Ditch Surfing

You might be a redneck if you've ever gone ditch surfing

I never saw this when I lived down South, but it looks like fun.

HT: Neal Boortz.

Another Cartoon For My Office Door

I hope I'm usually the guy on at the front of the desk.

Some Disturbing News

The Unknown Household just got some disturbing news. As I just wrote, Unknown Son has had some stomach issues lately. We thought it was just severe constipation, but we has an additional scan done today just to be sure.

The ultrasound revealed a mass of approximately 2 inches in length near his right kidney.

Unfortunately, without further tests, we can't tell if this is a recurrence of his original cancer, a new cancer, or just a benign mass. So, we go in for more tests tomorrow - an MRI, a bone marrow sample (he's mildly anemic), and a consult with his local oncologist and a surgeon. After that, we will likely have a biopsy on Friday or Monday. Until then, we won't know much, so it's still early to panic.

We're big believers in the power of prayer. So if you have a minute, send one up for us.

And we'll keep you posted.

Like Father, Like Son

Unknown Son has had a tough month. In Mid December, he had pneumonia. The antibiotics took care of that in short order, but he's continued to have intermittent stomach cramps - usually about an hour after eating.

We finally took him to to pediatrician, and the CAT scan showed that he's seriously constipated. Without going into too many details, let's just say that with fiber supplements and suppositories, we're working on the problem from both ends.

And yes, my friends have almost to a one said that he comes by the condition honestly - after all, just look at his father.

Meanwhile, even though Unknown Daughter only just got her order form Friday afternoon, she's already sold over a hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies. She hit up everyone in our neighborhood by Saturday afternoon, and is already plotting her attack on all the nearby developments.

Unknown Son even did her a solid by asking the technician giving the CAT scan "if she'd like to support my sister by buying some Girl Scout cookies." He signed her up for five boxes - peanut butter patties, in case you're interested.

Now THAT's teamwork.

Boring Empirical Results

I just got done reviewing a piece that was mind-numbingly, stultifyingly boring. I think I know now who wrote it. Who knew Satchel was an academic?

The Math Princess

I often talk about the Unknown Son. All in all, it's not surprising given his struggles with cancer. But today I'm going to brag about the Unknown Daughter for a bit.

She gets $4 in allowance per week. Since we started giving the kids allowances, they've had piggy banks that are divided in three parts - the Church, the Bank, and the Store. They have to put 10% of their allowance in the Church, and this is put in the plate at Sunday School. The remainder goes half in the Bank (their long-term savings) and half in the Store (the amount they can s0pend). Any additional money they earn or get can be spent as they please.

They already know that 10% of a number is just throwing away the last digit. So, the other day, Unknown Daughter (7 years old and in first grade, BTW) asked how much $3.60 (the amount remaining after she takes 10% out of her $4.000) was when split in two. I asked her how much SHE thought it was. She went into the other room, and came out a few minutes later, saying $1.80. I asked her how she got this number, and this was her answer:

• I couldn't split $3 into two, but I can split $2 into 2 $1's . So this left me $1.60.
  
• I Don't know how to split $1.60, but that's just $1 and $0.60.
  
• So, I split the $1 into 2 $0.50's and the %0.60 into 2 $0.30's
• Then I added up the pieces - $1 + $0.50 + $0.30

I thought that was pretty sophisticated reasoning for a first grader (heck - even for a third grader) - and she did it without paper and pencil, too. So, I asked her how much $12.80 was if you split it into 2 pieces. Then I asked her how much $6.40 was split into 2, - this gave us 4 pieces of $3.20. Then we split it into 8 pieces of $1.60, and so on. Finally, we put the whole thing into a table - 1 $12.40, 2 $6. 40's 4 $3.20's, and so on all the way to and so on down to 256 0.05's. And yes, SHE did all the calculations.

She then noticed that the left hand column (the number of pieces) twice as big each time going down the column and the right hand side (the $$ value of each piece) got twice as big going UP the column. We did a few more examples at HER request (she thought the whole thing was a blast).

Finally, she went into her room and came out a few minutes later with a drawing of a girl with a crown on her head, titled "Unknown Daughter - The Math Princess".

Not bad for a first grader, eh? Of course, I'm totally unbiased.

Update (1/4/08): Unknown daughter came to me today and said "Daddy - I decided I don't want to be called the Math Princess. From now on, I want to be called the MATH RULER." That's my girl.

Happy New Year

Here's wishing all of you a safe, happy, and prosperous New Year.

I've taken a few days off from working (a little blogging and a little studying for CFA but that's all). But tomorrow it's back on the hamster wheel.

Two of my revise and resubmits are coming back to me from my coauthors- both require a bit of work on my part, but not much. I also have two papers I'd like to have ready to go for the FMA submission deadline. One is with a former student and was part of her dissertation. We've been working on it for the last 3 months. The other was a pilot study another student and I did a while back with a small data set - we've now expanded the data set significantly, with a lot more analysis.

So, I'll be busy the next few weeks. It's good to get back in the saddle.