All good things...

I am delighted to announce the launch of www.stitz-zeager.com Withonly 5 sections to go on the manuscript (for the College Algebra book, that is!) I decided it was time to figure out how to distribute the source code. This site will eventually have a forum to accompany it and I am overwhelmed and excited about what the future holds! Thanks to all of you who have followed this blog. I will still post the occasional update here, but plan to transition all of it to the new site by Fall.

Another section down...

We're calling 8.4 done. My proudest moment this week has to be learning how to use the makecirc package to draw circuit diagrams. My dean gave us a couple of very nice examples and I took one of them and used it in the book. I am not only proud of the diagram, but the example in general. I had planned to finish the section with a follow-up to the rotation matrix example in 8.3 - but as I was writing it, I realized it would make a very good HW question, so I'm leaving it for that. Jeff's been editing the Conics chapter, and since I wrote that back in December 08, he's having all sorts of fun going through pretty archaic code. It's a testament to how much LaTeX we have learned these past six months! In the editing process, he's managed to fix the spacing issues and saved us a few pages here and there. Circles, Parabolas, and Ellipses (oh, my!) look great! The current version of the book can be found here.

8.3 is done!

The most recent version of the book is here. Chapter 6 is now fully edited and exercises are complete (thanks, Jeffy!) and I think they are swesome! I also finished the first draft of 8.3. This section reminded me a lot of 8.1 in that it took me quite a while to complete, but, in the end, I'm pretty proud of it. I have been pulling a lot of late nights writing until 1:30 or 2 AM. As a result, I'm pretty exhausted this week and am taking the night off - turning in at an "early" midnight - 12:30. (I think Conan does a nice job with The Tonight Show -what can I say!)

Faling behind schedule...

My dean has a saying: any progress is good progress. And while that's true, I'm still falling behind in Chapter 8. I did add/change stuff in 8.1 so I like it now and 8.2 has also been shipped off to Jeff. I'm hoping to take care of 8.3 today and will try and have a chunk of 8.4 done by Tuesday (which is when I had wanted to have all of Chapter 8 done.) The book will be done before Fall, which suppose is the "ultimate deadline" but I really wanted it done by July. The current incarnation of the book is here. Teachers and students alike may enjoy my mixture problem at the end of 8.1. It's the classic "make an acid solution" problem... with a twist!

And, as I continue to surf the nostalgia wave in an attempt to recenter myself, I have tracked down one of my favorite movie moments of all time here.

"Falkor, it's like the Nothing never was."

Awesome.