My favorite toy is without question my iPod. I use it to answer emails, listen to music or podcasts, trade stocks, play and study chess, and more. I am never very far away from this device which connects, entertains, and informs whenever I am in need of connection, information, or entertainment. At least I wasn’t very far away from my iPod until four Saturdays ago when it was in my jacket pocket while I took Daisy and Baxter on our 9am walk while Kathy was playing in a pickle ball tournament in Ankeny. When we started on our walk the early morning rains had subsided but a half block into the walk there was a slight mist which tuned into a drizzle after two more blocks and a torrential downpour as we reached the halfway point of our walk.
The rain got even worse as we made our way back home. I was listening to music from my iPod’s Napster app while my two beagles and I got our waterlogged selves home. I took off my coat, dried off Daisy and Baxter, and emptied my pockets as I got out of my wet clothes. My wallet was soaked. I took out all my cash and cards to dry and went to turn off my iPod but it wouldn’t turn off. Even though I have a waterproof cover for my iPod it had gotten soaked from being in my coat pocket and was stuck and unresponsive to the on-off switch, touch screen, or the volume and home buttons.
I put the iPod in a Ziploc bag of rice like I have seen and heard others do. Kathy soon arrived home and we took our normal Saturday morning trips to the local thrift stores for additions to her Christmas candle collection. I figured my iPod would be dry soon enough so I took it with me along with its bag of rice home. About a half hour in I noticed the iPod had seemingly turned off so I reached into the bag of rice and pressed the home button to see if it was responsive. The iPod lit up but would not respond to the ‘slide’ command so I could enter my password and worse seemed like it was getting really hot. I closed the Ziploc bag but after another 24 hours in the rice bag the iPod would no longer turn on.
If you are thinking I was too hasty in turning my iPod on I would agree with you. Luckily, when I purchased this iPod (my 4th) from the Wal-Mart I bought the extended warranty so on the Sunday after my soaking I went to the Wal-Mart's Asurion website and started an on-line chat with a service representative. The rep efficiently diagnosed my problem and sent me an email containing all the information I needed to bring the iPod to any UPS store and the device would be packed and shipped for repair at no charge. I left the iPod with Kathy on Monday and I went to work for the first time in years without my iPod.
The drive in to work wasn’t so bad. I listened to sports radio instead of podcasts. At work was a different story. I have a work computer I used to check emails but there was no music or podcasts unless I wanted to try to set up my apps on my work computer which I was not going to do. I was much more distracted than normal without any music or podcast to provide background noise for me. The drive back home wasn’t much better with the sports radio stations providing regurgitation of the morning sports talk discussions.
When I got home from work I walked the dogs with Kathy and didn’t miss my iPod until I got back home. If I wanted to do some chess puzzles or check on the scores I had to be in front of my computer because I had no iPod. At night I was having a hard time getting to sleep because I’m used to listening to music or white noise on my iPod which I no longer had.
I hadn’t realized how dependent I was on this little device. The next morning I get my old iPod out of storage. I had replaced it because it wouldn’t charge unless I held the cable just so but to my relief I found that the Apple cable from my latest iPod would charge the old iPod just fine except for having to reseat the cable every so often. I took my iPod to work and was able to listen to podcasts and music once again in my car and at my desk. This iPod is three years old and very slow compared to my new iPod but functional nonetheless. I could listen to podcasts and music and check email but the apps for getting scores and trading stocks kept on crashing. I expect this was due to the apps being obsolete and the underlying web services not compatible with the older operating system on this iPod. I had been doing some chess puzzles on my Chessimo app every day but the old iPod didn’t have any record of my progress over the past year so I decided to wait until I got my repaired iPod back so I could restore my data. I was frustrated at the limitations of the old iPod but happy I had it to give me music and podcasts to listen to at work and the commute.
I finally got my repaired iPod back from Wal-Mart on Wednesday which was 26 days after it got soaked. I restored my data and am now back enjoying my new iPod’s blistering speed and am even back to doing my daily regimen of Chessimo puzzles. One thing I haven’t done is use my iPod to listen to music to help me get to sleep. After a week I started sleeping better without the music and got in the habit of leaving my iPod downstairs at night. It took some time to resist the temptation to check the sports scores and email in the middle of the night but I am now in the habit of not using my iPod at night and have no desire to resume my old ways. The month without my new iPod has me thinking it had become more of a necessity than a toy and I want to make sure that it stays a toy to be enjoyed instead of a device I have to have ready at all times.
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal. Show all posts
Friday, May 11, 2018
Friday, October 9, 2015
Reflections on Double Nickels
"The trick is growing up without growing old." ~ Casey Stengel
I turned 55 yesterday which was inconceivable when I was 5 or 25 and far away when I was 35 or 45. Luckily it turned out to be inevitable since turning 55 beats the alternative when you are 54 years old. Being 55 qualifies me to participate in all the activities at the nearby Marshalltown Senior Citizens Center like playing pool, using the computers, or participating in the weekly card games. The Marshalltown Senior Citizens Center also offers a daily meal which I had a lot more interest in than playing pool or cards since I noted over a decade ago that people aged 55 or over were not charged for the meals. I had been planning on celebrating my 55th birthday by getting a free meal at the Marshalltown Senior Citizens Center and writing about it but last month I received the unwelcome news that being 55 only qualifies me to pay the full price of $6 for the meal and when I turn 60 I can get a meal at the Marshalltown Senior Citizens Center for a free will (or in my case FREE WON’T) donation.
