Neil is now at the stage of his education where I’ve tasked him with identifying a few colleges he might like to attend. And so, when he started taking College Board tests, I encouraged him to let them sell his information to various colleges who think he’d be a good fit for them. Soon glossy…
Gordon Ramsay’s BurGR
Peter and I have been watching the Gordon Ramsay shows for years, and we enjoy them. They’re reality shows, so you know they’re edited for maximum drama. But I always wonder if everyone else’s food is really as bad as Gordon Ramsay thinks it is. Sure, sometimes it is obviously bad, like when a cake…
Trapped in MARTA
Atlanta, Georgia has an excellent public transportation system named MARTA. If I’m not renting a car, it’s my way of getting around town. So on my last trip to Atlanta, we took MARTA directly from the airport to the Ritz-Carlton at Ellis and Peachtree, where we were staying for Gathering for Gardner. When we got…
Elite Universities Don’t Understand Financial Hardship
Many elite universities seek out poor, but smart students, for the sake of diversity, and they go to some lengths to seek them out and reassure them that they, too, can go to, say, Stanford or Harvard, even if they don’t have the $60,000 a year it takes to go there. However, all I see to…
The Puzzler and the Magician
Kristine Hjulstand from Norway was one of the magicians performing on Saturday night at Gathering for Gardner 11. It was not only her first performance at Gathering for Gardner, but also her first in the US. She opened with a delightful performance piece set to classical music, pulling scarves of color out of painter’s palette…
The Portuguese Conspiracy
At Gathering for Gardner 11, a group of Portuguese mathematicians gathered together and announced themselves to be members of The Portuguese Conspiracy. I first got hip to this when Carlotta of the Portuguese Conspiracy finished her talk and pointed out a table which had been taken over by herself and her fellow countrymen. After that,…
Smart San Jose State Student Engineers Face the Education Bubble
With a mathematically inclined son, Pi Day has been a big day in our household since we discovered it, but it’s been even more significant once we found a like-minded community with which to celebrate it, such as San Jose State’s Math Department. When I checked in with a professor about this year’s event, I…
Duck Dynasty Imitators
Upon seeing my choice in light entertainment, my daughter’s dentist recommended we check out the TV show Duck Dynasty. I had heard of it before, but I had had no interest in watching a show about rich duck call manufacturers from Louisiana. As it turned out, it was a refreshing new sort of entertainment for…
Adieu and Farewell Collage Video
Late on Tuesday night, I received an email from my favorite go-to place for exercise videos, Collage Video, announcing they were closing down and were putting their entire inventory on sale, with all sales final. Like most of their other fans, I am deeply sorry to see them go. Though they were unable to compete…
2014: A Year of Transitions
Every year brings its own changes and transitions, but they usually come so gradually or well-spaced, you don’t notice them, and then only in retrospect. I’ve been homeschooling my son so long now, I choke up a little when I realize I only have little more than a year to continue doing so. In the…