Although I still enjoy watching shows like House Hunters and The Big Bang Theory, my new favorites are: (1) Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, (2) The Best Thing I Ever Ate, (3) Modern Family, and (4) The Middle.
Like House Hunters, I can watch episodes of Triple D over and over again. The food always looks so tasty! I hope The Best Thing I Ever Ate makes it as a permanent show on The Food Network. It's interesting to see the food items that chefs and TV personalities identify as the best they've ever eaten.
For a few years, it seemed like the half-hour comedy was becoming a thing of the past. This year, there are good comedies on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. In my opinion, Wednesday night is the strongest with decent comedies on CBS and outstanding comedies on ABC. The actors on Modern Family and The Middle are perfectly cast, and the writers are great! Modern Family keeps me laughing the entire episode, and there's something nice about The Middle. The family just seems real. Also, Patricia Heaton is excellent as Frankie Heck.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
One Month Later
One month has passed... what has that month been like for Haitians? I can't imagine. According to CNN, the earthquake is responsible for more than 212,000 deaths, 300,000 people injured, and 1 million people left homeless (which, combined, is more than half of the population in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas). One month later, I still wonder what I wondered on January 12th... how will Haiti ever recover from such devastation?
As I ponder the situation in Haiti, I realize that I should be much more thankful for my circumstances.
As I ponder the situation in Haiti, I realize that I should be much more thankful for my circumstances.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Lots of Topics
Since several days have elapsed since my last post, I include four topics below.
Topic 1: Steven Strogatz, professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University, is writing several opinion pieces on mathematics for The New York Times. Why is Dr. Strogatz doing this? In his first opinion piece "From Fish to Infinity", Dr. Strogatz states, "The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it." Because I think mathematicians need to do more of this sort of thing, I'm very excited to see this blog appearing in the "Opinionator" section of The New York Times. In case you'd like to follow along, here's a link: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/steven-strogatz/. (Since I do not often read The New York Times, I must thank Jay for letting me know about the opinion pieces.)
Topic 2: While traveling to Winston-Salem on Sunday, Jay and I were listening to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, NPR's hour-long quiz program. During the "Lightning Fill in the Blank" segment, a bit of news about a principal in Arizona caught my attention. Principal Ron Sterr was suspended after a letter he claims to have written as a joke was accidentally sent home to parents of second graders. According to The Washington Post, the letter stated, "The math we do is really easy." It goes on to say, "If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress." Wow! Can you imagine getting this letter from a principal about your child? Although Sterr claims that the letter was written to actually show how idiotic such comments are, parents, of course, had no way of knowing this when they read their letters. These are the types of comments that lead students to believe that they just can't do math because they aren't smart enough, which is very unfortunate. Here's a link to the coverage of this story by The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/02/AR2010020202620.html.
Topic 3: After watching Ina Garten roast vegetables several months ago during an episode of Barefoot Contessa, I began roasting carrots. Soon after that, I started roasting potatoes, and I now roast asparagus, too. I have found that these vegetables are so tasty when prepared this way, and the roasting is no more difficult than any other cooking method.
Topic 4: Although I did not watch the Super Bowl, one of my friends mentioned that the Google ad Parisian Love was one of the commercials. Here's a link to the ad: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories. Although the story definitely is sweet, I really like the video because it accurately shows just how useful Google is. When I want to answer just about any question, what do I do? I Google it! Nearly every time, I find my answer by following a link on the first page of search results. No matter how much I learn about Google, I remain amazed!
That's all for today!
Topic 1: Steven Strogatz, professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University, is writing several opinion pieces on mathematics for The New York Times. Why is Dr. Strogatz doing this? In his first opinion piece "From Fish to Infinity", Dr. Strogatz states, "The goal is to give you a better feeling for what math is all about and why it’s so enthralling to those who get it." Because I think mathematicians need to do more of this sort of thing, I'm very excited to see this blog appearing in the "Opinionator" section of The New York Times. In case you'd like to follow along, here's a link: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/steven-strogatz/. (Since I do not often read The New York Times, I must thank Jay for letting me know about the opinion pieces.)
Topic 2: While traveling to Winston-Salem on Sunday, Jay and I were listening to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, NPR's hour-long quiz program. During the "Lightning Fill in the Blank" segment, a bit of news about a principal in Arizona caught my attention. Principal Ron Sterr was suspended after a letter he claims to have written as a joke was accidentally sent home to parents of second graders. According to The Washington Post, the letter stated, "The math we do is really easy." It goes on to say, "If your child is either too lazy or too stupid to finish it in class, I'm sending it home so that you can work with them and judge for yourself whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress." Wow! Can you imagine getting this letter from a principal about your child? Although Sterr claims that the letter was written to actually show how idiotic such comments are, parents, of course, had no way of knowing this when they read their letters. These are the types of comments that lead students to believe that they just can't do math because they aren't smart enough, which is very unfortunate. Here's a link to the coverage of this story by The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/02/AR2010020202620.html.