The Senior Citizens Center used to give out free lunches to people 55 years old and stopped a few years ago. I was disappointed at not getting a free meal but not too disappointed. I don’t care much for Jell-O and I prefer whole kernel corn to creamed corn anyway. I’m going to chalk the entire incident up to my misfortune at being at the end of the ‘baby boom’ generation which saw the bulk of the benefits pass to people five and ten years older than me and now are slowly taken away as the voting numbers of older people diminish.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel at the age of 55 so I don’t know if I feel younger or older than my age. I expect I feel younger than my age despite not running marathons, sprints, or even up a flight of stairs. Part of what keeps me feeling young is my daily walks with Daisy and Baxter. Excepting the occasional work or chess trip I’ve walked these two at least once a day for the last four and a half years. I remember how miserable I was when my great dogs Queenie and Tuffy passed away in 2010. I still miss Queenie and Tuffy but Daisy and Baxter remind me every day that life is above all a joyous occasion. I am constantly infected by their joy at going for a walk, getting a beef stick treat at the corner of the convenience store, checking out a squirrel, barking at a stranger, and even their zeal when I make my bologna sandwich in the morning to take to work in their expectation of a scrap or two or twenty.
I’ve met plenty of people that seem and act way older than they are and they almost always have one thing in common – an unhappy home life. I’ve been supremely lucky in that regard since I’ll be married 25 years this December to Kathy. We don’t agree on everything but we haven’t had more than a handful of arguments in 25 years and none that lasted more than a day. I read an article recently where the writer admonished young men to not marry women who dye their hair blonde or wear bathing suits (unless they are ‘fat and ugly’) but I’d encourage young men to marry someone they are going to get along with since most of the men I see that have an unhappy home life aren’t happy anywhere else either.
I’m not saying everything is always perfect – I’ve had plenty of disagreements with my kids over the years and I don’t find the joy my beagles take in eating cat poop or vomit very infectious but these things only upset me as much as I want to be upset at the time and I work pretty hard on not getting upset. I’ve learned from some of the best over the years to try not to let things upset me and a big part of not getting upset is to not deal with people that upset me. When I was young I would go toe to toe with anyone that wanted to cause me trouble but over the years I’ve learned that when there’s someone who wants to stir me up I don’t just get away – I run away and I stay away. I’ve quit jobs and severed friendships and associations that lasted years when I’m shown I’m being disrespected or not worth telling the truth to or having lies told about me. I’ve never missed any of these so-called friendships and associations because I got to keep my peace of mind which is worth quite a bit to me. I feel any time spent with or thinking about these types is time wasted and I think I’m wasting time even writing about them.
I’ve been lucky enough to hang out and learn from some great people that were well over 55 years old and the thing that impressed me the most about them is that they all found something to enjoy and look forward to every day. My grandfather Matthew lived to 95 or 96 depending on which birth certificate you used. When he was in his 80’s he would take a bus to Atlantic City a few times a week. He wouldn’t gamble but the casinos would give him 15 dollars to take the bus. Matthew would hang out at the beach and tell me “Where can a guy my age make 15 dollars a day?” When the casinos wised up, my grandfather would drive every day to Tony’s deli in Passaic New Jersey for lunch. I went with him a couple of times and it was a high adventure since he could barely see or hear and instead of looking at the road would look at my Aunt Elaine’s hand signals from the passenger seat to determine when to brake, turn, and accelerate. He knew he shouldn’t have been driving but it was one of the things he loved to do and he looked forward to it every day.
At my first programming job in New Jersey in the late 1980’s one of the computer operators was Max. Max was in his late 70’s and every day took a train and a bus to get from his apartment in Queens, New York to Secaucus, New Jersey and a bus and train every day to get back home. Max would get in an hour before everyone else to print shipping labels and invoices and I would get to work an hour early because I liked to program so much. We were the only two people in the office for that hour every day and got to have quite a few talks. Max would smoke these huge cigars and tell me tales how he bribed his way out of Nazi controlled Austria in the 1930’s and owned a coffee factory in South America but lost his factory to a military coup and ended up working as a computer operator in Secaucus New Jersey. Max puffed on these huge cigars while he was working and had a bottle of whiskey in his desk for special occasions. When the military government was overturned Max got paid for his factory but he kept on taking the bus every day to get to Secaucus, New Jersey because he just loved to work and didn’t care what he did as long as he felt he was performing a useful function and had a place to smoke his cigars.
Once I moved to Iowa I had the good fortune to meet Dale Steiger. Dale was in his 80’s and owned a magazine subscription company. He called my office one day and said he had a data file of all the barbershops in America and wanted me to pull all the barbershops south of the Mason-Dixon Line into a new file so he could have his agents try to sell them magazines geared to the south. I don’t know why he called me since I wasn’t doing part-time work and I don’t know why I said yes but there was something about Dale that made me want to help him. That one job turned into another and another and eventually I had lunch with Dale at his company every other week and got to know him pretty well. Dale was a big shot advertising executive in New York in the 1960s and moved to Iowa to start his subscription company. I’ve never met a guy as nice as Dale. He called our meeting serendipity and I couldn’t agree more.
