Monday, June 16, 2008

Ultimate Fathers Day

My fathers day experience was one of the best I've had. I am a father three times over. But there is nothing more special than being waken by my young eight year old, because I was taking to long to get out of bed. She has been waiting for this day for some time. Apparently she did some arts and crafts and could not wait any longer to give them to me.

She stumbles out of bed, barely awake herself, and in her hand was this gorgeous tie she pasted and cut onto a construction paper, and a cute memo pad she had printed herself for me on a school computer.

Nothing else in the world can surpass the love a child has for her or his dad. I am for ever grateful for her small but priceless gift. I love you Jamie, Your dad.


Saturday, June 7, 2008

Bougus winnings!!

Once more I got the very common e mail from some foreign organization, usually from South Africa, and lately from England.
"You have been selected to win one million pounds in the state lottery". And it continues, "just send us your name, address, social security number, and bank account number so we can deposit your winnings as soon as possible."
They must think I was born yesterday, unfortunately many people actually fall for such tactics and do send their information only to realize that their back account has been drained of funds, and their identification stolen.
One has to be careful and weary of anything being given away. There is no such thing as winning something for nothing. No free rides, what you end up getting is being taken for a ride to the poor house.
Never answer any of those e mails from anyone, and I mean anyone. It is a dog eat dog world out there, and you must be on your toes at all times.
good luck.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Tredmill miles

Recently I have made the commitment to walk at least fifteen miles per week. So far I have fallen a little short, not because I wanted to slack off, or laziness, but because of blistering feet. However, I did find a temporary solution to that, stationary bike. The treadmill still hurts my blisters to the point where I can't walk half a mile before I start limping. To get the calorie burning effects of the treadmill, I replaced that with the elliptical machines, which by the way works out all muscles of the legs for an excellent cardio-workout.
But my mileage is suffering, since I can't calculate number of miles walked on it, but calories burned are calories burned, if I burn about 600 calories per hour walking, it really makes no difference how you get those 600 calories burned, whether its walking, running, or via the elliptical machine, you still burn 600 calories.
Not since it takes about 3500 calories per pound of fat, it means I would have to burn about 1200 calories per day for at least 3 days to get rid of a pound of undesired fat tissue, or as some books name it, adipose tissue. I should call it cellulite, but heck, there is nothing lite about it, fat is fat, and nothing can change that.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Ipods, pc, boomboxes and things

As I survey my students what they got for Christmas, I see that most of them got things that I never got when I was a kid. Many if not most got some type of ipod, or mp3 player, others asked and got TVs for their bedroom, still others got their wish by getting boom boxes, wow, I have not heard those things for some time. Actually its been a while since I've used a boom box.
No, I never got any of that. It seems that most things that kids get, specially those of the high school age has to be some type of electronic device.
However, I have joined some of the hoopla. I got one of those i-river mp3 players with 20 or more gigabyte, enough to store all the classic rock, blues and jazz favorites that I have collected over the years. Its great. It even connects to FM stations so I can find my classic rock station. well, there are two, but one plays stupid songs. jack FM is nothing but someones mp3 collection played by a computer. anyhow, electronic devices is the wave of the foreseeable future.
And it fits my lessons in my physics class that I teach, since we are now studying electricity and magnetism, which makes all this stuff possible.