button on the remote control for me"), watching "Days of our Lives," and updating your status on Facebook. But with an incubation time of 5 days, the mandated "vacation" was chosen to span two incubation periods, and also because it coincided very nicely with a Monday return.

With over 150 deaths in Mexico from the H1N1 et al strands already, and the first confirmed death in the U.S. just this morning, no precautionary measures are being spared. Until health officials get a firm grasp on what this virus really is and how to contain it, taking measures to avoid a massive outbreak via social settings makes sense, although I can already picture large groups of students gathering on their "break" to tube the river, play volleyball, and study math.

Those who are already tired of hearing about this piggish, piddly flu (the same types of people who stay put to ride out hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and a busload of Jehovah Witnesses in their neighborhood) draw attention to the 30,000+ deaths in the U.S. each year due to the common flu. What they fail to realize is that the common flu is, how to say it . . . , more COMMON than the swine flu. An estimated 50 million (that's 6 trailing zeros before the decimal, infinitely many beyond it) Americans contract the general flu each year. That comes out to a mortality rate of 0.06%, miniscule really. Of those that fall into that unfortunate percentage, they are likely to be those with weakened immune systems, such as infants, elderly, those with respiratory disease, and those who have spent 10 consecutive days indoors on a couch watching "Days of our Lives." As of today, the mortality rate for this new flu is at 2.6%, with 66 confirmed cases in the U.S. alone, 6 of which are in Texas. Like a rattlesnake with Turret's syndrome and buck teeth, this isn't something anyone wants to mess with.

Now that the "swine flu" has entered into the vernacular, more people with symptoms are being diagnosed. There are hundreds of potential cases currently pending, and people are scrambling to purchase items they think will protect themselves. Drug stores are selling out of surgical maskswhile making all the news stories appear to be at first covering a Michael Jackson Fan Club Convention. Although is is doubtful whether the masks provide any real defense against the swine flu, it is making the surgical mask making companies rich. Look for designer colors and styles to hit the shelves at your local department store soon.

So the reality is that because of a small boy in Mexico (who's made a full recovery), I've got an unexpected 10-day sabbatical that I get to spend with my own children. Although it complicates things, one should never let a world-wide health scare go to waste. The kids and I will make the most of our time off. Perhaps we'll start with a little arts and crafts activity: pimping our homemade swine flu masks.

Attack of the TAKS

2009-04-28T12:02:00.012-05:00

Brains are a churning
Calculators are crunching
Pencils are smoking
And students are munching

Each lost in their thought
of x's and y's
solving equations
finding rectangle's sides.

Today is the TAKS test
Mathematics's up first
It's smart to start testing
with the test that's the worst

We're all in the midst
of day one of the four.
At the end of the day
we'll still have three more.

Students sit for exams
'cause the state says they muss'
They're judging the students,
but they're, too, judging us.

These high-stakes conditions
try to adequately measure
What a student can remember
under high-stakes pressure

But the test is untimed
and some finish fast.
Others go slowly,
lest they must go to class.

Bubbling and gridding
they work through the test
certain on some,
and guessing the rest.

Some take small breaks,
put their head down and sleep.
Others just zone off
without making a peep.

As I actively monitor
alert and aware,
sometimes a student
feels the weight of my stare.

I've never spent 4 hours
that felt quite so long.
Even pacing the room
didn't move time along.

Then slowly they finish
first one and then two,
and now that they're done,
they have nothing to do.

So now I must make sure
that everyone's quiet
And keep one's who've finished
from starting a riot.

I know it's my job
and I shouldn't be bitter,
but at times I just feel
like a paid babysitter.

Then finally, at last,
the last person's done.
In reality, though.
The long week's just begun.

Tomorrow, then Thursday,
then Friday as well.
"Oh cometh, ye Saturday,
our savior from . . . "

Sham Wow, Slam Pow

2009-04-27T07:05:00.009-05:00

A giant big mess has been made
that cannot be cleaned up by a maid
and not paper towels
or even Shamwows
can turn these lemons to lemonade.

"So what's the big mess?" you inquire
Well it involves a female for hire.
And a famous pitch person
in a situation that worsened
When she failed to put out his fire

It appears that the pitchman got randy
After absorbing a bucket of brandy
So he picked up a hooker
(he's not much of a looker)
And retreated to feast on his candy.

In their room it soon was hardcore
As the hour approached that of 4.
They were chopping and slicing
and cutting and dicing
Then the Shamwow guy gave a roar.

As he slipped her the tongue she did plea
"Please keep that gross thing out of me!"
She bit down so fierce
His tongue she did pierce
So he punched her to get himself free.

With a slap and a chop to her face
There was blood all over the place
there were lots of wet tears
and a couple spilled beers
Leaving them both in disgrace.

Arrested and booked into jail
Vince "Offer" Shlomi soon posted bail
and asked himself "How
he can now sell Shamwow?"
In light of this messy detail.

Now that he's committed his crime
And tarnished his image with grime
his next big manuever
should be to sell spot remover
If he's ever got another chance to shine

Mathematical Musings: XVI

2009-04-24T16:58:00.002-05:00

Another weekly installment of my pedagogical persiflage.

I’m not of the high and supreme moral fabric you think I am. I’m more sub-lemon than sublime.
He who forgets his food in the microwave is doomed to reheat it.
I like to be fit. I don’t like to exercise though, and when I’m fit, I’d rather have someone else do it, like a Tailor, but it’s very important to be fit. You wouldn’t want your clothes to fit you inappropriately.
You can bet that that will happen 99 times out of 99 ½ chances.
My dad used to work in the used car business. It was brutal. He had one day off a week, and when sales were down, he was required to work on his day off. As it turns out, Idiot Shark Logic dictates that fewer sales is a function of lack of salesmen. So what ended up happening is there were 10 guys just standing around most of the day instead of just 8. The neanderthal sales manager who sits on his brain all day, had no clue that low sales was not caused by the lack of salesmen to handle the customers BUT THE LACK OF CUSTOMERS THEMSELVES!!!! Hello!!
I know all the digits of Pi, I just don’t know what order they go in.
Student: “Mr. Korpi, is the next test going to be hard?” Korpi: “Do you really want me to answer that? What do you think? Have we had one yet that’s been soft? Let’s just say it’ll be darn solid.”
As much as I dislike teaching Precal, not only because I don’t like the subject, but especially because of the whiny, youth-like, skill-deficient students that take it, if I’m going to keep teaching Calculus, I need to keep teaching precal so that I don’t end up feeling the same way about calculus. I’d rather get the stupidity out of them at a lower level than at a higher one.
My wife keeps telling me I’m out of shape. I keep telling her that I’m not out of shape, I’m just so malleable and flexible, that I can take on many shapes. Right now I'm a circle.
I’m about to say something that is not funny in the least bit: “Orbital Sanders aren’t so random as cheeseburgers driving taxis.”
Have you ever tried to assemble phrases of words that you imagine have never been spoken in that particular sequence before? Phrases like, “Whale aphrodisiacs with chalk and dice,” or the rarer sequence, “Hey! I like math.”
Have you noticed that all cars now have a starting price of like, under 35 thousand dollars, like $34,999? Then in the commercials, they show the car, and in the small print at the bottom, it reads, “$34,999 base price, $84,999 as shown,” and you’re wondering, “Dang, if that one’s 85 grand and it has all the components of a car, what’s the base model that costs 35 grand lacking? Do the windows roll down? OH! They all have On-Star, so I can find the closest McDonald’s Restaurant. How did we ever get along without these cars? I don’t know, but I’m going to have to keep getting along without them, ‘cause I sure can’t afford them, and I can find McDonald’s by myself, thank you very much. It's right next to Dollar General.
Do you ever wonder when we are going to run out of original melodies for songs? Or at least when we are going to run out of melodies with G, C, and D as chords? They are already recycling melodies at my sons Pre-K school. Every week he comes home singing a different song to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” . . . Think about it, you’ve learned 3 different tunes as a tad to the ABC song: ABC, Twinkle, Twinkle, and Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. . . .No, you never wonder that? Well, I’m going to make a prediction: I’m saying in 180.95 years.
You’re Lazy with a capital “E.”
My wife’s name is spelled “S-H-E-A-L-Y-N-N.” The P is silent, and noticeably absent.
I think “Nimrod” is a word that is too frequently underused.
When I drive places in town, I might as well be a passenger, because it’s all the stupid people behind the wheels of the other cars that DRIVE ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!
I Love to play tennis, and I suck at it, so that always happens to be my score, too. But it’s still OK, because I just like to raise a racket.
Writing jokes is not a joking matter. You must take it seriously or people will just laugh at you.
“People” magazine: it’s like High School for grown-ups.
I laugh at people who read magazines like “People” and “Us;” people who watch programs like “Entertainment Tonight” and “Xtra.” I guess the general American public needs to live vicariously through the shallow, idiotic, materialistic people they choose to support. It’s like tracking your stock portfolio; only, you are not earning anything on your investment in celebrities. You go to their games, you watch their movies, you read their books, you buy their clothes, you sing their songs, blah, blah, blah. If you don’t want me to LAUGH AT YOU, you must become one of these people and not the people who are interested in them.
One of my favorite bands is “The Cure.” Listening to their music is like a big Vicodin pill for the troubled soul: it provides acute, temporary comfort to a chronic, incurable illness.
I’m so tired, I can almost sleep, but not so tired that I can’t.
I’m so bored, you can use me to build a piece of wood.
I was very precocious as a child. When I was 1.9, I really acted like I was terribly 2.1!
I like to say funny things, especially when people are eating; it’s fun to watch mashed potatoes and root beer shoot out of someone’s nose, unless you are sitting across from them, then it’s just gross, but funny to others. I like people laughing with me, not at me. This is why I always sit across from librarians.
My wife tells me I’m delusional; that I think I’m funnier than I really am. That’s OK. I’ll have the last laugh when I get someone else to play my wife on my sitcom: someone like . . . Lassie!
I don’t know what I’d do without my wife. I love her to death. But sometimes she drives me crazy, so instead of getting mad, I just try to love her more and more and more and more, hoping that I really do love her that much.
I don’t know what to say in a situation like this, so I’ll just say, “Skitelbitsemkarft.”
I’m not a good comforter. If something tragic has happened in you life, you can expect a “there, there” from me. If you have died, you can guarantee an extra “there.”
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!! I always knew the results of your test would come back Pos . . . err (cough) I mean Negative! Look at that alien over there!!!!!!!!!!!
Writing is easy. It’s coming up with what to write that is a bit more challenging.
If I ever wrote a book, people would probably be amazed, since the advent of the typewriter and keyboard. They would probably ask, “Why didn’t you just type it? That would have been more appropriate. Then you could have just emailed your editor your manuscript as an attachment.” True, but how many people can say that they have typed a book?
My new favorite band is “Los Lonely Boys.” Everyone else I introduce them to, which means tape them to a chair while the band plays in the background, says that they will “never give it up” and that the band sucks!! You know, Willie Nelson is touting them as “His favorite new band.” I guess that makes me and Willie honorary members of the band.
I’ve said a lot of profound things in my life, and many funny things, but none as profound and funny as the claim I just made.
In 1943, America was preparing for World War II, but my Dad was a Sophomore in High School thinking, “If I can only land that rural farming girl, our son can drive a standard automobile. Oh the gene pool potential, because the spaceships of the future will have standard transmission, and that girl can drive a tractor.”
I’m a very dizzy fellow. I guess I shouldn’t spin so fast in my own boots.
Life sucks: if you’re lucky.
Wife-n-someone who tells you what to do, when you want to do otherwise.
When we graph Supply and Demand curves, we measure price on the vertical axis and commodity quantities on the other. An example of a commodity could be a commode. It works well as a commodity, but it works better as a toilet.
At my house, we reserve the second-story for the upstairs only.
I don’t care much for polka music; it’s like crazy, annoying polka music with words I don’t understand.
In mathematics it is impressive to be able to navigate through a long problem and perform all the necessary long and drawn-out computations successfully; however, it is even more impressive if you can find a way to do the problem more efficiency and actually do less complex and lengthy calculations. Efficiency, after all, is nothing more than intelligent laziness.
My wife and I have a three-year-old son and an 18-month-old daughter who was born about a year and a half ago.
When I went for physical therapy after my knee surgery, I was the only patient there who didn’t like playing dominoes.
My surgery on my knee went so well, I think I am going to have the other done to match, but not just yet. I figured I wait 100 years or so.
When it comes to enforcing my knee-bending exercises, my wife is very inflexible.
The only thing worse than having to use crutches, is needing them and not having them. But I have to admit, I rely on them pretty heavily. I'm embarrassed to say that I use them as a crutch.
I’m so tired, I could sleep with a horse.