I've talked to Bill from down the block occasionally over the past 20 years when we would meet while walking our dogs. I’ve seen Bill go from walking slowly to using a cane to a walker and now at the age of 93 he barely walks at all. Time has taken his ability to drive and almost the ability to walk. His hips have no cartilage and hurts whenever he moves. When Kathy and I take Daisy and Baxter on our evening walks we’ll see Bill and his wife Marilyn sitting on their porch when the weather is nice and we’ll join them. Even into their nineties Bill and Marilyn get into their daughter’s car for a trip to their favorite diner for lunch almost every day. When it’s football season Bill likes to talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes and he knows as much about the team as anyone I know. And I don’t mean the teams from the good old days – I mean this year’s team and he knows quite a bit about the Big 10 and the Cyclones as well. I freely admit to understanding nothing about college sports and why people in Iowa take such pride in these football and basketball teams that supposedly represent the state but don’t even have half of their players from the state but if it gives Bill a reason to look forward to Saturdays and the next season in the fall I’m all for it. So in 55 years I’ve learned from Daisy and Baxter to live each day with joy, and my grandpa Matt, Dale, Max, and Bill taught and are still teaching me the value of having something to look forward to each day. I’d talk more on the subject but I have a basketball prediction program to finish, a chess club at St. Francis to prepare for, a youth tournament to put on in two weeks, and I have to go to work today!
The Senior Citizens Center used to give out free lunches to people 55 years old and stopped a few years ago. I was disappointed at not getting a free meal but not too disappointed. I don’t care much for Jell-O and I prefer whole kernel corn to creamed corn anyway. I’m going to chalk the entire incident up to my misfortune at being at the end of the ‘baby boom’ generation which saw the bulk of the benefits pass to people five and ten years older than me and now are slowly taken away as the voting numbers of older people diminish.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel at the age of 55 so I don’t know if I feel younger or older than my age. I expect I feel younger than my age despite not running marathons, sprints, or even up a flight of stairs. Part of what keeps me feeling young is my daily walks with Daisy and Baxter. Excepting the occasional work or chess trip I’ve walked these two at least once a day for the last four and a half years. I remember how miserable I was when my great dogs Queenie and Tuffy passed away in 2010. I still miss Queenie and Tuffy but Daisy and Baxter remind me every day that life is above all a joyous occasion. I am constantly infected by their joy at going for a walk, getting a beef stick treat at the corner of the convenience store, checking out a squirrel, barking at a stranger, and even their zeal when I make my bologna sandwich in the morning to take to work in their expectation of a scrap or two or twenty.
I’ve met plenty of people that seem and act way older than they are and they almost always have one thing in common – an unhappy home life. I’ve been supremely lucky in that regard since I’ll be married 25 years this December to Kathy. We don’t agree on everything but we haven’t had more than a handful of arguments in 25 years and none that lasted more than a day. I read an article recently where the writer admonished young men to not marry women who dye their hair blonde or wear bathing suits (unless they are ‘fat and ugly’) but I’d encourage young men to marry someone they are going to get along with since most of the men I see that have an unhappy home life aren’t happy anywhere else either.
I’m not saying everything is always perfect – I’ve had plenty of disagreements with my kids over the years and I don’t find the joy my beagles take in eating cat poop or vomit very infectious but these things only upset me as much as I want to be upset at the time and I work pretty hard on not getting upset. I’ve learned from some of the best over the years to try not to let things upset me and a big part of not getting upset is to not deal with people that upset me. When I was young I would go toe to toe with anyone that wanted to cause me trouble but over the years I’ve learned that when there’s someone who wants to stir me up I don’t just get away – I run away and I stay away. I’ve quit jobs and severed friendships and associations that lasted years when I’m shown I’m being disrespected or not worth telling the truth to or having lies told about me. I’ve never missed any of these so-called friendships and associations because I got to keep my peace of mind which is worth quite a bit to me. I feel any time spent with or thinking about these types is time wasted and I think I’m wasting time even writing about them.
I’ve been lucky enough to hang out and learn from some great people that were well over 55 years old and the thing that impressed me the most about them is that they all found something to enjoy and look forward to every day. My grandfather Matthew lived to 95 or 96 depending on which birth certificate you used. When he was in his 80’s he would take a bus to Atlantic City a few times a week. He wouldn’t gamble but the casinos would give him 15 dollars to take the bus. Matthew would hang out at the beach and tell me “Where can a guy my age make 15 dollars a day?” When the casinos wised up, my grandfather would drive every day to Tony’s deli in Passaic New Jersey for lunch. I went with him a couple of times and it was a high adventure since he could barely see or hear and instead of looking at the road would look at my Aunt Elaine’s hand signals from the passenger seat to determine when to brake, turn, and accelerate. He knew he shouldn’t have been driving but it was one of the things he loved to do and he looked forward to it every day.
