Frenzied Daddy

FusionFall is out, and Miss B (the DQ, Miss Smart Aleck, The Resident Four Pointer, She-Who-Is-On-The-Honor-Roll), is very excited. It’s not a free game, but it is “inexpensive.” It’s about six bucks a month; it’s less than one rental at the video game rental store, it’s less than half the price of Everquest, it’s one (adult) serving when we eat fast food. She did play it during the free open beta, and enjoyed it.

During the recent budgetary crisis, I discontinued her allowance. It was only $2.00 a week, but it would cover a basic FusionFall subscription.

Something that one of the morning DJs said has kind of stuck with me all day. The station I was listening to is supporting a program that does mentorships for kids from pre-K through high school, getting them out of a cycle of poverty. One of the DJs spoke up and said that when he left home (as a teenager), he had an unofficial mentor who taught him things like how to get the electricity turned on when you rented an apartment, how to balance a checkbook, how to open a checking account. These were something his dad (or mom, but he only mentioned his dad) didn’t teach him.

It’s something my dad didn’t really teach me either. Not directly, anyway- I did see him with a huge ledger sheet doing his budget.

So I was wondering about teaching Miss B “how to open a checking account” and “how to balance it.” When should she learn that? I’ve been mulling over, at her next birthday (Jan 4), that she’ll be 12. I could take her to the credit union and help her open a checking account, and organize a deposit for it once a month for the balance of her allowance, and she could pay for, say, fusionfall, out of it. Is twelve the right age to start that, or should I wait?

And yes, I know that opening the account might take significantly more than her allowance.

It’s the beginning of the last leg of the year, coming around the corner with Halloween and right in to Thanksgiving and then Winter Solstice and the DQ’s birthday ( actually 1/4 ). We were out celebrating Halloween tonight and the girls were fantastic. The TT was dressed as a pretty cute, ok, I’ll say it, adorable, kitty cat and the DQ was dressed as a wizard. Wizardess. Naw, I’m gonna stick with “Wizard.” I’ll post pictures later.

They each got a huge bucket full of candy. We went to about twice as many houses as we usually go to for Halloween, but the girls were extremely excited, and we went down a couple of new streets (one of which had strobe lights, a spectre hanging from the eaves, a spidery tunnel to the door and a live demon in the bushes). Then we drove to Airy and Aleck’s house and trick-r-treated them too. Interrupted their dungeons and dragons game (sorry guys).

One precious highlight was when the girls turned around and came down some steps, and the TT tripped. She caught herself, only tripped down one stair really, and came to us and said “that was an eeeeeevil stair.” She had me in stitches most of the trek.

Hope you all had a great Halloween and that you’re looking forward to a terrific November.

So, the DQ is 11, and in 6th grade. Do you suppose it’d embarrass her too much if I made these cute little “witches on a stick” snacks for her to take in her lunches? I’d offer them to Ms B for her lunches but I suspect she’d consider them a waste of a perfectly good hershey’s kiss.

Thank you for using the “universal fit” cat converter on the car. It halved the amount of money I had to give you. Now I can afford brakes.

Something’s not working. This feels as bad as when I left cowboyz.

Obviously I’m not making the right decisions. The decisions to leave cowboyz and get counseling were prompted by my realization that I wasn’t making the right decisions and to listen to other people’s suggestions or encouragements.

This is an open statement to the universe. Tell me what I’m doing wrong. Please.

Sitting here in the dim morning light, the clouds have come in, and the temperature has dropped to near bearable levels. I’m upstairs keeping the elderly dogs company and a flash of light illuminates the room. It’s followed shortly by a brief ka-boom and the roll and crash of cymbal-like thunder. My first thought was “mmm, nice; the thunder that I hoped for last night.” My second thought was “whoa, what if it’s not thunder? What if it was an explosion?” The flash, then rolling thunder, for all I know it’d be the same theatrics. I sit quietly waiting, and then there’s more lightning followed by more thunder.

Somehow, even after the thunder cannoning in the sky and a brief sissure of heavy raindrops, the kids are still asleep. I’m enjoying this quiet time before they wake.

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?

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

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.