Doctor's Notes

2 of 2 has been sick a lot this year. He is in kindergarten in public school and has missed so many days (15) that we, his parents or guardians, were called in for a meeting this morning.

I was expecting the principal, his teacher, and maybe the attendance czar from the school district. Instead, we faced the principal, all five kindergarten teachers, two student teachers, and the school counselor. The room was pretty crowded! But there was no attendance czar.

The optimist in me says that these kinds of meetings are necessary because some parents treat school as optional, allowing their kids to skip school for all manner of reasons. Or maybe the parents don't realize that their kids aren't going to school. So these meetings may be educational for the parents (e.g. whose kids are skipping without their knowledge) or necessary to keep the kids from falling behind academically, eventually dropping out and facing a life of one dead end job after another until they end up in prison.

The pessimist in me says that since public school funding is tied to attendance, the schools are cracking down because it hits their bottom line. They're only in it for the money.

The realist in me says that it is a combination of the two. Like it or not, money is needed to keep the school operating and excessive absences impact the schools' ability to perform their job for the other kids — the ones who do come. And for most kids, and most grades, attendance is critical to success.

But 2 of 2 is not most kids and kindergarten is not most grades. The primary goals of kindergarten are to get kids ready for first grade by making sure they can count, know their letters, and are at "pre-reading" level (whatever that is). 2 of 2 could count to 100 before school started, and can do basic arithmetic already. He is reading at nearly the 2nd grade level now and was recommended by his teacher for PACE (the school district's gifted program), to which he was accepted.

So academically, 2 of 2 is not just doing well, he's doing great.

And he really has been sick a lot this year. What am I supposed to do? Send him to school when he's sick so he can get other kids sick? Doesn't that turn 1 absence into many? Wouldn't that cost the district more money?

Well, it turns out that we learned something. There is a magic thing called a "doctor's note" which seems to mollify the school about absences. We've been sending our kids to this school for nearly 4 years (1 of 2 is in 3rd grade now) and have never heard of doctor's notes. The pediatrician has never offered us one. The teachers have never asked for one. We send in the required note explaining each absence when the child returns and it has always been good enough.

Of course, there is still the issue of illness which doesn't result in a doctor's visit. A large number of doctor's visits end with the doctor saying that it's a viral thing and it will just have to run its course. So we don't take our kids to the doctor unless they have certain symptoms or don't seem to be able to shake it off.

But we'll get the doctor to go back through their files and fax a summary to the school of how many times they saw 2 of 2, and that should get the district off our back. And we'll ask for notes from now on. And maybe we'll enrich the doctor a bit more, just so that we'll have a note.

It's all a big game and you have to know the rules to succeed (or not fail). The problem is finding out the rules.

Olympic Ratings

The NBC brain-trust is probably wondering why TV ratings for the winter Olympics are so low. They'll probably blame Merkin Idol and peer-to-peer networks and global warming — the usual suspects. But I think it is bone-headed programming.

I'm not watching the winter Olympics because all I get on broadcast are highlights. Guess what, I got those several hours earlier on the internet. Why should I watch them again?

What would get me to tune in would be more varied coverage of the entire Olympic Games, or at least detailed coverage of the most popular sports.

So if they want to show figure skating, show us all of it. Yes, I'd like to see the skater from Equatorial Guinea. Merkins like to see crashes (Nascar ratings are pretty good aren't they?). And if you can't do that, how about getting up close and personal with the athletes you do feature? You know what I'm talking about: I'd like a little spice added to the coverage to keep it interesting. They can start by stopping that idiotic practice of changing the camera angle every time a figure skater is skating backwards toward the camera. You know what I'm talking about.

Then again, since I don't have paid TV I may be missing interesting coverage that is already there. But somehow I suspect that what you're really getting on cable's Olympic coverage is more idiotic banter between Katie and Jim and fawning interviews with Merkin athletes asking the same tired questions that fawning reporters have always asked. Yawn. I'm gonna switch back to FOX — I hear they're going to show a selection of the worst tryouts for Merkin Idol!

