Why you can't learn physics

I believe that, more so than most branches of science, people have problems with physics. I see it every time I tell people I have a degree in physics when they ooh and aah at my clearly superior intellect. For some reason, the world seems to believe that physics is Hard. I don't fully understand this, but while I was browsing at Barnes and Noble I found a book that demonstrates an interesting point.

A series of books are available at your local book store (unless you live in St. George where all book stores suck) titled "[Science] Demystified". I saw "Physics Demystified" as well as "Biology Demystified" and "Calculus Demystified" today. I fully support the idea that any of these topics can baffling. What concerned me, however, was something that was written on the cover of "Physics Demystified". It's one of those things like "474 full color images" or whatever they say to convince you that the book will be easy to understand and interesting. Their most important selling point that they wanted to get across to the world about their book was: "LOTS of illustrations to relate PHYSICS to the REAL WORLD".

And that, right there, is why people don't understand physics. Because they don't know what physics even is. It would be like making "Auto Repair Demystified" and claiming that it has "LOTS of illustrations to relate AUTO REPAIR to FIXING CARS". Physics is nothing more than a quantitative description of the real world. You don't need to relate it to the real world. It is the real world. Physics is about describing how things happen. You throw a ball up, it comes back down. (Unless you can throw it up at 11km/s.) Can anyone tell me how throwing a ball up relates to real life?

95% Doesn't Cut It

At work, sometimes we talk about "six sigma". This is a statistical term that is fairly easy to understand. Assuming that processes exhibit random variation through a normal Gaussian distribution, the standard deviation (represented by the Greek letter sigma) is basically a measure of how wide the variation in your process is. One standard deviation is about 70%. The standard deviation measures how far from the average you must extend boundaries to cover 70% of the product. If my process is good to 1-sigma, then 70% of my product will fall within the specified limits.

I read a bit of a six-sigma book which points out that for most processes, 70% isn't very good. If 70% of the rulers in your ruler factory come out 13" long, not 12", you won't be in business for long. Two-sigma get you up to 95%, and three-sigma is 99.7%. 99.7% sounds really good, but it turns out that for some things, it really isn't. If the electric company gives you power for 99.7% of the year, then you will go about 26 hours and 17 minutes of the year without power. If a burger joint finds a way to ensure that 99.7% of it's burgers are e. coli free, dozens of people can still get sick in a single day. "Six-sigma" in business generally means producing less than 3.4 defects per 1,000,000 products.

I bring all this up, because our newspaper delivery person needs to learn that 95% isn't cutting it. Yesterday we had no paper by 10am, so we had to call them and have one sent over. Today, we were missing parts of our paper. 3 or 4 times over the last year we've received the Tribune instead of the Desert News. About once a month we receive no paper at all. We're even on our second carrier. Growing up, I never really kept track of when the paper came or anything but I never remember it being an issue at all. Every day the paper was simply there, and I took it for granted.

So, if you get the paper, and your carrier does a good job, appreciate them, because you could live in St. George.

Creeque Alley

Last night one line sent Shannon and I on a music history adventure. Shannon knew exactly one line from a song: "John and Mitchy were were gettin' kinda itchy" and I new one line more: "Everyone's gettin' fat, except Mama Cass".

It turns out the song is Creeque Alley by the Mamas & the Papas and has a wealth of stories hidden in it's lyrics. We already knew that Papa John and Mama Michelle were married, but that was about it.

As I started reading the lyrics, I wasn't sure they were talking about anything interesting until I reached the line: Sebastian and Zal formed the Spoonful. And I thought, 'These people they're singing about in the song, could they be the ones who formed The Lovin' Spoonful? It turns out that the song is about John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky who were in a band called The Mugwumps along with Denny Doherty and Cass Elliot. It turns out I know who those people are! They're Mama Cass and Papa Doherty! So half of the Mamas & the Papas and half of the Lovin' Spoonful were in a band together.

The song also makes several references to McGuinn and McGuire. Roger McGuinn was in the Byrds and Barry McGuire was a solo folk rock singer. The Mamas and the Papas certainly knew the Byrds, because Mama Michelle had an affair with one of the Byrds members.

Eventually, we discovered www.creequealley.com which has a bunch more information. We thought it was interesting, at least. Hopefully this post makes some sense, as I've written it one sentence at a time over the entire day.

South of Timbuktu

Shannon, Alex and I were recently discussing Christmas songs about animals. Alex had just introduced us to "Dominick the Donkey"and of course there is "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and I guess "Christmas Don't be Late" might count [make sure to watch this video, as it's both informative and weird], because it is sung by chipmunks, at least. But some of you out there already know where I'm going with this. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to mention "Santa's Using Zebras Now". For those who don't know, this is a piece of piano sheet music that's been floating around the Blockburger home for decades now.

"Santa's Using Zebras Now" is about a kid in Africa that writes Santa a letter, but when Santa tries to go down there to give him presents, the reindeer revolt because it's too hot. (Apparently, until 1968 Santa just ignored much of the African continent.) So, Santa starts using zebras south of Timbuktu. Not surprisingly, neither Alex nor Shannon had heard of this song, so I set about googling it. As it turns out "Santa's Using Zebras Now" turns up only 17 hits on the whole internet. Maybe someone else does know the song! But no, they don't. The #1 hit on google turns out to be my cousin's blog. His last name isn't Blockburger, but he is from the Blockburger side of the family. But it's not even him that is writing about it, the reference to the song is found in a comment posted by "Cousin S" who is my sister. It turns out that the Blockburgers are the world's leading scholars on "Santa's Using Zebras Now". [And with any luck, this blog post will soon be the number 1 result on google.]

And now, for all you non-Blockburgers out there, I present perhaps the only audio copy of this song on the internet, brought to you by Mrs. Anderson's 2nd grade class: "Santa's Using Zebras Now".

Rebecca

Wombsly will never be named Rebecca. Why? Not because it's a bad name, but because the name 'Becky' makes Shannon think of broken eggs. Odder still, there's no reason for such an association, at least as far as Shannon can remember. Her only explanation is to say "Beck-ee. Beck-eee. Doesn't that make you think of broken eggs?"

Another one for the List

What do the following things have in common?

Peas, Refried Beans, Kiwi, Fish and Canned Chili.

Answer: I'm apparently allergic to all of them. Shannon made Chili-Mac for dinner last night. Mac-n-Cheese, a can of Chili and a can of corn. It's tasty. And it makes me ill. It wasn't the first time it had ever happened, but I'd never been quite 100% sure that I was feeling ill because of the food. As of last night, I am officially declaring Chili-Mac off limits, and I'm fairly certain that it's the chili. (Makes sense w/ the refried beans, too.)

As if my eating habits weren't weird enough without all this being forced upon me.

MWC Commentary

This post is a bit about the Mountain West Conference which we can all get behind, even Tyler and Sabrina.

First off, BYU is getting rather messed over with having to play a pretty sad UCLA team in the Las Vegas Bowl. I realize that UCLA beat BYU earlier in the year, but I think that anyone who has followed their seasons since that point would recognize that BYU has improved over the seasons whereas UCLA had the bottom fall out. It turns out that this year the #1 MWC team is simply better than the #5 Pac10 team. But wait . . .

Last year the #1 MWC team (BYU) was loads better than #5 Pac10 (Oregon) as they throttled them so badly that the commentators even quit paying attention to the game.

The year before that the #1 MWC team (TCU) was so good they didn't even go to the Las Vegas Bowl. (They went to the Liberty Bowl or something like that. I don't recall the results.)

The year before that the #1 MWC team (UofU) was so good that they went to the Fiesta Bowl and beat the pants off Pitt.

Let's face it, the #1 MWC team is simply better than #5 Pac10. Our conference needs something better. Note, that I am not arguing that the MWC is better than the Pac10. I firmly believe that it is not, but we are worthy of something better than what we're getting.

Switching topics slightly . . . I was looking at college football stats the other day and noticed that while BYU is statistically in the lead in the conference in many categories, we are 7th in pass defense. That's not so good. But then, I noticed that we are 41st nationally. Ahead of BYU in the conference we have Utah (15th nationally), New Mexico (22nd), UNLV (23rd), Colorado State (30th), Wyoming (31st), and TCU (34th). Apparently the general idea that the MWC (as the true present day embodiment of the WAC) is a conference where everyone gets together an throws for 400 yards and 5 TDs on each other is not true at all. Rose Bowl bound Illinois (77th) and #6 Missouri (100th) are the teams giving up the big passing numbers these days.

