A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’

The professor then produced two beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. ‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else—the small stuff. ‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked, ‘ the beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers with a friend.’

Also, as summer progresses, I will be putting more energy into this blog. Topics likely to appear: Calculus and general math info, iPhone app development and random stuff as it comes.

Cesare Emiliani has a few complaints about the Gregorian calendar used by much of the world. The split between B.C. and A.D., he says, confuses arithmetic computations because there is no zero year. While time moves in only one direction, year numbers grow larger going both forward and backward in time. What’s more, the calendar defines time relative to an event that holds little meaning for non-Christians, who make up more than half the world’s population, according to Emiliani, a geoscientist at the International Academy of Sciences in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

As a solution, he suggests pushing back the starting date of the calendar 10,000 years, making the current year 11,995. Such a revision would have the beginning of the calendar coincide with the start of the current geologic time period, the Holocene epoch. This time has important worldwide significance because it marks the end of the last ice age and the beginning of agriculture, says Emiliani, who organized a session of historians and scientists to discuss the idea.

The resetting requires only simple arithmetic: add 10,000 to all A.D. years and subtract all B.C. years from 10,001. After the turn of the century, people could adopt a shortcut by replacing the number 12,000 with an apostrophe. The year A.D. 2001 would then become ’1.

Has the time arrived for calendar reform?

“There are great advantages for certain people, but there are no advantages for others,” admits Emiliani, who has been pursuing the idea for several years.

the simplicity is you
is me

the additive property of life
push
embrace

Don’t make a move you’ll look ridiculous again
You share no interest but it’s easy to pretend
Don’t start the action it will turn against you soon
No one is going to follow and you’ll stand there like a fool

You left the people when the people left you out
Back in the suburbs you’re craving for the crowd
Only minded now with defeats of yesterday
The mantra spinning in your head will keep it raised

Give me a reason to stay constantly ignored
I don’t think I can
Give me an angle that I haven’t tried before
Not from where I stand
A guarantee for being honestly compaired
Could not be found
You want to live when life is achingly unfair
Stick around

-The Whitest Boy Alive

pressure indescribeable

We wear it, steap our tired limbs
Wade in it

Push (sometimes too softly)

Until we are free
With goldenoliledsuppleskin

Sunkissed and carefree

clinging to the rare gem, the priceless One

Enveloped in sweet fibers

Free

1. a state of rest or balance due to the equal action of opposing forces.
2. equal balance between any powers, influences, etc.; equality of effect.
3. mental or emotional balance; equanimity: The pressures of the situation caused her to lose her equilibrium.
4. Chemistry. the condition existing when a chemical reaction and its reverse reaction proceed at equal rates.

Innocent in form, free of tarnished surface.
Smooth and unscathed.

Blanket of warm blue
consumed in a single breath,
a solitary tick of the reverberating clock.

A pebble falling into infinity…

obscured from
the whole.

the dulcitude of your essence,

false closeness
plays the carrot

all this ought be

distal

to my heart