A bug in your ear

2009-04-23T07:26:00.035-05:00

Have you ever heard of an earworm? Well, if you've ever seen the 1982 "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" movie, you know how things like "ceti ells" can make their way into your cerebral cortex via your ear canal only to constantly irritate you, aggravate you, pester you, drive you mad, if not kill you altogether. But aside from Ricardo Montalbán introducing foreign objects into your Eustachian tube, what else can find itself passively lodged in there???

Well, of course, there's "Otodectes cyanotis" (ear mites), but those are really more common in canines, felines, and people who stick their ears next to and inside of the aforemetioned animals. For most of us out there, accidental manifistations of accidental audicle accessories includes the occasional Q-tips, water, giant wax balls, croutons (don't ask), and that damn song "Who Let the Dogs Out" (don't you know they have contagious ear mites???!!!)

The modern lexicon has coined such an annoyingly catchy song an "earworm." Much like a computer worm that infiltrates a computer and network without any user intervention, eating up vital resources and bandwidth, an earworm starts out as an unassuming , innocuous melody that passively overtakes your subconcious mind, leaving you singing out loud without realizing it, tossing and turning at night while you envision yourself performing the song at a sold-out concert, or performing an exorcism to rid the devilish ditty from your corrupted soul. You might find yourself singing than new "Free Credit Report.com" commercial jingle out loud while you're standing in the line at the grocery store where you're about to pay for your Doritos and beer on your credit card--that's just a little embarrassing, you might as well be wearing the pirate suit at that point.

Some people call them "songs that stick in your head," scientists have called them "haunting melodies" or "involuntary musical imagery," but the idea of a worm crawling around in your head feeding off your brain and doing serious damage to your nervous system is much more appropriate. And for different people, the worm is usually something different. Some people have stronger tolerance or immunity to catchy songs that infect most other people.

If you're a person who has never found yourself singing the "Macarena" while sitting through a boring business meeting, you're in the exclusive minority of people who live under rocks. If you think that you're too sexy to be caught with Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy," then you're nothing but a narcissist in denial. If you've ever ridden the "It's a Small World" ride at Disneyworld without having nightmares and suicidal tendencies, then you're lying through your teeth! If you know what I'm talking about, and you've since recovered, then I'm so very sorry to bring up repressed memories. I would suggest listening to the latest Disney earworm before the image of creepy little animated children in sombreros and lederhosen resurface--that new song would be "Hoedown Throwdown" from the new Hannah Montana movie.

In a previous blog, I mentioned how I enjoyed watching the movie with my family and how "catchy" the song was. Thinking my daughter would enjoy learning the song and dance, I acquired the movie soundtrack and found a Youtube video that teaches the moves. Now that song not only plays 'round the clock in my head--I was doing the dance in my dreams last night, at least I thought they were me dreams until I woke up sweaty, tired, and singing the song--it plays constantly through the speakers in my house. I find myself now itching, sweating, going stir-crazy, asking myself "Who let these dogs out??" Stupid me!!!!!

So how can one rid themselves of these toxic worms? Letting them wear off on their own can last several weeks, which by then, you're family, if not infected themselves, is likely planning an intervention on your behalf or looking up the phone number to the psych hospital. The few moments my mind's not going "boom boom clap, boom de clap de clap," I've found sanctuary in another catchy worm I picked up over the weekend: M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" from Slumdog Millionaire (which no doubt infected many others previously when it showed up in "Pineapple Express")

All I wanna do is (BANG BANG BANG BANG!)
And (KKKAAA CHING!)
And take your money

But it doesn't take long for this temporary relief to be as bad, if not worse, than the infliction it was supposed to assuage, as the lyrics quickly change in my mind to

All I wanna do is (SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP!)
And (ZZZZZZ SNORE!)
And just get some rest

Maybe writing about all this will help me clear my mind so I can again refocus on other things like feeding myself, personal hygiene, and, of course, sleeping. With any luck, I'll catch on to a trendy lullaby or a smooth, sleepy, relaxing instrumental song, that would actually be beneficial to my current state of mind.

Oh no . . . . I'm hearing Chuck Mangione in the back of my head. Why does it have to be a trumpet. A trumpet!!

Tips for Earthy Living

2009-04-22T09:50:00.023-05:00

Happy Birthday, Earth. Happy Earth Day everyone else!

Today's the one day a year where we "celebrate" this great, improbable terrestrial ball and all of its life, resources, beauty, and diversity. Or at least SOME people celebrate it. With eco-friendly practices pervading American, if not Global, consciousness lately, "Going Green" has become the latest fad. Capitalism, wasting no chance to exploit this new mindset, has pandered to the the people willing to spend lots of green to go green. In fact, it is not cheap to be so conservation-minded.

For instance, we have to pay extra for rural recycling service where we live, so I don't buy it. Instead, I take my recyclables to my in-laws once a week to be included in their service. At the grocery store, we take our own handsomely-designed and sturdily-constructed green shopping bags, made from, of course, recycled materials. Those bags weren't as "free" as the complimentary plastic and paper bags we used to take our groceries home in.

But really, whatever the motivation, this new "fad" of sensitivity and awareness has one beneficiary--posterity. Our Earth, although remarkable resilient, is not totally resistant to the careless, selfish, detrimental practices of it's current inhabitants. We owe it to our children, grandchildren, future generations of homosapiens, robots, cute little fluffy kitty cats, and Mother Earth herself to live as if we were only ~~renting~~ borrowing our space here on this planet, in much the same way we take care of a ~~rental car~~ good friend's ~~hammer~~ newborn baby.

So what can you do today to celebrate this "artificial" holiday? Hopefully, your actions today will only jump start a new way of thinking, and a new way of everyday living.

In case you're looking for some ideas, here are some:

Install composting toilets in all bathrooms of your house except the ones you actually use
Boil your OWN water
Turn off all the lights in your house when not in use, unless they're already not in use
Brush your teeth using organic banking soda and distilled ~~vodka~~ water from the Earth, not the ~~bottle~~ faucet
Wash you clothes in cold water once a month instead of hot water each week, unless you want to keep your job
Remove all spray tips from your cans of aerosol paint and hide them in small lock box made from recycled porcelain toilets
Keep your batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9-volt, etc.) in the refrigerator AT ALL TIMES. This will prolong their life until it is time to take them to a disposal facility that specializes in used battery disposal for a large fee
Carry a large plant around with you wherever you go to help convert your carbon dioxide pollution into oxygen more readily
Conserve oxygen and talk less
Ride your bike instead of driving your car. When possible, ride your bike downhill only.
Have your HVAC system service by a licensed professional who drives a "Smart Car" and uses only "Earth Friendly" freon
Place a cup under any leaky faucet and generously spread the accumulated water over your lawn at 3:00 in the morning.
Unplug all your clocks when you're not interested in what time it is. They hoard energy!
By a small windmill and set it up in a breezy area, this should help dissipate heat and dangerous greenhouse gases

And finally, the best advice I can give you involves using the toilets you actually use . . .

If it's brown, flush it down. If it's yellow, let it mellow.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

The Wait is Over

2009-04-21T06:54:00.016-05:00

This weekend I saw two great movies.