Fire of a single Furnace

It's officially furnace weather here in St. George. We turned ours on last night when we got back in town, and we've got it on here at work, too.

We had a good trip up to SLC for Thanksgiving. Kim's wedding went well, and I'm certain Shannon will go into details. But I'm glad to be back in St. George. We hadn't been in SLC more than 20 minutes and I already didn't like all the traffic. I guess I'm turning into a small town guy.

Don't worry, I'm not buying a truck.

Mass

I know I'm weird, so you don't need to bother commenting.

Our friends the Porters are moving to SLC in another week. (That's Laneah's blog off to the right.) After all the trouble we had rounding up boxes for our last move, we were somewhat reluctant to get rid of all of them when we got here, so we still have some kicking around our place, which we are now going to give to the Porters. I like it because it will be just a little less stuff cluttering up our place, though they were all tucked in the back of closets anyway.

But the weird thing is how I think about it. For some reason, I find it reassuring that the mass of our home is decreasing. Somehow, the lower mass is pleasing. I can't explain why. But I actually think about the places where the boxes will no longer be, about the decreased density of our home. It's as if the decreased gravitational field will allow me to rest easier.

(Of course, the boxes upstairs only served to lessen the gravitational field on me when I was down stairs. But you get the point.)

Fire of a Thousand Suns

Last night, I couldn't sleep. It was very odd, because I was laying in bed at 12:30 wishing I were asleep, while Shannon slumbered happily along side of me. Normally, we've completely reversed.

The other odd bit was that I was cold yesterday. Cold while watching TV downstairs, and cold even after I got under the covers. Lucky for me, these days I live with Shannon, who burns with the fire of a thousand suns. All night long, she was just flaming hot underneath the covers.

Apparently the term "one in the oven" is much more literal than I previously thought.

Guarantees

This past week, Coach Joe Glenn of the University of Wyoming guaranteed a victory over the University of Utah. By the end of the game Saturday, we had the Utes trying an onside kick with a 43 point lead, Glenn responding with a "one finger salute" and the Utes going for it on a 4th and 2 in the 4th quarter. The Utes ended up destroying Wyoming 50-0, leaving the Ute fans chanting "guarantee" at the Wyoming team. In my opinion, both coaches came away from the game with less respect than they had before.

My intent here is not to discuss the specifics of this game, though I don't doubt that someone will take over the comments to do just that. Instead, I ask the question: what's so bad about "guaranteeing" a victory?

Every time a coach or player "guarantees" a victory, the media gets all worked up, the students get all worked up, and suddenly, we have a pair of decent teams and coaches doing some pretty class-less things to each other. You'll note that I put "guarantee" in quotes because, let's face it, it doesn't do anything. When players don't guarantee a victory, does that mean they're not trying as hard?

What's wrong with saying "I'm confident that we're going to win?" Wins are usually guaranteed in important games where realistically either team could win. Usually one team is in particular need of a win after a rough couple of games, like Wyoming was. Teams can get away with saying "let's go win" or "go beat the Utes" (or any other team) or any number of other things, but the minute the word 'guarantee' comes out, suddenly everyone is offended and 'disrespected'. I just don't get it. The other team is trying to beat you any way they can, whether they use the magic g-word or not.

I suppose opposing coaches need to start finding innovative ways to say "well, even though it is possible that we could win, we choose to maintain low expectations for ourselves such that no discord can result from any claims we might choose to make about our chances at victory."

Sending 2

The fourth quarter of the BYU/TCU game on Thursday was a nice reinforcement to something I've been saying for some time. Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER, EVER, send only two guys after the quarter back. In TCU's second to last possession, BYU rushed 2 or 3 on every play, and TCU marched down the field in about 3 minutes to pull with a touchdown. I was afraid when TCU got the ball back with just a few minutes to play. But suddenly, Bronco and the rest of the BYU coaching staff turned their brains back on and send 4, 5 or even 6 players after the quarter back on every play. TCU moved about 10 yards before turning the ball over on downs.

Enough

Ok, I've decided that we're done with arguing with anonymous posters.

Back in January, I complained about people who confuse the words then and than. Months later, an anonymous commenter took exception to this and began checking my blog looking for grammatical errors I have made. Some of these comments can be seen here, here, here, and here. (There are others, but I don't want to track them all down.) More recently, anonymous was involved in this lengthy debate. It terminates with the revelation that the "Grammar Nazi" is retiring, but anonymous claims that some of the comments left, which are attributed to "Sha'qwantae" were not of his doing. So, even if Anonymous/Grammar Nazi has retired, Anonymous/Sha'qwantae is still commenting, as seen here, and seems to have spilled over to my sister's blog.

For the record, yes, I ranted about bad grammar even though I regularly make similar mistakes. I think all of us do things like this from time to time. We complain about someone who cut us off while driving, but fail to use our turn signals. Things like that. On some of the points recently raised (about the phrase "focus down" for instance) I still maintain that I am correct, and others have agreed with me. However, I now declare this debate to be finished. Shannon remarked the other day that anonymous has picked a fight he/she can't/won't win, because both myself and Suzanne will not give up on a debate, and will not admit defeat. We are quite stubborn. But I feel that lines have been crossed and the debate has started to turn somewhat nasty. It is time for the debate to end.

To this end, I will no longer be responding to any such comments left by anonymous. I ask others to likewise ignore such comments. Any subsequent argumentative comments from anonymous will be deleted. If that does not solve the problem, anonymous comments will be disallowed. If Anonymous/Grammar Nazi or Anonymous/Sha'qwantae would like to contact me personally, they should feel free to do so. I am fairly certain of the identity of one of them, and will discuss this with him when I see him next.

Now if only I could get people so interested to comment on the topics I pick.

Weekend Highlights

Shannon and I made the trip SLC this weekend to see my sister who was in town from Colorado, and to go to Shannon's sister's wedding shower. Some highlights:

• My 87-year-old grandmother explaining that she doesn't watch much TV because so many of the show are "crappy".
• Guitar Hero
• BYU football
• Chex Mix
• 36 mpg from our Civic
• Getting out of St. George for the first time in 3 months.
• Seeing my niece Lauren

1,260 billion billion billion Monkeys

My friend Mark will soon be taking the ethics portion of the Illinois State Bar Exam, in the form of 50 A-D multiple choice questions. To pass, he will need about 32 right. 32/50 on a multiple choice test! That's a 64%! That's a D! And that doesn't sound like too high a bar to set for the lawyers in the great state of Illinois.

Of course, what you are now wondering is this: what are the odds of just guessing your way to a passing score? It's pretty apparent that you have a pretty good chance of getting 12 or 13 correct. That would be 1/4. And your odds of getting 10 or more right is 83.6%. But it's a lot tougher to improve beyond those meager scores than you'd think. Your odds of getting 20 or more correct drop down to 1.4%. But still, that's about 1 in 72. Which means that in a room full of 72 monkeys, trained to take multiple choice tests, we would expect 1 monkey to get 20 or better. Or, if you could get a 20/50, you would be as smart as about 72 monkeys.

But we haven't answer the question yet of how many monkeys to pass the test. Well, the problem with the probabilities on things like this, is that no matter how much you think the bottom has fallen out on your odds, it keeps falling out even faster than before. Your odds of getting 25 right are only ~ 1 in 8,162. That's a lot of monkeys. Getting to 30 requires 6,100,000 monkeys. And to get those extra two measly questions, we would have to add another 142.5 million monkeys to our room. That's a lot of #2 pencils.

And to get a perfect score? You guessed it, you'd have to be as smart as 1,260 billion billion billion monkeys.

Where was the band?

I'm not sure why more teams don't run this play. It was good for a 61 yard touchdown. I counted 15 laterals during the play that finally ended 58 seconds after time had expired.

Wombsly Needs a Name

Wombsly Blockburger just isn't going to fly with Shannon. Neither (despite my many efforts) is Clark David Wilson Blockburger, Junior. So, there you go. I'm all out of ideas. That makes this your big chance to step up and offer any and all suggestions you might have. We've got another ultrasound slated for November 7th, so you've only got until then to offer names for both boys and girls. After that, we'll be focusing down our efforts. Also, for the moment we're trying to focus in on good names, so you can just keep winners such as "Vandaleesha" and "Bamp" to yourself.

Back-to-back

So, this story is from months ago, and no one will really care at all, but I want to post it anyway.

