Hot Air Balloon...

Ever wanted to try a hot air balloon ride? To gently rise, float, and then gently return to the point where your strength is equal to Gravity's?

...and while you're up there where is the bathroom other than your pants?
--> But digression is bad for swimming unless you wait 30 minutes first. It just seems like many, many people get excited about a hot air balloon ride.

Mike, Ally, and Neal worked together and decided (at a business party) to go up in the hot air balloon that was offered as part of the party. Their guide never made it so there were Mike, Ally, and Neil just floating around up there for hours before the "bad" happened. They ran out of fuel which means that the ground will soon be saying hello in a bad manner. Looking down they all noticed that they were floating directly over a long canyon. Neal said, "If we yell that canyon will produce amazing echo's."

Ally agreed so Mike went along with the idea. At that point Neal leaned as far out of the basket as he could and yelled at the top of his lungs, "Where are we?"

A long time passed, and then more time still. Finally a voice far distance replied, "You're lost."

Ally cussed after that response and said, "Well that person is a mathematics professor!"
...Miked asked, "How do you know that?"

She answered, "Three reasons. First, he took forever in answering the question... second, the answer was 100% accurate... and thirdly, the answer did us absolutely no good!"

I love Math...

Mid life Crisis (if you will)...

There has been some confusion going on lately so I want to clear things up a bit allowing my side of things to be heard and not just assumed by others.

Humans, as a species, tend to resist change especially the older one gets. This is no different with me... but at least I will embrace that fact and strive to make sure I don't stagnant in my long-held and probably erroneous conclusions. So as I pass "mid-life" (at age 46) I MUST look back on the first half of my life and the people I associate with and decide if things are working well or not. I concluded NOT...

No matter how I look at it I keep coming back to the same answer. Regardless of how I arrange the equations I always get the same answer. And if I could sum up that answer (addition) in one word I would use the word arrogance.

The weird part is this... I think everybody else (that I have been associating with although there are exceptions of course) are the most arrogant people I have ever met... and they think I am just as bad in my own right. The thing is, I base my evaluations off of truths or facts and everyone else only bases their opinions from emotion...

Nothing is absolute, so I am not referring to everyone of course, but it seems that the vast majority of people that I know ~think~ they understand something when they really don't. For instance... most believe that the oxygen that we breath in turns into the carbon dioxide that we breath out and nothing could be further from the truth... but try to explain that to someone who is already convinced that they are right...

They get mad at you... they think you are calling them stupid... again, nothing could be further from the truth. There is a reason I took all those classes and a college pays me to teach the lower levels of basically any subject... and for someone who has never studied the "topic at hand" to tell me I'm wrong and that they know better simply because "whatever" worked for them before is ludicrous... and the more somebody is convinced that they are the smartest thing since sliced bread means that they are the ones LEAST willing to listen to facts... Facts just get in the way afterall...

BTW... I mean the definition of the word FACT in the scientific manner and not the way it is used in "everyday life"

I probably fall into the 62 to 72 percentile of "smartest people" which means I am smart enough to ADMIT that I pale in comparison to the truly intelligent. I fully and gladly admit that and let them have their studies... but that also doesn't mean that I need to "dumb myself down" either to fit in with the people I choose to associate with.

Here is a perfect example of one of those points... please listen... I am not saying that they are dumb by any stretch of the imagination, what I am saying is that they are SO CONVINCED that they "know it all" that they shut their mind off from looking at things in a new (and better) way. They really don't know what they think they know, they just don't know it. And if you question them on anything they will think you are being a jerk.

And... even if they get the right answer they can't tell you "Why" that answer is right, it was just something they memorized. Well knowing that 2 + 2 = 4 is one thing, but can they tell me why 2 times 2 also equals 4????

Rote memorization really proves nothing... its the critical thinking that allows someone to solve one problem to the next. Yet when I bring this up I am the jerk accusing them of being stupid. NO... I am just asking for further investigation.

So my final conclusion is, I need a whole new set of people to talk to, ones who aren't so convinced that they know EVERYTHING and actually want to learn something new, regardless the subject. I just chose the wrong "group" to hang with... and now I will find new ones. I wish all the old friends long life and happiness of course, but live in your "bubble" and learn nothing new... I only have so much time left and I want to spend my time with people who care about the same things I do, like Education... or the desire to keep learning no matter how much you "think" you already know...

Not that it really matters...

