Computer Malfunction Redux

It was only a matter of time. Things were simply going to well. There were no hiccups, no glitches, not even a glimmer or clue that the cliff was coming and that I would walk right over it. Metaphorically speaking, the cliff scenario is what it felt like that day during one of my days of jury selection, when I pulled my iBook out of my bookbag, took it out of its neoprene case, flipped open the top and after a couple minutes, the screen went blank and then began to cycle through the primary colors infinitely.

For six whole entire months, I did not make a pitstop into the tech office. I would see the guys in the hall and they would ask how things were and I could proudly proclaim that I was taking all the precautions and putting the computer into sleep mode when I was attaching a device through the USB port. I was doing my very best not to treat the computer as a bag of bricks and to treat it gently (I know you're chuckling as "gently" kind of isn't in my vocabulary let alone a way to operate in the world). But when I brought my iBook in after Spring Break, the howls of laughter and the jeering I got from the guys in the tech office were deafening. I am proud to claim that I lost NOTHING because I have been religious about transferring all work from the iBook on to the school's server. And I was able to boot the computer up to get to the point where I could email key documents to myself and thereby save them. BOOYAH!!

But, alas, I am again without a computer and feeling a bit lost in the world. I have been so wary of even stepping into the tech office that I only checked in yesterday and heard that they hadn't yet heard anything from their repair people. I'm praying it's something relatively inexpensive and simple, but it's looking like something major has friend inside. Damn.

I have to point you all towards a couple of causes I had forwarded to me. The first is a malaria prevention campaign that you can read in Sports Illustrated. The column is by Rick Reilly and there is a link off the article to the UN program that is running the campaign.

The second is one that sounds interesting as a way to battle high gas prices.
GAS WAR - an idea that WILL work




This was originally sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. It ' s worth your consideration.
Join the resistance!!!! I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a
gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices
to come down? We need to take some intelligent, united action.
Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain
day" campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil
companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue
to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas. It was more of an
inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.

BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can
really work. Please read on and join with us! By now you're probably
thinking gasoline priced at about $1.50 is super cheap. Me too! It
is currently $2.79 for regular unleaded in my town. Now that the oil
companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the
cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take
aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the
marketplace..... not sellers. With the price of gasoline going up
more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are
going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the
pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT
hurting ourselves. How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just
stop buying gas. But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all
act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea:
For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two
biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL. If they are
not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If
they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow
suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon
and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out
at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to
reach millions of people.

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us sends it to at
least ten more (30 x 10 =3D 300) ... and those 300 send it to at
least ten more (300 x 10 =3D 3,000)...and so on, by the time the
message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over
THREE MILLION consumers. If those three million get excited and pass
this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been
contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE
HUNDRED MILLION >>>>PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.
(If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you
have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you
just aren't a mathematician. But I am, so trust me on this one.)

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out
to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people
could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did
you?

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to
you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from
EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $1.30 RANGE AND KEEP
THEM DOWN.

THIS CAN REALLY WORK.

I think I might actually try this. Ok, who knows when I'll post next. But when I get my computer (or a computer) back, I'll be back in the saddle.

"Why did I attend this conference?" is why I attended

Once a week, the HRS Headmaster sends out a Headmaster's Letter that we all receive by email. In it, we find out who's decided to leave the school and who will take their place. There are always announcements for different workshops and conferences included. I usually give a cursory glance to the latter but just before Spring Break, there was an announcement for the 2nd annual Asian Educators Alliance to be held April 21-22nd at Lick-Wilmerding High School. In the past, I would have dismissed the thought of even attending. But for some reason, I was drawn to the idea of attending and so with the aid of the Math Department Conference Budget, I sent in my registration form and fee.

The critical question that kept rearing its head in my mind was why I was so resistant to the idea of attending something like this? The former reaction was not one of simply ignoring the conference's existence, but I would have turned my back on it. My conjecture as to why I slammed the door on even addressing my being Asian in the teaching profession within the Independent School world was twofold. First, I used to (and perhaps still to a degree do) associate affintity groups as a place where those students who belong to that group weren't able to assimilate to the culture of the school. Secondly, because I never really felt as if I were left out (little did I know that I totally was clueless as to an entire life of my class that I wasn't privy too) or treated unfairly or even misunderstood, that I therefore had no need to attend anything that identified purely by affinity group.

So there I was at 5:00PM on a Friday afternoon sitting in my small group or 15 Asian educators sharing our answers to the two questions, A) When did you decide to be a teacher? and B) How was it when you told your parents? As I sat there and listened to the answers of other people, I began to ask myself, "what is my role as an Asian teacher in that do I have some inherent responsibilities?", "am I automatically supposed to teach the Asian experience or perhaps my experience? Lastly, I wondered "what does HRS want to get back from having a teacher with my face on their campus? If I am able to start answering these questions, or at least know how to study and address them, before the conference ended, I would be truly excited.

On Saturday morning, we started in the same small group of 15 and we were sharing our feelings on "how we identify with the term Asian-American educators?" As I listened to the others answer, I came to the realization that my answer to the question at hand, might answer one of the big three questions I posed myself at the end of Friday. My answer was that I could use my Asian-American heritage to help all students who live in the dual worlds of school and home. I find that I am able to help students navigate through certain situations in which what the school said contradict one another. In addition, I'm not sure that when the school hired me that they overtly were presenting to the Asian (and other non-white minority) students the idea that they too could grow up and choose teaching as a profession. On a more global level, students can be whatever they choose to be. As I reminisce about my high school years at Lakeside, I had all Caucasian teachers for my five major courses for each and every one of the four years I spent in high school. I didn't think that teaching was even an option for someone like me.

Looking around my small group, I was struck by the ratio of female to male was about 5:1 or 6:1. Then looking across the entire group later on, there just aren't many Asian men choosing teaching as a profession. Why?

For the first workshop, I chose one entitled "Asians Are Elemental! Moving beyond tokenism in our schools". What we wanted to understand is that to make Asian issues and stories a true part of a curriculum by integreting it into the main curriculum and not just a supplemental add on at the end. Our presenters were humanities teachers who had found ways to bring this multicultural knowledge. For History teachers, class doesn't need to ordered chronologically, but with themes or patterns that will give students a context for what they are studying. The English teacher also has designed her courses on on themes.

The keynote speaker of this conference was Gus Lee He told great stories but admonished us teachers to 1) Honor All Persons 2) Seek Social Justice 3) Demonstrate Courage under Great Present.

A voicemail from my sister

"I just had to call to tell you that George Bush is helping me get $390 back. I'm very upset about it. I felt like I should do something with it but of course it's $390 so what am I going to do with it? Alright, anyhow I get money because he lowered the capital gains tax and that's why I'm getting money back. Otherwise, I'd have to pay money. BUT IT JUST DOESN'T FEEL VERY GOOD (caps relaying the emphasis in her voice). Just had to tell you."