Windows is better?

One area that Linux geeks usually have to concede superiority to Windows is the handling of multimedia. Many of the codecs are closed source and some are unavailable to Linux users.

I recently got an old, used notebook which had a DVD player and decided to try to get it to play DVDs. It had been loaded with WinME and had the DVD software bundled with it. But everyone I talk to says that WinME is a poor OS and so I decided to install WinXP.

After several trips to the Windows Update site and many reboots (why, oh why, can't they just download all the updates I need in one swell foop and install them just once?) I confirmed that WinXP cannot play DVDs. The rescue disks for WinME were constructed in such a way that I could not install the DVD player software from them without reloading WinME. Full blown DVD player software costs about $50, but an article (at Microsoft, no less), claimed that I could buy the codecs unbundled for about $15 and use them with Windows Media Player. The software companies actually did this and were happy to take my $15.

I installed the codec as described and now Windows Media Player was able to recognize the DVD in the drive (telling me the title, etc.). But it couldn't play it. Every time I tried I got a message about an error and having to close ... so sorry. Internet searches for a solution (including the codec vendor's support page) proved futile, as did removing and reinstalling the software, downgrading Windows Media Player, reupgrading, rebooting -- all in various combinations.

Then, I decided to try RealPlayer. It hadn't worked before I bought the codec, but it was worth a shot now that I had a codec. It worked!

So I happily took my new old laptop on a business trip. But when I tried to play my DVD it didn't work. Same error as Windows Media Player was giving. WMP didn't work either. So I rebooted into Linux and decided to give it a try, not expecting success, but it doesn't hurt to try. Guess what? Linux (totem) played it just fine.

Scratch one more thing off the list for why I need to load Windows on my machines.

Assume The Position!

"When the flight attendant yells "brace", assume the crash position."

I'm not sure how many times that message came over the loud speaker, but the pilot must have finally told them to stop it because we never got the order.

I was flying into DFW airport on United flight 702 early Friday afternoon (February 10) when the pilot came on the intercom to explain why we were flying in circles rather than landing: our flaps wouldn't go down. This isn't exactly an emergency, and the pilot sounded quite calm and unconcerned. The flaps, when deployed, generate additional lift (and drag). The extra lift is useful when landing because it means that you can fly slower, requiring less braking and/or a shorter amount of runway.

So without flaps we were going to be going a bit faster at touchdown — 170 knots instead of 140. The biggest risk, according to the pilot, was that the brakes would overheat and catch on fire. In that case there was a small chance that we would need to evacuate the plane and so the flight attendants were going to be reviewing emergency exit procedures. In the meantime, we were circling to burn off excess fuel to lighten the load. Less weight means that you need less lift which means that you can, again, land at a lower speed.

Then the flight attendants took over and the tone of voice couldn't have been more different. They sounded TERRIFIED!

Aside #2500°F: Jet Blue was recently in the news with landing gear problems. Afterwards the passengers noted how good the flight attendants were in keeping them calm. I guess that's the difference between a top tier airline and a cut-rate one.

Aside #200USD: Another difference between the top tier airlines and the cut rate ones is that the cut rate airlines have a TV in the back of each seat so that you can watch your own (potential) disaster as it unfolds. Not that our situation rated national coverage. (And we didn't have TVs.)

We were told to take off our glasses and put them into the pouch in the seatback in front of us, along with any pens or other objects in shirt or jacket pockets. We were also instructed in the proper crash position and the flight attendants went row by row asking us to demonstrate the position and to ensure compliance with the instructions regarding glasses and such. They also reviewed exit door locations (row by row) and recruited helpers for the evacuation.

Then, of course, were the periodic and frantic sounding announcements to go into our crash positions when the flight attendants yelled "BRACE!" This all went on for between 20 and 30 minutes.

