Happy New Year!

I know that it has been a little while since my last post. I've been in a bit of a funk. Perhaps it's the "winter blues". On this New Year's Eve, I find myself reflecting on many things. Perhaps it's just natural around New Year's, birthdays and anniversaries to become somewhat retrospective. Yes, we all have stuff that weighs heavy on us, but I think it's important to stay positive.

For some of us, it's a lot easier than others. None of us know what life will bring us, but if we didn't have and hardships, than life would be dull. There would be no triumphs, nothing to achieve, no mountains to climb.

I also get reflective because it was 6 years ago on December 30 that my dad died. I miss having face to face talks with him, but his legacy clearly lives on. Earlier this year we were in Alabama at my sister's house and I had use a stern tone with my son. My sister took pleasure when she told me, "Howie, you send just like Dad".

Speaking of family, I just spent a week at my in-laws. To be honest, I wasn't totally looking forward to it. Their house is much smaller than mine and with 5 of us cramped into the 1 story ranch house, it's always tight. But, overall we had a good week.

Which gets me to my next point. In spite of what doesn't go our way, life for most of us is pretty good. As I travel into 2008, I hope that I can be positive more than I already am. I hope that I can remember to treasure my family more and just let the little things roll off my back. If I can lay off the sweets and hit the treadmill just a tiny bit more, then life should be even better.

And if something happens in 2008 that you didn't expect, I hope you can deal with it in the best possible way. I was in between jobs for most of 2000. One thing I learned is that I should not allow fear and panic to dictate my actions because I would likely make bad decisions.

It won't all go your way in 2008, but I hope that most of it does.

Happy New Year!

The Bethesda Theater

Just before Thanksgiving I had the opportunity to see a great show at a great venue. "I Love you, You're Perfect, Now Change" is currently playing at the newly renovated and re-opened Bethesda Theater.

Let's start with the theater. In late September we were live from the theater during 9 NEWS NOW at 6 AM with a preview. The theater has been restored to look like it did when it first opened in the 1930s. The detailed ceiling along with Art-Deco styling is a thrill to see in person and I urge everyone to patronize this place. I think the best seats in the house might actually be in the rear section about half way up, because it's a mezzanine like area as opposed to the flatter front of the house, but there really isn't a bad seat anywhere. The theater is also very cozy, seating approximately 650.

Now for the show, "I Love you, You're Perfect, Now Change", which runs through February 17th, is a comical look at dating and marriage. The 4 performers are very talented and there are many catchy tunes in the show.

There seems to be a lot about relationships that we can all "relate" to.

I will caution you, however, that this is a show for adults. I might consider bringing a mature high school student, but leave the little ones with a baby-sitter. If it were a movie, I think it would get a PG-13 rating.

Are you smarter than a second grader?

Late last week I was checking my son's math homework when a "simple" assignment, turned far more complicated.

The great thing about helping your children with their homework is that it forces you to review things that you may have learned 10, 20 or even 30 years earlier. This latest assignment involved faces, edges and vertices. Basically, the homework was asking the student to give the number of these values given a different object. For example, a cube has 6 faces, 12 edges and 8 vertices.

But what about a sphere? How many faces does a sphere have? This simple question has opened up a can of worms in my house.

The second grade answer is zero, but I believe the answer is actually approaching infinity. I'm pretty good with math, but I needed more proof than just myself.

I checked with my father in-law who has a master's degree in mathematics and he gave me a very eloquent answer. Take the two dimensional approach of polygons. A triangle has 3 sides, then a square has 4, then a pentagon with 5, and then an octagon with 8. You begin to see that as you add sides, the polygon gets rounder and rounder as the size gets smaller. Therefore, one can deduce that a circle has an infinite number of sides with their length approaching zero.

In the three dimensional world, think of a pyramid, a cube, a soccer ball (32 faces). The same concept here. The more faces, the more spherical the object becomes with the area of each face approaching zero.

So, even though my son said "infinity", he was told that the answer is zero. I checked with the school about this. I was informed that the curriculum for second grade only covers concrete concepts and that abstract concepts aren't yet covered, therefore the answer is considered wrong, even though it's right.

My son's principal is going to take my concern about the curriculum to the central office and I plan on asking them myself.

But doesn't it seem wrong to teach the wrong answer and then correct it a few years later? Doesn't it seem wrong to not have enough flexibility with the curriculum to accept the mathematically correct answer because it's beyond the current grade level? Shouldn't our schools be fostering this enhanced understanding instead of making a 7 year old think he's wrong?

I have told my son to write down "infinity" on any test he may get, because that is the correct answer and I believe that the correct answer, even if it will be marked incorrectly, is the only one you can give.