Uncooperative Crickets

The Good State of Jefferson

Skye and I are leaving tomorrow for a trip to northern California. We will see my friend Jocko and Yeti for two days each, and then Skye heads back for home and I go to Berkeley for a conference on teaching teachers.

Here are my big plans for the summer:

1. Write one or two chapters of a textbook.
   
2. Re-write an entire textbook.
   
3. Learn enough about symmetries of the icosahedron to teach a course on it in the fall.
   
4. Do enough work for a math paper.
   
5. Write up the results from another math paper.
   
6. Write one or two "fun" math papers.
   
7. Update my teaching and research statements.
   

This is daunting. I am hoping to do the first and last items first, since they are probably the easiest to complete. Then, I might dovetail several of the others in my schedule. We'll see.

People are stupid about gasoline. This is a part of a larger problem with "entitlement." This sounds like something my dad would say, but I am opposed to entitlement, too. Consider the following quote from the article:

"Schwartz called that 'outrageous' and said even he can't fill up his SUV at that price.

'If it keeps going like this, my kids will never be able to afford to drive,' said Schwartz, who has an 18-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter."

Maybe they could afford to drive if you got a car that doesn't get 12 miles to the gallon? Switch to a Corolla or Prius and the kids would have a much better chance of driving.

I'm going to not rant about entitlement, although I think that you can draw your own conclusions.

I also saw This Film Is Not Yet Been Rated. I agree with Tsjaz's thoughts. He definitely, DEFINITELY should have kept the part in the movie where he finds out that the MPAA (illegally) copied his movie, though. I hope that he took them to court over this.

posted by Dirk Awesome @ 12:49 PM