NFL Draft Day Award

This past weekend brought us the NFL Draft and all of the other events of the weekend. The standard thing happens where many fans watch the Head Coach and General Manager of their respective team make selections then react to it.

After all, the fans are always the better General Manager than the General Manager. Some fans get upset about a draft selection the GM makes that doesn’t fit who they thought should be drafted instead.

Well, I live in Wisconsin the home of the Green Bay Packers. In our division, we also have the Bears, Vikings and the Lions. Speaking of the Lions, let us all share a song to revel in the harmony of the moment that is the NFL Draft.

Let us sing the refrain together again shall we as we read the comments of a fan.

“You stupid jack***!!” – s.a.m.2004

“And can you feel the love tonight, It is where we are” - Refrain

“You call me an idiot when you sit here and defend the most stupid pick ever???” – s.a.m.2004

“It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer, That we got this far” - Refrain

“You are the one that knows zip about football.” – s.a.m.2004


“And can you feel the love tonight, How it's laid to rest” - Refrain

“You are just a stupid @#$% moron and you need to shut your pie-hole now!!!!!!!!“ – s.a.m.2004

“It's enough to make kings and vagabonds, Believe the very best” - Refrain

Ah, that makes you feel better. As we give out our “Are You Thinking?” award to s.a.m.2004, we have but one question. When you are calling others stupid, an idiot, and a moron, wouldn’t it be best to use proper grammar and use the words ‘stupidest pick’ as opposed to the grammatically incorrect “most stupid pick ever”?





This one is for all those guys out there to introduce or surprise their wives who are in the medical field or just want to dress like they are.

But first, almost all of us guys dread that set of questions we get from our wives. “How do I look in this?” “Which one do you think I should get?” The forever ultra loaded questions which we can hardly ever get right. Considering that my stay-at-home Dad wardrobe consists of shorts and t-shirts (with some of them being a decade old), I am completely out of my element in answering questions of fashion.

However, I have a secret weapon up my sleeve. When the time comes for a fashion question, I turn to my resident expert on making selections for my wife. That expert is my 7 yr old daughter. So the question posed to her was do we get Mommy one of the dickies scrubs or one of the Cherokee medical scrubs?

Personally, I have no idea which to pick. The answer my daughter gave me was a pink with butterfly print scrub. The Cherokee medical scrubs won the day with her. This just begs one major question that I have to ponder for the future. When homeschooling is done and she’s out on her own, who do I turn to fashion advice in 15 years?

Why does it matter? Math and science are closely linked. If we teach in mathematics that the candle example has insufficient information (true); but, teach you can assume information in Science on the same thing (false), all we have accomplished is confusing students. A confused student loses interest in a topic by either deeming the teachers don’t know what they are talking about or swiftly losing interest in the subjects.

Projected out, the increased number of students who do not pursue careers in the science and mathematics fields creates a negative impact on the economic viability of the USA by undermining the intelligence base. Teaching faulty deductive and critical thinking also dilutes the decision making needed in business especially in managerial roles. That leads to handicapping the USA The potential loss of global competitive advantage always comes back as the local areas begin to suffer with job loss, which equates into a lower tax base, which equates into even tighter budgets for the school systems. business sector in an increasingly competitive global market.

What can be done about it? This answer is incredibly simple and easy to implement.

1) Teach Mathematics.

2) Teach Science with a strict adherence to the scientific method.

3) Avoid taking sides in the Evolution/ Creation/ Intelligent Design debates.

4) Cut out/ glue together/ black out with marker any pages that deal with the geologic column, ‘millions of years ago’, or anything on Evolution/ Creation/ or Intelligent Design. Don’t worry about the budgetary impact; ask the community for volunteers who will bring their own supplies.

5) Contact the textbook companies and inform them your school district will not make any textbook purchases that include what you just cut out.

6) Adopt the following stance as your official curriculum stance district wide and demand the textbook companies include this simple paragraph:

“There are numerous opinions on the origins of life on Earth and the origins of the Universe. Since all of the stances involve assumed premises that can neither be tested nor demonstrated in accordance to the scientific method nor proven to be factually accurate, none of them will be covered in the K-12 curriculum of this school district/ textbook.”

That is all it would take. It is that simple. Err on the side of caution. Let the ego’s go. It is perfectly professional to say “There are some things we just do not know due to Insufficient Information.” There is plenty of science to teach that isn’t controversial and does promote critical thinking and decision making. The alternative is not appealing.

ET phoned home on sound logical thinking. The Entertainment Thinking often uses Exaggerated Theories in their depiction of science. Educational Training should avoid Erroneous Thinking by not teaching the Evolutionary Theory. Let E.T. stand for Extra Terrestrial and remain the domain of the movies. It would truly be sad to have a public education system funded by taxpayers challenging Hollywood for promoting poor scientific thinking. Too much is at stake.