For me, watching one movie a month is a bit excessive, and being a horrible judge of what movies are actually good, it's even rarer that I feel afterward that the 2 to 3 hours spent was well worth it. While some people are content with movie watching as mindless recreation, as a temporary escape from the reality of life, I expect much more out of my movies. I want them to deliver on their namesake: I want to be moved by them. I expect to be not only thoroughly and wholeheartedly entertained, a good movie will get me to explore my beliefs, convictions, values, and will take me on a roller coaster ride through all the essential emotions. If at no time during the movie I find myself fighting back cathartic tears, I get angry, 'cause I'm not getting my time or money back.

Now I'm not a smart man, but I know what a great movie is . . . ."Forrest Gump," what I think is one of the greatest movies of all time, has all the essential elements, and is really like 5 movies in one--a great bargain. The original "Rocky," does it for me too, not so much the sequals (although I cried when Apollo Creed died). "The Godfather" is in the same class, even though there is no Lieutenant Dan character in it. "The Dark Knight," has moved into my top five simply because of Ledger's performance, the way he made that pencil disappear . . . OUCH!

Most recently I've been disappointed by movies like"Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Michael Clayton,"(It was actually "GREAT!?") and "Get Smart" (get real!) These movies were more like bad bubble gum that not only loses it's flavor as soon as you get it out of the wrapper, but that has such horrible consistency you can't even blow a bubble with it. Taking advice from friends is no good either. The same guy that might have your back in a bar room fight is the same guy that will recommend a movie that leaves you wishing you had rather been beaten to a pulp.

On Saturday night, I finally took in the award-winning "Slumdog Millionaire." With sooo many friends saying how wonderful it was and rarely liking the "Best Picture" winner ("Howard's End" for one--I couldn't even finish it), I put it off as long as I could. Finally succumbing to the pressure, I was immediately taken by the soundtrack and cinematography, not to mention the fact that I could play a trivia game (my favorite) throughout the show. And what a show it was, possessing a little bit of everything from action, to drama, a love story, comedy, multiculturalism, cricket, good vs. evil, justice v. injustice, Dicken's modern-day Fagen, great acting, perfectly placed sound effects and background music, trivia (of course), and even dancing at the end during the credits. Although I rarely ever watch a movie twice, this is one I might have to take in again. Even right now as I write this, I'm listening to the soundtrack trying to make out what the Hindi lyrics are saying, but since I don't know Hindi, I just bob my head and groove along with it.

Earlier that Saturday, my family dragged me to the new Hannah Montana movie. With major resistance to another installment of "Teen Disney" shows which permeate, saturate, and dominate our TV viewing at home, the last thing I wanted to do was sit in a theater and watch some synthetic storyline by which "Hannah Montana" grows up and becomes just "Miley." Her transmogrification was going to happen whether I forked out money for tickets, popcorn, bon-bons, pickles and a jumbo soda to see it happen. I'd know the transformation was by watching my daughter's wardrobe change from Hannah to Miley in much the same was it changed from Dora the Explorer to Hannah. But when the kids are begging you to go, what are you going to do?

What I wasn't suspecting was that I would actualy LIKE the show. Granted, viewing it in a theater full of little girls on Hannah fieldtrips and full of reluctant fathers like me provided the atmosphere in which I could enjoy the show without questioning my motives. With a very simple, even trite, storyline and only capable acting at best, the message of the importance of family values and being true to yourself never get old. The soundtrack, too, was surprisingly well-written. Perhaps the musically side of me appreciated the real talents of the singer-songwriter side of Ms. Cyrus more than her histrionic acting. For instance, there is a tender moment in the movie with her father where she sings to him her "Caterpillar/Butterfly" song. I get sappy and emotional over things like that, especially sitting next to my own 6-year-old daughter, even though at the time, she was bouncing up and down in her chair paying no attention to the movie.

That soundtrack, too, I now have at home, and my son and daughter are trying to teach me the "Hoedown Throwdown" lyrics and dance. It's AMAZING how quickly little kids can memorize stuff when they want to, but they have a hard time remembering the sequence of getting ready for school in the morning. If I have to remind them one more time that clothes go on AFTER their shower, I'm going to have a real, live hoedown throwdown with them.

Although I'll likely never watch that Hannah movie ever again (until it comes on TV on the Disney channel and my kids hide the remote . . . ) the entire experience with the family made it very pleasureable and enjoyable, except for the fact that my daughter ate my entire pickle, even though I asked her a hundred times at the concession counter if she wanted one, and she repeatedly said, "No (thank you sweet, wonderful) Daddy."

So while I wear out the Slumdog sountrack while fondly reflecting on the movie itself and foolishly attempt to line dance with Hannah all over again like I did almost 20 years ago with her father's "Achy Breaky Heart," I'll be waiting for the next movie gem to stumble upon.

I hear there's a MacGyver movie in the works. Forrest Gump, move over, "step to the side, jump to the left, stick it, glide, zigzag across the floor, shuffle in diagonal, when the drum hits, hands on your hips, one-footed 180 twist, then zigzag, step, slide, lean in left, clap three times, shake it out head to toe, throw it all together, that's how we roll . . . do the hoedown throwdown.

Mathematical Musings: XV

2009-04-17T13:17:00.003-05:00

More silly classroom banter spoken by me in the heat of a mathematical moment.

If each of you (students) don’t live up to my expectations, it is your failing, not my mistake.
Last week, I kept getting this Pop-Up ad for Viagra; it was like the ad, itself, was on the stuff.
If I don’t see y’all ‘til next time, have a great time ‘til then, or even better.
I have graded your tests. Some did better than others, some worse than others. One person did no worse than anyone, and one also did no better than anyone. The lowest grade was below the top score, which was above the lowest. The rest of the grades were distributed between the high and low grade. So, overall, the grades were somewhere between zero and 100, with the lowest score not being zero, but the highest grade actually being 100. I will hand them back to you now.
After this problem, we will be closer to being close to almost being ready to be fixing to be almost done.
Thanks for catching my error. I knew something wasn’t right. It just didn’t feel right when I did it. I was thinking, “Did I leave the iron on at home? No, I don’t iron. Did I forget my car keys this morning?” As it turned out, I just missed a negative.
Korpi: “Here’s the last of the easy ones . . .” Student: “Ya, before you beat us to death with the hard ones.” Korpi: “No, No, No! I prefer to call it 'flogging'.”
Because this class asks much more profound and probing questions than the other class; consequently, we have more lively discussions. Also, consequently, we have to go more quickly through the lesson. But, more intelligent people ask more intelligent questions, and, more intelligent people can learn more quickly. So to get the lesson in, I usually have to talk 90-to-nothing, almost intelligibly fast. I am confident that you will either get the lesson or quit asking so many darn questions.
It’s OK in our answer if we restrict the domain. The domain of our answer can be a subset of the domain of our original function. What we don’t want to happen is for the original problem’s domain to be a proper subset of our answer. Think of the dire and irreversible consequences!!!
Although my daughter is 10 months old, when people ask how old she is, I say, “Zero.” From this, they infer, usually, if they don’t breathe through their mouth, that she is in the interval of the non-inclusive interval of zero to one. Some people think she is actually zero, even thought they don’t even realize that that is impossible.
What a great lesson I have in store for you today. Today you are going to say, “Wow! I can’t believe public education is FREE!” I haven’t been this excited about a lesson since last time.
The best way to avoid discipline problems in the classroom is a heavy dose of cheesy, really cheesy jokes. The kids will get used to them and come to expect an order of free queso with every lesson.
OK, you say we should preserve the domain at all costs. I say, it’s OK to restrict it, so long as we don’t expand it. It’s a matter of preference really. I’m the teacher, which means, I’m the boss. If there is no real profound mathematical consequence, you will do as I say, or your class rank will drop. Otherwise, we are just splitting hairs, and when I say hairs, I mean like on the top of your head, not bunnies. That’s for biology class, AND that’s how the real-world works.
Today is a free day. I’m really tired. If you object, please take it up with the Principal. To keep it on the level, though, as I sleep, you may calculate the area under my curve. Please use theoretical data rather than empirical. I would like to live to sleep another day.
Yes I drink a full pot of coffee each day, and I put it all in this big giant mug. And that’s all I need, just one cup a day, then. Don't tell me that it’s bad for me, too much caffeine, etc. If caffeine is bad for you, then everything is bad for you. I’ll honestly say that the fumes from that powerful bold-colored green dry-erase marker are more detrimental than caffeine . . . but for you students, in the name of mathematics, I assume the risks. It just comes with the job of being a math teacher.
To student: Your homework is like a really good steak—rarely done.
My marvelous masters of math meddle in my mistakes, making my mishaps material for mathematical merriment.
All arrays aren’t always arranged alphabetically.
Mathematical mastery mitigates matriculation misery.
Determining Derivatives Demands Dedicated, Diligent Disciples.
Homework helps hone helpful habits.
Confidently calculating complex calculus computations commands committed concentration.
Learning limits lightly is, loosely, lunacy.
Intimately investigation infinitesimals introduces initiates and ingrates to infinite ideas.
Participation prepares people positively for purposeful pursuits.
Most matters of math muster the mind’s mighty muscle.
Knowing numbers is a non-negotiable necessity.
Proving postulates purports painstaking persistence and presupposes patience.
Educators endure enormous entourages of energetic ensembles.
Alliteration almost automatically alleviates ailments . . . Anyways . . .
Painful persistence pertaining to particular procedures promotes prolonged procurement of proper practices.
Functions form the fundamental foundations of finite formulas for finding forces.
Fall finals foster fear for fatuous fellows who frantically forget formulas.
Starting spring semesters signal salient, sallying sounds of seniors singing saporous, seductive songs of summer.
Trig’s tricky triangular tasks take time to tackle triumphantly.
The real roots of romance aren’t reason or ‘rithmetic, rather reducible to raw, robust regard for roses.
The terminable task of taking the TAKS test is torturous and taxing, though tacitly tolerable.
You say I drink too much coffee. 10 cups a day! Big deal. You should see my coffee maker. It can make 12 cups at a time. So to me, 10 cups is already in moderation.
Man, this Calculus book is heavy. I get tired of lifting it up on my podium. It must really suck to be y’all, having to carry it around all day with all those other books. Man it sucks to be y’all. . . . And all that math homework you have. . .
Although my big huge mug says, “Texas Tea Cup,” it’s just a false front, a cover, for what it really contains. No, my friends, it doesn’t contain any tea at all. It really contains the warmer, equally caffeinated drink: coffee. It’s so fun to fool people.
That was a great discussion we had today. Thank y’all for being so mathematically feisty.
A function and an inverse have all their y-ey and x-ey stuff switched. What is "exy' on the function is now very "exy" on its inverse.
Calculus is so much fun because we get to have some great philosophical discussions regarding zero and infinity. They are such seriously profound and related concepts that history has had many sects devoted entirely to them. That’s s-e-c-t-s. Probably fewer of the other type.
Korpi: “I know I promised that this would be the last problem we work today in class, but I want to work just one more, because I think it will help you in the homework.” Student: “So you’re a compulsive liar, huh?” Korpi: “No. Just call me a ‘Friday Fibber’.” Student: “So you aren’t a compulsive liar?” Korpi: “Yes, I am. I was just lying earlier.”
Dang!!! I hate these white dry-erase markers. I never know where to erase!
The slower I talk, the sleepier I get!
I think the past participle of “to drink” should be “have drinken,” not “have drunk.” I think the word “drunk” should be reserved for times when you say, “Dang, I’m drunk! I guess I have drinken too much!”
There are only 2 minutes left for the quiz. You should be getting really close to making your final guesses.
Korpi: “Boy, it sure feels like a Friday today!” Student: “But, today is Friday.” Korpi: “Hence the veracity of my previous statement!”

