25 Things

A few people are listing 25 things about themselves that others may not know about them. Maybe I will try to list them in the order of shock and awe that you may feel when these truths are revealed.

25. I drink Mt. Dew. Pretty much everyday. Twice a day. Rarely three times a day. Non-shocker.

24. I don't like coffee. I like fruity alcohol drinks, but not beer or wine.

23. My wife and I had most of a house built for us, and then we finished it. I personally did the following: cleared the trees; helped put the radiant floor heating tubes in the basement, first floor, and second floor; built the U shaped stairway - both floors and all aspects of the stairs; built a few half walls and railings; installed the hardwood floors on all three floors; did all of the plumbing (supply and waste); installed the kitchen; helped do the concrete counters; cut most of the tile (which Crab-Mama put them down); painted; put up some of the siding; built window trim for the outside; built cabinets for the mudroom; wired the house for internet and phone and cable; destroyed my 30 year old table saw in the process; and got a whole lot of new tools. I am exhausted just thinking about it. I should also mention that my father has done a HUGE amount of work on our house also. Without him, our house would have no window or door trim, no doors, few cabinets, no bench in the mudroom, and many other things would be missing from our lives. Thanks Dad!

22. I don't really like watching sports on TV. Except the Tour de France. In Fast-Forward.

21. I have been married twice. To the same woman. Separated by 6 months. The second one was a fake. Sorry Mom.

20. I don't really like my job. Not really because of my job, but because I take on too much responsibility and get extremely stressed out. I did this as a bagel baker. I would definitely expect it as a professor. I am trying to reduce stress in my life. Trying.

19. I watch TV. I watch a fair bit of TV. I love comedies the best. 30 Rock. Arrested Development. The Office. I love that crap.

18. One of the reasons that I like to watch TV is that I need some down time at the end of the day. I like to sit and turn my brain semi-off for an hour or two. Well, I also sometime work a bit while watching TV. Coding is easy to do during this semi-off time.

17. I wish that Heroes was a better show. I want to love it. I really, really do. The plots could be just a bit better.... The forth season of BSG sucks. *ss. Oh, I guess you think that these things don't state any facts about me, but, I think they do. They really, really do.

16. I don't like to tell people what I do. The typical reaction to my job is to want to leave my company as soon as possible. The second most common reaction is to ask me about astronomy or astrophysics. Both of which are definitely not my field of interest. Or knowledge.

15. I hate travel because I can not bear to be away from my kids. This means that places that are a long ways away, even though they are exotic, are just painful for me to go to. I don't want to be away for that long.

14. I am a slave to e-mail. My Blackberry pretty much sealed my fate.

13. I make noise, just to make noise. Like my son. I am but a child. If no one is talking in the car, I will talk.

12. I love the idea of video games, but I don't ever really play them. I would like to, but I don't. I just don't know why.

11. I wish that I could play an instrument, like the drums or the guitar. I can't. I can barely sing. I sing loud and I sing proud. But not well.

10. I love music. I would listen to music constantly, if my wife liked music. We are truly opposites here - she likes talk radio on all of the time, and can stand to have it going while talking to other people, but thinks that music is very distracting. I can't stand to have talk radio on while I am trying to talk to other people. It drives me insane. Music is the thing for me.

09. You can tell that I am a geek because I include the "0" in front of my single digit numbers. This orders them in the correct order in Unix. Without the zero, "2" comes right after "19", which doesn't make any sense. Except it does.

08. I am mildly allergic to tomato sauce. Fatty foods also tend to do not so nice things to me. So, pizza is the devil's food. It is utterly blissful to eat, but I pay for it. Dear lord, do I pay.

07. I believe my daughter and I are "super tasters". We are both extremely picky eaters. I am pretty ashamed of not being more adventurous with food. I just don't like very much. I pretty much eat the same things at restaurants all of the time. Eating in a foreign country scares the crap out of me, since they may put something on the food that I absolutely detest. Like pickles.

06. I love to bike. I love being on the road and sweating. It is a great feeling. Drinking a Mt. Dew after 2 or 3 hours in the saddle is fantastic. I would say better than sex, but that would be a lie. Maybe better than bad sex. I love when I can eat anything that I want because I burn 1000 calories in a day. Except a Whopper. You can never really eat a Whopper.