This is the time of year when a number of events come together guiding the direction of the activities of our sons and daughters in the Elementary grade levels.

The end of the school year approaches as does Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. It only makes sense that art projects in school also focus on those days. But what project is best for a child to tackle? The intentions of our daughter are to help us in an area of need. She may try dusting and sweeping just to help out with her cleaning kit and that is always welcome.

Perhaps we should try our hand at a leather working kit? At the age of 7, she loves to explore and try new things all the time. The most likely option will be a leather purse as leather wallets like those in the link might be a bit beyond her 1st grade skills.

We might decide it would be a better option to choose one from the Women leather wallets selection for Mommy. Mommy is not a fan of purses but she does need an upgrade on how to carry her driver’s license and other cards around. With free shipping on that website, that may be an option if we can convince Mommy to use it.

If we cannot, there is always Father’s Day. My wallet is falling apart and I am certain one of the Men leather wallets can serve my purposes just nicely and maybe find its way as a special wallet for special times.

Somehow though I get a feeling my daughter and I will not be able to gain access to exotic leathers except by going through that site. Well, practice makes perfect and they might be hiring someday.

Mathematically the answers are 5 inches, insufficient information, and insufficient information. Answers derived from the scientific method are 5 inches, insufficient information and insufficient information. The above explanation could be attached as an observation of why there was insufficient information. That would be correct. That would teach critical thinking skills.

Instead of following these basics all the way through, arguments abound between “professionals” as to what topics should be taught in science. There aren’t such arguments in mathematics. Debating on methodology of teaching the subjects is healthy for the profession. Debating on what topic to teach when all of the options have a similar flaw is irrational. The topics of controversy are the Evolutionary Theory, Creation Theory, Intelligent Design Theory and all of their variations. The debates on which to teach often boil down to “professionals” using 2nd grade playground logic instead of adult thinking. One side or the other will claim the other as junk science. Another common one is to declare the other side isn’t science because both sides don’t have the same point of view. This is the same as the 2nd grade playground logic of “You don’t belong with this group because you aren’t cool.” Let’s shelve that type of thinking.

Intelligent Design Theory holds a large variety of opinions on the origins of life. The differences are too grand to summarize. Creation Theory uses an assumption that writings in a book (The Bible) are true even though they aren’t demonstrable by the terms of the scientific method (in regards to the Creation in Genesis). Evolution Theory uses an assumption that writings in 3 books (by Hutton, Lyell and Darwin respectively) are true even though they aren’t demonstrable by the terms of the scientific method. All three use empirical data to substantiate some portions of their stances. But only the Evolution Theory is taught in public schools. Why when all three are in essence in the same boat?

There are over 300 empirical scientific challenges to the Evolution Theory that are often ignored. That isn’t the scientific method. That is closer in resemblance to a dogmatic belief structure. Ignoring the challenges is risking a true labeling of “Junk Science”. The last time the scientific community assumed they were correct on a hypothesis/ model / theory, and shunned any that didn’t agree with them despite that the hypothesis/ model / theory assumed to be a fact was not subjected to the scientific method was the belief in the Flat Earth. In hindsight, what they assumed turned out to make them look like fools. That is what assuming does.

With the assumptions made in the Evolutionary Theory, we will look again at the candle questions. First, using the beliefs of Uniformitarianism, we will assume that when we burn the candle and measure the rate of burning now, that rate will have always been true despite all of the unknown circumstances. Borrowing from the geologic column and arguments for it, we will now assume we know how long the candle burned and come up with how tall it was. Or we could have assumed we knew how long the candle was to begin with and calculate how long it burned at what ratio. Both are faulty in their logic. However, this is what is taught. The layer of the rock determines the age of the fossil. The identifier fossil identifies the age of the layer of rock. That is circular reasoning. This teaches students to make erroneous conclusions on insufficient information.

to be continued...


When you choose to homeschool, every action and choice you make ends up becoming an educational experience. In our household, there is no such thing as a ‘school year’ or ‘vacation’. You work hard and keep learning all the time.

This is a great big world with immense amounts of experiences and wisdom to gain and knowledge to learn. So we pursue everything as another learning experience no matter what we do.

Obviously living in Wisconsin limits the range of animal, plant and ecosystems you can directly interact with. So the counter to those limitations is going to other places to see the animal life, plants and ecosystems. Fortunately, the USA is a big place that covers a wide range of environments as well as other select global destinations.

So as a research project coming up in the future, we will need a base of operations to study island life. The Philippines is a bit far so we will have to use Maui Vacation Rentals or Big Island Vacation Rentals to operate out of as we identify the plants, study the wildlife and go scuba diving. Education is hard work but you do what you have to do.

Hawaii vacation info is not just for vacation information. We consider it a source of information to greatly enrich an educational experience on ecosystems.

