Frenzied Daddy

I know Sam Raimi directed Spiderman 1, 2 and 3. And, having read If Chins Could Kill I know that Sam Raimi and ( one of my favorite actors ) Bruce Campbell are long-time friends. I didn’t realize that Raimi also directed Xena and Hercules, but maybe I did know that and just forgot. Anyway…

Sam Raimi, director of Spiderman 1, 2, and 3, and director for the Xena and the Hercules series, has signed with Disney/ABC to bring 22 episodes of “Wizard’s First Rule” to the little screen!

Well, ok. I’m not a huge fan of these books. But I am a huge fan of Sam Raimi and of fantasy, and so I’m eagerly awaiting this coming to the television.

“Daddy, doggies are like bongos!”

You’ve probably noticed the advertising over on the left; a few months ago I swapped out the google adsense for the BlogHer ads. No, I’m still a “blogHim” but they’re taking new members, including … ( wait for it ) … guys!

Anyway, they’re taking a survey to find out what makes my ( our ) readers tick; so please go over here and take the survey. Apparently you can win a free pass to a BlogHer event, and everybody likes those.

I hear BlogHer events are great places to pick up chicks.

OW OW OW OW

One of the things I’m happy about from my childhood is the math. Yeah, this is where I remind dad that he wouldn’t let me have a calculator until I didn’t need one. Math and I get along pretty well. It’s kind of odd that reluctance to do math contributed to my dropping out of the Chemistry path in college, though. I enjoyed science too- especially Chem but I got tired of doing the “where could the electron be” equations and finally gave up.

Anyway, the DQ was doing her homework last night and asked me if some large ungainly number like 23001 could be divisible by three. I told her that 2+3+1 was 6 and 6 was a multiple of three, so yes. I think I picked that rule up in Junior High. We were doing some sort of factoring exercise and the teacher showed us that rule. So we could do any number was divisible by 2, 5, 10, and now 3, 6, 9 too ( if it’s divisible by 2 and also 3 then it’s divisible by 6, if the numbers add up to a multiple of 9 then it’s also divisible by nine ). I could never remember the fairly complicated rule for sevens, though. “Sevens are hard” I told DQ last night.

Ms B was surprised to learn that rule of threes. She caught on quick though because she’s a smart cookie. She agreed that sevens are hard.

So in my daily news reading, I was surprised to come across this article: “Is 91 Prime?” . One of those strange coincidences of the world.

Here’s their answer to the sevens conundrum:

Is 8638 divisible by 7?
863 - 2*8 = 847 (subtract twice the last digit)
84 - 2*7 = 70 (subtract twice the last digit)
70 = 7 * 10, which is divisible by 7 -- therefore 8638 is divisible by 7

That seems like too much work to me. It’s actually faster in this case for me to look at “7 goes into 8638… goes into 8 remainder 1, goes into 16 remainder 2, goes into 23 remainder 2, goes into 28 even, so yes. Sort of a division only worrying about the remainder.

Anyway, that article actually explains why the threes rule above works. It has to do with the decimal system. I almost understand it. One of the comments was also very interesting about square roots: the difference of two square roots is not prime. So 91 is not prime ( sorry to spoil the ending ) because 1) seven goes into 9 remainder 2 then seven goes into 21 remainder 0 and 2) (10×10)-(3×3)=91.

Easy, huh? What about 133? Are there two squares that differ by 133?

The recent spate of sunshine here has brought some of the craziness in our house to the surface. The TT, for instance, asked if she could go outside and play in the sprinkler. Keeping in mind that it was only 65F and only partially sunny, I said “no.” Naturally she whined. I’m trying to tell them my reasoning more than not, so I went to the mat and told her the truth… “It’s too cold, honey.” She promised to wear her jacket.

Yeah, I laughed at her, and then we went for a walk around the block with her.

The DQ, on the other hand, went to a boy’s birthday party on Friday. They went out to play laser tag and had cupcakes and then were hanging out at the boy’s house with his mother. I was supposed to collect the DQ at 10PM but hey, she’s coming home at nine. My excuse was that I had to be on call early in the morning, but the truth is that I’m not ready to loosen the strings that much yet.

And then she called asking if she could spend the night. At a boy’s house. In a mixed-gender sleepover. Am I crazy? Am I wrong? Am I a nervous nellie? I said no to that too— I know that when she spends the night at Sage’s, they stay up until the wee hours of the morning playing games, and I’m not ready yet to deal with late night truth or dare OR spin the bottle OR elevator to paradise. Yikes.