--Marlene C (4/16/06)

I've just inadvertantly both pissed off a judge and found out a foolproof way to avoid jury duty

Last time we met, I was in the midst of jury duty selection. Remember that I had already rescheduled jury duty from sometime in February to my Spring Break. I wasn't called until Wednesday of that week and was informed that I was going to be a potential juror in a six week trial. From my experience two years ago where I was almost a juror for a seven asbestos trial, it was at that time the judge in the case who made it a blanket policy that teachers would have to serve regardless of their situation. Seeing as that I am serving in a San Francisco court and I teach at a private school in Alameda County, I concluded that my "hardship" request would have no sway with any judge. Thinking that I was going to have to go through the process of jury selection because of my belief that I either couldn't be excused nor reschedule a second time, I played the odds that in a group of about 100, there was a small probability that I would end up one of the 15 jurors or alternate jurors.

So I made the blog posting a couple posts back. Go back and read it to familiarize yourself with exactly what I wrote. You don't really learn much about the case, right? So on Monday after the lunch recess, the District Attorney and the defendents lawyers use their preemptory bumps to excuse certain jurors and a jury of 12 is seated, with the people in seats 24, 25 and 26 moving into the 1st, 2nd and 3rd alternate jurors seats, those being 13, 14 and 15. The clerk called names to fill up seats 16 through 26 and I was called to sit in seat 24.

Questioning occurred and it was going at a nice rapid clip. The judge adjourned for break and asked four of us jurors to remain behind. I was one of the four. I am called into the judges chambers and am immediately asked if I had made a posting about the case on a blog. My head is spinning. I had no idea this was going to be the topic. I had no recollection of what I wrote but I did know that I had revealed no details of the case. He then asked me why I wrote about it. After a couple moments, I remembered that I wrote about how pissed I was that I had to come back on Monday. At this point, it was basically mayhem between the judge and I. My quibble (if at this point one can say it was a quibble) was that I felt as if I was working without any information. He nailed me on the fact that I was playing the odds of not being seated. And this made him incensed. He lectured me like a little kid. I just sat there and took it because I end up getting what I wanted, which was off this trial and to serve jury duty at a different time, most likely June. The judge made it a point to not excuse me from service but I had to defer my service and come in again to fulfill this years obligation. At that point, I got up and walked into the courtroom and in front of the entire room, walked right out the door.

So, my mistake in all of this is that I didn't realize that on the first Wednesday I was called in that I was allowed a second postponement or to apply for a hardship excuse or deferral. Had I known this, I would have avoided this all together and not had to sit through two days of court.

BUT, now that we know that the lawyers are out there on the internet searching for us in the cyberworld, here's a pretty easy way to get yourself disqualified.

I want to now write about the substance of the trial, but I'm not sure if I can. Once bitten, twice shy they say. So, judge and lawyers, if you're reading this, you win. You have scared the bejesus out of me and I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Read this book!!

The silver lining in this endless jury selection process is an opportunity to read. The icing on the cake was that the book, recommended to me by one Peilin C., was one of those that I couldn't put down.

The book is a look Ed Rendell's first term as the mayor of Philadelphia. But more importantly the book is about the place the large urban cities have in our society today. Are they valuable? Are they worth the investment? The best books leave us with more questions that they answer.

Spring has arrived

OK Next time there won’t be Mr. Nice Guy

Back in February, I received my summons for jury duty service for the criminal division of the San Francisco Superior Court. Two years ago, also in February, my summons was for the civil division of the Court. Each time, I asked to reschedule my service to the week of my Spring Break.

Two years ago, I was nearly selected to be the second alternate in a seven-week asbestos trial. Avoided that one by the skin of my teeth because I was the third to last person in the jury pool and who knows what might have happened had they needed more people. The selection process lasted all of two days.

This time, I wasn’t called in on Monday or Tuesday, but my scheduled appearance time was 1PM on Wednesday. This first court appearance was logistical. Who qualified for hardship dismissals and filling out a small questionnaire. I was there for an hour.

Thursday’s adjournment was at 1030AM. The judge is a very nice grandfatherly looking man. He spent some time explaining the process and then stated what the charges were against the defendants. I am not at liberty to say what the case is yet, but let’s just say that everyone will be doing their best to NOT get on this jury. It’s planned for five weeks.

Usually, the district attorney questions the 26 jurors in the hot seats and then the defendant’s lawyer does the same thing. This is a tedious and time-consuming process. In this case, there are two defendants and each has their own attorney, so we must listen to questions three times instead of two. We had a full day of questioning jurors on Thursday. We adjourned on Friday again at 1030AM but were let out for the afternoon at 1230PM. We were told to return on Monday at 10AM. At this point, I went to the court clerk and asked whether or not I would be able to reschedule my service until June, when school was out. She said that it wasn’t possible. I asked what would happen if I simply didn’t show. The clerk said that the judge could issue a warrant. So, I told her that I would be there on Monday, but I wouldn’t be happy about it.
What are some of my observations? Well, the theme of personal responsibility kept coming up in questioning. I’m glad that they are visiting a topic that I harp on constantly in my job. I also notice that there is a preponderance of single people. Yes, a great many single people may inhabit SF but the proportions can’t be this out of whack. Where are all the married Caucasians?

Lastly, I learned that there is a different burden of proof between civil and criminal. In civil, the burden is a preponderance of evidence, but in criminal the burden is beyond a reasonable doubt. Interesting.

Under different circumstances, this would be called a “Perfect Storm”

This story as so many different strands that come together at the same place at around the time. I am apprehensive about having missed something so as per usual, I’ll set the story with a list of characters and or a mosaic of other things. Of course they’ll be listed in as close to chronological as I can possibly remember.

About a year ago, I purchased a set of Klaus Teuber games at the HRS annual auction. The game I was after in particular was called Settlers of Catan. Subsequently, I began hosting games nights pretty regularly for friends, some of them my HRS colleagues.

The Alumni Director, being that it is her job to know what’s happening in the alumni world, catches wind of the fact that some faculty is playing Catan. She promptly tells a 1993 graduate of HRS about the game being played at school. Why would this 1993 alumna (I would mention her name but I can’t remember it) care? This alumna is married to none other than Klaus Teuber’s son Guido, who is heading the small Teuber office in the US.

The 1993 alumna’s younger brother, Nick J (not the Nick J that I advised for those of you in the know enough to ask that question) graduated from HRS in 2001. In college he earned a degree in marketing. During the years in college, he worked in bits and chunks for his future brother-in-law at the Teuber office. Upon graduation, he secured a job at the Teuber office trying to develop new markets of for the game.