A while back, we were over at the Hunt's, and KC pulled out his baseball card collection. He's got thousands and thousands of baseball cards which were mostly collected back in the 90s. They're stored in the standard baseball card books and organized by year and card company. The cards are in plastic pages, and you put the cards in back to back, so the front side of one card is visible on one side of the page, and the front of another card is visible on the other side.

(As a side note, I never organized my cards that way. It was always alphabetical by team and alphabetical by last name within the team. I think it shows a somewhat different focus in the collecting. Anyway . . .)

As I was flipping through some of his older cards, I saw he had a Joe Torre card. (Recently deposed manager of the NY Yankees.) I was interested, so I pulled it out to look at it and check out Joe's stats from when he was a player. As I pulled it out, I found that Torre's card was back to back with Terry Francona! What are the odds! For those of you who's minds aren't reeling, Francona is currently the manager of the Red Sox! KC didn't even know this! Anyway, I found this coincidence fascinating. Undoubtedly, you will all feel differently.

Beware, SLC

I just thought I'd let everyone in SLC know that you can't expect any more good weather until spring. You see, the weather man has moved back down to St. George. So, until he heads back north, I'm officially living in the land of the good weather.

Changing History

Today we were looking up the biggest NFL comeback ever on wikipedia. In 1993, the Bills came back from a 35-3 deficit in the second half to win 41-38 in OT. Or so we thought. Upon checking wikipedia, we discovered that the Bills did kick a field goal in OT to take a 41-38 lead, but then the Oilers went back in time to the 4th quarter and and kicked a field goal to leave the game a 41-41 tie. It was true, because wikipedia said so.

But then, with my incredible power, I reached back into time and changed the outcome of the game, back to how it really was to begin with. But I feel special for having edited a wikipedia article.

Now I can go introduce a humorous error in another page and have a clear conscience about it . . .

Au Contraire, Mr. Herbstreit

I just watched a short bit by Kirk Herbstreit on Sportscenter, and would like to rebut his fallacious arguments.

First, Kirk was asked if an undefeated USF warrants playing in the "national championship" game. His response was essentially, "No, a one loss LSU or Oklahoma is more deserving." About 30 seconds later, he was asked if the rash of upsets in college football this year is further evidence of the need for a playoff. His response was, "No, the great thing about college football is that the regular season counts." (This is a common argument against a playoff.) He continued, saying, "If anything, the BCS needs a 'plus one' system."

Now for my rebuttal. First, the easy one. Herbstreit called for a 'plus one' system, where BCS teams 1 and 4 play, and teams 2 and 3 play, with the winners meeting in a championship game. How exactly is this not a playoff system? Granted, most people calling for a playoff system are looking for an 8 or 16 team playoff, but the 'plus one' system is a playoff system. To call it otherwise is stupid. But instead, people like Herbstreit say "We don't need a playoff" and then are basically muttering under their breath, "but we should have a 4 team playoff."

Point number 2 is this: Herbstreit directly contradicts himself with the statements about USF and the regular season. By indicating that USF cannot go to the "national championship" game, he is saying that their regular season doesn't matter one bit. According to him, there is absolutely nothing they can do about it. He is, in effect, saying "The regular season counts, but for some schools, it doesn't count, because even if they win, we won't let them be the best anyway."

The Count of Monte Cristo

I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. Seeing as how it's a "classic" and all, and that the movie was terrific, I figured I'd give it a try. I got a slightly abridged version, which cut it down to 550 pages or so. I'll assume that everyone has seen the movie, so you know the basic plot. Or, at least you think you do. In typical book to movie fashion, some things are trimmed out, and some things are changed all together, but, in non-typical book to movie fashion, they did an excellent job, and even after reading the book, I'm glad they made the movie the way they did. The book is roughly 1/3 Edmond Dantes, which is quite similar to the movie, except in some details regarding Edmond's "crime" and arrest. The 2/3 remaining are about the Count of Monte Cristo, and were quite different from what I expected. The first third moves very quickly, which is rather surprising for a book of this time. That changes in the latter 2/3 and strangely, the book isn't about the Count any more. Once he gets to Paris, the book becomes a high society bog of everyone visiting everyone else and servants calling for doctors and arranged marriages, and the Count is just one character of many.

Anyway, it's a good book. And remember, "We oughta file that under "Educational" too, oughten we?"

Journals

I was recently reading something published by the church talking about journal writing. It encouraged journal writers to focus on everyday events and good things, rather than simply listing all the bad things that happen in life. Not that bad things have to be avoided, but focusing on them will only serve to depress the writer and guarantee that no one will ever read the journal.

On a related note, Shannon isn't posting much, and I've sunk into another posting drought. Simply put, I don't want to write a daily report on Shannon feeling ill, and you don't want to read it. These days it's just a part of our lives.

I'll be playing the piano for a musical number in church on Sunday. These days I'm the choir pianist (because the old choir pianist is pregnant), and I'm the priesthood pianist (when the electric keyboard works), and I'm the emergency backup organist (because the organist is pregnant). 2 weeks ago, Shannon was not doing well, but played the prelude. Then, just before the meeting started, she stepped out, and I hopped on the organ and played the first two hymns. As I sat down, I told the bishopric that we were doing "tag-team organ". Shannon came back just before the second hymn and played the closing hymn.

Fall Colors

Being conference this weekend, I felt a natural desire to head for a canyon and look for fall colors. Two problems with this: first, we live in St. George where there are no majestic mountains and canyons a handful of miles away. Second, we live in St. George, where fall colors aren't around in early October.

But, we went for a cruise anyway. As far as canyons, we do have Snow Canyon near by, but it costs money (5 bucks to go once and 70 bucks for the year I think, which is ridiculous). We do live 45 minutes from Zion Canyon and 3 hours from the Grand Canyon, but those were a bit outside our intended driving range. So instead we went to Coral Canyon, which isn't so much a canyon as a large subdivision in Washington. But we were able to find a few trees, that if you looked closely, had a few hints of color.

- We have cylinders of liquid nitrogen here at work that are the brand name "dura-cyl". Cute.

- Bean counters are . . . so much fun to work with. I have to do a limited amount of bean counting here at work, and it's always a bit of a trial. It's not that bean counters are necessary or are deliberately difficult or something, it's that we speak such different languages. They view their bean counting as super important, while I don't. Deep down I know it is important, but I have such a hard time caring. Mostly, it's not too bad, once we've spent half an hour trying to figure out what the other person is even talking about.

- Yesterday I got to teach a Ph.D. from the U of U how to lock and unlock the front door here at work. Yes, I'll be using this for material for months to come.

More Wombsly

These things are piling up faster than I can scan them. So, here is the large-format picture we had taken Saturday night (it's like a 6"x8"). I'm leaving one smaller glossy from this morning for Shannon to post, and I'm just going to spare you the picture (yes, picture) of the heart beat, because there really isn't anything to look at. (It was 150bpm.)


I'm particularly grateful that they were nice enough to label the head, body and leg. My favorite part is that you can see little Wombsly's jaw bones.

Bike

My bike passed 300 miles today on the way to work, so now it's up to 309. The car is holding at 250 or something, I think. It's also getting colder every day. I've started wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, which is less ideal for the ride home, but still ok. Very soon I'm going to need gloves and then something to protect from the wind. My co-worker who lives just a few blocks away was going to ride in w/ me tomorrow, until his wife told him he can't w/o a helmet. (Those crazy wives.) He's been saying that he'd start riding his bike for a month or two now, and by the time he gets a helmet, it's going to be too cold do to it anymore. (I have no plans to go crazy and bike into work when it's only 40° in the mornings. 65° with a 20mph wind is plenty cold for me already!)

Gasoline

Yesterday, for the first time since about August 12th, I bought gasoline. Shannon hasn't purchased any either. I suppose the one loop hole that I am exploiting is that the new car came with a whole tank of gas. But, a month and a half w/o gasoline is pretty impressive. Shannon's car still has a bit in it, too.

The Big Bang Theory

Shannon and I watched the first episode of "The Big Bang Theory" on CBS the other night. We enjoyed it thoroughly. It's about a pair of guys who are both nerds and geeks, who happen to have a good looking girl move in across the hall, who is thoroughly non-nerd/geek. (She's a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory!) Mostly, the show is good for Leonard and Sheldon bantering back and forth about nerdy things. You should watch it! It's great. I'm thinking I need my own board where I can do QM with string theory doodles around the edges.