In the movie ET, ET assembled all of the items he could and knew the phone number to dial to reach his ship. Even though this was science fiction, it did hold to a basic precept of science and math. In order to complete a task, analysis or computation, you need sufficient enough information to make a proper conclusion or resolution to the topic at hand. What is counter to this basic premise is something called assuming.

Assume in this instance is defined as “to take as granted or true”. Outside of T-proofs in Geometry class, to assume anything in mathematics, science or general life normally leads to pretty bad results and conclusions. This general life fact has led to a slang definition of “assume”: When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.

How does Mathematics (save geometry) look at assuming information? Quite simply, it doesn’t. You can’t assume information to fill in an unknown as it would make the calculations incorrect. The only answer to a question without sufficient information is two words – Insufficient Information. (In other words: We can’t tell. We don’t know. Not enough info.)

How does true Science look at assuming information? Similar to mathematics, it doesn’t lest it becomes what is called Junk Science. Junk or bunk science is a term used to describe purportedly scientific data, research, analysis or claims which are perceived to be driven by political, financial or other questionable motives. Another tell-tale sign is taking data, research, analysis or claims to generate conclusions that are leap of logic which usually ignores multitudes of other data that counter it. How is Junk Science countered? How is assuming countered in Science? The answer is simple: strict adherence to the scientific method. If there are demonstrable test results that challenge any hypothesis, model, or theory, then the hypothesis, model, or theory must be reworked to incorporate the results.

Let us examine one simple scenario from a mathematics and science standpoint. A group of students enter into a room to conduct a fact finding mission on candles. They are all broken up into groups and given 5 inch long burnt candles. No further information is provided. They are asked to measure the candle and answer some questions. How tall is the candle now? What rate did the candle burn? How tall was the candle before it was burned?

Should some student questions come from this? Of course, they should be asking what the conditions were in which the candle was burned. But for the premise of this experiment, no further information can be provided. Issues that will hinder the research of the students are in regards to the burn rate of the candle. The candle could have been burned slowly at a higher altitude that had less oxygen. The candle could have been burned fast in a high oxygen container similar to a hyperbaric chamber. Or the candle could have been blown out shortly after it started.

to be continued...

On my blog I am rough on those who make the decisions on what the teachers have to use and teach. Those who wield the power over many do need to be held accountable for the impact their decisions have. It is the responsibility of the rest of us to spread the word on the lack of logic behind some of those decisions.

The individuals or group of individuals you will find that I’m not rough on are the teachers themselves. Sure there are always a few who ruin the good name of most teachers, but by far and large most teachers are solid citizens who are doing a tough job for comparatively low pay and little thanks.

So hey, I think teachers need to get a high quality personal ‘thank you’ every now and then. Obviously, it wouldn’t be in the form of a Christmas card in the public schools but everyone has a birthday. If you make it pro-green in the form of recycled paper, then it will fit in even better.

A very professional looking card normally reserved for business birthday cards. Granted standard restrictions imposed by union rules make dictate what you can or cannot include with the cards but a one week free lunch in the cafeteria makes for a decent gift. would make for a good morale booster a Superintendent or Principal could use.

Well, that may depend on the skill of the cafeteria cooks and the menu for the week but the intention is good.

Watch Your Words Closely

My wife and I have gone to great lengths to guide our daughter into becoming a respectful and honest girl. We knew full well before having a child that we needed to have the traits we wanted her to gain as a part of us first. Children will do what you do and say what you say. We are her role models and we take that very seriously.

I am proud to report that we do have an excellent 7 year old daughter. She is very respectful, doesn’t talk back, and follows the instructions we give her. Sometimes she stalls a bit but we’ll take that as she doesn’t even fuss about cleaning up her room.

We are also quite strict about her education. If something on a computer is beneficial, then it has its place as tool for its educational value. One such tool is Disney’s ToonTown. Since it requires a child to read, it sped up her beginning reading skills very quickly. It didn’t take long before she was reading well past her grade level.

However, she really got fixated on the game to the point where it started hurting her development in 1st grade arithmetic. So we uninstalled the ToonTown game until she mastered the arithmetic for 1st grade.

Our exact statements were “You will not be able to play the ToonTown game until you master your addition and subtraction facts.”

She has completely honored our directions and is working hard at learning her basic math skills. However, she is also very good on the Internet even at the age of 7. Additionally, she is very good at following our instructions to the exact letter of each word. So one time when she was using the computer, I heard a familiar sound of ToonTown. Investigating, I found she was still following our instructions exactly as she wasn’t playing ToonTown but watching it on YouTube.

She wasn’t violating our instructions so we couldn’t say anything. Part of the honesty lessons and saying what you mean is sticking by what you said. So we can’t change the rules on her as that would be a violation of her trust.

The main lesson in all of this is the following: Watch your words very closely as the children are listening.