05. I used to really love to woodwork. I think that it was teaching me patience. I am a person who believes whole heartedly that you should finish a task 80% of the way done as fast as you can, and screw the last 20%. I will settle for a B, thank you very much. The problem with this mentality is that the last 20% is extremely important in a wide variety of things. Definitely in woodworking. Definitely in science. Patience. I need to learn patience. The problem right now is that building a house cured me of wanting to do woodworking. Now I just want to sit on my *ss and do nothing. Well, maybe blog.

04. I am addicted to schedules. I want to know when something is happening. I want to know what I am supposed to do next. I want to know what to expect. Follow the schedule. Live the schedule. I have a thing for clocks. I am starting to collect them at work. I want a clock in my line of sight, no matter which way I am looking. I don't know, but this might be the opposite of patience?

03. I fear death. That is because I don't believe in God. Or in Heaven. I am sorry. I am just too hard-core of a scientist. I believe that when you die, there is nothing left. That scares the sh*t out of me. If you think about it, there are probably only a few hundred/thousand people who are remembered beyond a generation or two. Everyone else is gone. That is really depressing.

02. I pretty much only cry at the movies. All other times, I go to a place in which I am just angry.

01. I purchased Madonna's first album, and I own almost all of her albums since then. Now you know. The shame. Oh, the shame!

In Hospital

My mom (Crab-Granny #1) is in the hospital for a kidney stone. It is a gigantic thing (at one point, it was rumored to be 21 cm in size, but I pointed out that 2.1 cm would make a little more sense.... still pretty freaking big to be in your kidney!) Something went horribly wrong with it yesterday, and she ended up in the hospital. Today the are extracting the little beast.

Luckily, there is a winter storm over the entire northeast US, so my flight to DC was canceled last night. So, I thought I would have a nice day of work (bonus day!) As soon as I got home, Crab-Granny #1 calls, sounding like warmed over sh*t, and let me in on the news.

Today we crammed into the car and drove across the state to the hospital. There was some snow flying, but mostly it was settled. Except the cars weren't settled - there were tons of cars off the road, and on one section, they completely closed the expressway. We drove for a few miles down something the may have been a dirt road, but we couldn't tell because of the 6 inches of snow on the road. After about 4 hours we go there.

She just got out of surgery and is doing great (thanks for asking!) We haven't been able to see her yet, since she is in recovery, but we hear that she is up and dancing, or something like that. Hopefully she will feel better now that a chunk of rock was removed from her. We all feel better that she is safe and sound now.

I won't even mention the thoughts of .... that we could talk about right now. I will leave it on a happy note!

Personality Test

It seems like a few people have taken this personality test. So, I thought I would also. I am trying to relax at work a little bit, so, instead of working while sitting at my desk eating soup, I took this test. Here are the results:

Neuroticism

Neuroticism (sometimes also called Emotional Instability) is the tendency to experience negative emotions such as sadness or anxiety. People who score high on neuroticism are vulnerable to stress and tend to experience negative feelings more often. People who score low in neuroticism tend to be less susceptible to stress, and experience negative feelings relatively infrequently.

You scored 38 out of 50. This score is higher than 90.1% of people who have taken this test.

So, that is why I am stressed out all of the time.... It's not me, it's my personality....

Extraversion

Extraversion (or Extroversion) is the tendency to experience positive emotions and seek out stimulating situations. People who score high on extraversion tend to be active, energetic, and enjoy being around other people. In contrast, people who score low on extraversion, known as introverts, tend to be quiet, low-key, and are typically less involved in the social world.

You scored 43 out of 50. This score is higher than 89.7% of people who have taken this test.

Is 89.7% an A- or a B+? I want at least an A- on this one. Anyone know where I can suck down 0.3% extracredit on extraversion?

Openness to experience

Openness to experience is a general tendency to appreciate emotion, adventure, and unusual ideas or experiences. People who are open to experience are intellectually curious, appreciative of art, and sensitive to beauty. People with low scores on openness tend to have more conventional, traditional interests.

You scored 46 out of 50. This score is higher than 82.7% of people who have taken this test.

Hey, I am open to new experiences! Who knew? They obviously haven't read my blogs on travel and such! Or, gone out to eat with me. I will have the Sesame Chicken, please.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness is the tendency to show self-discipline and persistence. People who score high on conscientiousness tend to be persistent, responsible, and duty-driven, but are sometimes perceived as being overly perfectionistic and concerned with order. Individuals low on conscientiousness tend to show less persistence and may have trouble seeing things through.

