My House Just Got Painted

Looks decent, eh?

This Year, Don’t Complain That I Am Impossible To Buy For

Like many middle class men over 40,  (Aaaargh! I’m old.)  nearly everything I want that costs less than $50, I already have. This makes it tough to select a gift for me. Even Dana has trouble. My relatives often tell me (usually just after Christmas) that I am impossible to buy for. This after giving me a gift certificate or a some kind of funky electronic gadget that looked cool at the mall, but does not seem like such a good idea now.

So this year, in an effort to ease your purchasing decisions, and in a shameless attempt to get some cool stuff, I’ve filled out one of them amazon.com wish list thingees. Click here if you want to buy me something: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&type=wishlist&id=19WKD4EZAFGJ8

My Tractor Shed

I just framed in the roof of my tractor shed in this picture. You’ll notice that the shed is missing some tin on the roof.

It is also missing a tractor.

I hope to remedy both problems in afew weeks.

Dana’s 40th Birthday Party

My bride displaying all her birthday presents. Sunglasses, slippers, and a SNUGGIE!

First IPhone Post

This is the first post I’ve written from my IPhone.

Cabin Site

Lots of people have been asking us to post pictures of the cabin site. Sadly, we are only recently beginning to take many. Although we often scoff at  all the photo sharers on the intertubes, it seems a good way to view this kind of thing.  There are too many pictures to post here on the blog.

Try this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/davidbethancourt/CabinSite

Most of these were taken either just before or just after the bulldozer came and really leveled the site off well. We’ve been mainly clearing trees and sawing logs for the last month. We’ll be laying the foundation for the garage next week with any luck.

Bye Bye Baby

We sold More Cowbell a few days ago. Below is the final picture we took of the boat.

MoreCowbellFinalPicture

We just could not justify keeping the boat on the coast while we were living and working in Michigan. We’ll use the proceeds from the sale on building the log cabin. Or maybe a tractor. Haven’t decided yet.

The new owner seems very knowledgeble and has big plans for the boat. Bigger than our plans ever were. We wish him well.

Why Men Who Are Nearly 40 Should Not Take Up Mountain Biking

Take a look at what happened when I decided to take up mountain biking. Looks like the movie star career has hit yet another snag.

FacialScar

Apparently my bike handling skills are not what they once were. It’s like my mind remembers how to do it, but my body just won’t take action!

Oh. And this is the after picture. If you look closely, you can see the ten stitches that the ER tech used to patch up my face. The before picture was just too gruesome to publish. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Feel sorry for Dana. She has to be seen with me in public.

A Mathematician’s Lament

Ran into this the other day on the intertubes: A Mathematician’s Lament.

I’ll summarize the article if you don’t want to do the reading (the article is quite long.) Math is art. Math education is broken; mostly because we teach procedures and definitions in math class, not problem solving. To fix math education, we need good teachers who will let their students solve problems. Reciting multiplication tables is not problem solving. Remembering the definition of a whole number is not problem solving. Finding the least common multiple of two fractions is not problem solving. Those are definitions and procedures. Following instructions should be de-emphasized in favor of exploratory logic. Only then will math students enjoy math. Some kids will be really good at math. Other kids will struggle. That’s ok.

Math as art is an interesting discussion. Chess, in it’s abstract form is a big math problem. And good chess is definitely art. I can remember replaying some of Bobby Fisher’s chess games, and being in absolute awe of the logic of what he was accomplishing. That guy was like a force of nature. Too bad he went crazy.

And geometry always felt like the real math to me anyway.

And the rate equations in calculus.

Everything is a rate equation.

And Now For Something Completely Different

We spent April and most of May living on the boat in Charleston, South Carolina. We got a good deal at St John’s Yacht Harbor. Great city. Love the history. The people are cool. And they speak with a killer accent. We made a brief trip to Texas to touch base with some friends and family. Then saw friends in Atlanta and Baltimore. We were also able to meet up with several cruising friends while in Charleston.

While in Baltimore, we had a conversation with our old college roommate, Andrew. We were talking about building a log cabin in Michigan on land that has been in Dana’s family for generations. We purchased logs several years ago, but had done little else. Dana’s father gave us the “If you’re gonna do it, now would be a good time.” speech at least once. But we were a little scared to press the go button on the cabin. It will be tough to afford, even though we plan to do much of the work ourselves. Andrew asked us a tough question; “What are you waiting for?” We could not answer. Now was a good time. We’re jobless. Homeless. Hopeless. What better time than to move to Michigan and start building that cabin we’ve been dreaming about?

One week later we were in Houghton, MI, looking for jobs and rental houses. We’ve got a site picked out and we’ve begun clearing the land. We learned how to use a chainsaw. We drove a skidder. If you’re not from the deep woods, you might not know what a skidder is. Check out this picture.

The boat is up for sale. You can find the details here if you like. We will probably cruise again. Just not in the next few years. We want to get Sam through school before cruising again.