I agree that whether the teacher is competent in his math skills is the most important issue. I do not, however, think that that should be the only valid issue. In my mind, for an educator, regardless of subject taught, to send home a note abusing the language arts as badly as that note does sends a message that English simply doesn't matter anymore. "Dumbing down" is completely acceptable and even encouraged. (I'd better stop there - I just went into a rant that belongs on TOF - not here.) I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it yet, but I agree strongly with Suzy that doing nothing is giving silent approval. I'm very bad at confrontations (which is why #2 DS [the one Jan referred to] is now living with his father), but I might be able to manage Meldy's "draft" line. I really appreciate the input, keep it coming! Thanks! BTW - on the topic of "dumbing down," does any one else go nuts every time someone says "bird flu" instead of "avian flu?"

The first thing I want to do is adjust the figures for the different numbers of days in each billing cycle. That one day difference is important. The easiest way I believe is to divide the number of therms used by the number of days to give an average therms per day figure. Using your numbers for December 2006: 119 therms / 31 days = 3.8 therms per day Now to make this relevant to the average temperature that month, I would divide this derived figure by the average temperature to get an average therms per day per degree average temperature. 3.8 therms per day / 28F = 0.14 therms per day per degree F Doing the same calculations for December 2007 gives me the figure 0.28 therms per day per degree F. This method should give you a rough comparison, but it's not ideal in some ways. I don't like using averages, they can be heavily skewed over wide ranges. Also, what we are comparing is your gas consumption against the average temperature. Your heating does not however heat that way, it raises the temperature in your house to whatever the thermostat is set at above that temperature, which means we're missing a more useful number from our calculations. For example, when it was on average 16F, and your thermostat is set at 70F, your heating had to raise the temperature in the house on average by 54F. This number has a direct relationship to how much work your central heating did, and so would be a better way to compare the numbers. If I used the assumed figure of 70F for the thermostat, I get the numbers: December 2006: 0.09 therms per degree F your house temperature is raised. December 2007: 0.08 therms per degree F your house temperature is raised. If however your thermostat was reduced to 65F during December 2007, the figure would become 0.09 therms per degree your house temperature is raised. As you can see, the amount of work performed by your central heating is very important to these figures and could turn them around entirely. Unfortunately, if your house is anything like ours, the thermostat setting changes several times a day. Traditional mercury thermostats are also exceptionally inaccurate. Some by 5F or more, which is perhaps why some people report that they only heat their house to 64F! We might also have to factor in other appliances that use gas in your house? To really be sure if there is a statistical difference we would have to collect all the data you have for your gas usage, the weather and any other data you have and perform some type of statistical test on it, which would give us a probability of the difference in gas consumption being by chance. It's kind of extreme, I certainly haven't bothered to statistical test any of my own bills yet, but it would give you as close to an accurate answer as possible. Anyway, I hope this highlights the difficulty we have deriving useful figures for energy use outside controlled environments. As the variables increase and the accuracy of the figures we do have are questioned, attempts to turn them in to something useful become more difficult.

"When you sit down to do the actual closing do yourself a favor and double check any and all math done. Do NOT for one second believe because you are dealing with pros that they don't make mistakes." Good point! When we bought the house before this one, the builders included costs for some upgrades that weren't done, and mispriced several others. Good thing I had my notes with me! The folks at the title company tried to smooth things over and say we didn't have time to recalculate everything and regenerate the paperwork. But when I said we'd need to reschedule then and got up to leave, they suddenly got faster computers... And when we bought this house, all the paperwork was in my name and the name of my then-5 year old son instead of my husband. (Hubby has a name that's common for kids and rare in adults; Sonny has a name that's common in adults and much less so in kids.) They too tried to explain that it would take too long -- until it became clear we would NOT sign the faulty paperwork. Again, 30 minutes or so to fix. (Of course, they filed the wrong version, then tried to charge me to fix it...)