You scored 36 out of 50. This score is higher than 58.6% of people who have taken this test.

I can tell you that my lack of care for order brought me down here. Oh, and my lack of persistence. And my lack of duty. Hmmm.... how did I score so high on this one? Oh, it must all be the guilt-driven responsibility that I feel all of the time!

Agreeableness

Agreeableness is the tendency to be sympathetic and cooperative towards others. People who score high on agreeableness strive for social harmony and value getting along with others. Disagreeable people tend to be more suspicious and hostile towards others.

You scored 33 out of 50. This score is higher than 25.5% of people who have taken this test.

Wow! I am a total sh*t! You don't agree? Well, f*ck-*ff! I guess what gave it away was the question "Which do you prefer, Rage Against the Machine or Peace Loving Choir Boys?" What, me hostile?

Well, I hoped you enjoyed this little peak into my Crabby Soul. Now, get back to work!

In Chile

The reason that I am in Chile is to participate in a meeting that I thought was going to be designed around some fundamental questions that I am really looking at. What I have found out, now that I am here, is that the meeting contains very little of what I want to study. There are many, many talks on things that I just don't care about. Typically, these types of meetings have lots of discussion also, but here it has been very truncated discussions in which nothing is really resolved.

So, I would have to say that this meeting is a very large disappointment. Another disappointment is the fact that we are meeting from 9 AM until 7 PM. We then go out for dinner and don't get back until about 11:30 - 12:00. There is absolutely no free time or time to breathe here. Yesterday was nice since we had an excursion to a valley a bit from here to go wine tasting. I know that most of you would be ecstatic to go wine tasting in Chile. It was a lot of fun (sans the wine), but it would have been much more fun if we had gone into the mountains and gone hiking or something like that. Oh well.

What is he point? I flew for 14 hours to get here and will fly over 14 hours to get home. Everyone thought I should go to experience Chile. And here I am in Chile, but trapped in meetings all the time. I can't really experience Chile.

Here is a question - should the meetings get better and better the further you have to travel, or should they get worse and worse, since you are traveling to someplace exotic? I feel like they should get better and better, since you have to devote so much of your time in getting there and back. I don't think that many people feel this way, though.

So, tonight I have to go to the banquet (which starts at 9 PM - when will it end? Who knows.) I chair a session at 9 AM tomorrow. The conference ends at 6:30 tomorrow night, and we head back to the airport to jump on a plane at about 10:20 PM. Fly for about 10 hours, sit in an Atlanta for 4 hours, then 2.5 hours back home. I really, really hope that the sessions are good tomorrow....

Perhaps I am becoming Eeyore.

Wow, is that depressing. Ok, here are some good things about this trip - I got to talk to a number of people who I haven't talked to in a long time. I think that I am much better friends with these people now. This evening I went out and read my book for 45 minutes on the beach, while tons and tons of people played in the water and worked on their tans. I think that I understand Spanish a tiny bit more than I did one week ago. I ate a mushroom pastry thing without knowing what it was going to be. I finished it and didn't die. I moved / removed over 2000 e-mail messages from my in-boxes. I learned that Vina del Mar has a climate very very similar to LA. It is a desert here, which is pretty. I learned that in Chile, dogs just roam around freely. There are tons of stray dogs.

Ok, I have to go.

Homeschooling - Part II (On Airplane)

Here I am on an airplane. It is 1:22 AM, and I should be sleeping. But I can't. Where am I going? To Chile! Am I excited to go? No. I, once again, am on a trip that I don't want to be on. While I imagine that Chile is going to be a great place, I would rather be at home with my wife and kids.

Did I ever mention that I am a man of routine? I really do fear change. I hate the fact that I am not going to know where to get breakfast, or even what I can eat for breakfast. I, just like my daughter, am a very picky eater. I have a very hard time adjusting to new food and such. So, travel for me is not very pleasant. Especially to exotic places in which the culture is very different than ours. Like Chile. Or Alaska.

Ok, so I can't be at home.

Back to homeschooling.

Actually, before we get back to homeschooling, let's discuss happiness. This is an issue that I struggle with all of the time. What makes you happy? What makes you content? We have already established that it is not travel for me. I would have to say, as all of you know, that I am not the most happy and content person in the world. Why is that? What made me not content? What made my insatiable drive that won't allow me to be satisfied with mediocrity? I feel like this drive is what keeps me from being happy.