Bailey Cereal

This week, in my continuing effort to feed myself, I've returned to an old Brazilian favorite: Bailey Cereal. It's Brazilian in as much as it was invented in Brazil and it's ingredients are available in Brazil. It is not Brazilian in as much as it was invented by an American (Elder Bailey) and, to the best of my knowledge, no Brazilian has ever eaten it. Anyway, I'll provide the recipe.

1 cup oats (approximate) (The instant kind that require little to no cooking.)
2-3 heaping teaspoons chocolate milk mix. (You know, Nestle Quick, or reasonable facsimile.)
1 banana, sliced.
8-12 milk crackers. (for alternate, see below)
1 cup milk (approximate)

Directions: Put oats in a bowl (or, if you want to be more authentic to it's creation, in a pot, because there are no cereal bowls in Brazil). Add chocolate milk mix. Mix. Add banana slices, mixing to cover bananas with oats, to keep the slices from sticking together. Add milk, as much as is required for cereal-like consistency. Break up milk crackers with hands, or drop them into the bowl and smash them a few times with your spoon. Don't add the crackers before you're ready to eat, or they'll get too soggy.

Note: In America, there are no milk crackers. Remember, this is a foreign dish. Acceptable alternates include Nilla Wafers, or some plain cookies that Mother's makes which I am unable to identify more completely at this time. Anyway, they're more like cookies than crackers, and they're there to supply a little bit of crunch.

So that's what I've been eating lately. A kickback to my breakfasts in Brazil that I had every day for about a year.

Get the rabbit ears . . . .

As it turns out, I'm the father of something with a face, a body and a big brain! Not that it's a surprise on any one of those three. According to the doctor, Wombsly is 4.58cm from head to rump. That's a bit under 2 inches, for those of you who are metrically challenged. One perk to all our doctors visits, is that we get a lot more ultrasounds than most people. I'll leave the other picture for Shannon to put on her blog, the one where you can see that I'm also the father of something with limbs!

While on the topic, I'd like to say that ultrasounds seem to be a lot clearer than I remember them. Maybe ultrasound technology has gotten better over the years, so the pictures really are clearer. Or maybe with age, my ultrasound reading gene finally kicked in, so I can see what people were pointing at for all those years. Or maybe all the time I spent staring at electron microscope images improved my skill at finding something to look at in grainy black and white messes. You be the judge.

More football

This is another football post, but I'll bury it behind another post here in a few minutes.

Big Ten football (which I will call the Big 11 from here on out) is one of the better con-jobs out there. Somehow they've convinced the world that because they play each other competitively, they must all be good. I site OSU and Michigan being 2 of the top 3 teams in the nation after their game last year, and then getting clobbered in their bowl games. The top 10 teams from the Big 11 this year are OSU and Wisconsin. Look at their non-conference schedule. The Citadel? UNLV? Youngstown State? Akron? Michigan (whose problems this year have been well documented) beat Penn State in one of the most boring games ever. And Michigan State let Notre Dame score. Twice. But I guess that's what college football is all about. Play well for a decade or two, then find some other schools that were also good, and play each other in your own little club forever, while telling the rest of the world that you're still the best.

Football

Much to Shannon's disappointment, today was a Saturday in September and that means college football.

- BYU looked pretty decent today, for three main reasons. First, they were only -1 on turnovers. While that isn't great, it means you at least haven't killed yourself so badly that you stand no chance. (-2 per game coming in.) Second, 8 penalties for 65 yards. It's a bit sad that this is an improvement, but it was. (Averaging 10 flag for 83 yards) Third, it's AFA, so they didn't throw the ball 40 times. As long as we can play teams that won't throw deep repeatedly, we'll always stand a chance.

- Against Oregon St., AFA, and UNLV, the UofU scored 19 points. Total. Against UCLA (the "11th best" team in the country at the time) they put up 44. Stats haven't been updated with todays games yet, but based on those three outings, Utah would be tied for 118th in scoring offense with Florida International. They would be ahead of only San Jose State and Notre Dame.

- In a related topic, BYU has the inside track on the MWC championship right now, but really, there doesn't seem to be a single team that isn't capable of winning against anyone on a given night. The U can destroy UCLA and then get wiped out by MWC doormat UNLV. AFA handed both Utah and TCU losses, but lost to BYU. What are the odds of every single team ending 4-4 in conference?

Bridge to Terabithia

It's actually too bad this book isn't bad, because I could have made a really good "Bridge to Terriblithia" joke. However, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson is actually an excellent book. It's a Newbery Medal winner and deservedly so. It's a children's book, it's easy to read and it's only about 125 pages, so it's easy to sit down and plow through in a day or two, and well worth your time if you never have (like me).

I knew that they had made a movie of this recently, but didn't realize that there was also a made for TV version made back in 1985. With both of them, particularly the new movie, I find myself wondering how on earth they could have made the movie, and imagining that the movie wouldn't be nearly as good as the book. The book isn't really about Terabithia, or any imaginary CGI adventures.

Instead, it's just a story about a poor kid on the east coast, and a year of his life. It's not terribly grand, or important in the big scheme of things, but it's still a great story.

Sympathy weight

We made the big announcement on the blog a week ago or more, and then I haven't said a word about it since. Just the other day I was reading something in a church manual about journal writing and it encouraged us to focus on good things. Not that you can't mention bad things, but if you write them down, you'll just focus on those forever. So, why haven't I said anything about the pregnancy? Well, let's see if you can figure that out on your own.

In a semi-related note, lots of people gain sympathy weight when their wives are pregnant. Well, in a new form of that, I'm loosing sympathy weight! Shannon's body has decided to try to store all it's food outside the stomach, rather than inside, so in the last month she's lost 10+ pounds. To show my support, I've also dropped 3 or 4 pounds in the last month. It's probably a result of me being suddenly forced to cook for myself again.

Goin' Down

Here's a musical selection for you all. The sound isn't real great, but it's the best I could find on youtube. Pretty much everyone needs more Micky in their lives.

PIN weirdness

Shannon and I recently got new debit cards in the mail from the bank. All you have to do is call the number, and you're good to go. They even explicitly state that your PIN will not change (note: you shouldn't say "PIN Number" because that means "Personal Identification Number Number" which would be dumb.) That would have been great, had it been true. Instead, we activated our cards, and found that they didn't work. And it's not like the bank was going to send us a new PIN, because we weren't supposed to need one. So, that's fixed by going to the bank, complaining, and waiting a week before you can shop again.

Now for another interesting PIN note. About 2 years ago, we got new cards and with them new PINs. My PIN changed from a number that I had picked and could remember, to something randomly assigned that I never liked much. And so I spent 2 years wanting a new number, yet not bothering to spend the time at the bank to change it. To make matters worse, here I was getting a whole new PIN, so even my randomly assigned PIN, which I'd at least gotten used to, wasn't going to work anymore. Well, as it turns out, when my new PIN arrived, it was the old PIN! I don't know if it was done on purpose, or if I just got randomly lucky, but the bank changed my PIN back to the old one that I'd been missing for the last two years! What are the odds of that? Exactly 1 in 10,000. Unless they did it on purpose, then the odds were unity. (Unity means 1)

(Maybe some day I'll make a whole post on the difference between 1 and unity. Yeah, I know I said they were the same thing, but they're really not. Unity is actually more specific. I'd tell you more, but that would be ruining a possible future post!)

Biking vs Car Update

Last week I went to a doctors appointment with Shannon. That means I drove to work, drove back to the doctors, back to work and then back home. So that's 20+ miles of driving in one day. Enough to cancel out two and a half days of biking. Add in the Saturday errands and the car is catching up. As of this morning,

Car: 217 miles
Bike: 227 miles

I hope to get a good week in to build back the cushion.

Un-book review

I like to review books I've read. And I haven't done that for a while. So I'd like to review the book which is to blame. The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe by Roger Penrose.

Now, if you're like me, you're thinking that there's no conceivable way to write such a book, because anything that could possibly be considered a "complete guide to the laws of the universe" would have to be about 1,000 pages long. As it turns out, it's 1,136. Yes, one thousand one hundred thirty-six pages. And it's not light reading. So after about 200 pages, I had to give up, because it's boring. Nerd books that I like to read have a few inherent problems.

First, they all feel the need to start with a discussion of math, and to go back to the beginning of math. As a result, I've got at least half a dozen books that all start with the very same first two chapters. One is on Pythagoras and mathematical proof, the other is on Euclid.
The next chapter then catches us up on other important mathematicians, such as Euler (rhymes with 'boiler') and Gauss and Godel.