Yes, I know Bugosaurus is not a real name of an insect or a dinosaur but it does represent two current areas of interest of my 7 year old daughter.

Courtesy of reading a book about a certain spider that doubles as a champion at a spelling bee and those insects attracted to our flower garden, she is asking more and more questions about the different kinds of bugs out there. It does help that I’m a nature buff when it comes to the animal kingdom too. It rubs off.

She started getting interested in dinosaurs because of my long term interest in them. What kid or grown up kid is not fascinated with them? We have collected so much yet know so very little about them the mystery is always a fun one to play with.

Part of the goal of all this is to slowly transform my daughter’s fear and disgust of insects and dinosaurs into a curiosity in learning about them. Soon, she will be ready for me to introduce them as science toys but I will have to stick to the non-living science kits to pass the Mommy test. The insects will still have to stay outside of the house.

I am just about as much of a kid as my daughter is which is why my pen name is “Maturekid.” So I’m certain I’ll have just about as much fun with the chemistry, physics and earth science kits as she will. Somehow though, I think the slime kits will get the Mommy veto.

The website though does have many areas of gift giving and education enhancing categories that should get the Mommy approved seal. Daddy would play with any of them.


This broadcast of “Are You Thinking?” comes to you all the way from Singapore just to show that I’m an equal opportunity awarder.

Over in Singapore at a prison lauded for its tight security, a suspected Islamic militant named Mas Selamat bin Kastari managed to escape from custody. The entire article can be found here. But the centerpiece of the article that underlines it all is here for your reading. The photo is from here.

“Wong Kan Seng, Singapore's deputy prime minister, told parliament that Mas Selamat bin Kastari flipped his trousers above the cubicle door before escaping through a window.

"The guard had assumed that the urinal cubicle was a secure facility and that Mas Selamat could not escape from it. This assumption was wrong," he said.”

Singapore must not have been reading my blog especially those prison guards. Assumptions are a bad thing!! Rarely are they ever a good thing. But I digress from my main point.

Singapore is a strong US ally and houses a lot of Western business. Naturally, they are subject to the primary export of the USA and that is Hollywood and our entertainment. So this is where the prison guards and the prison itself deserve an award. Of all of the ways to escape a prison or capture, going through the window in the bathroom is one of the most classical and often mocked methods in our entertainment.

But this suspect manages to escape a prison through a bathroom window and a double perimeter fence with no pants on and evades capture for going past 2 months? Razor wire on the top would make Mas Selamat a little concerned about little Mas Selamat. He went through a weakness in the fence? Did open a door and walk out or crawl through a hole while mooning the prison? Do they have any dogs to track his scent? The suspect kindly gave them his pants.

For all these reasons and more, the prison and its guards receive their “Are You Thinking?” award. They have truly been caught with their pants down.

My family dynamic is a little different from the stereotypical one. Yes, we are your standard husband, wife, and daughter 3-person family but that is about where it ends.

We have additional factors that impact our desires and goals as we build up our balance sheet for the eventual acquiring of a home. Like many others, we shop around looking at many different styles of homes but none of them really strike us as the one that meets our dynamics.

See we like the concept of having an attached greenhouse so we can tend to tropical plants from the Philippines so my wife can have a taste of home in her home. That just is not a standard in homes for sale. So we know we need to work at developing our house plans.

Not only do our home plans include a Filipino retreat of sorts but we also need to factor in additional children, office space, space for servers, and space for any of her immediate family that may visit us and / or a place for my surviving parent when one of them passes.

It may be a cool idea to look at log home plans but that is something I need to go over with my wife. I go for functionality and handicap friendly options. The interior design has to meet my wife’s tastes and a touch of the Philippines.

It is cool that there are websites that house numerous home plans to review and decide on. Maybe, just maybe we’ll find one to our liking that way.

Home School Radio Station

So what is a home school radio station? Quite simply it is an Internet radio station created, programmed and maintained by home school students and parents. This broadband station is free for anyone to listen to when they want to.

The name of the radio station is RadioGrace.org with music of the Rock, Gospel, Contemporary, and Praise & Worship from a wide selection of Christian artists. If Christian is not your thing, well that is your freedom to hold that opinion. Just as it is the opinion of those founding this radio station to promote Christian music.

What cannot be overlooked is the scope of this project. Programming a website takes skill. Not just anyone can do it as many have no idea. Layer in the server space needed to host the quantity of visitors, proper bandwidth for uninterrupted play and storing the library of music is no small feat of technical skills. The organizational skills of assembling the permission to use the music and images of many artists are quite impressive to pull of such a significant feat.

So my hat is off in respect to the accomplishments of the parents and students who have spent the time and effort in producing this quality free music station. With Ruben Studdard, Hezekiah Walker, the Winans, Switchfoot, Relient K, Kirk Franklin, Chris Daughtry and many more artists represented, we have a new station to add to our favorites section.