I think that my wife has the same type of drive also, but it is slightly different. She wants the best of everything. She can not be happy unless everything is just right, or, more precisely, some, very specific, things are just right. And those very specific things can alter from day to day. Now, that was just poking fun, but there are some constants in this. School is one of those constants that she has to have just right. Or at least, firmly under her control. This makes her happy. Having the kids in public school, or an uncontrolled environment, where bad things can happen, makes her miserable. Which, in turn, makes me miserable. And the kids miserable.

Ok, I think I dialed the telescope up a little too much there. Lets go back to the forest. The happiness forest, if it pleases you.

What makes a person happy? Can we, as parents, predict what will make our children happy? Or, more importantly, what will make them happy adults? I find that I have a hard time just wrapping my brain around this issues, since I don't know what would even make me happy.

Does having a good job make you happy? Obviously, finding a good partner helps. How can we prepare our kids to find what they truly desire? And, if they find it, will it really be what they want?

Crab-Mama has read many books about this that say that we, as a society, tend to put our children into situations in which they are not adequately prepared to handle. Kids, obviously, handle it in some way. Crab-Mama believes that the way that kids handle it is to lash out at other kids and tear each other down. Which creates a self-perpetuating chain of badness. This, in her eyes, is school. She believes that children should be sheltered for as long as they can. They should be allowed to be children until they are ready to be more. Instead of other children deciding that our children should be one way or another, then attempting to inflict this view on them, she believes that we should be the ones guiding them.

And how can you really argue with this? "No, you should put your kids in school where we know that there is a lot of negative peer pressure, and that they will obviously have some very bad experiences." That argument doesn't fly very far.

The other, extremely obvious argument against this is thought is that school is what everyone does. That is what our society does. That is who we are. And not doing it is, in many respects, spitting on a lot of people. School was good enough for me. It is good enough for everyone else's kids. Why is it not good enough for our kids? Why can't we just fit in like everyone else?

Those are really the fundamental questions that I grapple with all of the time. Those are the arguments that I have used, and they appear to have no weight what-so-ever. Why? Because some people (and they, once again, know who they are) don't care what everyone else thinks (at least about this - but about dirty toilets, then is all "clean the toilets - do you want people to think that we are heathens?").

I must say that I don't buy this argument at all. I firmly believe that we are a community of people. That one of the intrinsic things that we have to learn as children and adults, is how to get along with others. That, while bad things happen to people all of the time, good things happen too. While school has a large number of drawbacks, it has a lot of very good points also. School is a lot like life in that regards.

So, now I am rambling on a bit. Fighting both sides of the argument. Sorry. I am a little groggy.

Let me summarize.

I never considered homeschooling until Crab-Mama talked about it. It never even entered my brain. Sort of like living in Texas. But that is another story. Once we talked and talked and talked and talked about it, I could clearly see that there were many advantages and a few disadvantages to homeschooling. When we homeschooled Crab-Girl for the first 9 years of her life, we did a very good job. She is an incredibly intelligent little girl, who, when she started school, was above average in all of her Michigan Assessment test scores except for writing (she likes to type). This tells me that we were doing a lot of things right. She is still above average. Crab-Boy's first year of school was a miserable failure. This year has been great. We worked with him almost every night on spelling and reading (i.e., augmenting school with homeschool...)

Do I want to homeschool? No. Why? I really don't know. The best argument that I can come up with is that I want them to be 'normal'. What ever the hell that means. I want that for my kids. The second argument is that homeschooling is a lot of work. There is a lot of effort involved. Especially when both parents have jobs (one who is working full time, one who is working part time).

Do I think that homeschool will hurt my kids at all? I don't think so. But, I don't know. I don't know whether controlling their environment will make it better or worse for them in the future. Who can know? Could you have looked at any kid in the 6th grade and tell whether they were going to be a happy adult? I have to say, our kids are pretty happy. They enjoy life. Which is more than I can say about me right this second (2:12 - still in the airplane...)

Alright, I have to try to sleep.....

Homeschooling - Part I

As I sit here before I lecture for the day, I feel like I should use this time to write some thoughts on different subjects. Let's choose one at random..... hmmmm..... how about homeschooling?

I would imagine that putting all of my thoughts on this subject down is going to take a lot longer than the 25 minutes that I have left before class starts, so this will most likely be a multi-part event. A play in N acts, if you will.