Drunk and Fight

2009-04-16T16:56:00.023-05:00

Last week in my precalculus class, two students were thumbing through a thin book whose cover me recognized. You see, back in high school myself bought I the same exact book! The book was titled "Strunk and White: The Elements of Style." At the encouragement of my then AP English teacher, the book was purchased by myself, and was to serve as the grammatical bible for all of my future writing and speaking endeavors. I thought it strange to see it reemerging in the hands of a student after all these years, for I have not heard any students nor teachers speak of it during the 10 years I've been teaching high school. In fact, during that time, the language and grammar has actually deteriorated with the advent of email, texting, blogging (myself excluded), and twitting. So to see that the same students who have to follow the precise rules of mathematics were interested in learning the ancient, proper rules of grammar, I was ecstatic.

The writers, Strunk and White, teach us that we should not separate a noun from its restrictive term of identification. We are also not supposed to use a colon after a preposition or dependent clause to list things, and other misuses like: separating independent clauses with a comma. Unless it's necessary, using a dash limitedly--(and not to adverbialize adjectives) like only when--and not arbitrarily--when another puncuation mark--unless for poetic purposes--will not do, and each time you uses the word "each," you should follow with the singular verb.

One of the most egregious misuses is of the personal pronoun, which myself is very guilty of using. Unless yourself have already referred to you in a sentence, the reflexive pronoun, as well as the passive voice, should not be used--that is. (Unless you're trying to spread the culpability very thin, as in: the vase was broken by myself.) By the way; periods should go outside the parenthesis only if, the clause in the parenthesis is an independent one (otherwise--if it is a dependent clause-- it should go on the inside).

When placed at the beginning of the sentence, a participle phrase must refer to the grammatical subject it refers to. And we all know about ending a sentence with a preposition--it's not not supposed to! As Winston, the man, Churchill once quipped: "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put!"

churhill didn't mind absences of commas or captial letters, though

There are also rules of composition that help yourself write good. Statements should be NOT phrased in the negation of the opposite, but rather in the positive, nor should infinitives be, unless absolutely for only poetic "liscence", split. When putting together a string of words to describe a feeling, one should not refer to a description of the thing that one is wanted to try to say in a way that is not too long or wordy or redundant or wordy or too long, but instead one should be brief and concise. For example, saying that my best friend is someone that I do not have much confidence in, I should say that I, myself, "distrust" him, but sometimes I think that advise like that, when in the middle of a sentence, is something that I do not have much confidence in.

Another great tip is to not write like, umm, you know, as if, well, quite straightly, as if you were speaking, you know? Owing to the fact that writing is like more "formal" than speaking. L o o s e s e n t e n c e s s h o u l d a l w a y s b e v e h e m e n t l y a v o i d e d -- u n l e s s y o u r t e a c h e r r e q u i r e s y o u r p a p e r t o b e " d o u b l e s p a c e d " . We should always keep and maintain with a pen related words in a sentence together when writing, unless the sentence has a related word about someone in your family you despise for putting that stain in your rug right in the center.

When summarizing a work, Strunk and White suggested that use always use the present tense, and when summarizing in general, use one tense, which is what I'm doing here. Because these authors are so preeminent, we believe their every suggestion like: they suggests putting emphatic words or word phrases at the end of a sentence. We have hardly advanced--though--in eloquency of language since they have written the book; although, we have advanced in many other ways. Like we have refrained form mispellings, and separating only two things listed with commas. Additionally! We have lost our enthusiasm for emphasizing simple statements by adding an exclamation mark at the end! In fact, ourselves have advanced to unnecessarily adding too many (which is so appropriate when we split an infinitive)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On page thirty five of the book they say "don't spell out numbers, unless they occur in dialogue." My wife said, "I learned that in 3rd grade!!!!!" The authors also express there irriatition with the misuse of words! Me to, although some might thing its alright. Between you, me, and the fly on the wall, me totally disagree with they're rule about "'between' involves only too subjects, while 'among' involves more than two." As to whether to use "as to whether" or just "whether," using "whether" is sufficient, enough, and adequate. Also, the use of and/or apparently either damages the sentence and/or leaves it totally ambiguous. And anybody who starts a sentence with and or doesn't use "any one" in lieu of "anybody" is a grammatical fool!!!!!!

When it comes to "lay" and "lie," not even Strunk and White really know the difference, only to say that "chickens lay, cheaters lie and politicians do both."

And did you realize that "enthused" is not a word? But merely a "made up" word by lazy, enthusiasitic people??!!..)) I have a mixed time relating to these guys (even though they say that myself should rather say that we have alot (a lot) in common, yet differ in respectable ways), even though I have a difficult, challenging time letting all these rules of un-/non-/ anti-?? superfluency to be utilized (used?) Although it's concise, I cannot (or is it can not, or can't) seam to absorb all of it's consice wisdom. In fact, like my golf swing: the moar I no, the moore I 4get.

Despite both being dead, the language continues to be shaped by new additions of both (Strunk and White)'s famous book. But, don't look for the Twitter version to, although very palpable, be on BSS (Book Shelfs Sune).

Something Dark, Something New

2009-04-15T07:07:00.010-05:00

I've finally gone over to the dark side--I've joined Facebook.

I've never been one for small talk, and I've never been one to jump on the popular bandwagon. It took me many years before I bought my first cell phone, and even now my wife is one of the few people I talk to it on, and believe me, those conversations are anything but "small" talk. I've always preferred face-to-face conversations about ideas rather than remote telecommunications about the weather, my wardrobe, or what I'm doing this weekend. I guess that's why I like teaching so much--everyday I have 90-minute blocks of live interactions about great ideas (trigonometry, function analysis, calculus, problem solving, and the novel idea of "doing your homework").

When it comes to writing, that's something I've always loved to do, ever since my 10-page saga titled "Oopidoo Nimnal and his ray gun" earned an A+ in 2nd grade. For several years, I even kept a journal (Shut Up! it wasn't a diary) in which I wrote poetry and entertained the fascinating and strange ideas that were floating around in my head. It was like having quiet, meaningful conversations with myself about ideas (many of which were questionable). Even now, I'll come across an old spiral notebook or a 3-ring binder with all my "brain droppings" scribbled in them. They're still fun to read to this day, and doing so is like looking through old photo albums, the pictures the words bring back so vivid in my mind.

Fast forward to the computer age, which not only made it easier to edit and store my drivel (although initially harder to write, as I was used to pen and paper composition rather than pounding keys in front of a then, cathode ray tube), but gave people simple, convenient ways to share their stuff with others through e-mail (has this word evolved to the unhyphenated version?), personal web pages, chat rooms, and discussion forums. I seldom e-mailed anyone and NEVER participated in the whole chat room thing. I was content with my writing as pure metacognitive, introspective activities.

Then came the "Web Log" which soon became know as the Blog. I began reading a few and found them to be funny, interesting, and sometimes enlightening (especially Scott Adams's), but best of all, it was a passive activity with no pressure to comment, and required no interaction except through the words on the page . . . errr . . . screen. As I read more and more, I thought, "wouldn't it be neat to do that? what a great way to discipline yourself into writing something of meaning everyday? with the prospect of actually having someone or maybe even TWO people stumbling across it in cyberspace and READING it, it would also "force" me to temper my thoughts and diction." Once I found out that there were free sites for blogging, I got going at it. Except for the occasional downtime due to the chore of daily living, the activity has served its purpose.

Facebook has now been on the scene awhile, and it has supplanted the ostentatious competitor "My Space" as the respectable social networking site. Having never been one for "social gatherings," "social bathrooms," "social studies," or "social networking," my energy has always been drawn from within. The act of reading and writing, not socializing, which I've always associated with that "small talk" stuff, is what I prefer. But I thought that joining FB would give me a chance to actually reconnect with some old friends from the past and give me a way to stay in touch with other friends I've met outside the state (Facebook has pictures, so in my mind, it's better than emailing.)

I didn't realize what I was in for. As soon as I completed my username, password, high school graduation year, favorite color, social security number, bank account information, wall safe combination number, and time of day my home was vacant with my valuables inside, Facebook came up with so many "suggested friends" for me to contact, I thought I shopping online at the "Cost Co for lonely guys without friends." I innocently clicked several names of people I remembered from high school, 10 or so, leaving the remaining 20 "on the shelf." After clicking "next," Facebook took it upon itself to send out invitations to those I had selected to be my friend!!!!!!!!!! Oh crap! I thought maybe checking their boxes would only put them on MY list so I could easily check in on them LATER when I felt like contacting them PERSONALLY. I had no idea it was going to make me seem like a pathetic, lonely, loser, guy soliciting long-lost familiarites.

