For no reason at all, my thoughts are turned today to my memories of taking Word Processing in high school. This was back in the day of Word Perfect 6.1 or something like that. I'd work, typing away on our computers running Windows 95. Of course, the class wasn't all that difficult, so most of us only spent about 2 days of the week doing the work. One day a week was generally devoted to putting illicit copies of solitaire on as many computers as possible. Another day or two of the week was usually devoted to doing homework from other classes. Typing up essays for European History.
I also took Desktop Publishing form the Hillcrest business department, but that class was much worse. The teacher was much less capable. (Ms. Diamond, who taught word processing, didn't have a hard class, but she at least knew what she was doing. Mr. I-can't-remember-his-name honestly didn't know much at all about desktop publishing.) By then I was a senior, and was therefore not interested in spending class time doing desktop publishing or homework for another class.
I dreamed the other night that I was back in high school, but sadly, my dream only involved math class. But, I imagine that if I were in Word Processing now, we wouldn't be so amused by only playing solitaire. We'd probably find even less productive things to do with our time, like surfing the internet to read rambley, blog posts that will likely leave half the readers wondering what on earth is going on, while the other half can't quite belive that I'd be goofy enough to write a post like this for a collection of people that I've never met.
Friday, November 21
Tuesday, November 18
Amish Friendship Bread and Exponential Growth
If you're not familiar with Amish Friendship Bread, here's how it works. You receive a ziplock back with a mixture of flour, water and sugar in it, presumably from a friend. Over a 10 day period you squish the bag around, and add more flour, water and sugar. Then, on day 10, you pull out 4 portions of the mixture, and give it to friends. You then add more stuff (eggs, oil, baking soda, etc.) and bake the bread (which is more like cake if you ask me). So 4 of your friends now have the stuff, and repeat the process over the next 10 days. It's tasty stuff.
In the last 2 weeks, Shannon and I have gone through that whole cycle, which lead to a brief study of what this 4 fold growth means for the world, as well as our supply of flour, water, sugar and ziplock bags.
Basically, it comes down to this: buy stock in Ziplock. And their competitors. Anyone making an airtight bag.
After 10 days, 4 people have the bread. By the end of a month, we're up to 64 people (roughly the population of my street). Not that impressive. By two months it's 4,096 (small part of town), and by 3 months its 262,144 people (all of southern utah). And, like all exponential growth problems, this is when it starts getting fun. One more month reaches over 16 million people, or the population of a whole pile of western states (UT, NV, ID, MT, WY, CO, NM, ND, SD). At the conclusion of 5 months and pass one billion people, and at 6 months we have about 10 bags of Amish Friendship Bread for every person on earth.
From here, the problem repeats itself, in a way. Once everyone has a bag, start the growth over again but after a month it's not 64 of your friends that have a bag, it's you that has 64 taking over your kitchen. By the end of the year, there are about 4,700,000,000,000 billion bags of Amish Friendship Bread in the world. (And you're rich, because you bought stock in Ziplock, remember?)
Clearly, this does not describe reality. Shannon and I received some friendship bread a few years ago, and since it hasn't taken over the world yet, people must not be passing it on. If only 25% of the people who received the bread passed it on, it would just barely remain in existance. If the rate went up to 30% growth would be small, with my one loaf of bread growing to about 600 over the course of a year. In reality, the survival rate of the bags is probably somewhat lower than 25% which would not be sustainable for the friendship bread population, and would require certain individuals to create the bread from nothing occasionally to start up new chains.
Ok, I think I finally got all this out of my system and I can go on with my life.
In the last 2 weeks, Shannon and I have gone through that whole cycle, which lead to a brief study of what this 4 fold growth means for the world, as well as our supply of flour, water, sugar and ziplock bags.
Basically, it comes down to this: buy stock in Ziplock. And their competitors. Anyone making an airtight bag.
After 10 days, 4 people have the bread. By the end of a month, we're up to 64 people (roughly the population of my street). Not that impressive. By two months it's 4,096 (small part of town), and by 3 months its 262,144 people (all of southern utah). And, like all exponential growth problems, this is when it starts getting fun. One more month reaches over 16 million people, or the population of a whole pile of western states (UT, NV, ID, MT, WY, CO, NM, ND, SD). At the conclusion of 5 months and pass one billion people, and at 6 months we have about 10 bags of Amish Friendship Bread for every person on earth.