The second problem the nerd books have relates to the level of information. In physics, there are 4 levels of mastery of material, which directly correspond to physics course work. First, you read about it or hear about it. You've read it, so you feel like you know it. But you don't. Second, you work the problems. Certainly you know it now, because you've done the math! These two levels are reached by introductory classes, which could be taken in high school, or early on in college. But it turns out that you never really understand it just because you did the math. You don't really understand it until you derive it. Some of those derivations happen in the advanced undergraduate courses, while others wait for graduate school. Once you can derive something for yourself, you really feel like you've mastered it. But you haven't. Each of these three levels can be moved up one notch by the last step, which is teaching the previous step. Then you've really learned it. Teaching people to work the problems puts you on the same level (roughly) as doing the derivations. And teaching the derivations is something that is generally left to graduate students and then professors.

Anyway, back the to book. The problem with nerd books is that they're usually stuck at level 1: talking about it. Because no one wants to do homework for a book they're reading in their spare time. Except Roger Penrose doesn't know that. So he has homework problems in his book. So to really get everything out of his book, you'd have to read it at the kitchen table with pencil and paper in hand. And it turns out, I don't want to. I want to read a book at 11pm as I'm laying in bed.

So once I'd reached chapters about 'hypercomplex numbers' and 'calculus on manifolds' I knew I was done. Penrose is just going too deep for what I want, particularly considering he's still got 800 pages of stuff building on the hypercomplex numbers and the calculus on manifolds.

Late Anniversary

I'm still good about thinking of stuff to blog about, but I sometimes need more encouragement to actually do the blogging. Anyway, 9/11 was two days ago, but I just thought I'd point out that I've now been at my job for 1 whole year. It's pretty easy to remember my start date. Things are still good at work, and these days I've been here longer than more than half the company!

Car vs. Bike

An update for you on my continuing goal to ride my bike more than I drive my car.

Car: 136
Bike: 208

I also went over 15 hours of total bike riding time this morning on the way in.

The Mother and Father of All Excuses

I still haven't been posting much. But I'll stop giving excuses . . . right after this one. The picture below is about 3 weeks old, but I've put an arrow on the important part.


Shannon's constant emptying of her stomach (or "yacking" as last night's ER doctor says) has kept us pretty busy these days.

Mileage Plan

This morning as I was riding in to work, I had a marvelous plan for keep track of my biking vs. riding to work. My bike has about 160 miles on it. My car has about 60 miles on it. My new goal is to keep the bike mileage above the car mileage for as long as possible. Obviously, the first trip we make to SLC will shoot that idea out of the sky, so maybe once that becomes an issue I'll just account for that mileage separately. But, I figure it's a good little thing to track.

Still Bikin' It

I meant to blog about this anyway, and now that the question has been asked, I get to respond. Devoted reader Sabrina asks, "Do you get to take it to work?"

Well, Sabrina, I get to take it to work every day I want to, which thus far, has been zero. I'd either have to leave a new bike at home, or a new car, and thus far, I've chosen the car every time. (Two whole days!) I kinda like riding to work, even when I come in at 2pm. And I'm excited for September and October when the weather will be that much nicer. I'm working hard to get co-worker Jason to ride in with me, now that he only lives a few blocks away. It's 51 miles per week, and it doesn't make me quite as tired as when I started. Of course, it still makes me just as sweaty. In fact, my body will now let me ride faster and harder, which just gives me added ability to sweat. No co-workers have complained about it yet . . .

Excuses, Part II

I haven't been posting because . . . we've been doing some shopping.

Out with the old . . .
(A/C compressor fried, needs new compressor, belt, tires, etc.)

And in with the new:
(2007 Honda Civic, purchased new with 5 miles on it. 40 mpg, cruise control, AUX in jack in stereo, nothing falling off, full tank of gas.)

Bugatti

I've been meaning to post this for a while, and now I finally am. It's stolen from Larrie, but everyone should see it. My favorite line is: "This is Germany, there are procedures to go through. I like procedures."

Excuses

Well, no doubt, every one's hearts have grown fonder towards me and my blog in the last 10 days or so. Yes, I've been away. But, I've decided to plunge back in, and to motivate myself, I'm using an excuse theme. I'll tell you what I've been doing to keep me away from such an important task as blogging.

Excuse 1: Church
Yes, it's only one day a week, but what a day that is! Yesterday I went to PEC at 9, followed immediately by BYC at 10. I got to go home at about 10:30 and rest up for the afternoon. Pre-sacrament meeting choir practice was at 1 (we sang in sacrament meeting, I'm the pianist), followed by regular church from 1:30 to 4:30 and choir practice immediately afterward. A few minutes after 5 I dropped Shannon off at home and went to pick up my home teaching companion for our 5 o'clock appointment, to which we were only 10 minutes late. I was back home at about 5:40 or 5:45 with enough time to say 'hi' before heading out for the court of honor at 6. I was home a few minutes after 7. Heaven help me if I'm ever in the bishopric.

Ruby Follow-up

Well, 2 days ago in the mail I got a letter from the manager of the local Ruby Tuesday's. He apologized for the terrible service we received in a personally written letter, didn't make excuses and said that he hoped we might give them another chance. He mentioned that if we come in, we can ask for him personally and get another apology from him. Along with the letter, we got $30 in gift certificates. So, I guess we'll probably go give them another try, sometime. Though maybe we'll give them another month or two to think about what they've done.

Ruby Tuesday

For Shannon's birthday today we went out for lunch (I'm working evenings this week) and decided to go to the new Texas Roadhouse in town. But strangely, it's not open for lunch except for on the weekends. It opens at 4pm each afternoon, Monday through Friday. So, on the was back towards town, we decided to be adventurous and try out Ruby Tuesday. Neither of us had ever been. Neither of us will ever go again.

Upon entering, we waited about60 to 90 seconds wondering what we were supposed to do. No one was there, people were walking everywhere. Some people came in behind us and headed for the seating area. It couldn't be a seat-yourself restaurant, could it? Well, it turns out it's not, and eventually someone came and gave us a seat. If only we had left then.

We sat and looked through the menu. We decided what we wanted, which we never do quickly. After about 5 minutes, some people were seated at the table next to us. About 5 minutes later their order was taken. About 5 minutes later, I got the attention of someone cleaning a nearby table and asked if we could be helped. She went and told a waitress, who seemed unimpressed. The bus-girl came back and took our drink orders and got those for us and soon a waitress came to take our real orders. The food arrived in a reasonable time. Mine was a BBQ, bacon cheeseburger. Shannon ordered a turkey guacamole burger without lettuce or pickles. She got a turkey guacamole burger with lettuce and pickles.

We ate. The food was good. We finished eating. We got a box from the waitress. We talked for about 15 minutes and then she got us the bill.

On the up side, we saved a dollar or two on the tip, because no one at that restaurant deserved much.

Movies

I know we have some readership overlap, so some of you will already have seen Adam's mention of the Minesweeper movie. But it is certainly good enough that everyone should see it.

In other news, 95° is about the limit for riding my bike to work and not needing a shower upon arrival. That's what I get for going to work at 2:30 in the afternoon I guess.

The return trip

Well, the masses have demanded an accounting of my return trip on my bike last week. So here it is.

It's hotter, but it's more down hill and I don't worry so much about getting sweaty. I made it home about 5 minutes quicker. I rode again today, and tried hard to not go too fast. Then you're gross all day at work. Yes, taking a shower is an option, but I'm not exactly excited to do that at work. As I was laboring up a hill this morning, I was thinking about riding my bike as a kid and the lengthy rides we'd go on. I seem to remember being able to stomp on the pedals for hours on end before my legs would get tired. Not so any more. Am I really that much wimpier than I used to be? Or do I remember my childhood biking days as being more glorious than they really were?

Biking

Well, I rode my bike to work today. I only got slightly sweaty. It turns out it 5.1 miles and took me 24:30 minutes. And my rear end isn't too sore either. So the first half of day 1 went alright. I'm going home right now, so we'll see how it goes.

Not so Safety Inspection

So, my car is incapacitated right now. It turns out that the A/C compressor is shot. So it doesn't move at all. But of course, that very day (the 30th of the month) is the day that we were to take Shannon's car in to be safety inspected. And so, that was the day the check engine light came on. We decided that we'd take the car in and see what the light was all about. It is probably the same thing that caused us problems when we got it inspected last year. "Purge Flow Error" or some such gibberish.

