The place: The kitchen table of my youth, where I sometimes worked on my homework and where I had breakfast with my Daddy every morning while he read the paper.

The problem: Pre-algebra. Juan's father is one third as old as he was when Juan was born but twice as old as when Juan's sister was born. If Juan's father takes the 4:15 train to New Jersey, how old will Juan's first cousin, twice-removed, be when Juan's father turns 52?

Now my recollection of this word problem is not entirely accurate, as I have since consumed copious quantities of a chemical substance (ETOH) to purge this experience from my mind. You see, Juan's father kicked my father's ass. My Daddy is a mechanical engineer and as such was always a reliable homework helper when it came to math. He wouldn't do the problems for us, but he would gently outline a systematic approach to a given problem and guide my sister and me step by step until we arrived at the conclusion, which we would then check in the answer section in the back of the book. A foregone conclusion ... Until we met Juan's father, who was a "bonus" question and therefore, not included in the answer section in the back of the book.

Suffice it to say, we worked on that problem until well past my bed time, and even after I trundled off to sleep, my Daddy continued wrestling with Juan's father. When I came down for breakfast the next morning, my bleary-eyed father shared his solution (choose all that apply):
1) Juan's father was a $^%*&#*@ and there is no answer to this problem. They must have made an error in the printing of your textbook.
2) Juan's father was from Arkansas and his family tree is a wreath
3) You're going to have to get your math teacher to work this problem on the board for you - and copy down all the steps - because I cannot for the life of me figure this out.

The answer was what we'd call a "Duh! moment" - so simple, it's best left to the forgotten confines of history. And really, it doesn't matter now because Juan's father has been usurped by gold leaf. Behold - the word problem that took me six attempts before I finally looked in the back of the book for the answer and still had to work it backwards twice before I came to the correct conclusion:

(And I don't even have to look in the book to transcribe it because it's burned upon my cortex)

Gold is an element that can be expressed in extremely thin sheets called "gold leaf." The density of gold is 19.32 g/cm^3 (grams per cubic centimeter). If a 200 mg (milligram) sample of gold is formed into a sheet with a surface area of 2.4 feet x 1 foot, what is the thickness of the sheet in meters? Please express your answer using scientific notation.

The answer: In a subsequent post.

The conclusion: Juan's father can kiss my (and my Daddy's) asses. Welcome to chemistry!

**Oh, and I'll buy a drink for the person who comes up with the first correct answer. Still not sure if the comments are working, so send me an email just in case

As the rust (a chemical reaction) flakes off the gears of my mind, I retrieve snippets of chemistry from the long-locked closet of learning. Reviewing the Periodic Table of Elements last night, I remembered Ni (nickel), Au (gold), Fe (iron), Be (beryllium) right off the bat - and how often have you heard the word 'beryllium' since high school? But get this, since I took chemistry in high school 20 years ago, THEY'VE ADDED NEW ELEMENTS!!! There's like 117 of them now - I think we only had about 100 when I was in school.

When I was in school... I have already promised my chemistry lab partners as well as my recitation team that I will not say, "When I was in school..." Of my three lab partners, one was born the year I started college THE FIRST TIME - that would be 1989. I didn't fare too much better on recitation - five boys plus me - and three of them were born in 1990. Another is GARRETT THE INVISIBLE MAN who didn't show up for recitation (which, by the way, is forced study hall) and made our exercises all the more difficult. The other is Dave who wouldn't say how old he was until I said, "Dude, I was born in 1971 - bring it." He was born in 1980 - and is doing the same thing I'm doing: Going back for his pre-reqs so he can get into dental school.

So at least I'm not the only one, but I know I'm still the oldest one.

My head hurts from all this learning. Last night was my first without post-work class this week, and I took time off to watch the Obama speech. I awoke in a panic this morning, thinking I'd already forgotten the definition of matter (anything that has mass and takes up space) but then I realized that chemistry serves as an apt metaphor for my brain matter: Chemistry takes up space formerly occupied by food and wine pairings... Italian grammar... Shakespeare's sonnets... and maybe the infield fly rule.

Dude, this is gonna be so hard.

Yeah, I feel old - but then again, I'm 36 and taking freshman-level chemistry for science majors. At the bookstore today when I was standing in line to buy my 16.2 pounds worth of text book, lab manual, lab notebook, sexy protective lab goggles, student's guide and student's guide answer book, the kid behind me tapped me on the shoulder:

"Ma'am, is this a line to buy books or just T-shirts?"

"Well, I sure hope it's for books because I'm standing in the same line as you," I said. "And by the way, it's charming that you called me ma'am."

"Better than the alternative," he said. So much for respecting your elders.

Suffice it to say, you will hear this more than once from my fingertips during this semester: WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL (15 years ago), WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY OF THIS STUFF!!! THESE KIDS HAVE IT SO EASY!!!