I immediately thought about deleting my entire newly-created account in the hopes that FB would follow-up to everyone with a message like "Friend request terminated due to termination of requestor," or "Nevermind, Kevin found friends on his own." But before I could actually carry out the fail-safe option, I got confirmation that three people already accepted my invitation!!!!!

"Wow," I thought. "Do you think they've been sitting at their computers in anticipation of having a chance of being MY friend? Or could it be that I'm not the sorriest loser out there desparate for some type, any type of friendship?" I ultimately figured that they were just cool old friends who happen to be online at the time, and I decided to leave my account and outstanding friend requests intact.

But then it got a little out of hand . . .

What I wasn't prepared for was the inundation of "Friend Requests" sent to ME from all sorts of people: people I knew, people I'd seen, people I didn't know, people who had names that rhymed with people I'd once read about . . . . so on and so forth. With the POWER to either "accept" their "friendship" or "deny" it, I've found it very hard to deny anyone because of my GIANT HEART (even from the cold, insensitive distance of cyberspace, it seems like a rude and snobby gesture), but I also am reluctant to "take on" too many "friends" because I don't want the pressure and the strings attached with having hundreds of stranger thinking their my best bud.

The whole "comment" feature has me a little stressed too. There is an expectation and obligation to comment on every little teeny, tiny trivial thing from someone's recently posted photos of them spreading ant poison in their back yard, to a quiz someone took that says he's like a Swiss Dachshund, to a quick line someone typed about how he's tired and looking forward to watching TV tonight!! I don't want to be rude and leave them hanging. As inane as the topics might be, a quick-witted comment could be a real boost of confidence or energy to the person on the other end. It's hard living by the Golden Rule. The baggage that comes with all these new remote "friends" is more work than I bargained for.

So I comment, and I comment, and I try to keep them short (which is also stressful), and I try to sound very excited and not to cynical when I tell someone that I'm glad they just LOVE the new Rascall Flats song. But it's not easy (no just because I really I can't stand that Rascall guy's voice) . . . but it IS kind of fun, 'cause typed words have no intonation nor facial expression, so my new best friends might THINK that I really think it's cool that she drives a fuel-efficient Toyota Prius, when in actuality I'm hammering the typing keys in disgust with my tongue out because deep down inside I prefer gas-guzzling trucks.

As with anything that's new, I'm dedicating a lot of time to this new venture, which only makes getting everything else done more difficult. So if blogging is my steady "girlfriend," this whole FB think could just as well be my "mistress" for now. I'm hoping the novelty wears off by December, 'cause if not, this year's Christmas Card is going to cost me a bundle on stamps alone.

Troubled Waters

2009-04-14T02:14:00.009-05:00

Judging from the lack of response to yesterday's abstruse blog, I'm guessing everyone out there was either too busy taking advantage of the "One Day Sale" at Bealls Department Store, saving an amazing 40% off of items marked up 60% -OR- tow serious math blogs in a row was just too much for the average person to take much interest in.

Although I can read, write, and do mathematics at any hour of any day even neglecting personal hygiene to do so if need be, to expect others to share the enthusiasm and stamina for such unrelenting, gratuitous subject matter is a bit unrealistic. Nevermind the fact that next year's students will be subject not just to two consecutive days of math, but FIVE days in a row . . . each week, as we move to a 7 period day.

Until then, though, I guess I should pace myself with the math and stick to dispensing the recondite commentary on infinity is small, periodic doses. So what can today's blog be about? What else is there besides mathematics?

Perhaps I can write about the recent acts of piracy taking place off the coast of Somalia?

Gone are the days of swashbuckling, wooden legs, and pet parrots. The modern day pirates are simply well-armed terrorists looking for much more than a way to express their desire to download free music. Although we all like our free Britney Spears music (who wants to actually pay for that?), today's pirates are looking for tens of millions of dollars in ransom money to take back to their direly poor nation in order to purchase more weapons, repay Taliban loans, or because they don't have Bealls One-Day-Sales back home. You just can't shake a stick at these violent predators, unless there's about $35 million attached to the end of that stick, in which case, they'd probably take the stick too, and hold if for additional ransom of a few cents.

Most recently, they failed in their attempt to seize a U.S. flagged vessel traveling more than 400 miles off the coast of Africa, well outside their usual radius of operation, taking the captain as an elective hostage on the ships lifeboat. As U.S. warships fled to the area, the 4 pirates were sitting ducks in the water, out of fuel, out of options, and running out of time. As risky as the international pirating, kidnapping, and extortion business is, these comrades found themselves facing the most powerful Navy in the world. Finally after 5 days, with the "go ahead" from our new Commander-In-Chief, Captain Phillips was freed as snipers efficiently took out 3 of 4 pirates, which was enough to encourage the 4th one to surrender.

At least this incident had a happy ending . . . for America anyway. With the ship reaching its port under armed escort, and the Captain escaping unharmed, we can all take a collective sigh of relief and cheer the bravery of the crew, the courage of the captain, and the strength of the U.S. Navy. We can also expect some fallout from this event. Rest assured, now that the U.S. has been involved, the rules have changed. Obama has vowed to step up defense and protection against such acts of piracy, while the pirates themselves are now vowing to make the U.S. regret having drawn "First Blood." The television industry is already determined to produce the "made for TV" movie of the whole ordeal, casting Dan Akroyd as Captain Richard Phillips.

Who's who?

But in an age of technology and heightened awareness of terrorism, it's shocking that modern day piracy on the high seas is even possible. Perhaps it's because of my pragmatic predisposition, entrepreneurial naivete, or just my upbringing, but if I was a poor and hungry and living on a coast, piracy wouldn't be on my list of "sustainable" ways to provide myself with food, shelter, clothing, and internet access. The audacity and complete lack of morality, if not the desperation combined with a cache of high-powered firearms, it must take for these pirates to do what they do. Certainly if this is a solution to a problem, in their eyes, it is a myopic, short-termed one that cannot and will not last. It's not a business you can pass down to your son or grandson. Especially when you're messing with the United States, be it under Truman, W., or Obama.

Private companies who have to navigate the waters, put their crews and products at risk, and who have to pay the ultimate ransoms are not going to do so without taking measures and fighting back. Powerful nations will get involved, as the U.S. now has. Which begs the question: are these acts of piracy simply the work of desperate Somalis simply exercising Chutzpah and bad judgment, are are they part of a larger network of terrorists trying to fund a bigger cause and bait the U.S. into an imbroglio? Only time will tell.

In the meantime, ships will continue their passage through the Indian Ocean, taking wider and less direct routes to safely reach their ports, Bealls will continue to offer artificial value to unsuspecting customers, and Britney Spears will continue to make bad music that people will be illicitly obtaining off the Internet.

Counting to Infinity

2009-04-13T12:21:00.032-05:00

If you read yesterday's blog, you were probably intrigued, confused, if not angry all at the same time. How can there be different sizes of infinity???? Infinity is infinitely big, right? It's not even a number. It's more of an idea (like love) or perhaps a never-ending destination (I hope you have enough gas).

In fact, there ARE different sizes of infinity, some of which are infinitely larger than others. Some are the same size, even though they seemingly have "more" things in them. That's what make mathematics, especially calculus, so exciting and fun (terms used loosely and relatively).

Because the set of numbers known as the Naturals, Wholes, Integers, and Rationals can be arranged into a one-way list by which we can check them off without fear (imagined or real) of skipping anyone, and because a one-to-one correspondence can be established between items on the list in each set, we say they are all infinitely large, yet countable, sets with the same cardinality , or number of elements in them, as the Natural numbers, a theorem known as Dedekind's Theorem. These sets belong to the same "equivalence class." Mathematicians care not whether or now we will ever be able to finish the actual task of counting them, but rather that the process of counting can even take place.

That brings us to today's question: Is the set of Real Numbers, the largest set of non-imaginary numbers, infinitely countable or infinitely uncountable??????

Well Georg Cantor stunned the world when he proved, yes PROVED, that the Real Numbers are NOT countable. How does one go about proving such a thing??? It requires more than just a string of failed attempts at trying to count them. It requires a little creative thought that creates a beautiful poem of irrefutable logic. Cantor proved it by what is know as "Proof by contradiction," which involves presupposing something to be true, then showing that the original assumption leads to a false statement or a conclusion that contradicts, hence the name, the original supposition. This then means that the original assumption is, in fact, false.

His ingenious proof followed these lines of logic:

Cantor started by assuming the Reals ARE countable, kind of like the American Justice system of "innocent until proven guilty," except for number sets. Which if so, they can be put in a one-t0-one correspondence with the Natural numbers, so we can list them in the same one-way order as the Naturals. This is demonstrated in the diagram at left. Now we can use this list to construct a Real number, call it x that varies from every number in our list in at least one decimal place. We will require that this x will differ from the n-th digit in the list in the n-th decimal place. So x = x1x2x3 . . . such that x1 does not equal d11, x2 does not equal d22, x3 does not equal d33, etc. This is know as Cantor's diagonalization and does not rely on any real decimal expansions.

Now, x is a decimal number, and x is also less than one, so it must be in our list. But where? It can't be first, since x's first digit differs from d1's first digit. It can't be second in the list, because x and d2 have different hundredths place digits. In general, x is not equal to dn, since their nth digits are not the same. We have just created a value of x that is NOT on our original list!!!!! Now we have a contradiction!!!!!!

Remember that our list was SUPPOSED to contain ALL of the Real numbers, which has to include our fabricated value of x, which obviously wasn't originally there!! Does that make sense?

Therefore, our assumptions were false, and a one-to-one correspondence with the Naturals must NOT be possible, ergo, the Reals are NOT countable.

The consequence of this means that the Reals are infinitely more infinite than the Natural numbers!

Put another way, there are just as many numbers on the number line between "0" and "1" as there are on the ENTIRE number line!!!!!