Nick J. and I must have had the same epiphany around the same time but totally independent of each other. The genesis of my use of Catan lay when my Economics students didn’t truly understand the concept of an Economy. The way the game is constructed and some of the dynamics that occur in a typical 2-hour game mirrors quite closely the struggle that the poorer countries of the world face in trying to move up from the third world.

I seized the moment and asked my students to come in on an evening to play the game. In compensation, they got a class period off later in the week. Nick came by and we talked shop and about how Catan might be able to open an Economics market. He came to see how I would run the game and how I would relate it to Economic topics.

The students loved the game, a true testament to the high quality fun and challenge that Settlers of Catan possesses. I’ve emailed my students some of the things I wanted them to think about and be ready to discuss in class on Monday, but you’ll find out next why I can’t be there.

There is a bonus for the HRS Math Department and that is our Department will be the recipient of a set or two of the Catan series of games. Also, Nick stated that he and his boss (Teuber’s son) are always looking for game testers. How cool is that? And more interestingly, how crazy is the path of this story. No way one could have predicted something like this.

My oven mitts now have some homemade hangers

This is one of the many little changes that I am left with after my Mother visits every year. I've had to work really hard at not interpreting my Mom's cleaning of my kitchen the moment she arrives as a implicit disapproval of the cleanliness of my home. It's hard to not hear some hidden meaning in each and every statement and question. I can't say that I was perfect, but at least I'm cognizant of the fact that this is in fact MY ISSUE and my issue alone. Unfortuately, you know how a person can be so unattractive when they aren't completely nice to their mothers? Uhhhh, I was guilty of it at some points during her three day visit.

One thing that Mom did do, purely coincidental, was bring the sun with her. We've been having rain everyday for nearly a month, and she arrived on one of the first sunny days all Spring and the rain has been minimial since. We toured the new deYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park.

Mom posing in front of the deYoung Museum tower. (Dad, I know the composition of this photo leaves a lot to be desired. Guilty)

Since Mom and I were honest about the fact that neither of us was particularly interested in the art and artifacts in the museum itself, we just toured the grounds outside and went up to the top of the tower, all of which was free. Now the tower is the signature component of the deYoung.

At its base, it is a rectangle (an equiangular quadrilateral for those of you who are geometric terminology purists) that is aligned along the axis of museum complex and quadrangle within Golden Gate Park. It twists and at the top, it is in the shape of a parallelogram (a quadrilateral with two sets of congruent and parallel sides) that is aligned along the axis of the North-South streets of the Richmond and Sunset Districts outside the park. The view from the tower is simply gorgeous and shouldn't be missed.

As we walked around the grounds, my mother commented on the fact that every Spring when she comes to SF, she sees the trees pictured below that are all nobby but with one sprout coming out of the end. Anyone who knows what the name of these trees are and what the deal with them is, please email me.

What's the name of these tree's and what's up with the single shoot coming out of the ends?

After we left the park, I took Mom on a stairway walk through the Forest Hill section of San Francisco. It's one of the first neighboorhoods west of Twin Peaks to have been developed because it's right next to the Forest Hill Municipal Railway Station, which is what brought mass transit to the western portion of San Francisco. The houses are all large and have yards. The Pacheco stairway is one of the most elegant stairways in all of San Francisco.

The rest of the weekend was calm except for those times when I had to inform/educate Mom that when I told her that I was thinking about trying something new that if she reacted by laughing at the thought, that it was only going to have me not tell her things. Also, that if I asked to not talk about something, it didn't mean that she could continue to ask about it. We got real and it was hard at times, but what I learned is that the issue I have about asking for what I want is also something that I find my Mom also has. Well, she knows what she wants, it's just that she goes about it (perhaps learned as a way to get stuff from my Dad?) in a not very direct way. Perhaps more analysis and thought needed here.

Lastly, because of Mom, I'm now hooked on Sudoku puzzles. I even went onto my Geometer's Sketchpad program and created blank grids for the two of us.

Two "Only at HRS" and One "You're Old When"

Three things that I observed this week and alas, all three happened at school. The first falling under the category of "You know you're old when" the senior class president of the school in my second year at HRS (1999-2000) is not a long-term substitute for a colleague of mine who is on leave due to extreme morning sickness.

The other two fall under the category of "Only at a school like HRS". This past week was spirit week and each class has a day in which they declare a theme and everyone is encouraged to dress on theme. Only at a school like HRS would Las Vegas Day produce not one, but TWO students dressing up as Hunter S. Thompson. The second item that lands here was related to me by my colleague Chris D. A male student in his class often wears a t-shirt which has the famous cover from "Dark Side of the Moon".

The cover from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"

So apparently, another male student made a comment about the shirt and the two 9th grade boys subsequently had a conversation not about the band Pink Floyd but they were discussing the reasons why the cover is not correct according to the laws of Physics. I've spent the last half hour trying to figure out why (I even pulled out the old college physics text that's been sitting on my dining room floor) but I don't think I totally understand why. Regardless, the geek factor at HRS is running pretty high.

The consequences of September 11th, 2001

It's been nearly four and a half years since that fateful morning. But the events of that day are still causing havoc in people's lives to this day. Today, I went to get my haircut at my neighboorhood place, Tom's on Cortland. Tom's is expensive, but what you get is more than just a haircut, Tom, Richard and the third stylist (a woman who's name I forget) are therapist and Bernal Heights knowledge of all gossip (and oh so willing to share) all in one. It's high entertainment for the time one spends getting their hair done. Each of the three people in the place have cut my hair and are worth the extra few dollars it is to get it done there instead of the less "professional" places. It's all about keeping money in the local economy too, right?

Richard is my man today and he, as usual, is respectful of my initial silence. About halfway through my haircut (not too short Mom, I know how you like it a bit longer and I've gotten many compliments lately since I let my hair grow out not as a conscious decision but I've just not done it until today when I was totally fed up with the thickness and length of my hair) I asked Robert how he was doing. He promptly tells me that in July, he's leaving Tom's on Cortland to move to France. Turns out eight years ago he started dating a French national who was visiting the US. They had a pretty good system going where his boyfriend would visit for three months, return to France for a month and then begin the cycle again. After 9/11, US immigration cracked down on the type of visa that the boyfriend was using and renewing. So Richard's sister offered to marry the boyfriend and then have the boyfriend come and live in the US permanently. All was well until they were caught by INS for lying. Since then, the boyfriend has been deported back to France and there is no way for him to ever get permanant resident status, let alone citizenship in the United States. Turns out, it will be easier for Richard to move to France because he and his boyfriend can become domestic partners and Richard can hopefully get dual citizenship and even become a member of the European Union.

So there you go. The unintended consequences of 9/11.

The convergence of life and work

Ok, Mom, here's a blog posting. Two weeks of silence means that nothing of true interest has happened in the last couple weeks. So today I had the day off because it is comments writing weekend. Due to the fact that we teachers will spend a good chunk of time writing about our students, we get a day off as compensation. As of this writing, I have finished 40 out of 62.