Anyway, the car passed safety inspection. We had to put new wiper blades on it, but they failed to even mention that the check engine light was on. They apparently couldn't care less. And I was just happy that it passed. Once I got in the car, I also noticed one more thing they didn't seem to care about: the back doors have no handles inside. We took them out to replace the broken ones in the front. You can still get in and out if you know what you're doing, but again Jiffy Lube didn't seem to care at all.

Vegas

Well, we went to Las Vegas last night. It was roughly as I expected, but here are the not-so-surprising surprises of the night.

The Strip is long. I knew it was long, but I guess I didn't fully respect the amount of walking that I would be doing.

Once you're inside, there's nothing to see. The whole point of the exterior of the casino is to get you inside because you think it will be cool. The whole point of the inside of a casino is to get your money, which means gambling, restaurants and drinking.

It's hot in Vegas, even at 10pm.

There's not actually as much morally poisonous stuff thrust in your face as I thought. Oh, of course it's there, but I figured it would be completely unavoidable. Of course there's the "Vegas Dancer" sort of stuff, but the truly Bad stuff is fairly avoidable. Don't take anything that anyone is handing out on the street, and don't look at what's been dropped on the ground, you'll do ok. Oh, and don't look in the newpaper racks on the street either. But those are all above eye level (the people who hand out the business card size ads are all . . . short) so keep your head up, look at the lights and you can survive the Vegas adventure without completely wallowing in the mud.

The fountains at the Bellagio are the single best thing to see in Vegas. We got to see them do "Viva Las Vegas," "Hey Big Spender" and one other song which I now forget. Two were good, but "Big Spender" was particularly excellent. The directional fountains really seemed to capture the feeling of the song.

Alternating Frustration

So, Sunday evening, my car decided to start making smoke from the general vicinity of the alternator. Trying to start the car on Monday resulted in terrible screeching, grinding noises from the engine, which is never a good thing. Which means Monday evening consisted of calling up KC for help, and pulling out the alternator. If only the alternator in my car were actually designed to be removed.

It turns out that it's not too difficult to unhook the alternator, once you find the two bolts that hold it on. It's a bit of a squeeze trying to get the wrenches and sockets to the nuts and bolts, but it's not impossible. What is impossible, however, is removing the alternator from the car, even once it is complete detached. We were stuck at the stage for about 45 minutes yesterday. The alternator was free to wiggle, but there is no available path for it to come out. We finally managed to take enough things off that we pulled it free. But the auto parts stores all close at 9:00 in town, and were closed. We're going to Vegas tonight, which means we'll be working on part 2 of the adventure on Wednesday.

A Post

I feel bad for having not posted for so long. My schedule has been all whacked out this week. We're growing more crystals this week than we ever have before! As a result, we have more puller hours to cover than ever before! My official schedule for the week was: 5pm to 9pm every day, plus whenever else I need to be here.

In the only bicycling news topic you'll see discussed here for the rest of the month, I'm going to go test drive a Trek 4300 tomorrow and see if I want to buy it. Since my last 3 bonuses from work and a tax refund have all been ear-marked for a bicycle, I'm finally getting around to buying one. The plan is to start biking to work in a month or so when it is somewhat less like the planet Venus here in St. George. You know, 400 °F with a sulfur/ash atmosphere.

Finally, on the "Labels for this post:" section of Blogger, it gives three examples of what sort of label you could be putting on your post. The three are: scooters, vacation and fall.

Scooters?

Me too

Suzanne says: Oh, I GIVE UP.

Weird Sizing

So, according to whoever it is that sizes cleanroom stuff, I have a medium sized body, medium sided hands, a large head and extra large feet. What a wonderful self image they're providing me with!

Pavilions

This weekend consisted of two things for me and Shannon: driving and pavilions. That's the only thing that seemed to happen. We drove up to SLC Friday night, slept and got up to have breakfast at the park. Willowcreek park that is, and breakfast was provided by my parents ward.

Next, we went to Flat Ironhead Mesa National Game Reserve, Fish Hatchery for the Blockburger Family Reunion. There was lots of people, lots of squirt guns, and lots of Barrs. Lunch was cooked by the Lems clan, as we ate in the pavilion.

After a brief A/C break at the Blockburgers, we headed off to Sugar House. Rumor had it that there would be scores of Hursts and some more free food, under a pavilion, of course. Even though we'd spent half the day outside, I still was dumb enough to play 2 soccer games. Both barefoot. My toe is somewhat bruised today, but I suppose it was worth it.

We drove back Sunday morning. Shannon tells me that there is a weekend somewhere out in October where we don't have anything planned.

Touring

Well, in all fairness to the Tour de France, I will point out that it becomes much more interesting once people hit the mountains. My previous gripes that the breakaways always fail really only applies to the flat stages. Yesterday (and the day before according to Suzanne) people managed to beat out the main group. I think it's a lot more interesting to see lots of action as people try to ditch everyone up steep mountains. Today is a rest day, and tomorrow is the last of the Alps. But we've still got the Pyrenees.

Well, my Grandmother (Martence) and her husband (Jim Thornton) were in the paper the other day. Take a look, and see what you have to look forward to in a half dozen or more decades.

Stage 3

Well, the tour made me nervous this morning. 4 guys broke out for a lead about 5km in to the race, and held it for about 250km, or around 6 hours. But, there it was, like clockwork. They got caught about 700m from the end.

Tour DAY

My sisters will be glad to know that I've watched stage 1 and 2 of the Tour de France this year. (But not the prologue.) I find it interesting that I haven't actually seen them do any riding in France yet, but I'm sure they'll get to that soon. Stage 2 was a good one, though I ended up a bit disappointed. For those of you who don't watch professional cycling (it's on OLN, if you've been looking for it) let me explain how it works.

The riders set off on 150km or so long ride. Sometimes it's flat, sometimes it's hilly, but it doesn't really matter. (Unless it's a time trial, but we're ignoring that case.) The riders all like to ride in one great big pack called the peloton. ("peloton" is French for "ball" or "group" which is an interesting description of 180 cyclists trying to keep as close together as possible. Anyway, after about 10 or 20 km a small group of riders will take off and try to ride away and beat the whole group. It's usually 3 or 5 or 7 riders or something like that. (They seem to have a predisposition to choose odd primes.) This small group, called the "breakaway", will get 5 or maybe 10 minutes out in front of the rest of the group. And the peloton doesn't care. And for the next 3 hours, they will continue to not care. Those riders in the break away make their brave dash out on their own, and the 180 other riders they've left behind barely seem to notice.

But here's the important part. As a spectator, you might start to get excited to see something interesting where a few riders leave all the others in the dust. Don't worry, they won't make it. Because every time, like clock work, with about 10km left in the race, they get caught. Every time. For about 130km the breakaway manages to stay in front of the main group, but it never lasts. And stage 2 was no different. Every time I get excited that they might pull it off, and they never do.

Oh, and if you ever do see someone manage to hold on, you have to make sure to tune in the next day, too. That's when you get to hear about him failing the steroid test.

Night Time Activities

Here's a fun one: Go outside at night (it works well when you're working overnight) and watch Arizona burn.

From the parking lot here at work I can see fires dotting the hills and it smells like campfire. It's pretty interesting, and at least that is one fire that hasn't done much damage to people or property. I know the fires are still many miles away, but they sure seem closer at night when you can see the flames.

Summertime Competitions

For some reason, people like to get into "fishing story" contests about trivial things. Who walked the farther to school, who had the worst cold ever, and, at this time of year who lives in the hottest place.

But this time, I think I've got everybody beat.

I stepped outside at work on Friday, only to discover that it was 115° and raining ash. Yes, a fine white dusting of ash was falling from the sky and swirling around in the breeze as a result of the fires burning just down the road in Arizona. So if you want to try to top that one . . .

Welcome to July

Now prepare to be melted.

It's 103° at high noon today. Weather.com says that we'll peak out at 115°. The worst part is that it doesn't get out of triple digits until about 9pm, and it's in the 90s until midnight. So there's no real chance to ever do anything outside. I was driving to work at 8am this morning and fighting the urge to turn on the AC. Yuck.

As I sit by the puller with the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window, I notice that my laptop glistens in the light. The keyboard, the screen, the case, everything reflects the sun in a dazzling display of reflected radiation.

In other news, my computer seems to be coated in a fine dust of germanium.

Back from Rehab

So, I guess my sabbatical is over.

Anyway, let's talk about Rehab. Specifically the new song I've heard on the radio a few times. I think it's most interesting if you experience it in the order that I did. First, we'll assume that you've heard the song on the radio. It's sung by Amy Winehouse. It's a catchy little tune as she insists that she won't go to rehab. She has a deep, rich Motown type voice, and the song almost sounds like it could be remade from that era.