Lesson plans are available in many forms and on many topics. This post is not really about lesson plans though but a part of the two subjects in the title.

Now you may be asking yourself, how can a guy who admits to not being able to sing and has two bad ankles and tender elbows teach the Physical Education and Music classes for his daughter? That would be a very good question. The answer is also very straight forward. I can’t. My wife is the one that won the singing competitions and is trained to sing. Not me. She’s also the one doing workouts with our daughter, hiking, biking and all the rest.

So what part of this do I get to play? Music class isn’t much good without the music. Music also helps you keep the rhythm on those workouts and dance routines.

Also my wife and daughter are not set on any one region as we get around a fair amount. So if we want the music of our choice for the road, then we can do iTunes tagging for music class in the car. (Or until our daughter falls asleep.)

We aren’t stuck on any one kind of music and new country music stations will get us tuning in quickly. My daughter likes Carrie Underwood so why not? Free, crystal clear sound coming through on High Def sounds like a plan to me.

When we are feeling extra cold up here in Wisconsin and tire of hearing the weatherman tell us more of the same is coming we can switch to the Florida High Definition Radio stations. What a bonus!

To Pay or To Play

At one of the meetings I attended, a speaker gave a line that I never forgot. It is a line that we as parents have taken to heart and convey to our daughter. The phrase is a lesson about life that holds true when a person wisely steps back and neutrally observes the people in the world around them.

“We must all make a decision in life. You can play now and pay later or pay now and play later. But be warned, the longer you wait to pay, the greater the price.”

We have all seen this come true in either our own lives or in the lives of people we have come into contact with. However, not everyone is that observant to life around them. Far too many bounce through this life oblivious to the wisdom surrounding them if they would only look.

So what do you look for? Those who choose to pay now are those who get to work, use their head to work smart and set themselves up to enjoy life after they have the money issue tamed down. Another key sign is these are individuals who keep their eye on ‘the bigger picture’ and know to focus on others and not themselves. That is where the wisdom and knowledge is at.

What does it mean you pay a bigger price if you play now? This is actually very, very easy to find as it is all too common at least here in the USA. Listen for the phrases “When is he/she going to grow up and take responsibility?” or “Hopefully, he / she will become an adult when they are 40 or they never will.” When a person focuses on his / her own wants, they do not realize the price they are going to pay.

When you focus only on yourself that is the only person you will be with when you need others. That is the greatest price to pay especially when you reach the latter half of your life.

The saddest part is there is nothing you can do but watch. Until the person wants to change, anything you say is wasted breath.

One of the benefits of being a family that homeschools is when one parent is weak in a topic; the other can take over if it is their strength. As you can read from my topics, there are certain areas I will not touch into much.

I know how to read my music and play a couple instruments. Don’t ask me to sing though as puberty took that option off the table. Give me hard facts to deal with. That doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the artistic side but it isn’t a strong suit of mine. That realm belongs to my wife.

With Mother’s Day approaching and the flowers starting to grow, our household will be focusing on how to fill those vases with beautiful floral displays. I’ll happily do all I can to learn and help our flowers grow and pass that information on to my wife and daughter.

When it comes to how to properly do a floral arrangement, I’m out of my element. Thankfully, our family can turn to some video guides provided by Proflowers to learn how to make those roses last for a long time. In the educational short video, my two ladies can learn the fine art of floral arrangement and beautify our home.

So soon we will have the many colors of flowers gracing our tables and the sweet smell of the blossoms wafting through our abode. Joyous!! (Did I mention I’m allergic to pollen? Oh well, Happy Wife, Happy Life)


This is a topic I haven’t seen written in very many places. Usually when the topic of radioactive dating methods comes up somewhere, the discussion gets bogged down in small details of one side or the other trying to rehash arguments that miss the main points. Also, it is quite difficult to find materials to read that stick to scientific facts and not go into philosophical debates.

But to kick this topic off, I will first highlight the two main problems cited on any method of radioactive dating methods whether it is Carbon-14, Rubidium-Strontium, Potassium-Argon or the various isochron tests. The first main problem deals with basic mathematical requirements especially where calculus is involved. In order to calculate any equation, you need all of the data for the variables in the equation or the calculations will be incomplete. These are those answers on your multiple choice questions for those math story problems, insufficient information.

You can complete the equation if you have data for those unknown variables. If that data amounts to an assumption or a guess, then the likelihood of calculating the correct answer is close to impossible. In basic terms, it was a waste of time and wrong.

That is the core of the problems with the radioactive dating processes. Assumptions are made on the starting sets of data to attempt to calculate a change. Granted we have the rate of change and the end set of data but without an accurate beginning set of data, the calculations are doomed to fail.