I have been away from wire for a bit over a week now, and figured I would explain why...

Two reasons: Reason number one
I have two friends (female) here on wire who claimed to love each other very much. But there was always fighting and snarky comments underlying everyday conversations. Recently they had a disagreement (big shock) but this one was carried to the extreme.
These two "friends" started slicing little pieces out of each other and line3d up their sycophants into an upcoming battle of them against us. Actually, one of them got cruel and the other lined up an squad behind her. These two "friends" mixed several other people (I stayed aloof) into this ridiculous fight over something incredibly stupid... and that is online "love"... or even friendship for that matter, for these two women have proven to me that friendship is an illusion. All over this guy... how stupid is that? The English language has yet to invent the words to describe this amount of stupidity. And of course these two friends had their own backers who then started going after each other... so I bailed. They all have proven to me that the only form of human communication should be in the area of business and commerce... after that, no contact should be ever be made with another human... so I left.

Reason number two
My room is gone... I didn't create it but I was there within seconds of it being open and nobody spent more time in that chat room than I did trying to build it up. 173 likes.... that was pretty impressive... but now its gone, and with it, my reason for being here.

Do I miss wire, yes. Do I miss the fun "he said/she said" drama, yes. Do I miss the cruelty of human nature that is displayed here, no.

One other point... I have nothing in common with anybody anyway here. I like to talk politics, my "friends" whine... and so on and so on, it just always came down to this: if Dave liked the topic we won't discuss it... either that or I am the weird one who likes politics and science and math and such. But I still have nothing in common with anyone.
So now I am just hanging back and glancing at wire once in a while off line. Secretly laughing at everyone's asinine obsession with sex and the other trivial things everyone talks about which has no actual meaning on anything important. I just wish we could rewind time back a few months and live this all over again with different results.

American Football Rules 101

This will cover some of the basic rules of American football for our non-American friends so they can enjoy this awesome game too.

First... there are three basic parts to this game. Offense, Defense, and Special Teams. Each one of these groups have 11 players on it (different players for each). The offense is when your team has the ball, defense when you are trying to stop the other team from moving the ball, and special teams which is when they kick the ball.

On Offense... you get 4 trys to move the ball 10 yards (meters). So one "first down" you move the ball 3 meters, its now "2nd down and 7 meters to go". You get 5 more meters and it is "3rd down and 2 meters to go" and so on. If you dont get the 10 meters you will usually kick the ball. The 11 players are 5 offenseive lineman, 1 quarterback, and any combination of 5 recievers, running backs, and tight ends.

Defense is easier... stop them from getting 10 meters is your job. The 11 players on defense is (usually) 4 lineman, 3 linebackers, 2cornerbacks, and 2 safeties. Special teams either just moves the ball in one big play or scores points.

Points... there are 7 points for a touchdown... 3 points for a field goal (a kick) or 1 point for an extra point (a kick DIRECTLY after a touchdown), and 2 points for a safety.

Running the ball is easy... you are "down" when your elbow, shoulder, or knee touches the ground. Catching a pass is trickier. Once the ball is caught both of the players feet MUST touch the ground or 1 foot and 1 hand MUST touch the ground or it is an "incomplete pass" and the pass doesnt count. The quarterback is the leader of the Team (and the offense) and decides which play to try and to "hand off" to the running back or pass the ball.

You then need good lines on the offense and defense both for they will help the running back get through the line or (on defense) tackle the running back for no meters gained. After that the linebackers are next in importance. They run all over the field tackling running backs or recievers alike. Everyone else is a "special-skills player" and this is where the money goes (other than QB).

There are four fifteen minute quarters to this game. If it ends in a tie they keep playing until somebody does score more points and wins.

A Poem written by Robert Service (gold hunting way up in Canada)

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
~~
Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that 'he'd sooner live in hell'.
On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and 'Cap,' says he, 'I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request.'
Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
'It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'taint being dead — it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains.'
A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.
There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: 'You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains.'
Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows — O God! how I loathed the thing.
And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.
Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the 'Alice May.'
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then 'Here,' said I, with a sudden cry, 'is my cre-ma-tor-eum.'
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared — such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: 'I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked;'… then the door I opened wide.
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: 'Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm —
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm.'
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Exile will have a 2012 Platform and Candidates...

