Author: Mark Myers

I am a husband of one, father of four daughters, a dreamer, a builder, a believer, and most enjoyably a writer. In 2015, I became a reluctant Childhood Cancer Advocate as we lost our youngest daughter Kylie to the disease. Kylie taught me to steal joy from even the worst of circumstances and I will always be on the lookout for happiness among the thorns of life. Join me for a generous helping of laughter and tears.

Multiplication by Subtraction

.Reading time 7 minutes.

No one in our family is a math whiz – we’re all literature folk with one black-sheep biologist mixed in. Quite frankly, I think the average student is taught way too much mathematics in school. If you don’t plan on becoming an engineer, physicist, or statistician, do you really need to have advanced calculus or trigonometry? I’m sure most would disagree, but I wonder if we aren’t taught too much high level math and not enough basic life skills. How did my girls graduate high school with honors yet have never been taught how to balance a checkbook, write a resume, or fill out basic government paperwork?

mathematics-1509559_1280I’m not saying I can’t do math. I can function on a very basic level and I helped the kids with homework until they got to about the eighth grade. That’s where I went rusty and chewed pencils down to nubs before blaming teachers for their new math and its crazy calculation methods. Give me Markmatics, which is a math theorem based on very rudimentary understanding, a calculator, and Google.

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Divorcing My Friends

.Reading time 4 minutes.

My family has always loved going to the zoo. When the kids were young, we would break up long drives by leaving early, routing to a zoo somewhere in the midpoint of the trip, and then wearing them out watching animals so they would sleep for the remainder of the drive. It always seemed to work. The only problem with this practice was that our trips were usually in the summer and the afternoon car always had a rather pungent odor after we toddled around in the sun.

There were trips when we took more pictures and videos at the amusement stops than we actually did when we arrived at our destination because the kids love animals so much. One often sees odd behavior and sometimes a dalliance or two that must be explained to an inquisitive child. Of course, I relished these opportunities and gave it my creative best. From me they learned the finer points of turtle wrestling and why an elephant can have two trunks.

Once in a while, a golden moment happens and you notice that your child is sitting in front of something that is fairly comical. SNAP – picture that! Read More