How can you get an accurate set of data to begin with? That is the other problem. We can’t. There are no measurements or direct observational data or experiment that can be done to determine how much of the parent or daughter materials were present at the onset. We weren’t there. That leaves the radioactive testing methods largely meaningless. If you wish to read the technical details, try this webpage and this webpage.

If those negatives are so big, then what are the positives of radioactive carbon-14 testing? Of all of the radioactive materials used for measurements, it has the shortest half-life. Depending on which resource you stand by, the presence of radioactive carbon-14 can be detected up to 50,000 to 90,000 years old. Again though, accurate dating is also flawed with starting assumptions but that doesn’t matter in this case.

Why not? Radioactive Carbon-14 gives us the potential of a true or false or yes or no test. When potential contamination of a sample can be minimized to negligible amounts, the results can tell us if Carbon-14 is present or not present in that formerly living object such as a non-fossilized bone, coal, diamond, or wood item. If it exists, then we know the object is less than 90,000 years old.

Depending on what is tested, that can completely ruin some philosophical stances and many dogmas held in some circles of the science community.

That is what makes it such a good test. Using the right test specimen makes the arguments boil down to plausible or wrong with this one test.


Of the many things a person covers in 1st grade math is how to tell time. It is a lesson that some take some time to learn while others pick it up quickly. My daughter doesn’t have an issue with it but most of our clocks are digital.

But if you have the cash and the space, you can take the lessons of telling time up to a whole new level of coolness by using a grandfather clock. Not just any grandfather clock but you have to make certain to get the ones with roman numerals so the lessons can keep on going. Now you have the lead in to lessons on roman numbers, their origins, the Roman Empire and much more. You can even dive into how a grandfather clock is made from the wood, to how the metals are forged and all of the parts are assembled for a curious mind.

Looking over the variety clocks, my daughter is fond of the one pictured here. This lovely gem is one of the Howard Miller clocks that would have a home in our living room. Catching the eye in the center of the far wall would make such a statement when you walk in the front door.

For lesson plan reasons, these accentuating pieces in interior design come with a strong start on the history of the company, the inventor, and makings of the clock itself. Never thought they could be so useful did you?

For this last installment for today, we turn to a brilliant man in Germany. This winner of an Are You Thinking? award helps to demonstrate that idiots come from anywhere.

Now commenting about the education system in Germany is a tad out of my area since I do not have many connections to that country. But we can safely conclude this 36 year old failed in acquiring his street education.

“BERLIN (Reuters) - Three days after stealing a rare collection of coins, a thief in Germany took them to the bank for safe keeping -- and delivered them into the hands of the man he had robbed.”

There are a few points where you wonder where his thought processes took him. Did he somehow conclude taking stolen coins to a bank was a good idea? Perhaps those interested in having a collection of coins might possibly work at a bank? Since when is it a good idea to put your name and contact information down on paper for a safe deposit box for stolen goods?

Lastly when casing out the places to steal such easily traced items from, did it ever cross his mind to know who the owner was so he could avoid him when trying to pawn off his stash?

Since I am going with a theme of people engaging in criminal activity and how it relates to education, I’m going to continue with that theme.

I went to a college where there wasn’t much to do during your free time. So as per the norm, the alcohol parties were the popular choice if you weren’t old enough to make it to the street with all of the bars. For myself, I didn’t care for that scene due to other personal experiences.

What I did enjoy was expanding my knowledge and always applying it in creative ways. I did hypothesize how to make a remote controlled mashed potato catapult to launch the spuds into a tuba but I didn’t want to be expelled. Let’s just say my Music Appreciation class wasn’t that interesting to me.

But when one of my roommates was part of the Campus Cops, I learned some valuable information regarding spotlights, criminal activity and too much alcohol.

Yes, you can use spotlights and in particular a magnalight combined with a motion sensor to protect your property. As the website shows though, there are many more useful selections of spotlights to use.

Now a creative use for a magnalight is a hobby for late Friday and Saturday nights. It is called drunk shining. When a person is drunk, they have a tendency to not react too well to a sensory overload. So when drunk college students are trying to head back to the dorms, you only need to get into the proper ambush position and turn on the spotlight to trigger the information overload. Basically, you make them puke where they stand.

This tip may also be helpful to those with spouses that stay out at the bar too late at night. There definitely are enough varieties of magnalights to suit your specific needs.

There seems to be a common refrain with a large portion of those of the criminal element. Many of them are not all too bright. You can usually tell this when they try to do or say something ‘smart.’ What ends up happening though is they get listed on my Are You Thinking? topic.

This latest entry demonstrates that this 33 year old guy really didn’t pay attention in science class. Let me clarify which level that is. He didn’t pay attention to basic science in the elementary school level. My daughter already knows this at age 7.