This startling consequence is actually how Cantor established his proof. The decimals listed in the example above are just a list of decimals limited between zero and one. However, no generality is lost if we use this interval, because if this subset of the real numbers in uncountable, then the full set is uncountable too!

So now we've established infinite countable sets, and infinite uncountable sets which are infinitely larger than the countable variety. But what about infinite sets of truly different (infinite) sizes?

Enter the term "Power Sets." Sounding very similar to what I call my Bicep workout sessions, a mathematical Power Set is the set of all subsets of any given set. Yes, sets themselves can be elements of larger sets that contain them. Confused yet?

I'll address this tomorrow!

To Infinity and Beyond!

2009-04-11T10:56:00.010-05:00

Are there different sizes of Infinity???? Surprisingly, YES!

It comes down to whether or not we can “count” the infinite set so that we can go down a “checklist” that contains each number, and progress down that list so that we come to (eventually) every number in the set in a sequential order. For some infinite number sets, this is possible, but for other infinite number sets, it is not possible. An infinite number set is not countable, then it is infinitely larger than an infinite number set that IS countable!!! Sound paradoxical? Here’s some examples:

The set of Natural Numbers {1, 2, 3, . . .} is infinite, yet “countable.” That is, the numbers continue in that pattern forever, but we can start at 1 and check off numbers down the list. The Whole Numbers are the same, except they start with zero, so they have one extra element in their set. Despite this, mathematicians say that they are actually the same “size,” or have the same cardinality. In general, a mathematician would say that set A has "just as many" objects as set B if the objects in A and B can be put into one-to-one correspondence with each other.

What about the Integers??? Recall these are the positive and negative Natural Numbers, including zero, which means they progress infinitely in BOTH the positive and negative direction. Can we list them in a checklist format? With a little ingenuity, we can! Starting with zero, we get: {0,-1, 1, -2, 2, -3, 3, . . . }. We simply list them like the Whole numbers except with consecutive -/+ pairs. So the Integers are Infinite, yet countable, and so, believe it or not, are mathematically the same “size” as the Natural Numbers, and NOT, as you might think, at least twice as big!!!!

It gets trickier when we look at the Rational Numbers, the numbers comprised of the quotient of two Integers (also known as the fractions). Now every Integer is a Rational (just put that Integer over the number 1) so we say that the Integers are a subset of the Rationals, just like the Whole Numbers are a subset of the Integers. Arranging the densely populated Rationals in a one-directional, countable way is not as intuitive, yet still possible. The trick is to arrange them in a double, square array, then zigzagging along the diagonals of the square, as in the diagram at right.

Isn’t it fun to be clever?

The beauty and art of mathematics is that it helps us, through precise, rigorous definitions, reconcile issues when our intuition fails, and with infinity, it usually does. A mathematician named Georg Cantor tried to make precise the notion of the size of an infinite set.

“The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom.”—Georg Cantor

Next time: he set of Real Numbers--Countable or Uncountable???

An original Limerick for the occasion:
Of the infinite countable size,
It makes sense, although wrong, to surmise,
That if one set has more
It is bigger, therefore.
“For they’re equal!” said Cantor, “SURPRISE!!”

A good Hare day

2009-04-08T07:40:00.030-05:00

Among the many holidays celebrated and abhorred each year, Easter is a favorite of mine (at least on my "Top 10" list). Coinciding with the "rebirth" of Nature, it is a fantastically appropriate time to celebrate "rebirth" of the Christian savior. It's such a great time of year, too, as Spring gets fully underway. The trees and flowers begin blooming, everything becomes green anew, the temperatures begin to warm (unpredictably), and hundreds of thousands of students nationwide miss TONS of school for district competitions for "this", "that", and the "other."

Aside from having to reteach the same lesson over and over and over again to each student that was absent (they tend to be absent in groups, but tend to come in for "what they missed" one at time), it's a hard time of year to be frustrated, unhappy, or not stressed--the good things about the Easter season so TOTALLY outweigh the bad, and for that, I'm happy I have such a scale to weigh those intangibles.

Here's some of the things on the scale . . . .

I get a chance to wear the pink and purple shirts the "not-so-manly" section of my closet
All "St. Patrick's Day" paraphernalia on sale at "90% off" at Dollar General
No school on Good Friday--more time to do quiet, uninterrupted math problems
No crowds at grocery store on Sunday morning as even backsliding church-goers attend Easter Sunday services.
Finally have something to do with all the dozens of chicken eggs I have instead of giving them away. Now I can hard boil them, color them with the kids, and throw them away a week later.
Sharing Easter jokes with strangers, like "Q: How do Easter Bunnies stay in shape? A: They simply don't eat Cadbury Creme Eggs by the basketful" (not as popular as the alternative "because they eggsercise" punchline)
Singing all those wonderful Easter carols like "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" and no others
Getting rid of all the leftover Halloween candy by stuffing it into plastic eggs for the kids to find.
Watching "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" in High Definition
Getting a hug from a giant pink bunny actually doesn't seem so odd.
Every bad habit given up during Lent can now be reassumed which means toenails in the carpet again, cleaner bedrooms (see yesterday's blog), and all-out self-indulgent hedonism
I get a convenient blog topic
Lots of great libations at family get-togethers which helps tolerate family members
I get to say the word "bonnet"
No more lines at Long John Silver's on Friday Nights.
Filling out my tournament brackets for the "White House Easter Egg Roll"
Pastel-colored Fireworks!!!!!
Telling everyone I see, "Hoppy Easter!!"
Waiting up all Saturday Night to "catch" the Easter Bunny
5 words: Royal Dark Cadbury Mini Eggs (they're bad for the hips but oh so good for the heart)

There is really only one thing I DON'T like about Easter and it is this: that it only comes once a year (do you know how hard it is to make it through the year without Royal Dark Cadbury Mini Eggs????????!!!!!!!!!!!?????????)

"Bonnet!"

X-treme

2009-04-07T06:58:00.016-05:00

The whole "giving up blogging thing for Lent" excuse I used yesterday to explain the dearth of new blogging entries was as convenient as it was fabricated. Normally, prevarication is not something I'm so adept at, but Lent has always provided a morally-sound, irrefutable justification for not doing something, like the time when I was 10 and I gave up "cleaning my room" for Lent. Once, being a carnivore, I tried to convince my parents that I was giving up "not eating meat on Fridays." I had to go to confession and received a large penance for that blasphemous shenanigan.

But with a finite number of hours in any given day, in order to incorporate and accommodate something new into one's schedule, sacrifices must be made, things must be given up. So I gave up blogging, which I usually did in the early hours of the morning or mid afternoons after work. I had a new activity that seemed to fit nicely into that time slot, an activity that required as much mental fortitude as blogging and a whole lot more brawn, discipline, and dumbbells.

On March 1, 2009, I began the "Infomercially Famous" P90X workout program. With the guarantee of getting "absolutely ripped" in just 90 days doing the "most extreme home fitness program ever," I hoped to achieve a fraction of what the Gerard Butler and the rest of the cast of the movie "300" looked like when they finished the program in preparation for the movie. I wanted to be King Leonitis, except without the cape, sword, and loin cloth.

With so many testimonials about the results of the program and the convenience of doing it at home with a bare minimum of equipment (pull-up bar, yoga mat, dumbells, spray-on six-pack abs paint), I figured I'd give it a try. Besides, with my bum knee, running was now out of the question. The program offered enough variety (12 different workouts, ranging from pushups & pull ups, yoga, kenpo, plyometrics . . . ) that I figured I could slowly work up my strength and flexibility in my right leg.

With the unrelenting, but comical and unbelievably fit taskmaster Tony Horton (pictured at top) pushing me on the whole time, the first workout nearly killed me as well as my motivation to do it for another 89 days. With most workouts lasting 1 hour (except the 90 minute yoga-X workout . . . by the way, you add "X" to the end of every workout) and an extra 15 minute "Ab Ripper-X" workout three times a week, I knew the hardest part would be finding time to actually "squeeze" in these workouts around being dad, husband, teacher, Xbox addict, etc.

The workouts were very difficult but I figured there was a hump on the horizon I was about to get over, after which things would get easier all while my shirts became tighter. As the weeks went by, the hump never came and things didn't get easier. In fact, they became harder. As the program continued, my form got better, I did more reps, I used more weight, I became more flexible and stronger. I also got sleepier.

Waking at 4:00am every morning (no days off--"rest" days involve 60 minutes of extreme stretching) was beginning to take its toll on me. The increased energy from being in better shape was losing the battle to the sleep deprivation. Consequently, I began doing more workouts in the afternoon, but soon found that the last thing I want to do after work when I get home, after I feed the dogs, tend to the chickens, do dinner, kids' homework, pack school bags for the next day, etc. is listen to Tony tell me to "GET 'EM (knees) UP!" for 90 minutes. But I still press "play" on the DVD player every day.

Now into week 6 of the program, I'm nearing the halfway point. My bad knee is getting much stronger, but hurts everyday (in a good way!?) without the down time. My body feels much more dense. I'm drinking tons of Gatorade. I'm wearing a hole in my living room carpet. I'm a "Downward Dog" loving fool! I'm to the point of no return now. I've got to finish the program now. I've invested too much time, sweat, and tears to turn back now. Besides, I'm not yet "King Leonitis-esque," but I'm no "King Henry VIII" either--I only have one wife--and incidentally, she's doing the progam with me!!!!! That means TWO worn spots in the carpet.

Now that I'm blogging again and committed to continuing my body sculpting, something else has got to go. Grading homework and tests takes up a lot of my time, but I'm not sure I should quit giving those assignments lest the students mount a revolt in much the same way fans (both of them) of the shortlived "Cavemen" television series rebeled against ABC executives. If my students WERE to resort to violent agression, me P90X body and I will be ready for them. It's probably best to avoid that scenario altogether.

Perhaps I can get rid of those darn, filthy chickens? Or watching American Idol? Or quit spending time with my kids? No, no, no. Nothing is as worthless as an empty chicken coop, I like watching Adam Lambert, and my children like not listening to me too much for me to deprive them of that joy.