From here, the problem repeats itself, in a way. Once everyone has a bag, start the growth over again but after a month it's not 64 of your friends that have a bag, it's you that has 64 taking over your kitchen. By the end of the year, there are about 4,700,000,000,000 billion bags of Amish Friendship Bread in the world. (And you're rich, because you bought stock in Ziplock, remember?)
Clearly, this does not describe reality. Shannon and I received some friendship bread a few years ago, and since it hasn't taken over the world yet, people must not be passing it on. If only 25% of the people who received the bread passed it on, it would just barely remain in existance. If the rate went up to 30% growth would be small, with my one loaf of bread growing to about 600 over the course of a year. In reality, the survival rate of the bags is probably somewhat lower than 25% which would not be sustainable for the friendship bread population, and would require certain individuals to create the bread from nothing occasionally to start up new chains.
Ok, I think I finally got all this out of my system and I can go on with my life.
Pie
This deserves its own post, separate from the rest of the feast info. Greg brought a fabulous pie to the feast: lemon sour cream. Stephanie gets absolutely no credit for the pie; Greg picked it out and it was declared when they bought it that he would get all the credit and/or blame for the choice. From me, at least, he gets only credit. It was fabulous. I just finished off the last of it. I miss it already.
Monday, November 17
Fatten up for the Feast
Ok, let's move the conversation on from my showering habits . . .
This weekend we had our first annual (bi-annual?, decadely?, and only?, only time will tell) "Fatten up for the Feast". The idea is that if Thanksgiving dinner is so good, we should have it more often. So we had some friends over and Shannon and I whipped up a big turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, corn, pink stuff, gravy and pie. Our friends provided rolls and more pie.
Things turned out pretty darn well. The bird was not quite as thawed out as it could have been, but it was close enough; mostly it was that the end of the neck was still ice-bonded to the rest of the turkey and didn't want to come out. We aimed for a 6:00pm meal, and actually started a 6:09. That might be a new world record!
The food was good, and, more importantly, we've got a whole pile of leftovers! If we were picture taking folk, we would have taken pictures which we could then post on our blog. But, instead, all you get is my lovely descriptions, which apparently count for 0.196 pictures.
This weekend we had our first annual (bi-annual?, decadely?, and only?, only time will tell) "Fatten up for the Feast". The idea is that if Thanksgiving dinner is so good, we should have it more often. So we had some friends over and Shannon and I whipped up a big turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, corn, pink stuff, gravy and pie. Our friends provided rolls and more pie.
Things turned out pretty darn well. The bird was not quite as thawed out as it could have been, but it was close enough; mostly it was that the end of the neck was still ice-bonded to the rest of the turkey and didn't want to come out. We aimed for a 6:00pm meal, and actually started a 6:09. That might be a new world record!
The food was good, and, more importantly, we've got a whole pile of leftovers! If we were picture taking folk, we would have taken pictures which we could then post on our blog. But, instead, all you get is my lovely descriptions, which apparently count for 0.196 pictures.
Friday, November 14
Shampoo
Is anyone else out there as weird as me? In my lifetime I have read the label on shampoo bottles thousands of times. I exaggerate not. Taking a shower is, in my opinion, a fabulous way to pass the time, and I'm generally not in much of a hurry in there. So, while relaxing, I have a tendency to read anything that is at eye level, which is mostly shampoo bottles. (Shannon, on the other hand, who usually showers without her contacts in, has probably never read a shampoo bottle in her life.) So, all totaled up, I've passed an untold number of hours reading the directions (lather, rinse, repeat) the flower descriptions ("Ocean Breeze soap: it's just like an ocean cruise except there's no boat and you don't actually go anywhere") and the fun trivia questions (Q: 60% of women admit to throwing what at their significant other? A: Their shoe. [But you need the matching conditioner bottle to get the answer]). And then there is the list of ingredients. dichloro-phenol-benzoate this and isoberylpolycarbozome that. The ingredients don't change much from brand to brand, just those secret "natural oils and extracts". But sadly, since moving to St. George we don't have a shower with anything to read at eye level, so I'm a bit more bored during my shower relaxation time.