” MAGNOLIA, Ark. - Magnolia police say it wasn't the fried chicken in Savalas Vantoli Stewart's car that gave off a funky smell. Instead, officers say they found a side dish of marijuana that Stewart hid inside of a recently purchased box of chicken during a traffic stop Friday night.

Police say officers smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the car and found it after Stewart consented to a search.

I’ll grant the police this one as this is a tad off on a detail. But Mr. Stewart really should have thought this one through if he wasn’t under any chemical influence.

The key words are “recently purchased box of chicken.” In other words, the chicken was hot. Marijuana already gives off a fairly unique odor on its own. Putting the marijuana in with the hot chicken ignored some basic science. Heat added to molecules makes them move faster and expand. Remember the lesson on how water changes from ice to liquid water to water vapor? You need to add heat which makes the molecules spread around changing it from one state to another.

So by placing his marijuana in with his hot chicken he sealed his fate. He heated the molecules the marijuana gives off making the odor that much stronger. Maybe he can read up on it during his time in jail.

When you have the eye of a teacher especially when homeschooling, just about anything you see is fair game to turn into an educational lesson. Whether it stem from trying to identify all of the bugs you turned up while gardening with your child or studying something that catches your eye in daily life, you can make a lesson out of anything.

For example, a Bulova watch is a high end watch that has a history stretching to before my grandfather was born. Some of the highlights of reading the history of this company are names, dates and numbers that help bring up new topics of inquiry.

Here are a few examples to ponder. In 1927, Bulova honored Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic solo flight from New York to Paris. Not only did they sell out of the commemorative watch but it makes for an easy lead in question of ‘Who is Charles Lindbergh?” Anyone with a 6-8 year old knows just how curious they get with the questions.

As an exercise in math, we can take a marketing effort in 1932 called “Name the Watch” which gave out a top prize of $1000. As the article says, that is the equivalent to about $12,500 in the year 2000. What a lovely demonstration of how to mathematically figure out the average rate of inflation with such handy fixed data points.

And the final example is from the accomplishments in the year 1960 when NASA requested Bulova to bring its expertise to bear in the space program. This by itself can set off a whole new line of study surrounding the history of NASA and the space program.

There are many more lesson ideas to be found in the history of a single company. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

Way back in 7th grade, my classmates started to label me as an information sponge or the “encyclopedia reader.” They had a justifiable position in that label because every study hall I would head to the library to read more if I could. I did read the encyclopedias and spent most of my time in the non-fiction section.

Eventually, I found a section devoted to animals and those animals which peak the curiosity of many. The giant squid, Mokele Mbembe, Coelacanth, Megalania, Mapinguari, various lakes and ocean ‘monsters,’ Sucuriju Gigante, Ropen, Kongamato, Yeh-Teh, and many more creatures are reported as existing or sighted. Without a doubt, this captures the imagination of those who study the topic of unknown or unclassified animals or otherwise known as Cryptozoology.

What are these creatures? Are they real, hoaxes, or figments of over active imaginations? Are some of them alive today or have they gone extinct at some point in time? Quite simply, I cannot answer these questions anymore than anyone else because of the nature of the creatures talked about. If real, these animals are elusive and quite rare.

A few have been proven to be real such as the giant squid and the Coelacanth which were thought to be extinct. The giant squid has been known from its carcasses and only recently was it photographed in its natural habitat. Those last two words form the crux of the argument surrounding these mysterious animals.

Nearly all of the animals are said to live in natural habitats that are flat out hostile to humans. The enormous swamps of Africa that prevent a person from standing, walking, or seeing far because of the waterlogged ground and canopy of trees blocking sight from above make for a great hiding spot. Add in a variety of things that can kill a person and the environment being even more hostile to equipment, you now have a place where many unknown animals could thrive. Other spots are a variety of densely forested areas where people rarely go, the Amazon rainforests with its long list of deadly creatures to greet you, and the deep oceans and lakes where humans are incredibly out of their element. (Does anyone else watch those deep sea documentaries and compare fishing in a lake with a bobber to those subs dangled down there?)

The greatest argument against these mysterious animals comes in two forms. The first is there is no valid observational data to prove these animals exist. That is a point. The counterpoint is these are animals with little behavioral information to go on, in very hostile, large environments making most scientific expeditions an expensive shot in the dark. If these animals are nocturnal as well, then they may very well stay hidden as all the factors would be against us finding them. (Not to mention scaring the animals away with the sound / lights of our equipment.)

The other argument is they animals couldn’t have survived all of these millions / thousands of years because they went extinct. Good scientists know better to avoid this argument for a simple logical reason. Claiming an animal or species of animals does not or did not recently exist because of assumptions about the unobserved past creates a hypocritical stance. If you need valid observational data to prove something happened or exists (real science), you can’t counter possibilities with beliefs in assumptions or the unobserved (pseudo-science).