I guess I'll just give up a little bit more of my precious sleep. I can always take short Power-X naps, right Tony?

The Return

2009-04-06T15:55:00.013-05:00

Who am I? Where have I been? What have I been doing? These are more than just the questions I ask myself after having sat through 2 hours of "American Idol" results shows, they are questions others are asking of me after having no new blog entries for over a month.

In the grand scheme of things, a month is just a blip on the existential calendar.

Apparently, my readership was larger than I ever anticipated, as I have been inundated with 3rd-party inquiries, informal polls, and hear-say speculations about the lack of my spewing of cyber-babble. Many have had to forgo their morning ritual of coffee, newspaper, hygiene, and "Off On A Tangent," simply because they ran out of coffee. Many more have had their daily routine disrupted because of my self-indulgent cessation and abnegation of the sharing of my daily diary entries with the denizens of the World Wide Web.

My goodness. What A God-Awful month it must have been for all of you. While I was basking in the luxury of my new-found freedom, spending the extra hour each day to do things like grade papers, make kids' lunches (infrequently as it was), cleaning bathrooms (even less infrequently), watching "American Idol" (gotta make the wife happy!), painting baseboards (what a Spring Break THAT was!), and painting my toenails (flat, extra clear color), the members of my Blogosphere were fumbling through their days like vapid zombies deprived of their caffeine.

At first, I didn't think my absence from the Internet was even noticed. I mean, even at my school, my paid place of employment, if I don't show up for three or four days in a row, the students start to complain to the principal out of "math deprivation." A couple days later, they mail a letter home. Later, then send a certified letter. Eventually, a phone call. The key is . . . they notice . . . and they act, they let me know . . . eventually. With me sleeping in on the extremely non-lucrative blog position within my own blogging fortune sqrt(-500) company ("Korpi's Blogging Emporium and non-Emporium items Emporium"), no letters came. No phone calls. Not even the passive, anonymous e-mail. I figured that my daily diatribes were for my benefit only, the energy of which could equipollently be released and expressed through other means like "Extreme Yoga (more to come on that tomorrow, yes, tomorrow. I'm committed for two days now)," my fledgling "Fresh Farm Egg" business (up to 15 dozen eggs given away for free so far!), or my newfound preoccupation with Etymology (a word that has origin:1350–1400; ME < class="ital-inline">etymologia < class="ital-inline">etymología, equiv. to etymológ(os) studying the true meanings and values of words (étymo(s) true (see "ETYMON") + lógos word, reason).

So to those of you out there reading this as if it were a drop of fresh water upon upon the thirsty lips of a weary desert traveler, I offer you a temporary oasis. To have built up such a dependency among you only to give it up for Lent was such an act of unforgivable self-centerdness. Truth be told, I have felt an irreplaceable void from my absence, and my typing speed has atrophied as well (down to only 200 WPM from 300 WPM--where WPM = "words per moment"--where a "moment" constitutes an undeterminable, ambiguous amount of time.)

Enjoy ye dwellers of cyber-drivel. I shall return.

Hasta Mañana (if my Yoga-X coach let's me)!

TAKS ELA. Today. Hurray!!

2009-03-03T17:42:00.001-06:00

The script is now over and students begin

To work by themselves ‘til they get to the end.

Some work really fast, some take frequent breaks,

But all understand that this test is high-stakes!

I actively monitor all through the aisles

And twiddle my thumbs every once in a while.

I sharpen the pencils that have worn to a nub.

And issue the dictionaries that came in my tub.

“Yes you may go on to part number two.”

Hooray! That means that we are almost through!!

Again through the aisles, checking out the essays.

Some are quite good, some . . . a little risqué.

Now there’s one person left, others look on with fervor.

And I have to admit, I’m, too, an eager observer.

He raises his hand. He’s done, I presume . . .

I’m wrong: “Mr. Korpi, can I go to the restroom?”

Oh, so close, yet so far away.

The TAKS has a way of making hours feel like days.

Finally, all tests are turned in,

And the process of learning can again begin.

And so until April, when we do TAKS once more,

We will practice and practice in preparation for,

The ultimate test, over which we obsessively stress,

‘cause we know our progress is measured by its success.

The perfect gift

2009-03-02T17:13:00.011-06:00

Growing up, I was always getting taller, but I was also also struggling with getting a gift for my father every time his birthday, Father's Day, Christmas, and Arbor Day. Now before you miss my point, YES it is strange that I got a gift for my dad of Arbor Day, but believe me, that aside, a tree gets old REALLY fast.

It doesn't matter what we (my brothers, sister, mother, neighbors, The Pope) got my dad, he invariably forced a smile and a kind word as he opened it--"Geez, just what I always needed . . . . (insert thoughtful gift here.)" Consequently, he ALWAYS was prompt in returning the gift to either the retailer from which the gift came or to Wal-Mart if he didn't know where it came from or what it was. It got to the point that we didn't know what to get him, and the question always came down to "What would be the most convenient for him to return?" We got into the habit, before "gift receipts" were chic if not common practice, of including the sales receipt with the gift.

It almost seemed like he enjoyed the process of returning the item more than the item itself. Whether it stemmed from his penchant for standing in lines at Customer Service, his desire to save money, from his totally altruistic, modest personality in which he truly felt he didn't "deserve" nor wanted to "bother" others with the "hassle" of a gift (a trait I either inherited or developed independently with the same symptoms of someone with a penchant for standing in Customer Service lines--which I loathe.) But I digress . . . (and digest . . . ) . . .

Being my Dad's son, one year for "Beluga Whale Appreciation Day," I surprised my father with what I thought was the Perfect gift--for him at least. Did I get him a card that said "I don't deserve nor want this"? Did I get him a nice property insurance policy? Did I give him a personalized Acrostic poem of his name (hard to return)? NO.

I got him a pair of high-heeled ladies shoes that weren't even his size much less his style and color . . . with the receipt, of course.

At the extreme, embarrasing risk that he might actually like them (hopefully secretly, at least) I gave him a gift I KNEW he'd (probably) for sure take back, with the added potential embarrassment of having to return such an item. What I didn't think through is that either he could either tell the customer service clerk that he was returning them for his wife (afterall, I used this line when I bought them), or that my father, confident in his peculiarness, would not be embarrassed by telling the customer service clerk that "they didn't fit, nor were they his color." When I thought how he might actually enjoy "alarming" the clerk, it only reaffirmed my notion that he would enjoy the gift, but lessened my pleasure of the "ironicness" (or is it "ironisism") of the gift itself.

Being my son's grandfather, he thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the gift. He returned them promptly the next day while making up a story about how the scuff marks came about on the bottom of the 1/8 inch heels.

Fast forward to today, then rewind a couple of days to three days ago, the slowly advance forward to one day later (putting you at two days ago.)

This is the day my wife (no blood relation to me or my father) actually returned two gifts to Kohl's, one from each of her kids given to her on her birthday.

Now before you say, "How can a mother return thoughtful gifts from her children?!?!" Rest assured that not only did the wait an appropriate two week before doing so, but that the children really didn't pay for the gifts themselves, but rather only picked them out in haste as their grandfather's son urged them on, knowing the sly trick of his father all along.

With everyday being a one-day, once-in-a-lifetime-if-you-are-a-Mayfly sale, I knew that when I went to Kohl's to get my wife the Jumbo-oversized-super-sized fry pan (not to be confused with the 'you are too jumbo-oversized-super-sized' AB-CRUNCHER from years ago--wound still healing), my kids would want to get their beloved mother some jewelry.

Last Christmas, my wife did the best imitation of her fahter-in-law as she opened up her "buy one get one free" sterling silver necklaces from her son and daughter. If she was a worse actor than my father, you might thing she was sucking on spoiled lemons when she opened the gift. Since those were the FIRST she had received from her kids (recommended by their cheap, "unromantic" father), she kept them, and has even worn them once (all the way from the living room to the bedroom where her jewelry (deep) storage box is located.

Whe she opened the Amethyst necklace (from her daughter-also the "full-priced $50 item") and then the matching Amethyst earrings (the "get the next one for a buck" item") from her son, she looked like she was sucking on a rotten lemon . . . that had been dropped into a vat of spoiled sauerkraut that was infiltrated with sewage.

She smiled as she tried them on.

I had the receipt stored safely in my top drawer.

The kids were elated as they saw the "genuine" joyous expression on their mother's face as she quietly contemplated what the heck in her wardrobe mathed with purple Amethyst, so what if it was her birthstone. She gave me that knowing look like I was behind it all.

I gave her a glowing nod in acknowledgment of making my kids and wife happy.

As it turned out, the whole situation was really a no-lose proposition. My kids genuinely got their mother something they hoped she'd like, my wife enjoyed the gifts, if not the pure, genuine look on her children's faces as she opened the gifts, I looked like a hero when she opened her "not an Ab-Cruncher" frying pan, and SHE got what was a $50 "gift certificate" to a great store once she returned the gift with the reciepts I had kept.

My kids have long forgotten about their gift to their mother and don't even notice when she doesn't wear them or how they are curiously missing from her tangled jewelry cabinet.

Best of all, instead of getting something else she really wanted, my wife just had the $51 credited back to the credit card, an unselfish act that means she got nothing more out of the ordeal but the hassle of the return process.

Good thing she's my father's daughter (in-law.)