At my first programming job in New Jersey in the late 1980’s one of the computer operators was Max. Max was in his late 70’s and every day took a train and a bus to get from his apartment in Queens, New York to Secaucus, New Jersey and a bus and train every day to get back home. Max would get in an hour before everyone else to print shipping labels and invoices and I would get to work an hour early because I liked to program so much. We were the only two people in the office for that hour every day and got to have quite a few talks. Max would smoke these huge cigars and tell me tales how he bribed his way out of Nazi controlled Austria in the 1930’s and owned a coffee factory in South America but lost his factory to a military coup and ended up working as a computer operator in Secaucus New Jersey. Max puffed on these huge cigars while he was working and had a bottle of whiskey in his desk for special occasions. When the military government was overturned Max got paid for his factory but he kept on taking the bus every day to get to Secaucus, New Jersey because he just loved to work and didn’t care what he did as long as he felt he was performing a useful function and had a place to smoke his cigars.
Once I moved to Iowa I had the good fortune to meet Dale Steiger. Dale was in his 80’s and owned a magazine subscription company. He called my office one day and said he had a data file of all the barbershops in America and wanted me to pull all the barbershops south of the Mason-Dixon Line into a new file so he could have his agents try to sell them magazines geared to the south. I don’t know why he called me since I wasn’t doing part-time work and I don’t know why I said yes but there was something about Dale that made me want to help him. That one job turned into another and another and eventually I had lunch with Dale at his company every other week and got to know him pretty well. Dale was a big shot advertising executive in New York in the 1960s and moved to Iowa to start his subscription company. I’ve never met a guy as nice as Dale. He called our meeting serendipity and I couldn’t agree more.
I've talked to Bill from down the block occasionally over the past 20 years when we would meet while walking our dogs. I’ve seen Bill go from walking slowly to using a cane to a walker and now at the age of 93 he barely walks at all. Time has taken his ability to drive and almost the ability to walk. His hips have no cartilage and hurts whenever he moves. When Kathy and I take Daisy and Baxter on our evening walks we’ll see Bill and his wife Marilyn sitting on their porch when the weather is nice and we’ll join them. Even into their nineties Bill and Marilyn get into their daughter’s car for a trip to their favorite diner for lunch almost every day. When it’s football season Bill likes to talk about the Iowa Hawkeyes and he knows as much about the team as anyone I know. And I don’t mean the teams from the good old days – I mean this year’s team and he knows quite a bit about the Big 10 and the Cyclones as well. I freely admit to understanding nothing about college sports and why people in Iowa take such pride in these football and basketball teams that supposedly represent the state but don’t even have half of their players from the state but if it gives Bill a reason to look forward to Saturdays and the next season in the fall I’m all for it. So in 55 years I’ve learned from Daisy and Baxter to live each day with joy, and my grandpa Matt, Dale, Max, and Bill taught and are still teaching me the value of having something to look forward to each day. I’d talk more on the subject but I have a basketball prediction program to finish, a chess club at St. Francis to prepare for, a youth tournament to put on in two weeks, and I have to go to work today!
Friday, June 19, 2015
Keys to Success
“80 percent of success is just showing up” ~ Woody Allen
The NBA season finished Tuesday night with the Warriors’ 105-97 win over the undermanned Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavaliers have been installed as the favorites to win next years’ championship at 3-1 odds. I am less optimistic. As great as LeBron James was this postseason he will be a year older with more wear and tear on his body next year, there is no guarantee that Kyrie Irving will be the same player after he recovers from his knee tendonitis and fractured kneecap this summer, Kevin Love still doesn’t have a role on the team, and role players like Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova are as likely to regress as they are to find another level.
I recovered $120 mythical dollars on the last game of the finals when the Warriors covered the 3.5 spread for $100 and James only scored 32 points which was under the 36.5 number for another $20. My last game successes trimmed my Finals losses to $90 mythical dollars and left me $60 on the plus side for the playoffs and plus $215 for the entire NBA season. The final tally is below.
I was very pleased with the traffic this blog generated from the basketball predictions. That and the relative success of my predictions convinced me to resurrect my basketball prediction program from almost three decades ago for next season. My current software project is adding the ability for players to enter my fall chess tournaments via my centraliowachess.com website. That should be done by late July which will leave August and September to set up a basketball database, data entry program, and predictive algorithms. I’m interested in seeing how much easier it will be to write the program using SQL and C# than it was to originally come up with these concepts in Dbase III which was state of the art in 1987.
A key to picking basketball games successfully is to understand that if you lose 40% of the time you are awesome. It was hard to keep making predictions early on in the regular season when I was over $500 in the red. I knew that the sample size was small so I was able to keep my head and not make too many risky catch-up bets. I finally found the idea of picking playoff teams at home against non-playoff teams and picking against teams on the road for the second game of back to back games and close the season on a winning tear.
The playoffs were a different matter. I was able to skate by picking the series winners in the first two rounds. When my posts started getting picked up by search engines I felt the need to pick each game of the conference finals and finals. Picking each game is quite difficult since not only did I have to come up with a reasoned prediction I also had to write a few hundred words on a pretty tight deadline. I would have liked to stay away from the early games in each series in order to see how they were shaking out before making informed choices but didn’t feel I had that luxury. I managed to come close to breaking even in all my playoff bets except in the Finals where the key to my failure was making silly prop bets that were little more than guesswork.
Since the company I work for has moved another 10 miles further than the 50+ miles I used to drive I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from home a few days a week. On Wednesday I drove in to work for a morning meeting. I parked in the company parking lot and took my computer out of my car. Normally I’d also bring in my bag with my fruit and extra stuff like spare headphones and chargers but since I had to drive to the meeting in a couple of hours I grabbed my bag of fruit out of my work bag and was at my cubicle at 8am sharp.
