I gotta lotta presents for my b-day on the 15th. Tons of nice notes, some clothes, a hand-painted cereal bowl, (Hey, I like cereal for dinner) but most surprising of all was that my brother and his wife brought twin girls into this world at 7:09 and 7:10 p.m. respectively.

They weren’t due for another two weeks but hey, when it’s time it’s time, right? So my birthday is now their birthday. Just SO cool.

To tell you the truth, I don’t really like hospitals. (Who does?) Except for the maternity ward. The energy inside that wing is always unique. New dads holding their babies as if they are more fragile than Venetian glass. Third-time dads, who have their babies in one arm and a blackberry in the other, texting and rocking all at the same time. Seeing my new nieces was really a spectacular feeling.

And I already made plans for the three of us. VEGAS! Their 21st birthday will be my 65th birthday. Tell me that doesn’t sound like a VEGAS trip waiting to happen.

As an educator, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the people we are trying to serve are other people’s miracles. I’d love to think that the budget nonsense, the red state/blue state shenanigans, the bickering over petty power plays would be halted so that the education of the kids would be exalted… however, that’s probably just the fumes of a bit too little sleep and a bit too much of the good maternity ward vibes running through my brain.

But with each new baby comes new hope, right? And I just got a double-dose.

Since ya’ll know how much I love data-driven assessment, I decided to uncork a wee bit of Super Bowl data and show you why I deserve one of those high-fallutin’ ETS jobs, the kind that pays over six-figures if you are selected to work in the hallowed halls of this “non-profit” institution.

Stand back and watch I sew the seeds of Bubble Test Brilliance while using nothing but our Holy Day of pizza, chicken wings and potato chips to make our schoolchildren squeal.

(Cause if they don’t squeal, it’s not a good test question, is it?)

–4,000 tons of popcorn were estimated to have been eaten yesterday. If one would have stringed/strung/strunged all that popcorn together, the ring would circle the earth 5 1/2 times. According to this information, what is the earth’s radius? (Ya feelin’ me, ETS? Ya feelin’ me?)

–15,000 tons of chips were eaten. If an elephant weighs 2 3/4 tons and a textbook weighs 1/62,476 of a ton, how many textbooks would you need to stack up in order to equal the amount of potato chips our nation ate yesterday?

Please express you answer in terms of elephants.

–8 millions pounds of guacamole were consumed on Super Bowl Sunday which ranks second to Cinco de Mayo. How many English Language Learners does a school need to demonize in order to create enough guacamole to sustain us through 3 Cinco de Mayos in a Leap Year?

Helpful ETS hint we’ll offer to make sure all test questions are not culturally biased: Cinco de Mayo occurs on May 5th — except during a Leap Year when it occurs on, well… May 5th.

–Each year we, in America, eat 3 billion pizzas as a nation. During the Super Bowl 350 slices of pizza are being consumed each second over the course of a 12 hour day. If 1/11 of those pizzas are pepperoni and 1/14 are veggie, who was driving the pizza delivery car when it took them a freakin’ hour and a half to deliver Paulie and his drunk friends a cold pie?

Come on ETS, I am lofting softballs to ya right here. Think of the bubble tests that could be created from this American phenomenon!

Am I hired? Am I hired?

One last FYI… Did you know that Indianapolis public schools took Super Bowl Monday off? Yep, they shut down. Burned a snow day. And why? Cause last time the Colts went to the Super Bowl on the Monday which followed the game, 64% of the kids came down with what was affectionately named the “Blue Flu”… but their parents miraculously healed them all by Tuesday when attendance returned to normal.

So this year, IPS took no chances and called off school before the game even kicked off.

As the holiday approaches, I wanted to pass on a favorite family recipe of mine… Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies!

Make sure you follow the directions precisely for similar results. (And laughs. This is just too funny!)

Jose Cuervo Christmas Cookies

1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Jose Cuervo Tequila

Cherry Mistmas !