Topic 3: After watching Ina Garten roast vegetables several months ago during an episode of Barefoot Contessa, I began roasting carrots. Soon after that, I started roasting potatoes, and I now roast asparagus, too. I have found that these vegetables are so tasty when prepared this way, and the roasting is no more difficult than any other cooking method.
Topic 4: Although I did not watch the Super Bowl, one of my friends mentioned that the Google ad Parisian Love was one of the commercials. Here's a link to the ad: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories. Although the story definitely is sweet, I really like the video because it accurately shows just how useful Google is. When I want to answer just about any question, what do I do? I Google it! Nearly every time, I find my answer by following a link on the first page of search results. No matter how much I learn about Google, I remain amazed!
That's all for today!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Quantity vs. Quality
Since I am a woman in my thirties who does not yet have children, any news about fertility seems to capture my attention lately. A few days ago, a new study on female egg reserves received lots of media coverage. In case you missed it, here's a link to a GMA interview on this topic:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/women-fertility-falls-lose-90-percent-eggs-30/story?id=9693015
Note the title: For Women Who Want Kids, 'the Sooner the Better': 90 Percent of Eggs Gone By Age 30. While it is interesting that a female begins life with all the eggs she will ever have (on average 300,000 potential egg cells) and the number remaining each month seems to decrease exponentially, the rapid decline in and of itself is not worrisome to me. After all, women only produce one (possibly two) mature eggs per month anyway (meaning only 400 or so eggs ever reach maturity). Thus, in my opinion, the bigger issue seems to be the quality of eggs available each month not the quantity. The following article supports my opinion:
http://www.advancedfertility.com/eggquantityquality.htm
Of course, as indicated in the article, quantity certainly is a factor when doctors perform ovarian stimulation; however, assuming that eggs reaching maturity have been randomly selected, the percentage of high-quality eggs available matters much more than the number of eggs available. If a female begins with a high percentage of high-quality eggs and is able to prevent external factors from decreasing their quality as she ages (http://www.womens-health.co.uk/egg_age.html), then it follows that she likely will become pregnant at an older age even though she has a much smaller supply of eggs from which to randomly choose.
Now, wasn't that a fun post!?!
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/women-fertility-falls-lose-90-percent-eggs-30/story?id=9693015
Note the title: For Women Who Want Kids, 'the Sooner the Better': 90 Percent of Eggs Gone By Age 30. While it is interesting that a female begins life with all the eggs she will ever have (on average 300,000 potential egg cells) and the number remaining each month seems to decrease exponentially, the rapid decline in and of itself is not worrisome to me. After all, women only produce one (possibly two) mature eggs per month anyway (meaning only 400 or so eggs ever reach maturity). Thus, in my opinion, the bigger issue seems to be the quality of eggs available each month not the quantity. The following article supports my opinion:
http://www.advancedfertility.com/eggquantityquality.htm
Of course, as indicated in the article, quantity certainly is a factor when doctors perform ovarian stimulation; however, assuming that eggs reaching maturity have been randomly selected, the percentage of high-quality eggs available matters much more than the number of eggs available. If a female begins with a high percentage of high-quality eggs and is able to prevent external factors from decreasing their quality as she ages (http://www.womens-health.co.uk/egg_age.html), then it follows that she likely will become pregnant at an older age even though she has a much smaller supply of eggs from which to randomly choose.
Now, wasn't that a fun post!?!
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Inmates Working and Worst Trip Ever
While driving on I-85 yesterday, I passed two different sets of "Inmates Working" signs; however, I never saw anyone working. Of course, I thought, "Should I be concerned that I have been told twice that inmates are working, but I don't see any?" I'm guessing the signs were placed on the road a bit before the inmates actually arrived; however, I think it would be best to place the signs on the road at the very moment the inmates arrive and then remove them at the very moment the inmates leave. That way, there is no cause for concern that we are possibly missing inmates.
Although not extremely clumsy, I have been known to lose my balance a time or two. My most memorable fall was at a friend's wedding 5 or 6 years ago. I lost my balance on some carpeted stairs. My embarrassment quickly faded when I saw blood running down my leg. Jay and I had to leave the reception early to attend to my knee. The carpet did quite a number on it. In fact, it took several weeks for my injured knee to heal. Okay... that might be a bad trip, but the worst trip ever goes to the gallery visitor who recently ripped a portion of Picasso's The Actor. According to the New York Post, the accidental trip reduces the value of the painting by at least 65 million dollars! Can you imagine!?! I wonder if she'll ever visit a gallery again. I also wonder why such valuable works of art are not fully protected so that this sort of thing cannot happen. For more on this story, see:
Believe me, the next time I visit an art gallery, I'm going to be extra careful!