Next, go watch her sing it on youtube. If you're like me, it will take the whole first viewing to reconcile the fact that that voice is coming out of that girl. It really doesn't seem to match up.

Next, watch her sing it again, and try to figure out where she's from. Between the computer monitor and the glare from the window and the little youtube window, it might take that whole second viewing to figure out if she's Hispanic, or what. But, if you pay close attention, by the end you might suspect that she's actually Jewish. (As a side note, my spell checker has only one suggestion when I type in "jewish". It's rather obvious that "jewish" ought to be "newish".)

Finally, go look up Amy Winehouse in wikipedia, giggle for a minute at the picture of her with big hair, and suddenly there it is: she's a Brit! It just boggles my mind when I listen to the song that it's sung by a newish, Jewish, Londoner.

The Piggies Return

Shannon is in a better mood than last time we played this game. So today it was:

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy ate cheeseburgers,
This little piggy had a beverage,
And this little piggy paid for it.

Grand Finale

Last night the St. George Road Runners (our Golden League Baseball Team) played their first game. After the game, they had a firework show which we got to watch from our bedroom window. But the real question in my mind after last night is this: who came up with the unwritten rule that all fireworks shows have to end with a Grand Finale? For some reason, we all think that the fireworks can't be done until we've seen the Grand Finale. Who started this?

Factory Friend

I don't think I ever got around to publishing this picture, and I've been slacking off on posting anything, so here's something to look at. I spotted this guy running through the office a few weeks ago. He measures 13" long, nose to tail, and is quicker than you'd think. It took us a good 5 minutes to catch him. Suzanne says he's a Great Basin Whiptail Lizard. We released him back into the wild.

Book Review: Take the Kakuro Challenge

Hey, it's a book, and I finished it, so it gets a review. About 2 years ago, I got into Sudoku, and did lots of them for a while. Well, Kakuro is Sudoku on steroids. It's not necessarily harder, but it is one step more involved. Sudoku isn't really mathematical. It's just arranging 9 different symbols into rows columns and boxes. But in Kakuro you've got rows and columns that all have to add up to given values. No numbers are given to start, just all the values. If you've got three boxes in a row that add to six, they must be 1, 2 and 3. But if they add to 18, they could be almost anything. Of course, I was quickly addicted, and Shannon hated it. I finished last one a few days ago, and now I find myself with little bits of free time where I wish I could work on one of them. The book is arranged excellently, with 10 pages or so at the beginning with explanations and an example puzzle. Then it starts with small simple ones which get bigger as the book goes on.

I recommend against Kakuro on the internet, because particularly early on you'll need to be able to make notes in the margins so you can keep track of what you're doing.

Book Review: A big fat zero

As of last night, I am done with "The Nothing that Is: A Natural History of Zero". I would like to rename the book "A humanity major trying to write a math book: A pile of garbage". Notice that I didn't say I finished it, but that I am done with it. The author constantly drifts off for two and three sentences at a time, comparing mathematicians use of exponents to authors writing a book, or throwing in references to Lot and his family, or whatever else seems to suit his fancy. He's trying to write a book about the history of the number zero relying strongly on metaphors and Shakespeare plays. Bad idea. It was pretty much unreadable. The author is overly verbose, and seems to be working very hard to show you how many things he knows, about every topic under the sun. If someone would be so kind as to go through and highlight the one sentence per paragraph that has something to do with the real topic of the book, I might give it another go.

Here's a quote: "Any five-year-old will tell you that negative numbers aren't numbers at all, and phylogeny recapitulated ontogeny in taking its time to recognize negatives."

Could someone tell me what this one has to do with anything? "What does it take for an immigrant to the Republic of Numbers to gain citizenship? Think of the situation with words and with ideas. New words are always frisking about us like puppies."

Periwinkle

As we've been preparing for our trek (T-minus 5 days) Shannon got out her Brighton camp songbook. There were a number of gems in there, but my favorite part was when I got to teach her a song from the book that she didn't know. For all her trips to camp, both Girls and Brighton, she was apparently completely unaware that there are ants, ants, ants, ants trying on the pants in the store, in the store! There are ants, ants, ants, ants trying on the pants in the Periwinkle Store!

Of course, I should thank my countless older sisters for filling my head with girls camp songs.

Piggies

You've got to be careful joking around with Shannon when she's in a foul mood. Otherwise you end up with her rearranging old nursery rhymes. I present the little piggies, as Shannon filled in the blanks:

This little piggy died.
This little piggy died.
This little piggy fell off.
This little piggy I don't know.
And this little piggy bled.

I wouldn't suggest using this version with your young ones.

Nickname

So, I've got a new nickname at work, given me by Stuart. He is starting to call me "PC". Not because I'm politically correct, but because I'm just like PC from the Mac commercials, specifically this one. I've told him that I'm not sure if that's a compliment or insult, but really, deep down inside, I think we all know that I'm proud of being a nerd.

I'm a college graduate!

A letter I received over the weekend.

Dear Graduate:

Congratulations on your graduation! Since we did not see you at convocation, we wanted to send you a copy of the April 2007 Convocation program, and a copy of the Dean's remarks. You can expect to receive your diploma in about six to eight weeks. In the meantime, if you need a transcript with your degree posted, contact the Records Office and they will be happy to send you one.


We wish you the very best with your post-graduate plans. Feel free to contact our office at [phone number] if you need assistance in the future.

I'm listed in the convocation program (for the second year in a row!) and am waiting anxiously to see if they'll mail me another diploma. (Who knew they were this easy to get!)

Dudu

About a week ago, Shannon found some one's blog where she mentions that her son, "Dudu" weighed 3452 kg when he was born. (It's a Brazilian lady's blog, "Dudu" is short for Eduardo, and she obviously meant 3.452 kg.) It was somewhat humorous to see the typo. But tonight, a full week later, Shannon was thinking about it and decided that the baby weighed "as much as a house" and started laughing. And couldn't stop. This went on long enough that she was in tears, and still going in time for me to get the camera out and take some footage, which I share with you:

Wonder baby

The other day Laneah was over at our house and she was kind enough to help me solve something I've been working on for a while. And it only took her a few minutes to go from this:

To this:

She really did work on it very intently for a few minutes.

Barrys

Last night, Barry Gibb (of BeeGee fame) was on American Idol. It was decidedly tough for the contestants to figure out what to do with his songs. It's not every day you get to hear a male recording artist tell a woman who is singing his song, "no, it goes higher in the chorus. It shouldn't be so low." The 4 left didn't do a great job, but it was a tough assignment.

The top idea of the night though, goes to Shannon. As Barry was telling LaKisha to go higher, she realized that the perfect twist would be to sing a Barry Gibb song in the style of Barry White. Or imagine Barry Gibb and Barry White singing a duet. Or Barry Gibb taking a Barry White song and singing it twice as fast, two octaves higher. Or really, anything that puts Gibb and White in the same room at the same time. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Growing and Pains

I know this is nearly a week old, but since Shannon hasn't mentioned it, let's all remember how the guest performance by Robin Thicke on American Idol last week was terrible. Shannon and I spent the next few days calling him "Helium Thicke" and "Dip Thicke". And yes, as we all instantly guessed, he is the son of Alan Thicke, better known as Dr. Jason Seaver.

I haven't posted much in the last week or two, and apologize. I've been busy at work, and busy at home, and this is what has taken the biggest hit. At work we're growing by leaps and bounds, and have added 2 new crystal pullers. (It's hard to tell when I'm referring to people or machines when I say "crystal pullers" but in this case it's people.) They both started yesterday, and that has kept us hopping. And we're pulling this week. And I'm just a bit under the weather.

And back to the "pain" theme: Alex gets really weird when she's on Loritab. (While it's best not to touch the first link up at the top, this on is a must see. Trust me!)

Newt Dance.

We've found something that might just rival the Ham. It's from Jeeves and Wooster, season 1, episode 4. The newt scene starts at the 7 minute mark in this video. Watch to the end, and pay attention to the people in the background in the last 30 seconds. The scene finishes with the first 30 seconds in the next clip from the episode. If the Newt doesn't work for you, I guess you can try these moves, too.