Mathematical Musings: XIV

2009-02-27T13:05:00.005-06:00

More profoundly shallow dribble from my math classes

I got a note from a student’s parent the other day that said, “Please excuse ‘so and so’s’ tardy. We were running late.” I wrote a note back saying, “Please excuse my incredulity, I was in disbelief.”
OK! It’s 2 in the afternoon in a Calculus class. I have one question to ask: Who’s makin’ bacon? I’m starting to salivate, and it’s not over this math problem!
I realize the test is a little long, but I promise I will give you sufficient time to incomplete it.
The janitor outside uses his shoe to remove scuff marks from the floor. When he’s hard at it, his sneakers squeak so much, you’d swear he was playing a game of one-on-none with himself.
Student: Will you write me a letter of Recommendation? Korpi: Sure, but it all depends on what you want me to recommend you for. Tell you what, you write one, and I might sign it. Thanks. By the way, I’ll need it by tomorrow.
The 3-dimensional Moebius Torus is a twist on the 2-D Moebius Strip.
Time, Money, and Quality are three competing resources. You can usually have only two of them at the expense of the third.
Today we will be starting a Calculus lesson on Optimization. I am going to try to cram as much information as possible into the lesson in the allotted amount of time.
As your understanding of the second derivative matures, your knowledge will increase at an increasing rate, meaning, it will be concave up.
Patience now, patience. There are plenty of exams to go around. In fact, there are so many questions on this test, we can make two or three out of them.
The test is not long, only eleven and a half inches down each of the 5 pages on which it is typed--8 point narrow font . . .
If the radius of the coke can was as large as it could be, the height would be zero. What I’d get from the Coke machine wouldn’t be a can at all, it would be two large aluminum disks sandwiched around an infinitely thin layer of air. But I don’t want a sandwich! I’m not hungry, I’m thirsty, and that’s why I tried to buy Coke.
There is a much easier way to do this problem if you would just quit making it so difficult.
As much as it hurts to get hit by rocks, I think it would hurt even more to get hit by frozen rocks.
I can't even imagine being chapped to death. I need my Carmex just thinking about it.
Your indefinite integral needs to be more definitive.
Just in case you all didn’t know, here’s some mathematical trivia: Zero is neither positive, nor is it negative. It is neutral. It’s the numerical equivalent of Switzerland.
We used to have an organ growing up, but my mom ended up giving it to Goodwill. She said it was a very noble thing to be an organ donor.
When I die, I’m going to leave my Pianos to Goodwill and my Organs to Science.
When I say “jump,” you say “how high?” When I say, “don’t jump,” you don’t say, “how low?”
Do you know that our school board just spent almost 40 grand on a consultant just to tell them how they can save money? Doesn’t that seem odd to you? I always knew that it took money to make money, but apparently now it takes money to save money.
I wouldn’t call Precalculus a breeze. A strong Gale, though, I would, perhaps a furious hurricane.
Of course I’m not going to read your Calculus Christmas Carol to the entire class, Carols are written to be SUNG!
Bye! Have an edible Lunch (as students leave the class to go to lunch.)
So far, in my 29 short years, I have successfully avoided death. On some Friday nights in high school, I also successfully avoided having a life.
When all else fails, hit all the buttons at once.
Call me Korpi Klaus, bringer of Glad Tidings and Mathematical Merriment.
When we go Calculus Caroling, it won’t work unless we all sing, but even then it probably still won’t, but I want everyone to try, so if you get embarrassed easily, pretend that you don’t.
Hello class, we are the AP calculus class, and we are about to sing some Christmas carols like you’ve never heard . . Believe me!!!! Please save all your jeering until the very end.
It’s funny that you heard us caroling and came running to see what it was. It’s usually the other way around.
Hello, we are the AP calculus class, and we are going to sing some modified Christmas Carols for you. So if you are planning to take Calculus in the future, you have something to look forward to. To succeed in Calculus, you not only need to be good at math, but you must have a high tolerance for public ridicule.
Your test will be multiple choice, but not on Scantron. If you write your answer choices straight down the left-hand side of your paper, I can grade them just as quickly. I usually have the letter sequence memorized by the third paper. I usually make some type of word out of them, for example: “AahBeBeCeEeeAahAahBeCeeDahDahAahEeeCeDah”
While speaking with the Principal this morning, totally against my will, I discovered two ways to avoid speaking to him altogether. All you have to do is one of the following: Discuss something intelligent with him – or – speak with a sense of humor. He hates them both, apparently.
As a potential author of several books, I don’t care if people read the books I haven’t written, as long as they buy them.
I will now pass around this small package of table salt. When it comes to you, please remove only one grain from the package, because what I have to tell you, I want you to take with a grain of salt: “I only have one packet to share among all of us. Hard to believe, I know.”
Student: “How long has it been taking the other classes to finish the test?” Korpi: “Oh, about 28 questions.”
Korpi: “Hey, I just found a dollar bill out in the hall. This must be my lucky day!” Student: “Oh, that’s mine I just dropped it.” Korpi: “Really! Ok, then, can you describe what it looks like?” Student: “Yes, it’s green and has a picture of George Washington on the front.” Korpi: “Oh, so close. I’m sorry, though. This one is green, too, but it has a picture of George Washington on the back, not the front.”
Any positive number is bigger than any negative number, for example, one is much bigger than negative one million.
The definite integral gives the NET area, not necessarily the gross area. For example, in this problem there are 4 inches below the x-axis and 1 square inch above the x-axis. If I was looking to carpet this area, I would need to order 4+1=5 square inches of carpet, which is hardly worth ordering to begin with. However, the definite integral gives us the net area: the area below the x-axis is negative, and positive above, so the net area is negative 4 plus one which is negative 3 square inches. That amount of carpet would be even harder to order.
Bye, Bye. Have fun with that math homework. Do all you want; I’ll make more.
I don’t really like the taste of lipstick. I won’t even kiss my wife if she’s wearing it. Incidentally, she won’t kiss me either if I’m wearing it, but for a different reason, of course.
Students: “Mr. Korpi, how’d you hurt your knee?” Korpi: “Well I was 4-wheeling, then I was suddenly zero-wheeling.”
Students: “Mr. Korpi, how’d you hurt your knee?” Korpi: Well, let’s just say that it is very, very important to stretch prior to working very large math problems.”
Students: “Mr. Korpi, how’d you hurt your knee?” Korpi: Well, let’s just say holding your breath does nothing to cushion your fall off of a 9 foot tall set ofMonkey Bars."
Don’t forget to get me that newspaper when you come back from lunch, if you remember.
Korpi: “Don’t make fun of the way I dress. My wife picks out my clothes for me, so laugh at my wife.” Students: “Really?! Your wife picks out your clothes?” Korpi: “Of course not, sillies. It was just a joke. That’s still my mom’s job!”
Did you all hear President Bush’s new Mars proposal. He said that the U.S. was fixin’ to get ready to think about making plans to plan a trip that would land us on Mars sometime.
For those of you who think Hitler is still alive, he’d be 114 today!—April 20, 2003
This is the worst week I’ve had in a couple of days.
Alright! Which one of you young ladies was first? You? OK, then. I’m sorry, but you are just going to have to wait your turn!
We all make mistakes. In this case, it was quite an obvious mistake we should have recognized sooner. It was right there in front of our noses the whole time. But if you think about it, how often during the day do you actually see your nose. Unless you cross your eyes, or have a really big nose, you can’t see it, you just trust that it’s there. Right now, for instance, I assume my nose is still there, because if it wasn’t you would all be laughing or being grossed out. Y’all would be like, “Wow! Look, Michael Jackson is our Calculus Teacher!” But I’m too dark to be Michael Jackson. I’d have to prove that I wasn’t just by Moonwalking during a math problem. So as I was saying . . .
I’m a math teacher. Even my dreams are boring. In fact, they are so boring, they put me to sleep.

ookawooka-itis

2009-02-26T20:55:00.005-06:00

Holy Moley (Moly?) Can one guy get any busier (lazier)? It seems like me insatiable need to get my thoughts onto virtual paper have been satiated by the simple demands of living, and teaching, and vacationing, and pricing buckets of buckets of garage sale items (who knew an attic could ever fill up with so much stuff--almost gravity defying.)

Since our mini three-day vacation to the coast over Presidents Day, spending the time in a high-dollar condo with "free internet access" that didn't work at all (despite my multiple attempts to connect it legally, illegally, and serendiptiously), I haven't felt much like doing anything but laying around when I can watching the history channel while experimenting with the comfort levels of different parts of the couch. Of course there's still the obligations of being a father of two, a husband of one, and a teacher of many, but there's little motivation beyond that.

I've even quit listening to NPR, and instead have indulged in Pink's discography (she sure cusses more than Michele Norris.) I've even given up my staple of Iron Maiden listening for the only band more vulgar than pink and harder than a diamond: Five Finger Death Punch (they ironically do NOT make me want to watch David Carradine reruns.)

I've been using every bit of residual energy and motivation just to attend my kid's "Science Night" at there school, return phone calls to close friends, and keep my eyelids open during "American Idol" (which the entire family schedule's their life around--the DVR watching of.) Perhaps I've just grown weary of brow-beating myself and my the constant pain of the pinched nerve in my arthritic neck . . . perhaps.

Even the novelty of the new elliptical has worn off, as I just can't convince myself that the tool cabinet in front of me in my garage is really a beautiful ever-changing vista I could be enjoying on a REAL run through my favorite parts of town that my bum knee still prevent me from doing.

The honeymoon with the Xbox Live/Netflix thing ended abruptly as I realized that no matter what the price/bargain/savings, I just cannot make it through a full hour of "The Best of Tim Conway (he's not as good without Harvey Korman trying to keep a straight face aroun him.)" Actually, I love that stuff, I just don't see why I should pay to watch it for a fee when I can watch it for free on "Youtube" and "Hulu" (which are other reasons why I've lost my initiative for going above and beyond.

Additionally, I've quit rising at 4 am (or the periodic 1am-ers) and have forced myself to stay in bed until 6am or so, not that I'm sleeping. I haven't even the motivation to get up, exercise, watch Sportscenter, and twidle my thumbs or a few hours in the wee-hours of the morning anymore. I don't even get up to quiet my barking dog (who barks in her sleep--and in her awake) until I'm convinced she's not going to stop on her own (after 20 minutes) or that a neighbor might be agrily knocking on my door in the middle of the night (which would only require too much effort.)

Perhaps all I need is a good chiropractic adjustment, a good night's sleep, and some more Tim Conway.

Maybe all I really need to get out of my "blog-less" slump is to simply blog more. Afterall, the best cure for insomnia is sleep.