First I should clarify what 'Homeschooling' means to people who reside in the Crab-Mansion. One of the main concepts in the idea is to immerse the kids in a learning environment in which they can freely explore the likes and dislikes. Before you jump and down and scream (you know who you are), let me continue....

I am on a committee in the College of Engineering about the curriculum. We are discussing such interesting topics as whether courses should be 3 or 4 credits and should we have a learn-by-doing type of curriculum - where a masters degree means that you have done a lot of practical hands-on type of work. During the last meeting we got into a discussion on why students learn. Do we just want to shove facts down their throat and have them vomit those facts out on a test, or do we want to teach them the fundamentals of how to learn, so they can find those facts out on their own. Should we teach them how to think or facts? How do you test students if you switch to this new idea? That is one of the fundamental problems with school in general is the assessment - how do assess how well a student is doing? We typically test them on facts, which means that we have to teach them those facts. Coming up with a test to see how they think is extremely difficult. Coming up with one in an environment in which everyone else is testing for facts just confuses them. That was an interesting conversation.

Another thing that came up in this meeting, during this conversation is that homeschool kids tend to do much better in classes than other student, and they exhibit a strong desire to learn, while other students are much more ambivalent towards the whole thing (i.e., school, homework, classes, etc.) Why is this? Simply because many homeschooling children learn to learn and end up loving the experience of understanding. Children who go to typical schools are taught to regurgitate facts and not to appreciate the facts that they are learning. The question of "why?" is almost pointless. It is the fact that this happened on October 4, 1957 (anyone???) and not why did it happen or how did it happen.

I should say that I am incredibly guilty of doing this right now. How do you teach in this way to 204 students (that's how many are signed up for my class right now - only 2 seats left in the auditorium!) It is extremely difficult. I am going to try a little more this semester. How? I have no idea. I really don't.

Now, face to face, or with a small class, it is relatively easy to do. You can lead students towards answers. You can teach them to look at things in certain ways. Do not just look for the answer, but look for why that occurs. This you can do with graduate students or with small classes. Or with homeschooling (the point!!)

Ok, to address some of the points from the 32 year old woman in the back row who has been jumping up and down.

Homeschool kids are freaks. I would say that this is probably true. I would also say that I was, and still am, a freak. I don't drink really. People are sort of weirded out by me. I don't hang out with many people. Even at meetings in which there are lots of social functions, I don't participate very much. I am well known in the field, but I am not well liked socially. I could say that this is because people don't take the time to get to know me, but truthfully, I don't enjoy the same things that many other people tend to like. Sports, drinking, etc. These are the basic backbone of our society. If you don't participate in those, then you are sort of a freak. I am firmly in that catagory. Does it trouble me that my kids don't fit either. Yes. It really does. It really, really does bother me. Do I think that I can change this? Will school change this? If you look at who Crab-Girl hung out with in school, it was other kids who people would consider freaks also. Just like I did in school.

Ok, on that note, I have to motor. Gotta go shove some facts down a bunch of students throats.

The Matrix

I am watching the Matrix Reloaded.

I would have to say that the fight scenes and the chase scene with the ghost vampires are the best actions scenes ever made. Trinity on a motorcycle. That is some hot sh*t. Ok, chase scene is over, I can turn it off.

I was thinking that I really hate Tuesday Thursday classes, but not having to prep for class on Sunday night is glorious.

Today was a pretty sh*tty day. I don't really know why. It started out just fine. I actually was starting to do some filling in nail holes in the window trim (after 2 years), but was interrupted when Crab-Mama reported that the bunny had fallen over and couldn't get up. So, we had to take the bunny in to the Animal ER. About $200 later, we got some medicine that might or might not work. If bunny feels better in a week or so, then great! It worked! If not, then we have the "what happens when bunnies die" talk to Crab-Girl. That will pretty much suck.

Then to Target. Then to the bagel place. Then home.

The roads around our house pretty much suck *ss. We got about 10 inches of snow yesterday, and they still haven't plowed our roads. Which means that if you go off the tracks even a little, it is sort of hard to get back on track. If someone comes at you in the other direction, it is pretty much game over.

I haven't called my sister even though her birthday was 12 days ago. I am sorry!!!

Ok, here is the breaking news:

Crab-Mama pulled the kids out of school is going to start homeschooling again. Starting tomorrow.

I think that is enough for tonight...