E= mc^2 * 100

100 years ago Einstein came up with an equation that millions of people have memorized, but only a few truly understand. For a brief period of time I wanted to be one of those people. Until my junior year in college I was planning on being a Physics major. It took me about that long to realize that I wasn't creative enough to be a physicist. Instead I am a dormant mathematician. I could follow a lot of the concepts I learned in my physics classes, but I often found I couldn't make the leap to real world scenarios. Or even the frictionless, massless scenarios that physicists like to pretend is the real world. I can remember wanting to study things like quarks and photons. In highschool I found out that the Air Force was working on anti-gravity. I remember thinking that this was something I wanted to be a part of. Skip forward to junior year and I spent a month using classical mechanics to explain the descent and shape of a rain drop. It was very shortly afterwards that I changed my major to pure math. I use logic almost every day in my job, but alas I have forgotten most of my mathematics.

It's been 20 years I wonder if they got anywhere with the anti-gravity stuff.

Who's You're Daddy Blog (or It's Not About the Kids)

I never intended for this to be a blog about my family and children. I reread a chunk of the older posts only to discover I have created a Daddy Blog. I don't suppose there is anything wrong with that, but I always pictured my random musings would be more profound and too esoteric to include the mundane happenings of a Midwestern family by using a lot of run on sentences. I read about 6 or 7 blogs regularly and I must admit that I enjoy The Mommy Blog. She is irreverent, but you can tell she loves her kids. In case you have stumbled upon this her is a run down of the family. I have three children - Susan(10), Becky(6), and John(4). They amaze me each day by teaching me something I didn't know the day before. I like to think I am a good father, but I have the patience equivalent of a Peruvian gnat. Patience is probably the number one skill to be a parent and I was absent the day it was taught in kindergarten. My wife, Dawn, must have infinite patience because she puts up with all three of the kids and me. I tend to enjoy time with my kids one-on-one. John and I went camping this summer and we had a ball. He is probably the most laid back of the three. How many four year olds do you know that are willing to just sit and watch a campfire. He made up for it by getting up to go swimming at 6am, but even then he got dressed by himself. Susan and I have recently started playing tennis together. She is just good enough that we can hit the ball back and forth. I told her she should take lessons, but she just wants to play with me. I hope I don't instill too many bad habits. Becky just wants to be loved. She is the middle child and has embraced all the stereotypes associated with being such.

From the Ashes

I have once again been inspired to continue my musings. Let me explain what has been going on this summer...no time for that let me sum up. Susan broke her arm on the playground some time in June. She was quite the trooper. She had a sleepover scheduled that night with two of her friends. We all figured for morale that we should continue with the sleepover. So her friends went with her to the hospital and when they all got home they acted pretty much like normal tweenage girls. Of course one of them had a new bright orange cast and the other two kept talking about how broken her arm looked in the x-ray. Of course the broken arm put an end to Susan's running for the summer. She was told to rest for a few weeks so she could heal quickly, which she did. When the cast came off 6 weeks later we just never go back into the running. I lost the itch myself and haven't been in ages. I went a couple times over the summer, but I am definitely no longer marathon material. There were three camping trips. One with just John, once with the two girls and once with the whole family. There must have been more, but the rest all blurs together. This past weekend we took the training wheels off of Becky's bike. We took bike's on our last camping trip and she was the only one with training wheels so I think that was her impetus to finally ask. We went up and down the street several times with me holding on to the seat. Let me tell you she still needs work on the balance, but her speed is not a problem. She continually asked me if I was going to keep holding on and I told her yes each time. Then I let go. She went a glorious five yards before veering off into the neighbor's lawn, crashing to the ground and bursting into tears. Becky was really mad at me all the way back to our yard. I might have exaggerated a little when I told her how long she had been riding by herself, but when she looked at the sidewalk where she had ridden she stopped crying and got a smug look on her face. She was still done for the day, but it bodes well for next time.

On the work front we are going to relocating to a new office soon. I will finally get my own office again and we will have a real IT Server Room with temperature control and everything.