The facts: Animals do go extinct. We do discover many new species of plants and animals a year. There are plenty of locations for animals and plants to hide on this planet that we are ill-suited to study in.

Opinion: There is much more we do not know than we do know. There is no reason to limit our learning while retaining a healthy balance between curiosity and skepticism.

The Fact of the Matter is…

Welcome to what may be one of my shortest entries but a worthwhile one nevertheless.

It is quite difficult these days to flip through the channels on TV, watch the news, or listen to people talking at work without hearing the latest catch phrase “the fact of the matter is.”

A couple things about this need to be pointed out starting with how incredibly overused this is. We do not all need to copy someone else’s phrase. Secondly, this is merely a permutation of the original prepositional phrase of “As a matter of fact” which was used until that phrase got old.

When you hear someone use this phrase, listen really closely to what comes next or the true noun-verb sentence. You will notice the very next part of the sentence has very little to do with any facts at all but the individual’s opinion. Obscuring the line of an opinion with provable facts is nothing new especially in politics. However by using this phrase, the speaker might as well tell the audience they do not know what a fact truly is or they are about to lie to their faces. Again, a politician lying to our faces is nothing new. The rest of us need to lead by example and watch our own tongues.

Why should we be careful of our linguistic choices? Our kids are listening. It is hard enough to grow up in a society where opinions and assumptions are passed off as if they are proven fact. No reason to make it harder for the children to determine who the liars are.


I know, I know. The phrase is Do Not Feed the Trolls. But for this once, I’m going to have to break that Internet rule of thumb because this troll exemplifies the epitome of the Are You Thinking? category.

Anyone who has read my blog knows I’m happily married to my wife who is from the Philippines. I’ll always stand in the gap to defend my wife and awesome daughter like a husband and a man should. My wife is a smart and tough gal having gone through things that would give a number of Americans a nervous breakdown. That was life in the Philippines. You get tough quick or die. So she can handle her own with the normal trolls of the world.

However, normal trolls on the Internet attack a person’s stance on a topic. You don’t cross the no-no line and use the Internet to make a personal attack. Most of the trolls know why you don’t do that. Knowing the rules and how to act civilly is beyond this troll though. Let us analyze the insults to see just how dumb the insults are.

The main insult was:

all this wonderful information coming from a person who wouldn’t even be in this country if it wasn’t for some looser who had to buy a wife…lol…

From this insult we can discern the following:

Punctuation – Largely absent

Capitalization – They didn’t bother.

Spelling – If you are going to insult me, spell it correctly. “Looser” is not a noun. It is an adjective that describes what your pants are if you lose weight.

Generally, an insult has a bit more impact if your grammar can exceed that of my 1st grade daughter. Lazy on the international display of your skills or didn’t do much while in K-12 school? Usually a person should demonstrate mastery of his or her only language before they attempt to attack a person who can fluently read and write 7 languages.

Now the content gives us more clues. “who had to buy a wife”

If you are going to sling a racial slur, do not pick a time when Martin Luther King Jr. is getting a lot of press for making advances against racism. Also, the reference to mail order brides demonstrates a profound amount of ignorance of the world. Those have been banned a long time ago by the USCIS. Wives are not to be purchased as if they were slaves on the black market. Try and join the rest of the world in this millennium.

In a collection of other attacks, this ubertroll demonstrated a profound lack of knowledge of the world and a questionable learning curve. Every country has something that is their trademark specialty. Americans are known for their love of sports especially the big 3. Switzerland is known for their high quality merchandise, banking system and Swiss chocolates. For the Philippines, their specialty is music. I’ve already written on this before though so go here. Telling someone they should sing on Filipino Idol when most of the past 7 seasons of American Idol contestants would never make it on the show is a compliment. Trying to declare they can’t sing well but saying they should go on a very difficult show is contradictory and demonstrates blatant ignorance. Saying a person who has won several singing contests in a city of 400,000 by singing many of the Disney movie theme songs is a bad singer makes a troll either ignorant or tone deaf.

Lastly, it has long been shown that a gifted and talented individual takes 1-2 repetitions to learn a topic. The average person takes about 4-6 times. The slow learner is usually in the 7-10 range. But after reading 2 years worth of blog entries over the course of many hours and seeing the word Filipino hundreds of times, this troll managed to misspell the word Filipino (proper noun) as “phillipino.” Failure after a massive amount of repetitions is off the charts in the wrong direction.

Oh well, a miserable person lashing out at people in personal attacks really needs to focus on getting their own life straightened out first. Knowing what the letters TOS stand for would help too. But you can’t expect trolls to learn. That is why this troll is the epitome of the Are You Thinking? award winners. I may not be able to top this one.



Recent Entries

Recommended Money Makers

  • iMake Moolah Guide
  • Get Paid To Blog
  • Send Earnings
  • AuctionAds
  • Amazon Associates