Christmas list addition: waterproof books!
Christmas list addition: waterproof books!
RTN
Our new home is equipped with many things: yard, ceiling fans, garage, garage door, etc. But we do not have cable or any sort of dish. Those things are expensive, and we decided to try going without it. (It is rather a lot of money that most people spend on something that they readily admit they waste too much time on.) We can watch some shows online, and we invite ourselves over to friends places for BYU football games. Anyway, we recently went and invested 14 bucks in a set of rabbit ears to see what sort of 'free' tv we might get. Basically we get 1 channel, unless you include the very static-y PBS station (that I think comes from Las Vegas). And what channel do we get? ABC? NBC? CBS? Fox? KBYU? Nay! None of those! We get RTN: the Retro Television Network.
Each Sunday, we get a roughly 20 page magazine of TV listings for the week in the paper. RTN isn't included, but looking up their schedule online, you can see that RTN shows the same exact schedule of shows every day of the week. So if you want to watch Nightrider or Magnum P.I. come on over. I don't get to see the A Team, as it's on when I'm at work. The same schedule day after day (it is different on the weekends) for who knows how long. No plans to change for the holidays, or anything like that. I imagine that right after Thanksgiving dinner we'd be able to get together to watch Dragnet if we wanted. (Unless your family eats Thanksgiving dinner at noon, in which case you might be done in time for Kojak.) Anyway, our TV is awesome.
(We'll be getting a digital converter box soon so we can see if any digital stations make it to our house.)
Each Sunday, we get a roughly 20 page magazine of TV listings for the week in the paper. RTN isn't included, but looking up their schedule online, you can see that RTN shows the same exact schedule of shows every day of the week. So if you want to watch Nightrider or Magnum P.I. come on over. I don't get to see the A Team, as it's on when I'm at work. The same schedule day after day (it is different on the weekends) for who knows how long. No plans to change for the holidays, or anything like that. I imagine that right after Thanksgiving dinner we'd be able to get together to watch Dragnet if we wanted. (Unless your family eats Thanksgiving dinner at noon, in which case you might be done in time for Kojak.) Anyway, our TV is awesome.
(We'll be getting a digital converter box soon so we can see if any digital stations make it to our house.)
Thursday, November 13
We have found proof that Julia is truly a Blockburger. While we have tried to feed her all manner of foods, she utterly refuses to touch most of them. But there is exactly one food that we can get her to eat for dinner: A bowl of Cheerios. Further proof that a bowl of cereal is a perfectly acceptable dinner option.
Shannon was reading Parents magazine which had an article on the Obamas (as well as the McCains). (I assume the magazine predates the election.) As we don't have TV (I think our TV situation needs to be it's own blog post) I haven't seen Michelle Obama much. When Shannon showed me the picture of the Obama family, I immediately thought that she looked a lot like Kimberly Elise, who played Denzel Washington's wife in John Q. You should really use that link, not so much to look at her picture and think to yourself "Clark is nuts, they don't look anything alike," but so you can scroll down to what her first credit is on imbd. Back in 1995 she appeared on a single episode of "Newtons Apple" (a fine show). Specifically it was the "Jungle Survival/Liver/Emus" episode in which she got the coveted role of "Bile duct supervisor". If only I'd known that was a career option!
Shannon was reading Parents magazine which had an article on the Obamas (as well as the McCains). (I assume the magazine predates the election.) As we don't have TV (I think our TV situation needs to be it's own blog post) I haven't seen Michelle Obama much. When Shannon showed me the picture of the Obama family, I immediately thought that she looked a lot like Kimberly Elise, who played Denzel Washington's wife in John Q. You should really use that link, not so much to look at her picture and think to yourself "Clark is nuts, they don't look anything alike," but so you can scroll down to what her first credit is on imbd. Back in 1995 she appeared on a single episode of "Newtons Apple" (a fine show). Specifically it was the "Jungle Survival/Liver/Emus" episode in which she got the coveted role of "Bile duct supervisor". If only I'd known that was a career option!
Wednesday, November 12
Musical Family
Shannon and I brought extensive musical knowledge into our marriage. And I'm always amazed at how little it overlaps. (I could also write a whole post about how often one of us mentions some little trivia item that we totally expect the other to know, only to find out they have no clue what we're talking about. It goes both ways on all sorts of topics.)
