Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Welcome to Arizona...

As it happens, I'm headed to Phoenix this morning – and as I write this post, I'm sitting in Terminal 1 at San Diego's Lindbergh International Airport, waiting for my flight...

The Pharmacist's Monday Morning...

Via my mom:
Upon arriving home, a husband was met at the door by his sobbing wife. Tearfully she explained,

"It's the druggist. He insulted me terribly this morning on the phone. I had to call multiple times before he would even answer the phone."

Immediately, the husband drove downtown to confront the druggist and demand an apology.

Before he could say more than a word or two, the druggist told him,

"Now, just a minute, listen to my side of it. This morning the alarm failed to go off, so I was late getting up. I went without breakfast and hurried out to the car,

Just to realize that I'd locked the house with both house and car keys inside and had to break a window to get my keys.

"Then, driving a little too fast, I got a speeding ticket. Later, when I was about three blocks from the store, I had a flat tire."

"When I finally got to the store a bunch of people was waiting for me to open up.

I got the store opened and started waiting on these people, all the time the darn phone was ringing off the hook."

He continued, "Then I had to break a roll of nickels against the cash register drawer to make change, and they spilled all over the floor. I had to get down on my hands and knees to pick up the nickels and the phone was still ringing.

When I came up I cracked my head on the open cash drawer, which made me stagger back against a showcase with a bunch of perfume bottles on it. Half of them hit the floor and broke."

"Meanwhile, the phone is still ringing with no let up, and I finally got back to answer it.

It was your wife. She wanted to know how to use a rectal thermometer.

And believe me mister, as God as my witness, all I did was tell her."

Education: Cost vs. Benefit...

What's wrong with this picture?  In the past forty years, K12 spending per child has risen almost four times, while measures of achievement are virually unchanged.  That's not what I would call good value for my money. 

And I'm very skeptical of those measurements of achievement – I suspect they unfairly overstate the real situation...

Ulam Spiral of Primes...

Fascinating.  I'd never heard of this before...