Thirty years ago, I was a wet-behind-the-ears young industrial engineer working at General Dynamics. The production line had been shut down a couple of times in the past few months and I was sent to investigate. I met with the division manager and he told me that they had run out of material X, a…
Ironically, just after posting that I was going to get back to blogging, and my first post back on how grateful I am, I got really sick, didn’t do anything, fell behind at work and so didn’t do any blogging while I caught up. So, here we are again and now I am really grateful…
It’s been a pleasure speaking to groups around North Dakota this past week, in part because I was asked a lot of intelligent questions, which really forced me to think about the answers. One young woman asked how I maintained a positive attitude when times were difficult, when my husband died, when there is a…
Years ago, a friend of mine was in college and had an old, beat up car that leaked oil on to the street where it was parked, which, for some reason annoyed her elderly neighbor. When we returned from a trip overseas competing for the U.S., there was a notice on her car – the…
The results are in! The chart below gladdens my little heart, somewhat. One thing to note is the fact that the 95% confidence interval is comfortably above zero. Another point is that it looks like a pretty normal distribution. What is it? It is the difference between pretest and post-test scores for 71 students at…
Over the weekend, I wrote a post showing how SAS can be used to make what appears to be a complex problem quite simple. First of all, am I just being dramatic? Seriously, how can having your variable lengths differ be a disaster? Simple. You are merging by a variable that is a unique user…
Some problems that seem really complex are quite simple when you look at them in the right way. Take this one, for example: My hypothesis is that a major problem in math achievement is persistence. Students just give up at the first sign of trouble. I have three different data sets with student data from the Spirit…
Many years ago, I was walking through the exhibits at the county fair with my late husband (he was alive then, that’s why he was able to walk with me) and I lamented, Look at those quilts. My grandmother makes quilts. Look at those crocheted tablecloths. My other grandmother crochets. Look at me – what do…
Funny how a random sight can jog a memory, like today when I was walking around the neighborhood, taking a break from the marathon push to get our newest game out the door. It was November 11, 1985. I was about eight months pregnant, and about two months into my doctoral program at the University…
Your mileage may vary, your life may vary, but there are a few lessons worth learning . As a public service, I have decided to share with you things I thought I knew but was initially wrong about. Your children don’t actually consider you a person until they are nearly 30 (if ever). Many years…