Michelle & John

It's that time of the year again

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Blog Week!

I guarantee a new blog entry every day the remainder of this week.

Well, this work week at least.

Today's topic: funny quotes.

"Re vera, potas bene."
"Perspecite potestatem caesi."

Give a man a beer, and he'll waste an hour.
Give a man a 6 pack, and he'll waste a day.
Teach him to brew, and he'll waste a lifetime.

Math rocks!

So, I came across a math story today. Sounds somewhat urban-legendish, but I thought it was cool (and if someone can show it's true, that'd be even cooler).

Story is 'below the fold.'

Mathematics can even be a matter of life or death. During the Russian revolution, the mathematical physicist Igor Tamm was seized by anti-Communist vigilantes at a village near Odessa where he had gone to barter for food. They suspected he was an anti-Ukrainian communist agitator and dragged him off to their leader.

Asked what he did for a living he said that he was a mathematician. The skeptical gang-leader began to finger the bullets and grenades slung around his neck. "All right", he said, "calculate the error when the Taylor series approximation of a function is truncated after n terms. Do this and you will go free; fail and you will be shot". Tamm slowly calculated the answer in the dust with his quivering finger. When he had finished the bandit cast his eye over the answer and waved him on his way.

Tamm won the 1958 Nobel prize for Physics but he never did discover the identity of the unusual bandit leader. But he found a sure way to concentrate his students' minds on the practical importance of Mathematics!

I always say our life is boring

Yes, our life is boring. That hasn't stopped us from buying a house. Michelle is also now pregnant with our second child. Katherine has named him/her 'abooga.'

Michelle has determined that going to my 10th High School reunion is too expensive, so if anyone reads this from my class who is comming and wants to hang out that weekend, let me know.

Woo-hoo! A Post!

You Have a Melancholic Temperament



Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything.
You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life.
You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you.


Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace.
You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life.
Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times.


At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you.
You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others.
You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult.

What Temperment Are You?