Storm's a-brewin.

Yes I see you on your 1.5 horse power go-toy. Stealing space near the bike racks. Never signaling your turns. Driving a motor powered vehicle on the sidewalks and glaring down pedestrians as if they've done something wrong in just being in your way. You have multiplied, my old campus nemesis. A whole army of 105 pound, emo-listening, "ironic" t-shirt wearing, messy haired moped yuppies, cruising the main drag because you think you're saving the environment with your trendy piece of plastic death.
Are those paper thin plastic helmets supposed to be ironic too? Because they will be when you fall off that heap of plastic attached to a lawn mower motor and fracture your skull.
Do yourself a favor: buy a motorcycle and die with dignity or buy a bike a bike, learn to signal, and wear some real protection.
And the next time you take up two bike rack spaces, leaving me to chain my bike to the stairwell, and then unexpectedly swerve off the sidewalk right in front of where I am biking legally on the road, without signaling: don't expect your tires to be inflated when you come out. I'm just saying... pocket knives have a habit of tearing into scooter tires.
On my bike, I have faced down garbage trucks, dogs, bobcats, armadillos, and angry housewives of Highland Park in Hummers. You think I'm going to tolerate das moped nerds?

... oh yeah, I nearly ran into a family of bobcats crossing the road the other day. It was sweet. They were cute in a terrifyingly violent sorta way. God bless Midwestern college towns.

Adventures in Grading

Read on Intro to Microeconomics exams:

Q: How can the government improve market outcomes?
"By printing too much money."
"When they control consumer choices."
"When they support one company to narrow the market."
"Inflation can help, sometimes."
"Sometimes they can."
"When they force everyone to get health insurance." (huh?)

Q: What does it mean when Economists say 'rational people think on the margin'?
"That consumers are rational." (he actually tried to argue with me to get more points on this one)
"People make marginally optimal decisions."
"They pay attention to the margin of error."

Q: Why do economists make assumptions?
"To manipulate the markets in their favor."

Favorite attempt by a student to sway leniency in a grading issue:
"Why do I have to show my work? ****! It's not like we're in 2nd grade!"
I politely referred him to the professor for any other grade issues. Dropping the F-bomb in my face just instills compassion and understanding in all stressed TA's. I love it. And please accuse me of being too simplistic for the genius of a freshmen.

Second favorite attempt:
The guy who hasn't shown up to my discussion ever, then complains to me about his grade. Seeing as I hadn't seen him all semester, I referred him to the professor.

For the most part, I'm proud of my kids. They did very well on the test considering they had never seen this material before, and for the most part they all did well on everything we covered in the discussion. Bravo to all of them.

To the other two jokers: better luck next time.

Apologies to the Neighbors

This past weekend I proposed to the most beautiful, wonderful, and funny girl in the world. After standing in the street for a few minutes gasping and jumping up and down she finally said "yes."

Little known engagement fact:
the first people to hear the news, were the poor girls who live across from la Ardilla. They walked out of their house during the engagement. I don't think la Ardilla had any idea who they were, but that did not stop her from showing off the ring.

We'll get the ring resized soon, and she can show it off some more when she comes down on Thursday.

An Exciting Evening

Its Friday night. I've been doing math. I watched a great movie called Machuca (which I've been trying to see for two years since I missed the original showing with my "Cinema of the Southern Cone" way back in the day), albeit it was horribly depressing. Still great. Went for a walk to pick up some beer from the local store. Got lost on the way back. Came home. Played around on facebook in order to avoid going back to doing math studying. And now I'm blogging.
So... since I have no real ideas, I will follow in the vein of two great blogs before me (Things That Makes Jeff's Head Explode, and the indelible ginger scourge) : I will post the most interesting Google searches that led to my web page:

1) "Jorts." Yes. Jorts. Aside from the actual title of the blog, this is the biggest draw of blog viewers.
2) "Fear of Claymation." I'm not alone in my phobias.
3) "Skwiki." Who the heck is googling this?
4) "Which is worse nuts." This just sounds funny.
5) "Elk Violence." A classic post.
6) "289 ugly 333 chubby". Huh?
7) "mathematicians shrooms".
8) "Sean Connery singing beautiful morning".
9) "sore throat nuts".
10) "tevas jorts what are they". I think I've answered that question.
11) "when armadillos attack".
12) "why my anut don't like biking." Hope your anut gets better, buddy.

