Personal: May 2005 Archive Page

Dear Card Reader (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Dear Card Reader,

Where are you?

I've been looking everywhere for you. You pick the most inopportune time to disappear, because I have a 1GB SD card to futz around with for the summer.

You weren't under the cushion of the comfy chair, though I did find 13 pens, one marker, one pencil, one lollipop, one bottlecap, and a small ear of corn.
(I inherited that chair from a former colleague who was retiring after some 30 years of teaching, so the chair actually accumulated less than one writing implement a year, which is reasonable. I can't explain the ear of corn.)

But still no card reader.

"Parents so far have not gotten the message that trampolines should not be used in the home environment," said James Linakis, a pediatric emergency physician at Rhode Island Hospital's Hasbro Children's Hospital. --Study: trampoline injuries have spiked (Washington Times |UPI)

Sigh. My next weekend project is to put together the backyard trampoline that my wife got on sale at K-Mart.

My wife is usually the one who is more conservative when it comes to the kids' health. I figure as long as that loud crash from the next room doesn't result in the spillage of blood, it's not worth worrying about.

But she had to talk me into getting the trampoline.

The World's Energy Problems Solved by My 7-year-old (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

For months now, my son has been requesting, for his bedtime stories, books about chemistry and energy. We just finished one on windmills.

These aren't kiddie picture books -- they are thin, but they are chapter books, packed with statistics and chemical equations. For a while, Peter was making up stories about Atom City, a place he invented where anthropomorphic molecules of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen run around sharing electrons and exchanging energy.

Here's what's on his mind lately.

Save Earth-made Energy Sources

Dictated by Peter Jerz (age seven)

Anybody know about those coal power plants or other fossil fuel burning stations, and all the people who know there is only so much the Earth can make? Well, if we run out, how can we get energy? So save some fossil fuels.

But here are two power stations that may be able to use energy that lasts until the end of time. Wind power plants, and water power plants (hydro-electric power or power stations that use water to turn their turbines). So on this weblog, you can find out how you can save some fossil fuels. And now, here are ways of doing it.

Close some coal power plants that may make pollution or get rid of some fossil fuels the Earth created.

Some furnaces could burn other things besides natural gas, perhaps use wood instead. (Maybe you could just use a few fans so you don't waste too much wood.) Since oil may last for only thirty-five years, close a lot of oil burning places. Also, natural gas may last for sixty years, so you can keep a few more natural gas burning plants open. Since coal can last for the next six hundred years, you can have a few power plants open, but make sure you can save it so it can last even longer.

And so now you've learned about what I am thinking of the Earth.

Perhaps you should think seriously like I do.

Goodbye, and see you on the next weblog or email.

Okay Daddy, that's about what I wanted for my weblog.

Have you saved it yet? Because I think I want to put one more thing.

By the way, my name is Peter Jerz. Bye bye.

You know Daddy, if you let [Humanities Division chair] John Spurlock see that, I bet you could earn another fifty dollars.

Stopping Pollution

The cons of using fossil fuels:

For one thing, fossil fuels could make pollution, and they could be rare. Another thing is, that you could run out of fossil fuels. Another thing is that mining some fossil fuels could be dangerous. And for another thing, pollution could destroy the environment. (In some movies, pollution can make monsters). Fossil fuels could be expensive to start a business with. Even though some states and countries may have lots of it, then it could run out if they keep burning it up for energy. Coal could last for the next six hundred years. Natural gas for the next sixty years. But there may be only oil for the next thirty-five. Natural gas and oil may not last for very much longer. Coal dust can be dangerous to lungs in mining. Another thing. Try to make safe energies, and non-pollutive ones, too.

Well I guess that's what I wanted to put down. Those are probably good reasons for someone so young, I guess, Daddy.

You can send it.

Tom Bosley Haunts Me (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

I'm laid up in bed, having gotten my usual end-of-semester cold a week and a half early. (Last time at least it had the courtesy to wait until a few hours after I submitted final grades to start hammering me into submission.)

It suddenly occurred to me, from out of nowhere, that despite what Tom Bosley told me at the beginning of each episode, I really don't care that Happy Days was filmed before a live studio audience. I don't care now, and I didn't care back then.

I did take a trip down memory lane, courtesy of The Greatest American Hero fan site.

Sigh. Sometimes I wish the dark secrets I hide from my students were less... lame.