Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

The New York State Division of Budget is proposing an additional $109.4 million be held from SUNY funds on top of a $38.8 million budget cut that was already passed. This is an all out attack on public higher education in New York. At a time when we should be bolstering our education infrastructure, which helps both the current and future economy, instead the Governor is doing his best to kill public higher ed in the state.

NYSUT has a nice write up about it here. Included in the article are links to fax the governor to express your support of SUNY. The UUP press release is here. I hope that logic will prevail and these cuts will not happen.

Today Bella and Gilli and I went to see Ivan Ulz perform. He played at the Silver Creek Central School as part of the Month of the Young Child.

We missed about half of the show because I had trouble finding the place, but the part we did see was pretty good. The girls really enjoyed it. We picked up his CD and enjoyed listening to that as we were driving around today too.

Here’s a clip of him performing on YouTube:

Check out Tom Chapin’s Not On The Test

This is a great song about the ridiculousness of teaching to a test. How can someone possibly become encouraged or excited about learning if the only thing they are being told that matters is things on the test? Unfortunately I see it too often. People who seemingly have no ability to think something through or apply a piece of knowledge to a different situation, or even the same situation presented in a different way.

Today is Earth Day. This past weekend we had our Earth Day celebration. As part of the Town of Pomfret’s Bicentennial we planted some native trees on our property.

Here are some Earth Day resources:

Earth Day on Wikipedia
Earth Day Network
Earth Day US Government Portal

Of course my favorite look at what the government has done for the environment comes from cartoonist Daniel Wasserman:

Apparently Barack Obama recently avoided answering a question fielded to him while he was trying to eat some waffles. I can only imagine how frustrating that would be to have people constantly hounding you. It has slowed down some, but I have had people come up to me while I am trying to eat (among other places – a urinal? Who asks questions at a urinal?) and ask me computer questions. I always wonder if these people ask their doctors or mechanics random questions if they see them in public too? But on the other hand, he is running for President. No matter how frustrating it is, even if you just want to eat your waffles, it would be better to put on the happy face and answer the question. That being said, reporters and others should back off a little bit. Maybe he just wanted to eat some waffles and not hold a press conference?

So here’s my promise to you Mr. Obama. If I ever see you at a diner eating waffles, I’ll just let you enjoy them. Or maybe I’ll ask a random computer question…

Erin is 6 months old today!
It seems so hard to believe that 6 months have gone by already!

So, since Flickr added the ability to add short videos I had to try it out. Here’s one Karen took the other day in the backyard:

Gas is now $3.61.

see more funny graphs

Yesterday the cost of a gallon of regular gas was $3.49. This morning it was $3.51. This evening it was $3.55. As a point of reference, when we bought Karen’s minivan it cost just over $50 to fill the gas tank. Last night it cost just under $75. Yikes!