A commentary on America as a whole.

This post is going to be long and convoluted, and twisting, and probably with lots of tangential stuff to go along with it, but you don't have to know Calculus to be able to understand it on the surface level. In the end, it is me complaining about a problem I had today. Not an earth shattering issue or anything like that, but still it affected me. It will end up costing me money that I didn't know I was going to be spending today when I woke up. This post is Just Like Calculus itself, a long and messy way to talk about an outcome in Math, Except this is a long and messy way to talk about one little thing that happened to me towards the end of the day. Much like they use Calculus to figure out how Commercial airliners flying into one hundred plus story buildings causes them to collapse, or why a heat shield on a space shuttle needs to stay on the actual shuttle itself, This post is about that. It is a a commentary on America, both good and bad, but more importantly it is a commentary on Miami Hurricane Football, Gas prices in America, and the overall ingenuity of overcoming obstacles. You will certainly be able to understand the words, and then the sentences, and even the paragraphs, but in the end I don't know if it ties together or not, just like Calculus is math, but not math that normal people use. This post is a bunch of letters and sentences that probably doesn't make any sense either, except maybe to me.

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Because I opened this post with a metaphor about Calculus and confusion, I have A tangential thought about me and calculus. Which is also a true story. A story I have told to some people before, so if you heard it from my mouth, now you can read it in my blog.

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I am a College Graduate. I have a Degree in Business Management. Part of the requirements to get that degree was to pass Calculus. I went to an accredited University in America. I earned a Bachelors in Business Management, in which one of the requirements was to get at least A "C" in Calculus, and I did that.

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At no time in my life, including now, but more importantly then, when I earned that "C", have I ever understood Calculus. Also, I did not Cheat to get that "C" in Calculus. I passed Calculus because I knew that I had to, in order to reach my goal of earning a College Degree in Business Management, and calculus was just some bullshit that I had to jump through to get it. This is something I am proud of and speaks to the American way itself. (Bill pats himself on the back)

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Here is how I did it. First I had to take an uncredited remedial Algebra course in order to get into Algebra 2, which I did, and then in Algebra 2, and following that, Geometry and all that other math stuff, they gave me college credits.

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I got "C's" but I sort of understood large portions of algebra and normal math and stuff, or at least some of it. I can actually do some algebra to this day. I was Just like a student is supposed to be. Get a class, listen to the professors, do the homework, figure it out blah blah blah. After all that, I had finally qualified myself to take Calculus, which, as I said before, I wasn't doing because I gave a shit, but because it was a requirement.

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I took that class, and then just before the deadline to drop it, and not have it reflect on my grades, I dumped that stupid thing and went skiing most of the rest of that semester on the Fridays. (Calculus met Mon,Tues, Thurs and Fridays, all my other classes were Mon thru Thurs, it just made better sense to have three day weekends which is another reason Calculus sucked.) Good for me, because I was failing it miserably, even though I went to every class and tried to do the homework and stuff. I was failing it when I dropped it. Then the next semester I took it again, and again failing it just before the deadline, I dropped it. The following semester, I took it again, and you can probably see the pattern. I dropped it again. (I can ski narrow ass double black diamonds with moguls though, not many Florida boys can do that and I thank Calculus class for that ability of mine.)

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Then on the fourth time I took the class, I had an A going into the drop deadline and I did NOT drop it. I had that "A" because I kept all my notes from all the other times, and maybe some of it absorbed into my skin or something. I studied the answers, and even though the questions weren't necessarily the same, I had been through it enough, that the tests I had taken up until the drop deadline were similar enough. I knew more about what the answers were then the actual math underlying it, that I ended up having that "A", but I didn't know how the hell it worked at all.

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So for the last half of that semester I was like Jimmy Johnson winning his third Nextel Cup, I just had to ride out the lead, finish the second semester tests, and not wreck the ride or fail to finish. I could make "f"s , They just couldn't be really bad "F's". Jimmy Johnson just had to come in 36th or better at Homestead to win his third Cup. Basically he had to not wreck, and I had to have "good "f"s'", they had to be the kind of "f"s that are almost "d"s, They had to be the kind of "f"'s' from a made for T.V. after school special. "f"s' that yes,,,,, they are street thugs, but, you know, good hearted street thugs, and I would do it. I hired a tutor, and I studied, and I paid attention and I made the Best "f"s I knew how, and in the end, I got a "C" and that is how I passed Calculus without understanding any of it. Also the Tutor I hired, she was hot, but nothing ever happened, other then doing Math at the Library. That's my Calculus story.

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But then today I saw this:
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That is a true Gas Price in America. a buckninetyfiveandninetenths. look, I did well in college in my Economics classes and understand supply and demand and capitalism in general, but when I saw this today I was shocked enough that I took the time to get the camera out and take a picture of it, then I siphoned out all the $2. 27 a gallon gas that I already had in my car just so I could have some of this nectar of the Middle East. ....Okay, I didn't really do that part, but I had used up all the $2.27 stuff in the millions of miles I drove today, and after I filled my tank with this buckninetyfiveandninetenths stuff, I swear to goodness my car had some more swagger. Kind of like the University of Miami had, till they went in to see those Engineers from Georgia Tech tonight, every single one of those Rambling Wreck players probably clearly understand Calculus. They won't let you in to Georgia Tech without a clear understanding of Calculus, even if you can bench 490 and run a 4.3 forty. That's a damn Engineering school, and calculus evidently has something to do with engineering, and they beat down the Hurricanes tonight.

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I am betting No one on the Georgia Tech Football team can ski skinny ass double black diamond mogul infested mountains though, And Hurricane Football? That reminds me of Auburn Football. They are basically the same thing. Kind of lackluster, wondering who they are, except Miami Football has Palm trees and hot ass coeds and Auburn Football has toilet paper on oak trees. Other then that, same thing. Which brings me to this:

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After filling up my American made automobile with the Middle Eastern supplied gasoline, I went to the next job. Many of you know my job is as an Insurance Adjuster. I look at damaged property, and write estimates, interpret insurance policies, do a little tiny bit of Algebra but mostly the math I do is addition and subtraction with a little bit of multiplication. All stuff I am capable of. I use tools to do this, including a software estimating program, Calculators, Cameras, Measuring Lasers, My ladder, etc. Well today, After my car filled up on all its swagger, and then I drove it to the last home of the day thinking about the possibility of the University of Miami actually winning the ACC, while simultaneously thinking of a couple of women that I know, and the overall joy of another day almost done earning the mighty American dollar, I had a tragic thing happen. I fell off my ladder. The same ladder that you can read about over in my side bar as one of my favorite posts. It wasn't my fault though, It was the ladder. It broke. Somewhere some ladder Engineer knows how to ski really well, but he doesn't understand engineering and at the heart of Engineering he probably doesn't understand Calculus. Which, Is okay for me. Not so much for the people that engineer ladders. In the end the 32 cents a gallon that I saved from my normal gasoline consumption, times about the ten Gallons I bought? That savings is not going to get me a new ladder, and its not going to get The Hurricanes a shot at the ACC championship. Ultimately my broken super ladder not only makes me sad because its going to cost me about $300 bucks to replace it, but it makes me question Engineers as a whole. Those guys should have similar Stories to mine in passing English, or History, Psychology, Economics etc. But how can you make a ladder that is supposed to hold up to a 300 pound guy, and a little skinny 245 pound dude crushes it? (and to all you that dont know me, it is a SVELTE 245 with Mostly Muscle from my body building days and just a little tiny bit of a belly) --- Shame on all the engineers that are really good skiiers.