A Tessellation Featuring Regular Octagons, Regular Enneagons, Convex Octagons, Concave Octagons, Isosceles Triangles, and Isosceles Trapezoids
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A Library Dream
I just woke up from an afternoon nap, and was having a strange dream. It was the beginning of Summer, and I was working on a second master’s degree at UALR — and working at the UALR Ottenheimer Library again, where I worked in real life from 1988 to 1992, as an undergraduate. It was my first day back in the job, and I was getting there at about 12:45, with my shift starting at 1:00 pm. I was also bringing a fancy pot for a pepper plant. Upon arrival, I put all my stuff away, said hello to Tony (my boss there, and a friend), looked at the schedule, and saw, to my dismay, that I was supposed to be there from 7:00 am to noon. I wasn’t early — I was very late! There was nothing left to do but apologize to Tony, which I did. At that point, I woke up.
A Tessellation Featuring Dodecagrams
This tessellation may be viewed in two different ways.
The first one is to see it as consisting of regular {12/5} dodecagrams, in orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet; along with rhombi in red; and equilateral triangles in magenta.
The second way is to view it as made of violet, regular dodecagons; kites, of four different sizes and shapes, in blue, green, yellow, and orange; red rhombi; and equilateral, magenta triangles.
A Polyhedron Derived From the Rhombicosidodecahedron
To make this polyhedron, I started with the rhombicosidodecahedron, then applied the “morph duals by tilting to rectify” function in Stella 4d: Polyhedron Navigator — twice. If you’d like to try this program for yourself, there is a free trial download at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.
Three Different Views of the Third Stellation of the Rhombic Dodecahedron
This is the thrid stellation of the rhombic dodecahedron. Its facelets are 24 rhombi and 24 “chevron” hexagons. Here’s another view, colored by individual face, with parallel faces having the same color.
Finally, here’s one in “rainbow color mode.”
I made these images using Stella 4d: Polyhedron Navigator, which you can try for free at http://www.software3d.com/Stella.php.
A Polyhedron Derived From the Great Icosahedron
To make this using Stella 4d (available here), I applied the “morph duals by expansion” function to the great icosahedron.
Deadname Trans Kids, or Lose Your Jobs, Arkansas Teachers! Here’s a Legal Way to Push Back.
A new law in Arkansas is going to force teachers to “deadname” their trans students when school starts next month, unless we have parental consent to use their new, preferred name. To say I’m angry about this would be an understatement. I’m caught between doing the right thing for the students I serve, and staying out of trouble because of extremist anti-trans laws the Arkansas Legislature passed just a few weeks ago. This is not a comfortable situation.
However, there is a way we teachers can legally show our support for our trans kids: by putting the stuffed shark Blåhaj (pronounced “blaw-high”), a new trans icon, on display in our classrooms. It marks our classrooms as safe places for trans students. For more detail regarding this soft, plushy, stuffed shark, simply follow this link: https://www.newsweek.com/how-ikea-shark-became-trans-icon-1753400?fbclid=IwAR3HSIw2l6fgV-zjkvuLsBkjClva_ACuZkPY4x3xcmLCPLJBLXzarC9XA9o.
My 1987 Visit to the Golden Gate Bridge
(Photo credit: CNN.)
After my freshman year of college, in 1985-86, I dropped out of college (temporarily, as it turned out), and went hitchhiking around the Western U.S. during the next school year. (Important disclaimer: this is not a recommended mode of travel!) One of the highlights of these journeys was my visit to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Having no car, I walked across this famous bridge, starting from the San Francisco side. It is an awesome landmark, with an incredible view. I stopped half-way across, and sat there on the bridge’s walkway for maybe half an hour, watching the waves in San Francisco Bay, as well as looking over the bridge at the Pacific Ocean. After sitting for that time, enjoying the view, I got up, and resumed my walk north, across the bridge to Marin County.
Months later, after returning home to Arkansas, I ran into statistics like these I just looked up, using Google: there were 31 suicides in 1976 from people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, 24 in 1980, and so on. I wondered: how exactly did they know? Do they just count bodies that wash up on the shore, or is there a guy with a yellow legal pad and a pencil, in a small office at the base of the bridge, getting paid by the City and County of San Francisco to watch for, and count, jumpers? And, if there is such a guy, what was he doing when I sat in the middle of the bridge in 1987 for half an hour? Was he watching me with binoculars? Was he saying to himself, perhaps out loud, “I wish that jerk up there in the black t-shirt would make up his mind, already! Jump, or get off the bridge! I’m late for my lunch break, AND I have to go to the bathroom!”
At no point have I ever been suicidal, but I still laugh thinking about that hypothetical guy with the yellow legal pad. Dark humor is, in my opinion, the best kind.
I was awarded an AVID badge yesterday, which certifies that I am a teacher who has received AVID training. Here’s the badge:
This training was quite valuable, and more information about the AVID way of teaching can be found at www.avid.org. AVID stands for “Advancement Via Individual Determination.” Most of the team from my school flew both ways, but my wife (also a teacher) and I drove there and back from central Arkansas. Thanks are owed to Elton John, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Amanda Palmer, NPR, and the Beatles for providing most of the soundtrack for the trip, which was around nine hours each way.
Logically, schools are in one of two situations: they either have started AVID training (which I just completed, in San Antonio, Texas) for the faculty, or they haven’t. I’ve received local training in it for about four years, and have heard a lot about it, but it didn’t congeal in my mind as a coherent approach to teaching until we attended this regional-level training event in San Antonio. Now that I’ve fully bought into it, I next need to work on, in my head, a thoughtful examination of the five elements of the WICOR strategies for implementing instruction which are at the core of AVID. This will provide me with a firm foundation from which to navigate being part of an AVID school in the year that starts next month. The letters in WICOR correspond to the foundational skills of Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, and Reading. I’ll be adding to this foundation with a lot of mathematics and science, of course . . . because that’s what I do.
I’m looking forward to the next school year, which starts in just under one month.
If you haven’t heard of AVID and WICOR, and you’re involved in education, I recommend that your school becomes an AVID school as well. How? Just follow the link above to get started. You won’t regret it.
The 24K Gold Burger
This is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen on a restaurant menu . . . on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas, at a place called The Sugar Factory. No one in our party ordered it, and I’m glad — due not just to the $150 price tag, but also because this burger contains real gold leaf, and gold is not safe to ingest. The total amount of gold on the burger would be less than a gram, since gold leaf is extremely thin, but it could be a hazard to people who alreadly have heavy metals, such as lead, thallium, or mercury, in their bodies. Heavy metals are not meant to be eaten, so I had a turkey burger, instead.
A much better place to eat on the Riverwalk is Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub — tasty food, live music, and much more reasonable prices.
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