I worked and munched on an apple and some raspberries until 10:30. My meeting was at 11 and it only took between 10 and 15 minutes to get to the customers’ office but I wanted to show up early for the meeting. I packed up my computer and reached into my pocket for my car keys and my car keys weren’t there. So I looked in all my pockets and my car keys weren’t there either. So I searched all over my cubicle and my keys weren’t there either!
I asked at the front desk but no one had turned in a set of keys. I checked the men’s room and break room and there were no keys there either. I thought that maybe I locked my keys into my car so I went to my car. My keys weren’t in the ignition but I had left a door unlocked so I opened the door and took a look around.
My Chevy Spark is pretty tiny despite its four door sedan status and I was able to search it in a few seconds but there were no keys. It was getting very close to the meeting time so I went back in the office and got a co-worker to give me a ride. On the ride I called Kathy to warn her that she may have to bring me my spare set of keys. The meeting went smoothly but I was pretty distracted trying to think of where my car keys were and I wish I had a dime for every time I checked my pockets hoping to find my keys.
Once the meeting was over a customer drove me back to the office and I spent another 15 minutes checking my car, the bathroom, the breakroom, the front desk, and my cubicle, my computer bag, and bag of fruit and still had no keys. It was 1pm and I tried to put the keys (or lack thereof) out of my mind and went back to work.
I was going to call Kathy at 2 to let her know if I needed her to bring me the spare set of car keys so at 1:40 I checked my pockets and bag one more time and looked one more time in my cubicle. My cubicle is 4 by 8 feet and everything is rooted to the floor except this vertical file cabinet that is no more than a half inch off the ground. I had given the tiny space under the cabinet a look or two already but this time I laid down on the floor and looked all the way under this file cabinet. I could see the light from the next cubicle except for this one spot. I couldn’t tell what was hiding the light and couldn’t reach it so I got a ruler from my desk and was barely able to reel the object in and what do you know? The object was my keys!
I can only assume my keys fell out of my pocket and I kicked them under the file cabinet without realizing it. I was kicking myself a little for not checking way under the cabinet earlier but that feeling soon gave way to the joy I felt at having my keys back and not having to ask Kathy to drive 2 and a half hours to bring me a spare key. I was able to drive home and realized that a key to success is having your keys in the first place.
I recovered $120 mythical dollars on the last game of the finals when the Warriors covered the 3.5 spread for $100 and James only scored 32 points which was under the 36.5 number for another $20. My last game successes trimmed my Finals losses to $90 mythical dollars and left me $60 on the plus side for the playoffs and plus $215 for the entire NBA season. The final tally is below.
| Regular Season | Record | +/- |
| Against spread | 14-15 | -$250 |
| Money Line | 4-0 | +$400 |
| Total | 18-15 | +$150 |
| Playoffs | ||
| Series Picks | ||
| Round 1 | 2-2 | -$10 |
| Round 2 | 2-1 | +$100 |
| Conference Finals | ||
| Against spread | 0-3 | -$325 |
| Over Under | 5-1 | +$390 |
| Total Conference Finals | 5-4 | +$65 |
| NBA Finals | ||
| Game 1 | +$97.5 | |
| Game 2 | -$130 | |
| Game 3 | -$121.50 | |
| Game 4 | +$77 | |
| Game 5 | -$133 | |
| Game 6 | +$120 | |
| Finals Game Bets | 3-3-1 | -$30 |
| Finals Prop Bets | 2-5 | -$60 |
| Total NBA Finals* | -$90 | |
| Total Playoffs* | 12-10-1 | +$65 |
| Total NBA Season* | 30-25-1 | +$215 |
| *Prop bets excluded from game totals |
I was very pleased with the traffic this blog generated from the basketball predictions. That and the relative success of my predictions convinced me to resurrect my basketball prediction program from almost three decades ago for next season. My current software project is adding the ability for players to enter my fall chess tournaments via my centraliowachess.com website. That should be done by late July which will leave August and September to set up a basketball database, data entry program, and predictive algorithms. I’m interested in seeing how much easier it will be to write the program using SQL and C# than it was to originally come up with these concepts in Dbase III which was state of the art in 1987.
A key to picking basketball games successfully is to understand that if you lose 40% of the time you are awesome. It was hard to keep making predictions early on in the regular season when I was over $500 in the red. I knew that the sample size was small so I was able to keep my head and not make too many risky catch-up bets. I finally found the idea of picking playoff teams at home against non-playoff teams and picking against teams on the road for the second game of back to back games and close the season on a winning tear.
The playoffs were a different matter. I was able to skate by picking the series winners in the first two rounds. When my posts started getting picked up by search engines I felt the need to pick each game of the conference finals and finals. Picking each game is quite difficult since not only did I have to come up with a reasoned prediction I also had to write a few hundred words on a pretty tight deadline. I would have liked to stay away from the early games in each series in order to see how they were shaking out before making informed choices but didn’t feel I had that luxury. I managed to come close to breaking even in all my playoff bets except in the Finals where the key to my failure was making silly prop bets that were little more than guesswork.