This morning I scheduled the surveyors to come out and do their measurements. The maps of our buildings location and the plans of which parts of the building belong to my neighbors upstairs, which area belongs to me and which areas are considered common areas, will officially be submitted to the city as part of our condo conversion application process.

So how does all this tie in with work? Yesterday, I taught the students in Geometry that the distance formula for finding how far away two points are from each other is simply a glorified version of the Pythagorean Theorem. The today, the surveyors come out and all these measurements are calculated with the distance formula. Of course, I had to take pictures so I can show my students that the Math they are learning does have real world application. Here are some of the pictures:

Dan the surveyor setting up the tripod to measure elevation and distances. All this is done to find the exact location of the building in relation to various USGS markers.

Up close and personal with Dan, the surveyor who is also a Geology major. We bonded.

Up close and personal with the machine which takes all the measurements and calculations and stores them until downloaded.

Dan's drawing of how they use a zero line and then measure azimuths off it to determine the direction and location of key points.

The "Disto" the handheld laser pointing, distance calculating machine

Also adding to today's flurry of activity was the arrival of the carpet cleaners. The downstairs tenant moved out a week ago and scheduled to have carpet cleaners do their thing this afternoon. So for a while there, the place was swarming with people. But all in the name of household improvement!

Oh my god, we're f***ed!!!

The Hayward Fault (Red) and The Head-Royce School (the buildings just to the right of the grass playing field)

Download Google Earth and then follow this link to an article in the SF Chronicle which is provides a link to the USGS website providing an aerial flyover of the Hayward Fault. Although not as famous as her sister the San Andreas Fault, which cuts through San Francisco, the Hayward Fault cuts right through the cities of Oakland and Berkeley. The Hayward Fault is the fault most likely to experience serious activity in the near future. It's only a matter of time, they say, until the Hayward Fault "lets go".

In the picture, you'll see that the Hayward Fault runs within 500 years of Head-Royce. I knew upon first signing my contract back in 1998 that there is a provision in our contracts that mandates faculty members to stay at school for 72 hours to help with any emergency situation were a catastrophic earthquake occur during the school. This really makes it hit home.

For my own personal sake, I hope that the big one on the Hayward Fault hits sometime when I'm not in the East Bay. But let's just hope that everyone has made plans and has made their earthquake kits.

An appreciation for this thing called life

Over the past year, I have found myself driving home listening to NPR (of course what else could it be?) and it seems that more often than not I am driving across the Bay Bridge when the end of Newshour rolls around and the anchors (Shields and Gigot) sign off with a silent tribute to those soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan. Whenever I hear that music they play as they are showing pictures of the fallen I have tears rolling down my face. I can't pinpoint exactly why it is that this happens, but I can partially attribute it to a delayed reaction to my accident three and a half years ago. At the time, I was just living through each moment and day working so hard on getting better and not wallowing in self-pity that I probably never really seriously took a step back and realized that I could have died. As I turned 36 this year I understand how precious each and every day on this earth really is. And to be thankful for the fact that things are worse, or that someone I love has passed away or to simply be happy that I have things that make me comfortable and loved. I feel down inside the tragedy that is the end of each and every life that isn't from natural causes. That person who died will never feel happiness nor joy again. I get it now. I really do. I wish that meant that I wouldn't be so unappreciative of my Mom, but you know, those habits are hard ones to break. By the way, hi Mom. But do know that I'm much better than I used to be. And there are sometimes that I'm outright nice!! So on this day that is the 8th of March, I truly know deep down inside the gift that is life.

Be careful what you wish for

The first weekend in December every year is generally reserved for attending the Northern California Mathematics Teachers Conference held on the grounds of Asilomar on the Monterey Peninsula. Upon attending last year, I wasn't getting what I wanted out of the numerous sessions that I attended. It seemed as if nothing was directly relevant to the specific needs I had, such as how do other teachers sequences and sums of sequences in a way that is both interesting to the students and at the same time not too theoretical and over their heads. So at a department meeting later on in the school year I said, off the cuff, "wouldn't it be great if we could just get a gathering of Bay Area Independent School teachers to share ideas and lessons?"

At the beginning of this school year, my department chair suggested that I "make it happen." Therefore, I have spent the past couple weeks getting this whole thing set up and the first (and hopefully annual) Head-Royce Mathematics forum for teachers will occur this Saturday March 4th, 2006.

Be careful what you wish for has never hit so close!

Beauty right in our backyard

Every February, HRS schedules a week long break, usually the third full week in the month. Officially, it's called President's Week Vacation, but everyone calls is ski week. My anecdotal information believes that a greater percentage of students are going to warm weather destinations or just staying home. So what have I been doing? Coincidentally, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had an engagement between 4 and 6PM. The three engagements different parts of the city and so I took off early and spent an hour or so walking the stairways of that neighboorhood. (Mom, perhaps we could do this as an activity when you visit in April) There is a great book called Stairway Walks of San Francisco that plots out walks in twenty San Francisco neighboorhoods that have you climbing up and down the many staircases which are part of the character of the area. Wednesday had me climbing up and down the staircases of Pacific Heights. Thursday afternoon I had the opportunity to explore the eastern side of Bernal Heights and this afternoon, I worked out the calves in the hills above the Castro. Only today did I bring a camera to show pictures.

The Liberty Street steps descending from Rayburn to Noe. Note the Art Deco buildings that flank these stairs within a neighboorhood of Victorians. (I read this in a book, no way I would ever have been able to pick that up on my own.)

These steps replace 22nd Street leading walkers from Collingwood down to Diamond.

This is the view from the top of the stairs descending from then cul-de-sac at the end of 20th down to Sanchez"

Then you look back ath what you came down and get this.

This house was owned by Mayor Rolph (1912-1931). Notice the dropoff of the hill.

I'll keep hitting these walks, it's exercise and a look at neighboorhoods that I often don't get to.

I walk away with my dignity.....

It's hard for me to tell my Mom things that are truly personal so if I could tell her something on the phone last night, then I really think that I ended my 10+ month relationship with Scott is in the books. Sometimes when we live life on a day-to-day basis, it's difficult to stop and see the "forest through the trees." So last fall and this winter, there were some days that were difficult and I just didn't have enough experience in relationships to understand what I was feeling. In December, I started to see a therapist to try to determine what I was doing wrong and if there were behaviors and actions that I could do differently to make the relationship better.

So once a week, I would go and sit there for an hour and leave with something really concrete to think about and an approach or skill or thought that I should try and do to reduce the amount of conflict. For those who know me well know that I will always retreat to the world of logic and reason and forget to think about feelings and history. But I learned that I often times I turn to logic and reason in a condescending way. So true, right?

Another thing I do is that I often times assume that I know what another person wants and act accordingly. In the process, I've skipped over trying to know what I want and then actually asking the other person what he/she wants. Translate this skipping from A to D and bypassing B and C and you'll be greeted with a lot of miscommunication.