I mean, seriously, Dr. Scruggs literally spelled out how to pass his class: He put the instructions in bullet points. Review 8-12 hours per week. Read a half-chapter ahead of each class. Read after class. Do the practice EXAM questions, and if we can't figure those out, take advantage of one of the THREE (3!?!) additional study periods where they review what he just went over in lecture. Download his notes off the Internet so I can preview before class, follow along during class and review after class. I don't even have to take notes - I just have to pay attention and read and show up and do the practice problems ($42 study guide) and check those against the practice SOLUTIONS (another $42 for the answer book- there's a nice little racket for you). I'm not going to say it will be easy, because truly, I could feel the rust grinding off the gears of my brains when he started talking about molecules and elements today, but still...

I may not be the brightest bulb in this stadium, but I'm certainly not the dimmest either. When he asked how many students were pre-med, about 60 percent of the hands went up... including mine. I will be interested to calculate the attrition - which is math that we salespeople do all the time.

Stay tuned... tomorrow we have chemistry lab and I'm wearing my goggles!

For the first seven years, I worked as a sportswriter, won some awards and had many adventures. There was a gap year when I got married and worked a soul-crushing stint at a hellhole I'd not care to recall. And for the past seven years, I've been in sales at Public Radio Partners, doing a job I love with people I adore, serving clients that are the coolest in the world, and helping fund my favorite nonprofit, public radio stations, KJZZ-NPR/Jazz and KBAQ-Classical.

But tomorrow - Monday, August 25, 2008 - at the ripe old age of 36, I'm going back to school - taking Chemistry 113, plus a lab, plus a recitation (?) at Arizona State University - so I can (hopefully) complete my science prerequisites in 2-3 years, take the MCAT (pass the MCAT), apply and get into to medical school.

Granted, I don't hate it as much as I hate the New England Hatriots and their coach Bill Belicheater, but I definitely hate LinkedIn more than I hate Harleys.

LinkedIn bills itself as the "busy person's" Facebook or MySpace - it's for people who do important things, like make money and broker deals. Mainly, it just annoys the hell out of me. Initially I signed up for it because I kept getting pinged by colleagues who used it, and I'd get emails saying, "Invitation to Connect on LinkedIn." So I accepted the first invitation... then the second... then the third and then I realized it wasn't so much an invitation to connect as it was an invitation to receive a ton of LinkedIn-generated, unsolicited email from people I already contact regularly - as well as a ton of unsolicited email from people I DON'T REALLY WANT TO TALK TO.

I got an "invitation to connect" from some guy who used to read my newspaper column in COLLEGE. I don't even know this guy - and even better, I DIDN'T even know this guy 15 years ago: IF I WASN'T YOUR FRIEND THEN, WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE YOUR FRIEND NOW??? Or is this some kind of trophy hunt: You want to list me as your "friend" so you can show all your other "friends" that your "friend" is the former Stacy Feducia - the chic that wrote the buttcrack column back at Texas A&M? Are you serious? Graduate, dude!

I hate LinkedIn because I'm a salesperson. I make unsolicited contacts through my job all the time, letting people know I have a solution for problems they didn't know they had. It's a tough enough job without the knowledge that these poor souls are now being "invited to connect" by every other jackass in the universe with a cool widget to sell. Thanks, assholes!

LinkedIn is supposed to make my life easier by helping me "Find People and Knowledge I Need to Help Me Achieve My Goals." Well here are my goals - Tell me, LinkedIn, how can you help?

There are winners. There are losers. The clock, the finish line, the knock-out punch, the yardstick, the checkered flag, the scorecard: These objective criteria determine who goes on, who goes home - or in the case of the Olympics this week: Who gets the gold and the glory (or the silver and salutations or the bronze and a nice trip to the pawn shop).

By my criteria, many of the most popular Olympic events fail to qualify as actual sports though they are, undoubtedly, athletic endeavors: Gymnastics, figure skating, synchronized swimming and its diabolical twin, synchronized diving, regular diving, dressage... I mean, really - DRESSAGE? ... and of course, rhythmic gymnastics. And even though it's not in the Olympics, it is still my favorite punching bag: Cheerleading = Not A Sport ... though I'm sure the cheerleading stage moms are doing their best to garner their pastime a place in the five-ringed medal count. (And I will likely hear from them, but guess what, Wanda Holloway, the comment function is conveniently broken!)

Sport / Not A Sport - This is all you need to know to be the judge: IF THE OUTCOME OF A CONTEST IS DEPENDENT ON WHETHER THE EAST GERMAN JUDGE IS HAVING HER PERIOD, THE CONTEST IS NOT A SPORT; IT'S A PAGEANT

If you're not pissed yet, keep reading... you will be (but you also might learn something if you pay attention).