Great White Stripped Snake Lion Wedding

Well, with the flood of suggestions for the BTOTY already, I thought I'd keep encouraging your involvement with a chance to spend my money. For my birthday, I got an ITunes gift card (thanks Suz!) (I think it was Suzanne who gave it to me . . ) and I haven't yet spent it. Last night, Shannon and I were discussing music or something, and Shannon mentioned that she didn't know much about "Butt Rock" (as she calls it) and specifically Bon Jovi. So we spent some time on YouTube finding a few Bon Jovi songs from the 80's that she has heard, but didn't know were his, as well as some songs that she claims to have never heard, like "Blaze of Glory". (How can you not know that one!) I then went through other 80's rock/metal songs, as we've done in the past, and found Shannon to be seriously lacking in her education on the subject.

"Don't you know 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn'? . . . by Poison?" I'd ask. "'Once Bitten, Twice Shy'?" "'Welcome to the Jungle'?" Time after time the answer was, "No." (I didn't even bother to ask about 'Unskinny Bop'.) So, I've decided that I need to help Shannon out, and I'm considering even blowing my ITunes money on some good 80's rock music, (Shannon knows plenty of 80's pop stuff) because clearly I can't leave this up to Shannon. So, here's your opportunity to suggest the top 80's rock songs that I should own. I guess you can suggest anything 80's. What music have we forgotten about that I am obviously missing in my life?

If you need help getting started, you can check out http://www.bradboard.com/80s.htm for a great big list of 80s songs.

Call For Suggestions

Shannon and I are finally getting around to planning our BTOTY (that's the Big Trip Of The Year for those of you who aren't hip with the jive). This is your big chance to make you suggestion of what we could do with about a 5 day trip and our vast fortunes. Whoever submits the best idea can lord it over all the other people!

Flying Burble Beoble Eater.

If you listen (and you don't even have to listen all that closely) you can hear Blake singing some new lyrics to John Lennon's "Imagine". He sings, each every time it comes up, "Imagine there's no beoble" and "living life in beace". His alphabet only seems to have 25 letters in it. Now, before anyone points out that P's can sound bad when improperly sung, I'll point out that 1) if you want to win AI you shouldn't be singing P's improperly, 2) John Lennon manages to do it just fine, 3) if it wasn't important that people be able to understand the lyrics, John would have just scatted through the whole song.

Now I admit I've been negligent recently, but I've got a few excuses.

1. It was the weekend. Posts always drop over the weekend.
2. We had company, so we were off doing other things.
3. Shannon stole some of my comment by beating me to announcing my triumph over the Square One, and my Adventures in Peanut Butter.
4. The weekend stake meeting was better than expected.

That said, we did go on a hike this weekend. The Watchman Trail was very nice. 2.8 miles or so, round trip and it's not too terribly steep. It goes right from the Zion's Visitor Center, so Shannon and I have now hiked the first 3 or 4 trails in Zion, slowly working our way towards the back. The trail has a few potential drop offs, but unless you are a particular klutz, there's no real danger. If we're lucky, Shannon will soon post some pictures, and sometime in late May Sabrina will get around to posting on her blog.

4 guys, 3 girls

A few months ago, when American Idol started this season, it was pretty obvious that the girls were much better than the guys. Painfully obvious the first 2 weeks of the voting. I commented that the final 12 ought to be 8 or 9 girls and 3 or 4 guys. But last night I noticed that somehow we (the people) had voted 4 guys into the top 7 and only 3 girls. Fortunately, the next two to go have got to be Chris and Phil. (It's just got to be them, right?)

42

I did watch Hitch Hikers Guide recently, but that's not what this is about. About a week ago MLB celebrated the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first game. In his honor, many players were wearing the number 42 (which has been retired for all of MLB). But the real point I want to make is this: if there are games in which every single player of both teams is wearing the same number, and everything goes alright, isn't that proof that numbers on baseball jerseys are pretty worthless?

Types of Singing

For weeks Shannon and I have been complaining that Chris R. (of American Idol) sings with a pinched, nasal tone. He was once again called on it last night when it was particularly bad. It was then that he informed the world that "Nasal is a type of singing."

Nasal is a type of singing.

Wow. He continued to say that if he's been singing nasally all this time, he must be doing it on purpose, right? Did we ever think about that? (Because if you're doing it on purpose it somehow must be good?) My response is simply this: I admit that nasal is a type of singing. As it turns out, off key is a type of singing, too. (Just ask Blake last night.) A head of the beat is a type of singing (Chris Sligh). Voice cracking is a type of singing (Phil one week ago). 'Hamburgers for breakfast' is a type of singing. (You'll have to ask Simon about that one.) But, unfortunately for Chris, "types of singing" and "good types of singing" are not the same thing.

And the obligatory Sanjaya comment: Last night, it wasn't just that he was boring me while he sang, he actually looked like he was boring himself.

Class of 2006/7

I don't know what it is with the mail that I get these days, but here's the gem I got from the BYU physics department:

Congratulations on your upcoming graduation!

It continues by reminding me to be in the garden court by 7:30 for pictures, and is complete with the paper I have to give back to them indicating how many people will be coming to the reception with me. So if anyone wants some free food, you're all invited!

Of course, about 2 years ago (when I hadn't graduated) I got an invitation in the mail (mailed to Wymount) for a Physics Alumni something-or-other. Apparently they think I'm moving back in time. I'll probably go home and find that my diploma has self-destructed.

Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman

I finished this book (for the second time, but I own it now) the other day. Richard Feynman got a physics BS from MIT, Ph.D. from Princeton, worked on The Bomb at Los Alamos, taught at Cornell and CalTech and won the Nobel Prize in 1965 and gave perhaps the most famous physics talk ever, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" about nanotechnology.

This book is about as little of that stuff as possible. It turns out that Dick Feynman was an amazing man who liked to pull pranks, make jokes, and this is the story of all that stuff. Mostly, Feynman was unable to look at something and not want to know how it works, why it works and how to make it better. He taught himself to crack safes in Los Alamos, competed in a samba competition during Carnival in Rio, took commissions for art work, and played the drums for a San Francisco ballet.

The book is basically a collection of all of these stories, and is rather like sitting down in his company and listening to his many adventures. It's non-technical, and rather than being a book about physics, is a book about a physicist. Shannon is reading it now, so maybe you'll want to wait to hear what she thinks.

Random Bits

You know you're moving up in life when you get to sit right next to Mark Eubank in sacrament meeting.

I like St. George radio traffic reports. Today they alerted us to some cops on patrol out by Ivins.

Having finished off the bag of malt-o-meal imitation Captain Crunch, I can now begin to heal from my bout of Cap'n Crunch Mouth.

Nothing quite as amusing as watching 14 grown men try to participate in a baby blessing. Good thing some of them had long arms.

Processing Good Experiences

Shannon and I went to a meeting for Mas and Pas yesterday. We were told it would be a 45 minute meeting. Let me summarize what was covered for you:

• The trek will be a really good experience
• It will be hard
• The difficulties will make it a good experience
• We need to process what happens
• The experiences will be made better by processing them
• Even though it will be hard, it will be a good experience
• This is going to be a really good experience for the youth
• The trek will be a really good experience

You might think I'm joking with that list, but really, it greatly under emphasizes their key point, which was: "the trek will be a really good experience". An hour and forty minutes later, we left the meeting. We're looking forward to the next one.

(Oh, "processing" was the buzz word of the day. It means "talk about what has happened". The purpose is to get the kids to think about the terrible things we're going to make them do and apply them to their lives and stuff like that. But clearly "We need to process what we're going through" is much better than saying "We need to talk about what we're going through" or even "we need to discuss what we're going through". No, this is a far better, because we're "processing".)

all these clouds are so familiar

Every time I have to work late, I bring the mp3 player and listen to as much music as I can. (Until my ears refuse to spend any more time with the headphones on.) The funny thing is that each time this happens, I come home with a new Guster song that I'm listening to over and over again. This week's selection is "Lightning Rod". Next week it will probably be something else. But it's pretty consistent that out of the 400 songs at the touch of my fingers, I get hooked on a Guster song, but it's always a different one. The more I listen, the further I am from actually having a favorite.

Magazine Offer

The other day, I got a letter in the mail for a magazine subscription (only $12.50 a year!). I share the beginning of that letter with you:

Dear Mr. Clark Blockburger

Sometimes you just have to see what you're missing. That's why we've pictured the last year's issues of AARP The Magazine on the right. It's just one of the benefits of membership in AARP you could be enjoying now that you've turned 50.

Shannon asked me if I'd been hiding anything from her. Mostly, I just want to know if I can get into the movies cheaper!