Ultimately though what happened is that I got the "we need to sitdown and talk" talk from two of friends, with whom I have been sharing my stories too. This past Sunday, my friend Lynn had my friend Carlos and I over for a belated birthday dinner. Lynn and Carlos (Marl and Mom, I know it's weird that these two are, like, BFF (Mom, that's "Best Friends Forever") since I've introduced them to each other last year) asked me some pretty tough questions and called my bullshit on some of the answers I was giving. I sat there and listened to what they had to say. I so wanted to storm out of the room and not hear what they said. But here I was practicing a skill that I MUST work on, which is to not walk away from emotionally difficult situations. My M.O. is to simply leave a situation that is hard emotionally. I just never learned how to deal with them because I never saw them as a kid. A feeling in the House of Chen? What was that?

Ultimately, I had to let them use logic and reason to put together a big picture that I suspect I would have figured out in time, but because they were outsiders could see so clearly. There isn't a need for me to spell out any more than that. I have too much respect for Scott to air out our dirty laundry in this public space. I am more than willing to share with you in an email or phone call.

When Lynn and Carlos pointed out, "going to work shouldn't be a refuge for you", I knew that I was in an untenable situation and radical change was the only solution.

It all started with LBJ

A couple of years ago, I picked up a copy of Richard Caro's Pulitzer Prize winning Master of the Senate, the third volume in his ongoing biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson. It's a book of over 1,000 pages and I devoured it in less than a week. Then for some reason this fall, I picked it up and again read it cover to cover in less than a week. One thing that really made an impact on me was the process within the US Senate that got the Civil Rights bills of the 1950's and 1960's passed. Throughout the sections dealing with the passage of Civil Rights bills as well as the entire book, references were made to senators at that time. Many of these men and one woman (Margaret Chase Smith of Maine) were huge political figures in history of the United States and gigantic men of stature in their home states. Thus began the current theme of my reading, biographies of politicians of the latter half of the 20th century. Obscure? You know it. Here's not only a list, but pictures of the covers of said books pilfered from Amazon.com. They are presented in the order I read them:

Henry (Scoop) M. Jackson (D-WA)
Reading about Jackson demanded that I read about his colleague and Warren G. Magnuson.

Warren (Maggie) G. Magnuson (D-WA)
The common theme through both these books is that even though these two senators were individually stellar politicians, they were as a pair more than the sum of their parts. The role of Magnuson's Commerce Committee, which he chaired, in passing Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill allowing all people the right to public accomodations was one that led to more reading about the entire Civil Rights Bill process.

The three protagonists LBJ (D-TX), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) and Richard Russell (D-GA)
The following three are men who were mentioned throughout these books and so with Amazon's used book section, they became an inexpensive entertainment option.

Frank Church (D-ID)

Representative Tom Foley (D-WA)

Mike Mansfield (D-MT)
Yeah, I know I'm a bit weird. Tune in next time to see who's biography I read next.

A Part of the Chen Family Identity......Gone

This afternoon, I received this text message from my sister:

"Dad sold the station wagon for twenty five bucks today. Evidently it only drives forward with no reverse. It still is in the driveway though. End of an era."

End of an era. So true. I remember the first day we owned the car when my Dad drove it off the Bill Pierre Ford dealership lot in 1975. In its 31 year life span, the station wagon and the Chen family saw the arrival and departure of around ten cars. For those of you who aren't familiar with the car that became the symbol of the Chen's of Seattle, here is a picture that I stole off the website LTD World. Yeah, it really does exist. Further proof that the internet is an amazing thing.

A near perfect match for the Chen Family Station Wagon

YES, it was a woody. The family station wagon, which I fondly named "Lucinda" after the take no shit matriarch on the soap opera As the World Turns, was brown with wood paneling. The interior was also brown.

This was the car that was always taken on family vacations. It was in this was the car both my sister and I learned how to drive with our Dad in the passenger seat. This car was what I drove throughout high school and the car my sister did as well. It was a trusted friend because it always started and could always be counted on to haul all of my sister's and my friends without having to drive multiple cars.

The car simply was unable to go above 75 miles per hour and unable to get more than 20 miles to the gallon. Truly a legacy of the excesses of the United States of the middle of the 20th century.

As the years passed, Lucinda was retired from many of her duties. With my sister and I gone off to college, she didn't get driven more than once a month when my Dad loaded her up to take stuff to the dump. After our family moved to a new house in Seattle, we found that for some reason Lucinda was the only vehicle of four that was able to get us up the hill that separates our home from the rest of Seattle. Lucinda also pinch hit when my grandmother was to be transported because it didn't ride so high like the SUV's we see so much of today.

Unfortunately, she was eventually relieved of these pinch hitting duties and sadly sat in the driveway unloved. Still sitting in the driveway, she contributed to the family. One time a friend of mine from college was to come and visit me. He had a vague idea of where we lived but when he saw Lucinda, he knew he had found the right place. Truly, the car was integrally linked in the history of the Chen family.

My father has gone through all the family photo albums and scanned every picture that had Lucinda in it. I present to you a short history of Lucinda. An added bonus is the chance to see Ernie, Marlene and our cousin Henry in younger years.

Canadian Rockies 1978 (by the way, ironically, I'm wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers shirt in this photo)

Lucinda covered in a dusting of ash from Mt. St. Helens eruption 1980

Lucinda with Marlene, Mom and me at Bryce Canyon in 1981

Lucinda parked in downtown Seattle. Pictured are a 9 year old Marlene and 8 year old cousin Henry.

Lucinda parked in line waiting for the return ferry from Orcas Island in 1982

Lucinda serving as bike carrier in background while Ernie is accosted by the Mariner Moose at Gasworks Park in 1996

Lucinda parked in her traditional spot in the corner of the driveway. In the foreground is the Subaru Legacy Wagon I now drive. The Legacy was one of ten cars that came and left the Chen family all within Lucinda's 31 year life

Lucinda shown recently in the middle of the driveway because it was discovered she is unable to go in reverse

Lucinda at the lot of PullApart to whom she was sold for $25

This truly feels like a posting about the loss of a family member. In many ways, Lucinda was a true constant in our family's life.

"You should expect a call in 9 months"

No No No, I'm not pregnant. Besides, don't you know it's (at this point in time) biologically impossible males to propogate the human species? In fact, this is what the woman at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection told me as I submitted my application and fees to have the building in which I reside inspected as part of the condominium conversion process.

What's that you say? It's the two year process that I, and the couple that owns the other unit in our building, have embarked on to legally separate our homes. Currently, our two unit building must be sold as one entity and thereby can have only one mortgage. Because of the high cost of housing in San Francisco, purchasing a home as part of a Tenancy-In-Common (TIC) is a standard practice. I have thrown my hat into the home-owning game with another couple and the three of us are financially tied to one another. Every legal document pertaining to the building that is 121-123 Cortland Avenue has all three of our names on it.