Shannon gets huge bonus points for bringing Guster into my life. And she's also been the mechanism for introducing me to a lot more Ella, Etta, etc. type of music. I, on the other hand, seem to always be pulling out some piece of music from the 60s that Shannon isn't familiar with. (This is a result of our upbringing. Shannon's parents have classical music on records. My dad has the White Album in the original cellophane, and can tell you what month just about any song came out from 1964 through 1970.) It goes like this: I'll reference some song lyric which draws a blank look from her. So we youtube it and often her response is "oh, I didn't know those were the lyrics to that song." She's usually heard the songs before, but may not know the title or artist. I'm not sure that I've brought any important musical discoveries to her existance, but at least more weird organ solos.
This post was prompted by me asking Julia last night "What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me?" This was followed by Shannon's aforementioned blank look, which lead to youtube, "Time of the Season" by the Zombies and an organ solo. So now you're up to speed. Enjoy:
Shannon gets huge bonus points for bringing Guster into my life. And she's also been the mechanism for introducing me to a lot more Ella, Etta, etc. type of music. I, on the other hand, seem to always be pulling out some piece of music from the 60s that Shannon isn't familiar with. (This is a result of our upbringing. Shannon's parents have classical music on records. My dad has the White Album in the original cellophane, and can tell you what month just about any song came out from 1964 through 1970.) It goes like this: I'll reference some song lyric which draws a blank look from her. So we youtube it and often her response is "oh, I didn't know those were the lyrics to that song." She's usually heard the songs before, but may not know the title or artist. I'm not sure that I've brought any important musical discoveries to her existance, but at least more weird organ solos.
This post was prompted by me asking Julia last night "What's your name? Who's your daddy? Is he rich like me?" This was followed by Shannon's aforementioned blank look, which lead to youtube, "Time of the Season" by the Zombies and an organ solo. So now you're up to speed. Enjoy:
Tuesday, November 11
Music
Ok, here's the deal. I've got a non-ipod portable music player. It was cheap, we've had it a few years. Getting music from my CD collection to the music player is pretty straight forward. I put it in the computer, let media player rip it and load it on. But here's where it gets messy.
We also like to occasionally buy music from itunes. It's convenient, easy, cheap and people sometimes like to give us gift cards. But to get the music from itunes to my music player, as far as I know I've got to burn them to a CD, then rip them with media player and life is once again good.
But wait, I'd rather use itunes to listen to music on my computer. Media player is . . . well, made my microsoft. So now I'm going through my media player files and loading them into itunes, which consists of itunes making another copy of them in the itunes format. So, I end up with two copies of every music file on my computer.
I'm not hurting for hard drive space, and everything works fine. But this is all a whole lot of nuisance.
We also like to occasionally buy music from itunes. It's convenient, easy, cheap and people sometimes like to give us gift cards. But to get the music from itunes to my music player, as far as I know I've got to burn them to a CD, then rip them with media player and life is once again good.
But wait, I'd rather use itunes to listen to music on my computer. Media player is . . . well, made my microsoft. So now I'm going through my media player files and loading them into itunes, which consists of itunes making another copy of them in the itunes format. So, I end up with two copies of every music file on my computer.
I'm not hurting for hard drive space, and everything works fine. But this is all a whole lot of nuisance.
Monday, November 3
November
I celebrated the first day of November by mowing my lawn. How about you?
Also, more running updates. The reason you haven't been getting any is that I haven't been running. It doesn't take much to give me an excuse not to go out, and Shannon's choir performances and Halloween teamed up to be just the thing. But I was back out today. Same 20 minute run, but I keep making it just a couple of houses further. 2.20 Google Earth miles in 20 minutes makes for 9:06 miles. Maybe I will stick with it more if I make a 'running' tag.
Also, more running updates. The reason you haven't been getting any is that I haven't been running. It doesn't take much to give me an excuse not to go out, and Shannon's choir performances and Halloween teamed up to be just the thing. But I was back out today. Same 20 minute run, but I keep making it just a couple of houses further. 2.20 Google Earth miles in 20 minutes makes for 9:06 miles. Maybe I will stick with it more if I make a 'running' tag.
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