It’s bad enough that when I went to pick her up they were playing truth or dare. Oh god. My heart rate doubled. The mother was around though, they weren’t getting too bad. But, the mother came up to me and said “Can you imagine? It’s been only a year. Last year they were playing video games and monopoly. A year later, just a year later, they’re talking about who likes whom and boy-girl stuff.” Gaah.

I’m really not ready for this. I’m just getting used to an eleven year old. I’m not ready for a fifteen year old.

A ninth grader in Tennessee has been charged with theft and sent to court for stealing … a forty cent lunch. Fifteen year old Jon Riker receives a reduced lunch at Gallatin’s Station Camp High School. One day last semester, his mother forgot to give him the forty cents for lunch. He was hungry at lunch and he went through the line and didn’t pay. He received a three day suspension and a court date.

Ok, so the kid did take lunch without paying for it. But forty cents is a little silly. The problem is the school’s no tolerance stance on lunch thefts. I think a more appropriate solution could have been found, perhaps involving dish washing, or detention, or something.

In the mother’s defense, she’s been a little frenzied herself. They have a family of six, and tje youngest had brain surgery recently. I have lunch money slip my mind too, but I just get an annoyed phone call from the cafeteria lady who reminds me to send in some lunch money.

In the spirit of “sending in lunch money,” some people are banding together to send lunch to kids at the school; sending forty cents to

Station Camp High School
600 Lower Station Camp Creek Road (1040 Bison Trail)
Gallatin, TN 37066
Attn: Principal Art Crook

With a kind note suggesting he use the forty cents to buy lunch for other kids who don’t have the money, and following that up with a suggestion to find creative, appropriate punishments for kids who steal lunch.

source

Heh. Yeah, stole this title and these list entries from here, however, I think these 5 attributes are generally applicable rather than just programmers.

1. Humility. You need to understand that being a father isn’t about you.
2. Love Of Learning. New father? You’ll be learning a lot. Second kid? You’ll be learning a lot. Third kid? You’ll be learning a lot. Get with the program.
3. Detail Orientedness. It’s not enough to throw your kid into a room and say “clean this.” It’s not enough to hand them their homework and say “do this.” You need to pay attention to the details and demonstrate how to finish the job.
4. Adaptability. You think being frenzied is fun? Trade ya. Become unfrenzied; adapt to the situation. Don’t shout at the three year old because she changed her mind about the kind of sandwich she wants.
5. Passion. You can’t just “phone it in” when you’re an effective father. You’ve got to have heart. Got to have passion. Got learn from Mr. Miyagi and beat up the bullies…. sorry, got carried away.

I didn’t go into as much detail as the Philosophical Geek did in the link above, however, these are crucial traits for fatherhood as well as programmers. Heck, I bet even chefs need these traits!

The world is abuzz with the news that Microsoft is making another play for Yahoo. I’m not sure what this means, overall, but the technological folks in my life won’t stop talking about it.

However, I found news of another cable cut in the Middle East positively alarming. Ok, one break in an underwater cable, sure, could be an accident. Two cuts? kind of weird. But three?!!

What happened at the beginning of the mess in Iraq? Do you remember the bloggers, the news, the live video feeds? I do. I remember the blog of the Iranian, recording everything that happened in his town. ( This chart taken from The Internet Traffic Report. )

Yeah, sure, I’m willing to admit that I’m susceptible to conspiracy theories, especially against the “current political regime.” But now, Iran’s network is cut off from the Internet. Major lines of communication are out of commission for at least two days, possibly as many as ten.

Doesn’t that strike you as scary? Or am I off my rocker? Again.

I’ve never done this sort of thing before. I think I’m going to start a “book club” specifically for parents reading “young adult” books. I’m already reading the books, it’ll be good to talk about them as well. And I was moved by an article Grandma P brought over about how eighth graders tend to stop reading so much. So my fifth grader who is reading hundreds of books a year (yes, really ) will probably be reading much fewer when she leaves middle school.

Middle school, by the way, is next year.

The Oregonian article reminded me how much better readers do in school; reading and writing skills are much improved in kids who read for fun. And one of the best ways to help kids read for fun is to help match kids to books they might like.

So, thinking about the flames in the discussion around The Golden Compass, I think I’m going to use that as a springboard. So, I’ll be looking for some sort of “reading guide” that’s not totally pro-or-anti Pullman, and I’ll be putting a… schedule(?) for lack of a better word.

I’m using the Portland Parents site for it, aiming it at other parents who are concerned about the same things. Let’s see how far I can take it. Wonder what we’ll read for March.