tye: I gotta tell you something. Judging from your inexplicable resistance to do something as simple as confirming your calculations with actual data (put out a few cans and measure the water), I can imagine that this next bit of advice may also go unheeded. On the other hand, you did come here for advice so it is possible you will listen to some of it. Here it is: Never, never, never, ever, ever, never, ever, ever, never...ever (that's a bunch of "never ever's") attach poisons to your home's drinking (potable) water supply. I know the alternatives are more cumbersome, but please do not fall victim to the convenience of this "fertigation" system. I don't know your background, but as a chemical engineer, I worked for 10 years in one of the largest plastics production plants in the world. Part of my job was designing process improvements which involved a lot of piping and valve considerations. Later, as a unit manager, I had to understand and help improve safety issues, including potable water considerations. So I believe I have something of an "expert" or at least well informed opinion on the subject. Sometimes improvements are only made after an accident. For instance, it is not enough to throw the breaker on a piece of equipment before repairing it. Time has proven that somebody will come by and turn on the breaker, killing or injuring somebody else. So a lock and tag is attached to the breaker, and is logged into a book. As the years pass, general principles, or "do's and dont's", are developed. One of the greatest "do's" is too keep everything connected to potable water piping completely separate from any process piping. This keeps chemicals where they belong and clean water where it belongs. This same principal exists in the home. Just simply rule out the idea that you are going to connect any kind of chemical to your drinking water supply. Now, before you give me all the reasons why it is OK, let me try a couple of things out on you: 1. If a backflow or check valve is so foolproof, why does your town require two of them inline? 2. Think about this "thought" experiment: First, let's tap into your plumbing 6 inches upstream of your first back flow valve and put a tee and a sample valve there so we can sample the water. Then, hook up a bottle of cyanide, enough to kill 1000 people to your fertigation system and let it run. Flush the line as you said you've been doing. Don't use the water for 24 hours (ie, let your plumbing sit idle for a day) and then sample the water from the new tap. How many people do you have in your family? Let's say 4. Pour a glass for each and line them up at your kitchen table. One for the wife, the kids, and maybe a little for the dog. Tell them what you did. How many of them are going to drink the water? Would you bet your family's life that you've considered everything that could go wrong? Do this same experiment every day for a year. Nothing could go wrong ever, right? One check valve isn't perfect so the town requires two. Two check valves are perfect but one isn't? Do two check valves permit you to add chemicals/essentially poison to your potable water system? Call the town on that one. But you aren't using cyanide. OK, then how much pesticide is OK for your kids to drink, maybe even it's just a very little bit on a rare occasion? There's only one way to prevent unintended pregnancy that works 100% of the time, and that is abstinence. 3. Not to be overly morbid, but the largest plastics plant in the world was down the road and we had the second largest. The other plant was doing some routine maintenance, something they had done maybe 1000 times over many years without a problem. On this particular morning in October, 1989, as I was giving a tour to a visitor from our parent company, we looked to the west to see a wall of flames probably 200 feet high. It rose up and then slowly subsided. What had happened is that the 1001'th time they did the same procedure, it backfired. 22 people died at that moment and we then had the largest facility in the world. That one was mostly gone. It was national news that day and I recall calling my parents across the country to tell them, "It wasn't me!" So maybe mixing chemicals in with your drinking water works today and tomorrow, but maybe not three years from now when something isn't quite right in your system and you don't realize it. Again, I'm sure you can come up with a bunch of reasons to justify doing this. It sounds like you've already had arguments over it in the past. I'm suggesting that you put all that brain power towards finding an acceptable alternative. Maybe a 4 gallon battery powered sprayer? Do you have a rider mower where you could tow some kind of spray rig? Lastly, if you won't listen to me, listen to the chemical manufacturers. The Tenacity label says, first, "It is a violation to use this product in a manner inconsistent with labeling" and then later says, "Do not apply through any type of irrigation system." It seems they have learned some general principals, too, and recommend against doing what you are doing. Thanks for reading and considering the above.