The city of San Francisco does, however, have a method to turn a building such as mine into two legally separate residences. As a lawyer friend of mine tells me that ownership of this type is called "free, clear, simple". Right now I have a 54% stake in the building. Even though I don't intend on moving and needing to sell the place, my desire to get on this process started and completed as soon as possible is because there is always rumblings about changing a certain portion of the condo conversion law from which my building mates and I currently benefit.

Because San Francisco is a city with such a high percentage of its residents being renters, the tenants rights advocacy groups are a strong political force. Every condominium conversion that occurs represents, in most cases, units that will be occupied by homeowners (DUH) and thereby reducing the supply of apartments. The law currently states that only a certain number of units (200 as of this time) can be converted into condos within a calender year. A lottery is thereby run to determine which units in the city will change from apartments to condos. At this time, all buildings with three or more units must go through the lottery. Two unit buildings are exempt from the lottery and bypass it. An unlimited number of two unit buildings can be converted every year. Just this year, Mayor Gavin Newson vetoed legislation that had been passed by the SF Board of Supervisors that would have made it harder for two unit buildings to bypass the lottery. Because of this, getting the process became imperative.

The ultimate benefit is not any physical and/or material improvement to the building, but it lies in a huge gain in resale value. A condo that you can purchase that is "free, clear, simple" is much more attractive than a building in which you are tied at the waist to others who are, at best, friends and business partners.

This condo conversion process is no easy task nor inexpensive. There are lawyers in this city who deal completely with condo conversions. To tell you how crazy the world of real estate is in San Francicso, my partners and I have what we call "the bible" which is a 35 page TIC operating agreement written by THE lawyer in town who specializes in TIC agreements.

Our first move was to retain the services of a firm to help us initially with the application to the city and to coordinate all the minutiae of the process. $3,200 right off the bat. Next, we had to hire a Deed Company (free but there is an unspoken quid pro quo to use them when the new deeds are to be issued upon completion of the condos) and a surveying company ($6,000). This surveying company will take all the measurements inside and outside the builing and of the lot itself. The surveying company then produces the "mylar" sheets that will be submitted to the Planning Department.

$480 for the city inspection which will occur sometime 11 months from now. The city requires a fee of $8,600 for the process of condo conversion. I didn't mean to fixate on the costs, but because these have all been up front, they have tended to have a multiplicative effect in my mind.

So for the next couple years, you'll occasionally be updated on this process and be amazed at the glacial pace this will occur.

OK, OK, OK, I do care who wins the Superbowl

The Seattle Seahawks are playing for the title of best football team in the world tomorrow and for the past two weeks, I've been deflecting all questions about how much I am rooting for the Superbowl by responding, "well, I'm rooting for them but I'm just a typical fair-weather Seahawks fan." And yes, it's true that during the Seahawks 20 year playoff win drought (1984 was the year I was a freshman.......in high school) I probably couldn't have named more than five players on the team, but as a kid growing up in Seattle, the names Largent (too bad he revealed himself to be a Christian conservative congressman from Oklahoma), Zorn, Krieg, Easley, Warner and many other early Seahawks were ones that I loved.

So when I read this morning that the Puget Sound region was going to be hit by a huge windstorm this morning, I had the same immediate reaction that I know 90% of the Seattle region thought, man I hope the power doesn't go out. I was in Seattle for a couple of the biggest windstorms in recent history, the 1993 Clinton Inaugural Day storm and the 1991 Thanksgiving day storm. So I called my Mom today to see how she was doing and I asked her how things were going. "It's pretty windy out there right now, but I'm going to (Grandma's) tomorrow if we don't have power." Mom had already formed a backup plan to watch the game. It was then that I had to finally breakthrough the denial of my "I don't really care about who wins" because I DO want the Seahawks to win. Why is it that I have not accepted any Superbowl party invitations? Why am I not having people at my place to watch it? Why did I originally have a quiz scheduled in three of my classes on Monday the 6th? All this was done because I don't want to have people see me be depressed and despondent over a football game. It was easier to live thinking that if I didn't care it wouldn't hurt so much if they lost. But I'm coming clean now, I am rooting for the Seahawks. I promise not to be too gleeful if they win and I will be gracious if they lose. But boy, it's going to suck a lot if they lose.

Oh, but I just thought of the silver lining if they lose. A Seahawks loss will result in more exposure for Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. OK, OK, the real reason I'm going into seclusion for the game is so no one will observe me watching Roethlisberger.

Honestly, I haven't become a Napa Valley Wine Snob

This past Sunday was the ultimate double whammy, my birthday (I'm now again a perfect square at 36 years old) fell on the lunar calendar as Chinese New Year's. My birthday began with Scott and I driving up to the Napa Valley. First stop, Cakebread Cellars where Scott picked up bottles of his favorite wines. I am to the point where I know that 1997 was a vintage year as was 2003. I also know that Cakebread is known particularly for its whites. Hey, this should be a shock to those who know how little I knew about wines as little as a year ago.

Stop two, was the Indian Springs Resort at the north end of the Napa Valley in the town of Calistoga. The afternoon was spent cleansing our bodies in the volcanic mud baths and getting massages. I love the baths as it is sheer luxury and when you are in the mud for the 12 minutes allowed, you feel like you are floating and the toxins in the body literally are being sucked out of you.

As we drove back down the valley towards home, we dined at Tra Vigne which literally means "The Garden" in Italian.

The most important part of the evening was that we got back home in time to find out that Desparate Housewives was a repeat and that Grey's Anatomy was a new episode. For those of you who aren't in the know, check out Grey's Anatomy. It might be running a close second to the Gilmore Girls.

Two Comments -- Unrelated

First off am I the ONLY person in the world that doesn't sit around and google the names of people I used to know or know now? It has happened again where a person I knew from years gone by all of a sudden emails me (or in this case makes a comment on the blog) having found me online. Not that I'm complaining or anything but apparently this is another one to be filed in the "Trendy and/or popular things Ernie is oblivious to until he's one of the last people to clue into" folder?

The other thing I want to cover is a rant on the disappointment of something being discovered by everyone else. My favorite Trader Joe's used to be a regular sized TJ's in a strip mall in Daly City with plenty of parking and just off the freeway. In and out, no worries. But as is with economic growth and development, TJ's built a new and expanded building in the same complex. This began the domino effect of subsequently having the Safeway get spruced up. Then parking lot space was eliminated the facades of the storefronts were all pastel and the complex was given a hip looking logo and now calls itself Westlake. But today, I went to TJ's and I got stuck in the parking lot trying to find a space. The secondary parking lot has been torn up and in its place will be a new Linens and Things. I eventually made my way to the other side of the mall and parked. I got out and saw the what will be the kiss of death of what made this Tj's efficient and effective as a place to buy food. I saw the half finished monstrosity that will soon become....HOME DEPOT. It's a "Design Center" Home Depot, which I think might be the superduper sized HOME DEPOT. I think the analogy would go like this:

SAFEWAY:COSTCO
HOME DEPOT:HOME DEPOT DESIGN CENTER

The pleasant and painfree Daly City Trader Joe's experience is dead to me.

