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This morning, my wife and I had the displeasure of hearing a school administrator show some disrespect for Science. I admit that we are pretty biased towards STEM: I majored in Computer Science and my wife majored in biochemistry and teaches Physics. But, even in consideration of this, I was alarmed by this person's comment that Science could take somewhat of a back seat to Mathematics and English at the elementary school level. In my opinion, English language skills are vitally important. If you don't understand language, it makes it pretty darn difficult to communicate. And, in today's world, it pays to know a good bit of Math. At the same time, Science is quite complementary to both of these subjects and brings along a few good tidbits of its own. Science is a perfect application of mathematics and language skills because doing it properly requires one to weave together both domains. One needs to use math to analyze the data and present it (e.g., charts and graphs) a

One Saturday afternoon several years ago, I sat at the bar of The Library Ale House in Santa Monica, CA with a good friend of mine. We were sipping our pints and chatting about a whole range of topics. After a while, I started talking smack -- definitely par for the course for a couple of guys gathered at a pub. My friend listened to my babbling for some time and when I paused, he exclaimed, "Hey, look at those two old guys!" Before I'd even fully realized what he said, I turned to see what he was talking about. Surprisingly, I found myself looking into the mirror behind the bar at our reflections. Damn, who is that old guy? Before I had a kid, I never really thought too much about getting older. Other than the annual teasing from friends about being one step closer to the grave, time just trudged along. After the kid arrived, however, I felt that I could hardly stop thinking about my age and, more specifically, that I was quickly running out of time. The stress of