Since the company I work for has moved another 10 miles further than the 50+ miles I used to drive I’ve been lucky enough to be able to work from home a few days a week. On Wednesday I drove in to work for a morning meeting. I parked in the company parking lot and took my computer out of my car. Normally I’d also bring in my bag with my fruit and extra stuff like spare headphones and chargers but since I had to drive to the meeting in a couple of hours I grabbed my bag of fruit out of my work bag and was at my cubicle at 8am sharp.
I worked and munched on an apple and some raspberries until 10:30. My meeting was at 11 and it only took between 10 and 15 minutes to get to the customers’ office but I wanted to show up early for the meeting. I packed up my computer and reached into my pocket for my car keys and my car keys weren’t there. So I looked in all my pockets and my car keys weren’t there either. So I searched all over my cubicle and my keys weren’t there either!
I asked at the front desk but no one had turned in a set of keys. I checked the men’s room and break room and there were no keys there either. I thought that maybe I locked my keys into my car so I went to my car. My keys weren’t in the ignition but I had left a door unlocked so I opened the door and took a look around.
My Chevy Spark is pretty tiny despite its four door sedan status and I was able to search it in a few seconds but there were no keys. It was getting very close to the meeting time so I went back in the office and got a co-worker to give me a ride. On the ride I called Kathy to warn her that she may have to bring me my spare set of keys. The meeting went smoothly but I was pretty distracted trying to think of where my car keys were and I wish I had a dime for every time I checked my pockets hoping to find my keys.
Once the meeting was over a customer drove me back to the office and I spent another 15 minutes checking my car, the bathroom, the breakroom, the front desk, and my cubicle, my computer bag, and bag of fruit and still had no keys. It was 1pm and I tried to put the keys (or lack thereof) out of my mind and went back to work.
I was going to call Kathy at 2 to let her know if I needed her to bring me the spare set of car keys so at 1:40 I checked my pockets and bag one more time and looked one more time in my cubicle. My cubicle is 4 by 8 feet and everything is rooted to the floor except this vertical file cabinet that is no more than a half inch off the ground. I had given the tiny space under the cabinet a look or two already but this time I laid down on the floor and looked all the way under this file cabinet. I could see the light from the next cubicle except for this one spot. I couldn’t tell what was hiding the light and couldn’t reach it so I got a ruler from my desk and was barely able to reel the object in and what do you know? The object was my keys!
I can only assume my keys fell out of my pocket and I kicked them under the file cabinet without realizing it. I was kicking myself a little for not checking way under the cabinet earlier but that feeling soon gave way to the joy I felt at having my keys back and not having to ask Kathy to drive 2 and a half hours to bring me a spare key. I was able to drive home and realized that a key to success is having your keys in the first place.
Friday, February 20, 2015
What is a Broken Pawn?
I was telling someone about my blog the other day. They asked me the name of it and when I said ‘Broken Pawn’ the reply was “What is a Broken Pawn?” I almost passed along a phrase I’ve learned in business meetings - “That’s a good question”. Whenever I hear someone say “That’s a good question.” My brain hears ‘I don’t know but I don’t want to admit it so I need to buy some time while I think of some sort of answer.’ and whenever I hear the phrase “That’s a great question!” I take that to mean that ‘I have no clue how to answer that so I’ll compliment you and maybe you’ll forget you asked it’. The next time you are talking to someone and they say “That’s a good question” or “That’s a great question” instead of feeling complimented for asking such a good or great question see if you actually get an answer – I’ll bet you don’t.
Whenever someone asked me something I didn’t know I would repeat the question. I didn’t even know I was doing this until Bruce Stein, and old boss of mine from half a lifetime ago pointed it out. Now whenever I don’t have an answer I either say ‘I don’t know’ or just pause while I think of what I want to say which is what I did when asked “What is a Broken Pawn?”
After my pause I talked a little about how I was struggling with a name for my blog until my friend Eldon gave me this ceramic big pawn he found at a garage sale but when he slammed it on a table to show me it broke into three pieces. It seemed like a good name five years ago and it seems like a good name now.
On my hour long commutes to and from work (likely to soon to be an hour and fifteen minutes thanks to a corporate move to the far side of the West Des Moines area) and what seemed like an interminable amount of hours spent in airplane terminals recently I got to thinking more about what a broken pawn is or what a broken pawn could be so the next time someone asks me what is a broken pawn I would have a better answer.
A pawn is the least valuable piece on the chessboard although in the paradoxical world of chess that means that more valuable pieces run away when attacked by a pawn and even if the attacked piece could capture the pawn it isn’t worth it if the pawn is sufficiently defended. Pawns are the only piece in chess that cannot move backwards but if it can make it all the way to the other side of the board it can be ‘promoted’ and transformed into any other piece. Another feature of the pawn is that it is the only piece that doesn’t capture the same way it moves. Combined with its inability to go backwards it is easy for pawns to be locked in place, unable to move backwards or forwards. Pawns are often sacrificed or gambitted in the beginning of games to open lines for pieces as if they were not just worthless but as if they were less than worthless since they are in the way of the bigger and more valuable pieces. I like pawns and I like to win pawns and I rarely sacrifice pawns - I'd rather win by nursing one of my pawns to the other end of the board and give it a promotion!
If I look in the dictionary the definition of pawn (aside from pawning merchandise for money and the chess definition) is ‘someone who is used or manipulated to further another person's purposes.’ The same dictionary defines broken as ‘not functioning properly; out of working order’. I admittedly pick and choose my definitions and by the definitions I choose almost everyone is a pawn, especially in the eyes of the media and politicians.