The land of Exile is fed up and going to run its own people for the American 2012 Presidentail race. The platform will be laid out in the next blog but here, in this one, we decided to list our representatives. These are not suggestions and are permanent nominations for office and welcome to the Exile Party:

President General = Pale
Vice President = Zoey234
Chief of Staff = Still@This (variableuses)
Homeland Security = Candy Von
Sec of Defense = darkie
halfapintdoll = Supreme Court Justice
FBI = poor denise
CIA = CDNBACN (dan)
NTSB = Cclan
Finance = SuperVeg
Rebel Alien = Commerce
Monsterrain = ATF
silverismoney = IRS
Kaptain Krunch = NSC
_Bonz_ = Secretary of Fortress
ChrisVon = Education
Wyderrabbit = General Overlord of the Military-Industrial-Occult Complex

Finally posts will be filled in the next few weeks.

Governments explained by two cows...

• Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
• Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else’s cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you all the milk you need.
• Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.
• Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.
• Pure Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.
• Real World Communism: You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most “ability” and who has the most “need”. Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.
• Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.
• Perestroika: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the “free” market.
• Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.
• Militarianism: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.
• Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.
• Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.
• Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.
• British Democracy: You have two cows. You feed them sheeps’ brains and they go mad. The government doesn’t do anything.
• Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.
• Pure Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.
• Pure Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
• Capitalism: You don’t have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don’t have any cows to put up as collateral.
• Enviromentalism: You have two cows. The government bans you from milking or killing them.
• Political Correctness: You are associated with (the concept of “ownership” is a symbol of the phallo-centric, war mongering, intolerant past) two differently – aged (but no less valuable to society) bovines of non-specified gender.
• Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Monday Nite (8.1.11)

Worked today (teaching math) which is nothing out of the ordinary except that today was one of those days. One of those days where I wany to hang my head and ask the student why they ever took this class in the first place. I am so sick of people who take a class (because they have to) and then come to me crying because they don't get it when they never even worked on the homework PRIOR to our visit!!! Case and point:

This girl today came in and I asked her;
"How much homework have you done before coming to me?" Her reply...
"Well none, isn't that what you are here for."

Wanted to pull out my hair! I run a walk-in room for math help. "I have several classes and students to attend to and you want me to sit by your side and baby you through your own homework. Grow up or get out!" Well, I would like to say that to them but I cant.

Then went to billiards league. We shoot 9-ball on Mondays and we won... barely... with a 52 to 48 margin (out of 100)... and I didn't shoot. Wanted to but figured it was better if I didn't this week. Then came on line here in my FAVORITE chat with my FAVORITE friends in the Land of Exile, but the conversation was too fast for me to follow yet, so I worte this instead. After I hit post I am back in "The Land of Exile" for more frivolity.

Getting into a Blog...

I understand the concept but have never had one before. So one last time I will give a brief background and then start running from there.

Living in michigan, 45, male, teacher, pool shooter, piano & sax player, avid reader, getting addicted to the internet, divorced, just chatting, maybe, and prefer not to say.

What should my blog be about? Well if I understand blogs correctly it is what interests me the most (that is why I type about it) so my blog will hit these area's fairly hard:

...US News
...NFL Football
...Billiards
...Books of a certain genre or two
...trivia
...education/learning
...my puppies (purebreds)
...and an "Open End" area for all else to be posted.

Met some efriends here and I like them alot. Not sure yet if they are anything at all as how they present themselves but its good enough for me. Best friends in order (no offense) are:

Zoey234... CDNBACN... Pale... David_Gua... shit forgot a good guy... anyway, thanks all for making me feel welcomed.

About to finish my BA degree... yeah I know its late but I'm finally getting it done. Will Major in "Social Studies Education" and minor in math", "political science", and "geography." Only about a year and a half left after my four year break from school. I work at the school I graduated from with my 2 associate degrees as a tutor, but now am going to finish my teaching degree.

Something I hate: People with cell phones (everybody but me) NEVER says goodbye anymore!!! From their point of view they say their piece and then flip that phone closed without saying goodbye!!! I hate that... I spend another 3 minutes talking to NASA only.

I will beef up this blog... and every entry will have a trivia question. Here is this blog's trivia question: "if 2 and 2 make 4, then what does hamburger and pickles make?"

On a more personal note...

I came here to find friends. People to talk to, ...and to find people who want to talk about their experiences. We all live our individual lives, yet... we also have our goals. [FATE]

I would love to talk about this more. Here, chat room(s), nowhere... fine. But I would love to talk...

...Still@This,