A City Hall that is both beautiful and helpful

Can you believe that? I know, I know. As usual, there is background to be provided. Last year about this time, I got it into my head that I should see a financial planner to make sure that I was doing things right with my money and to get some objective outsider to determine whether or not I was going to meet my goals. The biggest piece of advice he gave me was to get my affairs in order. After he heard about my accident and how I had the accident and didn't have a will in place, he almost made me do it right in front of him. So a year has passed and I finally got around to getting all the paperwork together to have a will and also create a living trust of which I am the trustee of the trust until I pass. I'll stop with the morbidity. But the most important step is to actually legally change those things that I own from being mine, but instead being owned by the trust with me as the trustee who makes the decision. I've basically created a shell corporation for myself. The most significant item to be moved into the trust was the house. It required my housemates and I to change the deed of the house to have the two of them and the trust as the owners of the home. We had our form notarized and then it had to officially recorded by the San Francisco Recorder/Assessors Office. This office is in the large City Hall building. As you can see from the following photos (not mine but taken from the web) SF City Hall is actually an amazingly beautiful building. It's of the Beaux Arts style. (I have no real idea what that means but I know that the Beaux Arts is always used in conjunction with City Hall.)

Never in my wildest dreams would I have allowed myself to believe that the offices inside the building were actually efficient, functional and dare I say...helpful? The Recorder/Assessors office closes at 4PM so I had to boogie back to SF to make it in time before it closed. I got there and the line to record the document had no one in it. I walked right up to the woman clerk, but I had to get an official description of our property, so I was sent to the main line. After three minutes, where every single clerk was working with a resident, I got my form printed out. I asked another question about the homeowners exemption and my clerk called the guy who handles the exemption. Not only was he in the office on a Friday afternoon, but he came right over and listened to my question. He went away and a couple minutes later came back with the reason why there was a mixup and a solution. He gave me a couple forms to fill out and upon being returned in the mail, the exemption would be in place for the 2006-07 tax bill.

I moved back over to the first line. There were five people in front of me, but it became quite clear that each person's time with the clerk was less than a minute, and before I knew it there I was with the the clerk. $12 later, my paperwork was done. I had one more question, but she pointed me to the main desk again. I got another clerk who then called over the guy who's in charge of addresses and all that stuff. He too was in the office on a Friday afternoon and came right over and answered my question.

I was done. I walked out of the office and out of the building completely amazed at how easily the whole thing had gone. There really is something called a functional municipal government.

MOMENT OF HISTORY: This same Office of the Recorder/Assessor is the same office that issued marriage liscenses to all the gay couples that got married back in 2004 when the mayor of San Francisco decreed gay marriage legal in the city.

"Incorrect"

Tonight I served as a judge for the school Spelling Bee, think Spellbound. Because students can compete only until they are in 8th grade, the participants were all Middle School students. I wasn't the announcer so I didn't have to give the language or origin or have to provide the definition. I was the judge who, after the participant finished spelling the word and then said the word as an indication that he or she is done, said "CORRECT" or "INCORRECT".

My biggest fear was that there would be some controversy that I, and another teacher, would have to make a decision that someone would be unhappy with. A couple of near misses did come up. The first was when a girl spelled "CATHEDRAL" but her letter H was preceded by a very long sound that wasn't much like H but quickly became H. We gave it to her. The second occurred when the announcer mispronounced the word "SCOURGE". The boy spelled it incorrectly, but we gave him a second word, which he spelled correctly. In both of these cases the student was ultimately not one of the top three spellers in the competition.

The 3rd place boy went out on "TERCENTENARY" which means the 300th anniversary or its celebration.

The final two girls misspelled "EPISTEMOLOGY", "CENTAUROMACHIA" (a specific Greek battle) and "EREMITIC" (characterized by a ascetic solitude in life). The 2nd place speller missed "TROIKA". The winner correctly spelled it and then won by correctly spelling "AYATOLLAH".

You would not believe the seriousness with which the Scripps National Spelling Bee takes itself. There is an official booklet with 500 official 2006 School Spelling Bee words in 7 different categories. Every word has a pronuciation guide, language of origin, definition and a sentence using the word.

Some of the words on the list were new ones to me. Anyone know the definition of "DELTIOLOGY" off the top of their heads? Email me if you are lazy and won't look up the answer. The definition of the word is not one anyone of us would ever have thought of in a million years.

INCORRECT!!

Not much has changed since 1938

My housemate forwarded me this website address called Bernal Heights Preservation. If you poke around the site you might stumble across the area dedicated to the streetcars that were ubiquitous in this area and probably all of San Francisco.

The intersection of Cortland Avenue and Prospect Street in 1938

If you look closely, the second house from the left is 121-123 Cortland Avenue. The house no longer has pillars and the staircase now has a lefthand turn, but it appears essentially the same. The house to the left of my current home is the building I lived in when I first moved to San Francisco. It looks exactly the same. Great architecture breeds longevity!

For those of you who are keeping score....

Today, a judge in the State of Maryland rejected a ban on same-sex unions, ruling that defining marriage as only between a man and a woman unconstitutional. You can listen to a story on this by following this link to the story on NPR. If you go to the link you'll see that there are currently eight states that have some sort of same-sex marriage law or case in that states court system. In my lifetime, I have been a resident of five states in the US. I found it an interesting fact that all five of those states are in the list of eight that are at the forefront of the same-sex marriage issue. Washington State, New York, Maryland, New Jersey and California, the five that I have lived and paid taxes in, are joined by Iowa, Massachusetts and Connecticut. To bring Statistics into the discussion......correlation? Yes! Causation? Questionable at best.

...and not just because the Seahawks are winning

When I decided to write about my recent self-observation, I had to temper myself from my initial desire to say that A sucked. Instead I made the effort to try and explain why B is more satisfying to me in comparison to A. Enough of the mumbo-jumbo. I'm referring to the fact that the first newspaper website I check in the morning is not the San Francisco Chronicle. In fact the Chronicle is on average the fifth new site I go to in a day, sometimes not until the evening. Remember, I'm not going to say that the Chronicle's website sucks. I'm going to try and point out why the sites of the other papers are more informative, at least for me.

