Sebastien plays "House"

"Daddy, you want to play house with me?"

"Of course I'll play house with you!" 

I start looking around for Isabelle's plastic tea cups and whatnot.

He grabs some legos stuck together to look like a gun and says "Ok - you shoot the bad guys when they come in, and don't worry - I have a bomb!"

Hmmm, girls are different from boys.

Battlestar Galactica, Costco, and Oatmeal

My Dad has a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast everyday.  When I was growing up, he thought it would be a great synergy to serve us both up some oatmeal in the morning.  I, however, decided it was yucky.  Around the same time as I pushed back on the oatmeal, I really (really!) wanted to watch a pretty lame show called Battlestar Galactica (old school style for you youngsters - not nearly as hip as the more recent incarnation).  To this day, I can't stand oatmeal because he made a deal with me over 30 years ago that I could watch BG if I would eat a bowl of oatmal.  That bowl would get cold and nasty and thick and crusty and I would make the pain of eating it last for the entire episode.

Now I have kids of my own, I bought a Costco variety pack of oatmeals because they told me they liked it.  Of course, now that I have a boxful of the nasty stuff - they have decided not to like it.  Sigh - I guess there was never  smart play with oatmeal for me...

Stu and I

For some time now, students have been happy to point out the fact that they think I bear a resemblance to Stu from the movie "The Hangover".  I have yet to see the entire movie, but have seen so many scenes from it that I really don't think I need to.

When I was eight or so, I flipped while balancing on the top of some monkey bars on a playground.  I cracked my tooth and, to this day, I have a fake tooth bolted to the root of my original tooth. The bolt has held up pretty well for over 30 years, but the fake enamel wears away faster my real teeth.  The year before I got married, my dentist fixed up the corner of the tooth so I would look sharp for the wedding pictures.

We were out eating some lobster at a dim sum place over the holidays and I lost that chip, so now everyone at school thinks I recently chipped my tooth.

 

"How did it happen?" I just tell them "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

No plans to get it fixed, - I think it will look good with the monocle!

Two Tiered Society

Irene and I have often commented on how we do not have many (if any) friends who are out of work because of the recession.  However, I now realize that all of our friends are college educated and the jobless rates is a two tiered statistic:
College educated unemployment is 4.4 percent
High school degree only is 8.8 percent (high school dropouts are at 13.2 percent!)
(source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm)

Yet another example of how society is losing the middle and bifurcating into the haves and the have-nots.

Winter Solstice Season

First off, Season's Greeting from the Rideouts:

Next, my friend WW turned me on to the fact that Newton was born on Dec 25 and many have had their fun with this, but here's my favorite:
(from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/the-ten-days-of-newton/)

On the tenth day of Newton,
My true love gave to me,
Ten drops of genius,
Nine silver co-oins,
Eight circling planets,
Seven shades of li-ight,
Six counterfeiters,
Cal-Cu-Lus!
Four telescopes,
Three Laws of Motion,
Two awful feuds,
And the discovery of gravity!

Turning Gasoline into Pancakes

The power went out and I finally got to break out the generator I bought a few years ago when the basement flooded.  We needed to use it to keep water out of the basement.  Since it was cold and we needed to eat, I hooked up the electric skillet and cooked up some pancakes on the back porch.

I really enjoyed noticing the generator strain everytime I upped the temperature setting on the skillet.  Also, it was pretty cool when I put a new dollop of batter and the skillet had to draw more power to maintain temperature.  It was as if the generator was complaining about the work involved making those pancakes.

What a great example of conservation of energy!  Does everyone think this way or is it just me?

Cognitive Science and Education

When I was in grad school, before I quit to make wine in France, I was pursuing research interests in computational cognitive science.  This is a really cool field at the intersection of biology, psychology, math, computer science, and physics. 

Nowadays, I am trying to be an educator, but I retain my interest in cognitive neuroscience.  I now wrestle with trying the fit the two together in a meaningful way:  click here to read a short article I am thinking of sending in to the physics teacher or some other journal that might be interested.