To take it further in a bit of reverse-stalker creepiness, I shall now post regions with the largest number of visitors. You know who you are (and so do I). Don't hide it.
1) 498 visits from Oklahoma.
2) 459 visits from Texas (13 cities in the Texas area. Nice.)
3) 295 visits from South Korea. (The Seoul Man must be bored).
4) 218 visits from Massachusetts (all during the school year too... hm).
5) 161 visits from Chihuahua (oddly enough in the summertime... hm...).
6) 35 visits from Colorado.
7) 35 visits from Singapore.
8) 7 visits from Germany.

Honorable Mention For Unknown Stalkers:
1) Mississippi: 114 visits. Who do I know in Mississippi?
2) Missouri: 271 visits. Again... who do I know in MO?
3) California: 26 visits.
4) New York: 17 visits.
5) Canada: 12 visits.
6) Chile: 11 visits.
7) UK: 6 visits.

And my most referred sources (God bless you for linking me):
1) Raoul the Destroyer's blog with 379 referrals.
2) Bugsy and Bobo with 369 referrals.
3) La Ardilla's insightful and mysteriously attractive blog with 250 referrals.
4) Lost in Asia with 182 referrals.
5) A Tulsa cop's dead blog with 45 referrals.
6) Torchness' flaming blog (in a strictly non homosexual way) 39 referrals.
7) Mothergoat.net with 38 referrals.
8) Filmmaker882's Eco-Theses-Are-Awesome-Blog with 36 referrals.
9) Jumping Jayhawks (Batman!) with 17 referrals.

Yes that's right. I know who visits my blog. And I've got the numbers to prove it. Let me wallow a bit more in my statistical nerdness.

Don't tempt me...

In the Microeconomics lecture I'm TA-ing for, the prof. brought up a recent article about water costs and ethanol in the WSJ. Needless to say, it's going to exacerbate the water shortage in KS, thanks to Nebraska over drawing for irrigation of extra corn stock. I believe my professor is tempting me to make an ethanol speech to my class... now this might violate the whole "Keeping your political views out of the classroom" issue... but if I present it to them in a reasonable and dispassionate form... kind of like the way I have before in this blog... they'll clearly see my rational logic. As opposed to my obsessive hammering of how bad of an idea this is.
Ah, but the plot thickens. One of my fellow TA's (but in another lecture) is the daughter of a Southeastern KS farmer, who is thinking of switching over to corn to take advantage of the boom recently (dissenting opinions in the office!). According to her there are already rumblings that expected corn prices will fall. Perhaps the price change won't be as sticky (slow to correct in the market, causing higher prices for consumers) as I've been worried about. But there are still plenty other issues with ethanol (water resources, costs, inefficient production).

The kiddos are doing great with the material. I've had a few discussion groups where I've had to stop and clarify a few things they really ought to know (slope, equation of a line, how to label axes, etc.), but they seem to not be making the same mistakes twice. At least, the ones that show up. No one has dropped officially yet, but half of my Thursday morning and Tuesday afternoon classes have not shown up this week. I look forward to seeing them after the first test as they try to complain about their grade.

In other news I nearly got run over by a big blue dump truck Wednesday morning, that ran a stop sign. I contacted the department of sanitation with the date and time of the incident, and my description (my favorite part is when the driver yelled at me, for him running the stop sign), and got a very nice response.
Here's some bedtime reading:

"Thanks for bringing this to my attention, -------.

We not only expect our drivers to come to a complete stop and be sure
the way is clear before proceeding into the intersection, but we also
have strong rules against yelling at citizens, no matter what the
situation.

I will present this to the supervisor over that area. It is likely he
can identify the driver at that location at that time. If so, he will
have a discussion with the driver covering appropriate rules of the
road, as well as appropriate behavior.

So-and-so
Solid Waste Division Manager"

But I've gotten used to the hills on the bike already. Much faster than I thought I would. Two of my office-mates and I are still getting up early every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to work out at the gym. The first exams are coming up. All in the same week. But the probability, and micro exams should be fine. The math exam will be the big one.

I miss the squirrel, but I'll bet she's having all sorts of fun with la familia. It's good to talk with her at night over instant message, but I'd rather have her here. We could get her a bike, and she could ride around the hills. I promise, no dump trucks will try to run her over. ;) The weather has gotten good for night-walks, and there are some fun outdoor activities in and around the town.
I've also been keeping the apartment relatively clean and cooking. :D
C'moooon... you know you don't want to go to Harvard for another year. Hehehe. I kid, I kid.