Have you noticed that President Obama asking Congress for permission for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS or ISIL (just as his predecessor George W. Bush asked for AUMF in Iraq and Afghanistan) last week came right after the release of videos of more beheadings by the militant group?
This week’s beheading video was especially gruesome since it showed what appeared to be 21 simultaneous beheadings of Egyptian Christians and came right on the heels of videos of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive and 2 beheadings of Japanese hostages after a failed attempt to gain a $200 million dollar ransom. This latest rash of videos has led Jordan and Egypt to launch airstrikes against the ISIS strongholds and now the president wants the United States to follow suit but instead of acting under the aegis of NATO like in Libya he is asking for Congressional approval.
The president had pulled out most U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, sponsored regime change in Libya, tried to sponsor a regime change in Syria, and stood passively by through a regime change in Egypt and then also stood passively by after an Egyptian military takeover (not labelled a coup d’état in order to preserve Egypt’s ability to buy billions of dollars of military goods from American companies) jailed thousands of ‘dissidents’. But the president is now publicly asking for permission to wage war against ISIS. The President says the U.S. will only send troops in harm’s way only when ‘absolutely necessary’ and speaking of ground combat operations that “Local forces, rather than U.S. military forces, should be deployed to conduct such operations.”
I think the sudden media re-emphasis on beheadings and the setting a pilot on fire is meant to manipulate me (and the rest of the American public) into giving the powers that be a blank check to wage another war in the Middle East but I’m not buying it. ISIS was previously part of the ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels we were arming to effect a regime change and they are using much American made equipment in their current offensive. Al-Quaeda first got its start as American backed ‘local force’ that were ‘freedom fighters’ against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970’s.
I don’t think much of beheadings or setting people on fire (and I live in Iowa’s leading city in setting people on fire). But I fail to see the difference between those actions and global genocides and atrocities and ‘Harry the Human Bomb’ stunts except in visibility and media attention. I wonder why anyone would every think that any ‘local forces’ that we help battle ISIS won’t be burning our flag as soon as they cement their hold on power .
Why anyone in the United States would think our leaders have any clue on how to solve any problem in the Middle East when everything we have touched there in the last 15 years led to nothing but bigger and bigger problems with each despot or dictator that is ousted replaced by a more corrupt or more violent counterpart? I don’t think anyone does but when we are shown pictures of people in orange jumpsuits being beheaded by people in black headscarves we are supposed to feel obligated to give our leaders the moral authority to prevent it.
And that leads me to what a ‘broken pawn’ is. A pawn in working order would look at the beheadings on the news and give our leaders approval to prevent it and ‘get the bad guys’. But I am a broken pawn and I don’t function the way a properly working pawn does. I think military action against ISIS won’t cause a regime change – it will cause a wardrobe change as the people in the orange jumpsuits and handcuffs will switch places with the people in the black headscarves and scimitars while the ‘local forces’ that we arm and train get a head start in their future battles with our country until a future president asks congress for an AUMF against them.
So what is a broken pawn? A pawn is something or someone that is meant to be held in place, restricted, and is easily sacrificed, with the promise of a ‘promotion’ if a faraway and difficult destination can be reached. BUT since it doesn’t function properly the broken pawn has flexibility of thought and movement and instead of abiding by the societal norms of a ‘pawn’ it finds its own path and just doesn’t behave the way a pawn should. This is just one example of many that makes me a broken pawn and I am proud to be one.
One thing that's certainly broken was my basketball predictions from two weeks ago. I picked three road teams including one on a back to back and all three lost. My record is 0-3, I'm $330 in the hole, and last week's All-Star break couldn't have come at a better time. With a rejuvenated attitude I will be placing my mythical bets using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page and as usual for entertainment purposes only with no real money is being wagered.
Phoenix Suns at Minnesota Timberwolves
The Suns have just performed a major shake up of their three guard backcourt, sending Goran Dragic to the Miami Heat, Isiah Thomas to the Celtics while picking up Brevin Knight from the Bucks. I predict the team will struggle until it regains its identity and will pick the improving Timberwolves (winners of four of their last 10 games) to win by more than the line of 2.5 points
San Antonio Spurs at Golden State Warriors
This is normally a tough matchup for the league leading Warriors and they lost their last home game to the Spurs but I'll predict a Warriors win by more than the seven point spread since the Spurs are on a back to back after a disheartening road loss to the Blake Griffin-less Clippers last night.
Portland Trailblazers at Utah Jazz
Portland picked up backup guard Aaron Affalo from the Nuggets at the trade deadline for some spare parts in a move I don't see having a major impact while the Jazz traded center Enes Kanter to the Thunder in an addition by subtraction move to get more playing time for the promising Rudy Gobert. I think the Trailblazers will celebrate management not trading any of their rotation players with a big road win over the Jazz, easily covering the 5.5 point spread.
Whenever someone asked me something I didn’t know I would repeat the question. I didn’t even know I was doing this until Bruce Stein, and old boss of mine from half a lifetime ago pointed it out. Now whenever I don’t have an answer I either say ‘I don’t know’ or just pause while I think of what I want to say which is what I did when asked “What is a Broken Pawn?”