Although not extremely clumsy, I have been known to lose my balance a time or two. My most memorable fall was at a friend's wedding 5 or 6 years ago. I lost my balance on some carpeted stairs. My embarrassment quickly faded when I saw blood running down my leg. Jay and I had to leave the reception early to attend to my knee. The carpet did quite a number on it. In fact, it took several weeks for my injured knee to heal. Okay... that might be a bad trip, but the worst trip ever goes to the gallery visitor who recently ripped a portion of Picasso's The Actor. According to the New York Post, the accidental trip reduces the value of the painting by at least 65 million dollars! Can you imagine!?! I wonder if she'll ever visit a gallery again. I also wonder why such valuable works of art are not fully protected so that this sort of thing cannot happen. For more on this story, see:
Believe me, the next time I visit an art gallery, I'm going to be extra careful!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Cake
Cake was served at an event I recently attended. In my opinion, the cake wasn't great. In fact, I didn't finish my piece, which is very telling since I absolutely love good cake. Of course, I do not plan to identify the event I attended when served this cake. What I found interesting was that so many of the people attending commented on how much they liked the cake. Now, they either liked the cake or were just being nice. I'll never know. As I listened to the comments, I was reminded of Paul Foot's comedy act about this very topic. I just remembered to find the video clip. Here's a link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4sqS8pFwG8. I think the whole act is really funny; however, if you don't have 8 minutes and 39 seconds to watch, skip to the 4:40 mark.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Jane Austen's Emma
A friend just informed me that PBS has a new Masterpiece on Jane Austen's Emma. The airing of the first part begins January 24. I can't wait to see it, and I wonder whether or not it will be as good as the Pride and Prejudice Masterpiece. If it is, I know what I'll be wanting for my birthday... the DVD!
See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/emma/.
See: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/emma/.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Big Bang Theory and Mathematics
Last night's episode of The Big Bang Theory was just okay in my opinion; however, I really liked last week's episode "The Psychic Vortex." Danica McKellar made a guest appearance as one of the cute girls that Raj and Sheldon met at the University mixer. Although she is best known for her role as Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, Danica McKellar is building a reputation as a champion for mathematics. After earning her B.S. in Mathematics from UCLA, she authored two math books for pre-teen girls (Math Doesn't Suck and Kiss My Math).
One of the reasons I liked last week's episode so much is because I appreciated the writers' intentional inclusion of mathematics for McKellar's guest appearance. Particularly, a few times during the show, Sheldon mentioned the book Flatland. Although most would correctly identify the book as one about mathematics (specifically, geometry), the book also has much to say about society and the role women play in it. The book is a quick-read, and I highly recommend it. If you missed "The Psychic Vortex" episode, I highly recommend it, too.
One of the reasons I liked last week's episode so much is because I appreciated the writers' intentional inclusion of mathematics for McKellar's guest appearance. Particularly, a few times during the show, Sheldon mentioned the book Flatland. Although most would correctly identify the book as one about mathematics (specifically, geometry), the book also has much to say about society and the role women play in it. The book is a quick-read, and I highly recommend it. If you missed "The Psychic Vortex" episode, I highly recommend it, too.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Today's Workout
For several months, Jay and I have been members of Anytime Fitness, and, yes, that means we are able to work out any time. :) We typically exercise 4 times a week. Since Jay is working from home today, we decided to go to the fitness center this morning. It was quite crowded. My favorite elliptical machine was not available. In fact, all of the elliptical machines I use were occupied. Usually, when this happens, we leave and return later in the day; however, I decided to give the elliptical crosstrainer a try. After completing my 4 miles using the same resistance levels I normally use, I was soaked and exhausted! Adding the adjustable CrossRamp to the mix really made a difference. Interestingly, the machine estimated that I burned 472 calories (the same estimate my usual elliptical machine reports). I guess both machines are programmed to use the same formula to estimate the number.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Why not?
This semester, I am taking a break from teaching to do some other things. Although I miss being in the classroom each day, I'm happy to have time to read, think, and do some things that I haven't had time to do in quite a while. I've been considering starting a blog, and I figured, why not? So, here it is.
I'm guessing that I won't have too many visitors and/or followers of my blog because I'm not planning to advertise it; however, if you're visiting this site, welcome! Feel free to stay a while.
As you might have guessed after reading the blog's name, I'm a fan of Frasier.
I'm guessing that I won't have too many visitors and/or followers of my blog because I'm not planning to advertise it; however, if you're visiting this site, welcome! Feel free to stay a while.
As you might have guessed after reading the blog's name, I'm a fan of Frasier.
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