How Do You Spell That?

As some of you know, the wifey and I are looking at taking a long weekend away to the left coast. We have miles/tickets to burn on Frontier, and we want to use them while they are still in business. We've been looking at puttering around San Diego, but the wifey came up with a great idea of taking a quickie cruise around the Baja area. After looking around a bit, she found a decent cruise on Carnival (where we spent our last vacation).

Fast forward to this morning. After a quick visit to the gym, we get an enlightening call from "Carlos", our "Personal Vacation Coordinator" from Carnival. He was assigned to us after I had visited their website, and he had noticed that I was looking to visit "The Mexican Riviera". The problem is I didn't ask for information, or even log into their website. The only way "Carlos" and Carnival could have known it was me was from a cookie they had put on my computer when I logged into it months ago getting ready for our family cruise.

So be warned, if you go on Carnival for a cruise, be sure to clear your cookies if you ever decide to go back. Otherwise you can expect a nice phone call from Carlos wanting more money from you....

Posted by Brian at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We consistently hear about the woeful state of the US educational system. Inattentive parents, overworked teachers, and crowded schools constantly put the United States in the bottom of test scores. However, as a parent and a former college flunky I have to ask, what is the point of all of this?

I failed miserably in college. But my failures in college were not the work of any of the aforementioned complaints. I went to a decent school, was raised in a loving home, and was a consistent B student. At Northern Illinois, I slacked off and slept through $15,000 worth of tuition. This isn't rare, since over half of the freshman who start college never get "The Piece of Paper"®.

I decided to write this little diatribe after an impromptu conference with Nathan's teacher. Nathan is reading, counting to fifty, and is knows an astounding amount of facts and figures that as I parent I am proud to have. Except, according to the latest academic standards, he should have known that in utero. We're now finding out that my wonderful child is behind, and now in trouble of revisiting kindergarten. I've already had experience in holding a kid back, and have no problems doing it when it makes sense. Tonight, I'm still grasping for sense out of this matter. Apparently, as a parent, I'm supposed to push Nathan every waking moment to read, add, subtract, divide, conquer Poland, etc. But I have to ask where the fun is supposed to be squeezed in. The last thing I want to do is to turn a motivated Kindergardener into a unmotivated first grader.

Public Schools do a great job of churning out kids. Unfortunately, they do a poor job of customizing curriculum for each child's talents and needs. Over the past several years I have been a strong proponent for privatizing the education system and moving into a voucher-based economy. Our own brief experience with Emily and Hannah in a private school only seems to validate these beliefs.

In the end, we want a talented and motivated workforce to drive the American Economy. But, as a parent, a flunky, and MBA; why are we driving our kids into overachievement?

Posted by Brian at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)