Who's up first? Well, surprisingly, and not surprisingly, it has become The Seattle Times. The Times lists one line summaries of what appears to be ALL stories from all of it's sections. Since I grew up in Seattle, I am drawn in my stories that reference things, people and places I have known since childhood which gives them a sense a soap opera quality. To use the easiest example when it is mentioned that the last playoff victory for the Seattle Seahawks was back in 1984, no longer is this true by the way, it has personal resonance for me since I remember that playoff game when I was a freshman in high school. Another thing that I find really useful about the Seattle Times page is that on the major stories, they list all the related stories, graphs, charts, pictures right under them, but most importantly, they tell me whether or not it's a .pdf or simple link. More information is good.

Then I usually quickly go to the NPR site because I like their national political correspondents, such as Ken Rudin and Cokie Roberts. Plus it gives me a chance to think about Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and Peter Sagel, sigh. But the NPR site allows me to multitask by listening to a story while I'm reading another.

The New York Times comes next. I particularly like the Education and Real Estate sections of the Times, but I also find the this venerable paper finds angles on stories that other media outlets don't. Things always seem more interesting when written about in the Times.

Then it is off to The Washington Post. The reason isn't because of news but because their online Crossword works well and doesn't require anything beyond a simple registration to the paper's website. I know there are probably many other crosswords online, but I'm a creature of habit.

Then I'll hit the Chronicle, when I have the time, to read about local stuff.

Equate this to the joke forwarded to you by email

All readers of the blog know I have an obsession with the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I've seen it taped twice, in Chicago when I spent the summer of 2004 all across the country and last February when the show was taped in Berkeley. And don't get me started on my devotion to host Peter Sagel. But during this weeks "Listener Limerick Challenge", the three panelists were over the top in mocking the name of the prominent San Francisco high school Lick-Wilmerding. The fact that it aired nationwide made the moment that much better, at least for a teacher at a rival school. It was TRULY priceless.

I'm not sure exactly how to provide a direct link to the broadcast, but here's the best I can do. I urge, implore, BEG you to go to the the page for this weeks broadcast and click on the link for the Listener Limerick Challenge. You are listening for the introduction of the caller. There is no need to actually listen to the limerick afterwards. TRUST ME, it's hilarious.

Right in our own backyard

Tucked into the southwestern corner of the city of San Francisco is tightly packed campus of San Francisco State University, which sits right next to San Francisco's only true mall Stonestown Galleria. Next to both SFSU and Stonestown is the highly competitive public magnet Lowell High School, one of the top high schools in all the state of California. Also down there is the freshwater Lake Merced which is surrounded by four outstanding golf courses. Two of the four are owned by the Olympic Club, one of the courses is the San Francisco Country Club and the fourth is Harding Park Golf Course. Note that it isn't Harding Park Golf Club for you see, Harding Park is one of two municipal golf courses owned by the city of San Francisco. Harding Park (named after President Warren G. Harding who passed away in the city) having the same terrain and flora as its more famous neighhbors is in itself a highly regarded layout. It regularly held professional golfing tournaments through the 1960's but had fallen on hard times during last couple decades of the 20th century. Five or so years ago, a private firm took over the business aspects of the course and brought Harding Park back to its former glory. The crowning moment of Harding's renaissance was its selection as the course to hole the finale of the World Series of Golf last year.

This morning, Scott and I snagged two spots of his friends foursome and we were off the 1st tee at 10:10AM. The morning started gloriously with bright sunshine and I was in shorts this first Saturday in January.

Scott and our two balls safely on and putting for birdie on the par 3 third.

Both of us three-putted the third green. However, the beautiful sun quickly turned to a steady drizzling rain and by the time we were on the 8th tee, it looked like this:

Rain, rain go away.....

We decided to call it a day after the ninth hole. Even though it had stopped raining, both of us had not brought rain gear so we were both soaked. Scott beat me, but I was able to observe some key differences in the way we approach the game. Scott is a firm believer in warming up by hitting balls on the range and practicing his putting. I just show up on the first tee, take a couple of practice swings and away I am.

Scott is a firm believer in yardage. He looks for the yardage markers and paces to his ball to determine the exact distance he has to get to the green. On the green, Scott is careful to mark his ball and squat down to read the line. Well, you can imagine that I'm the complete opposite.

Scott and I both have testy relationships with our drivers. The result is that Scott plays only with his irons. I pull out the driver every single time I can and let her rip.

We are, however, competitive in ability and agree that honestly reporting one's score is of utmost importance for the both of us even with our huge stylistic differences.

Sucked in by reality television

As the middle of January looms on the horizon, the television studios are getting ready to unveil their mid-season shows. Not all shows are new, but instead some will be commencing the shows second or even third season. In the case of these returning shows, we are often treated to a "marathon" of the previous seasons shows. During this first week of January 2006, Scott and I were sucked into a "marathon." I am going to reveal the show that has become our nightly addiction in the spirit of full disclosure. However, you MUST not roll out of your chair laughing and not finishing this posting. The show that gets us in front of the television every night has been Beauty and the Geek. Shut up. Shut up!

What makes it doubly shameful is the fact that Ashton Kutcher, yes Demi Moore's man, is an executive producer. Oh, the humanity! Now hear me out, please. I have found that most reality television shows attempt to show the action in an objective way, however there is always an aura of contempt for the participants. We're watching them, but making fun of them at the same time.

But this show pairs seven beautiful (and superficial) woman with seven geeky men. They are put into seven pairs and given challenges in which the women must do tasks that they stereotypically are not expected to be able to do, such as change a tire. The men are given challenges like giving a massage. The reason why I find the show compelling is that each person in the pair is helping their partner and in the process breaking down stereotypes and feeling more confident about themselves. It is a bit hokey that "romances" develop, but it's kind of cute.

So Beauty and the Geek 2 begins its run next week. I encourage you all to give the show a chance. You know where Scott and I will be on the Thursday nights.

If I ran the world......

Whenever I go to Trader Joe's the checkout lines are long and they move slowly. The long lines are indicative of a store that draws a lot of shoppers, but the slow moving checkout lines indicate that something is amiss. The bottleneck occurs when a customer reaches the cashier and simply stands there while the cashier scans the groceries and then piles them up on the counter to be bagged by either a bagperson or the cashier themselves. The customer simply stands there and does nothing.

Being the geeky Geometry teacher that I am, I find it fun and a creative outlet to try and pack my groceries into as few bags as possible, while still maintaining the shape of the bread and protecting the integrity of the eggs and fruit. The logical part of me finds it a moral obligation to utilize myself at this time to perform the act of bagging the groceries to minimize the amount of time I spend in the cashier transaction. My line moves just a bit faster.

The cashiers are always grateful by my act of bagging my own groceries. I always reply that were Trader Joe's (or any grocery chain) an economic incentive (i.e. 2% off your bill) for customers to bag their own groceries, it would obviously have the lines move faster, but there would be many more unintended benefits. For example, the company would save money by needing fewer cashiers and bagpeople.

Yup, if I ruled the world.....