Things you need to know before you think about entering, courtesy of my friend Mike Sochacki and my own surreal experience: EVERYONE is a good player. They play fast and aggressive and they know exactly what they’re doing, and they will eat you alive if given half the opportunity. Truly, I’m still not so sure what happened, but I think I am missing a few limbs. Here's me when I still had chips...

It's scary. Phil Helmuth was 2 tables over from me. I lost when my straight got beaten by a flush. Fortunately I finished in the top 2,000... Not that it's very good... but that millions of other players weren't here, and a total of 2,700 REALLY good players were. ... Mike & Phil finished shortly after me so I feel bad for them. And I console myself with "But at least I played." Now I'm going to eat a big steak...

Lucky boots... CHECK.
Clean underpants... CHECK.
Skanktacular sportswear... CHECK.
WSOP Registration... CHECK.
Table Assignment. Amazon Blue, No. 38, Seat 3... CHECK.

Holy SHIT this place is huge! Not only does it take 15 minutes to walk from the front desk to the convention center, the room is literally the size of a football field and lined with poker tables. No flash photography - learned that little tidbit a little too late, but they were nice enough about it. Lining the halls of the convention center are chair-massage stations, souvenir stations, food kiosks and information stands for "THE OFFICIAL VITAMIN SUPPLEMENT OF THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER." From the air quality surrounding many of the players, I thought that was Vitamin 2-C (Caffeine and Cigarettes). They have mini tournaments going on throughout the day, for those who haven't dropped enough coin already.

What have I gotten myself into? T-minus 2 hours, 11 minutes and counting.

I’ve entered the World Series of Poker, Event 27 – No Limit Hold’em. No Rebuys. No Add-ons. Yes, this is the same World Series you see on ESPN at all hours of the morning – but it’s not necessarily the same tournament. It’s not the $10,000 buy-in Main Event – if I had a spare $10,000 lying around, I could think of a lot more creative things to do with it than play cards… Then again, you could say the same thing about a spare $1,500, but at least I have a chance to win a coveted World Series bracelet, and I get to test my skills against the big boys.

Created by OnePlusYou -

This, from a woman who got her ass kicked by a 5th-grader in a poker game on Sunday night... but so did 25 other full-grown adult males (including his dad) and 2 more adult females... so I don't feel too bad, well, not really.

But next time, Alex, don't think you can scare me with that BB gun you're buying with your winnings. I have no moral compunction against using your 45-pound buddies as human shields or even grabbing some Brownies by the pigtails and deploying them as a shrieking set of tween-nunchucks.

It's ON, punk! It's ON!

BEHOLD: THE PAT AND STACY / KREWE OF HELIOS-ARIZONA GUMBO RECIPE, also known as, a handy way to drink beer and work out your shoulders at the same time...

It's where I spent my springtime... there, and hunched over my computer furiously emailing members of the Arizona state legislature, the editorial board of the Arizona Republic, other unsuspecting members of the press, and innocent bystanders like yourselves, who (used to) call themselves my friends.

I am (unofficially) a lobbyist... which means I have now worked in three of the most reviled jobs in the universe: Journalist, salesperson, lobbyist. If only I were to enroll in law school, then I could hit for the cycle!

SO DON'T SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED: YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS THE CURTAIN BEING PULLED BACK ON THE SAUSAGE-MAKING EXERCISE OF LAWMAKING. (And it's a long, blow-by-blow process) Make a drink, take a seat and continue... we're gonna change government for the better, and we're gonna do it TOGETHER!

Yes, it's real.
Yes, my Mom and Dad know.
No, they have not disowned me.
No, I'm not the first in my family to get a tattoo - that would be my Dad, and he did it when he turned 60.
Yes, it hurt.

Wanna hear the whole story? And see photos of what real pain looks like? We'll see you after the jump...

Krewe of Helios-Arizona Mardi Gras Parade and Party VI
Saturday, February 2, 2008 (Yes, we know it's the day before the Super Bowl and the Saturday of the FBR Open - it's not our fault those idiots can't consult a calendar and figure out when Mardi Gras is)
3 PM - 11 PM (or until Stacy gets tired and cranky and kicks everyone out!)
AND WHEN WE SAY 3 PM, WE AREN'T KIDDING. THE PARADE WILL START AT 3, SO TO SECURE YOUR PLACE IN LINE, ARRIVE EARLIER, like say, around 2:30 PM (But please, don't stay later)
Krewe of Helios-AZ World Headquarters
24952 N. 74th Place, Scottsdale AZ 85255
View Larger Map">(Handy Google Map)

For those of you who've been there before but whose memories have been wiped out by our fearsome Hurricanes... or for those of you who've never been there before, but want to act like you have: Please read the jump for handy traffic tips / alternate routes, parking advice, parade etiquette, dress codes, and arcane pieces of Mardi Gras trivia that might just save your life!