When the rubber hit the road, so to speak, it didn't seem to me like we were going particularly fast, though the braking seemed slightly lighter than normal. I suppose they were trying to avoid overheating the brakes. It was also one of the smoother landings I've experienced. The pilot did a good job.

We stopped at the end of the runway (or maybe we turned just off it) so that our brakes could be inspected by the airport fire fighters. They then followed us all the way to the terminal. Perhaps there was a chance that the brakes could still burst into flames with the additional strain of braking during taxiing and parking at the gate. To my knowledge, there was no fire.

And, thankfully, we never got the order to BRACE or to evacuate the plane.

Hilton On The Way Down

In the case of Paris, going down is nothing new. I guess it isn't for the hotel chain, either. Hilton used to be the standard for a really nice hotel in most of America. Several years ago Hilton's reputation started to decline, but they've been clawing their way back, or so I thought, more recently.

Well, it doesn't seem to have caught up to the one in Fremont, CA.

What sets one hotel apart from another is usually the small things. And this is really where this particular Hilton fails.

For example, when I inquired at the desk about internet access, they had to write the authentication directions manually. And they weren't unique to me (unless newark/newark just happened to be the login/password generated for me).

They also didn't have a local street map. Neither at the front desk nor at the bellman's stand. And neither the front desk worker nor the bellman spoke English as their native language and both had enough of an accent that they were hard to understand when they tried to give me directions verbally. And this at a hotel that caters to business travelers?

In the room there was a switch to turn on a light right at the front door, but the hallway from the front door to the main part of the room was long enough that it was hard to see around the room. And there wasn't another switch anywhere to turn on lights in the main room.

Similarly, there was no light for an area that included the closet and some odd shelf (which also had no plugs and was about 40" high and had no storage underneath it).

Nothing major. But not what I would have expected from a Hilton. I won't be back.

Airport Toilets

If you had asked me when I first got started in this thing (the blogosphere — a term I loath) what I would and would not write about, public toilets wouldn't have made either list because they are generally quite far from my general consciousness. Oh, I notice aspects of them from time to time, but almost always because they are either exceptionally grotesque or because they are exceptionally opulent (which, I suppose, is a form of grotesqueness in its own right).

Rarely, however, do I notice a new "why hasn't anyone ever thought of that before" kind of feature. But this week I came across what I consider to be one of those features and instantly knew I would be writing about it.

It is a ledge behind the toilet (or urinal) in a public bathroom. Why is this interesting? Because I need some place to put my umbrella / briefcase / drink / crack pipe — whatever I am carrying when I need to use the facilities.

I don't want to leave things on a "community" ledge like I find in some public restrooms. And why are those community ledges always near the door? Did the restroom thief lobby pay off the owner to make it easier to make their getaway? Or are they really poorly labeled baby changing stations?

Neither do I want to place things on the floor in the stall or even on the floor next to me when using a urinal. Both places are disgustingly filthy and anywhere beside or behind me at a urinal leaves my things rather exposed, so to speak. :-)

Aside #1: There's a topic for Dilbert™ or a TV comedy: a businessman is doing his business at the urinal with his computer bag on the floor beside him. A thief grabs the bag and runs, quickly followed by the businessman who fears the exposure of the data on his computer but forgets the other things which are now exposed.

Aside #2: Did you notice that the numbers on these tangential comments are not merely enumerative, but also punny in the bathroom context?

The solution is to have a ledge / shelf on the wall behind the toilet or urinal. In the toilet stall case the ledge should be relatively clean because it is (one hopes) safe from toilet overflows. It is also safe from people reaching under or over the door (to grab things from the floor or hook).

In the case of a ledge / shelf behind (over?) the urinal, again we are safe from overflow (and splash), and it will be harder for someone to reach over my shoulder to grab my things, thereby making them safer from theft.

I saw the toilet stall ledges in a restroom in the San Jose airport this week. They didn't have the urinal ledges. But I hope that both of these features become popular.