After my pause I talked a little about how I was struggling with a name for my blog until my friend Eldon gave me this ceramic big pawn he found at a garage sale but when he slammed it on a table to show me it broke into three pieces. It seemed like a good name five years ago and it seems like a good name now.
On my hour long commutes to and from work (likely to soon to be an hour and fifteen minutes thanks to a corporate move to the far side of the West Des Moines area) and what seemed like an interminable amount of hours spent in airplane terminals recently I got to thinking more about what a broken pawn is or what a broken pawn could be so the next time someone asks me what is a broken pawn I would have a better answer.
A pawn is the least valuable piece on the chessboard although in the paradoxical world of chess that means that more valuable pieces run away when attacked by a pawn and even if the attacked piece could capture the pawn it isn’t worth it if the pawn is sufficiently defended. Pawns are the only piece in chess that cannot move backwards but if it can make it all the way to the other side of the board it can be ‘promoted’ and transformed into any other piece. Another feature of the pawn is that it is the only piece that doesn’t capture the same way it moves. Combined with its inability to go backwards it is easy for pawns to be locked in place, unable to move backwards or forwards. Pawns are often sacrificed or gambitted in the beginning of games to open lines for pieces as if they were not just worthless but as if they were less than worthless since they are in the way of the bigger and more valuable pieces. I like pawns and I like to win pawns and I rarely sacrifice pawns - I'd rather win by nursing one of my pawns to the other end of the board and give it a promotion!
If I look in the dictionary the definition of pawn (aside from pawning merchandise for money and the chess definition) is ‘someone who is used or manipulated to further another person's purposes.’ The same dictionary defines broken as ‘not functioning properly; out of working order’. I admittedly pick and choose my definitions and by the definitions I choose almost everyone is a pawn, especially in the eyes of the media and politicians.
Have you noticed that President Obama asking Congress for permission for the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against ISIS or ISIL (just as his predecessor George W. Bush asked for AUMF in Iraq and Afghanistan) last week came right after the release of videos of more beheadings by the militant group?
This week’s beheading video was especially gruesome since it showed what appeared to be 21 simultaneous beheadings of Egyptian Christians and came right on the heels of videos of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive and 2 beheadings of Japanese hostages after a failed attempt to gain a $200 million dollar ransom. This latest rash of videos has led Jordan and Egypt to launch airstrikes against the ISIS strongholds and now the president wants the United States to follow suit but instead of acting under the aegis of NATO like in Libya he is asking for Congressional approval.
The president had pulled out most U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, sponsored regime change in Libya, tried to sponsor a regime change in Syria, and stood passively by through a regime change in Egypt and then also stood passively by after an Egyptian military takeover (not labelled a coup d’état in order to preserve Egypt’s ability to buy billions of dollars of military goods from American companies) jailed thousands of ‘dissidents’. But the president is now publicly asking for permission to wage war against ISIS. The President says the U.S. will only send troops in harm’s way only when ‘absolutely necessary’ and speaking of ground combat operations that “Local forces, rather than U.S. military forces, should be deployed to conduct such operations.”
I think the sudden media re-emphasis on beheadings and the setting a pilot on fire is meant to manipulate me (and the rest of the American public) into giving the powers that be a blank check to wage another war in the Middle East but I’m not buying it. ISIS was previously part of the ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels we were arming to effect a regime change and they are using much American made equipment in their current offensive. Al-Quaeda first got its start as American backed ‘local force’ that were ‘freedom fighters’ against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970’s.
I don’t think much of beheadings or setting people on fire (and I live in Iowa’s leading city in setting people on fire). But I fail to see the difference between those actions and global genocides and atrocities and ‘Harry the Human Bomb’ stunts except in visibility and media attention. I wonder why anyone would every think that any ‘local forces’ that we help battle ISIS won’t be burning our flag as soon as they cement their hold on power .
Why anyone in the United States would think our leaders have any clue on how to solve any problem in the Middle East when everything we have touched there in the last 15 years led to nothing but bigger and bigger problems with each despot or dictator that is ousted replaced by a more corrupt or more violent counterpart? I don’t think anyone does but when we are shown pictures of people in orange jumpsuits being beheaded by people in black headscarves we are supposed to feel obligated to give our leaders the moral authority to prevent it.
And that leads me to what a ‘broken pawn’ is. A pawn in working order would look at the beheadings on the news and give our leaders approval to prevent it and ‘get the bad guys’. But I am a broken pawn and I don’t function the way a properly working pawn does. I think military action against ISIS won’t cause a regime change – it will cause a wardrobe change as the people in the orange jumpsuits and handcuffs will switch places with the people in the black headscarves and scimitars while the ‘local forces’ that we arm and train get a head start in their future battles with our country until a future president asks congress for an AUMF against them.
So what is a broken pawn? A pawn is something or someone that is meant to be held in place, restricted, and is easily sacrificed, with the promise of a ‘promotion’ if a faraway and difficult destination can be reached. BUT since it doesn’t function properly the broken pawn has flexibility of thought and movement and instead of abiding by the societal norms of a ‘pawn’ it finds its own path and just doesn’t behave the way a pawn should. This is just one example of many that makes me a broken pawn and I am proud to be one.
One thing that's certainly broken was my basketball predictions from two weeks ago. I picked three road teams including one on a back to back and all three lost. My record is 0-3, I'm $330 in the hole, and last week's All-Star break couldn't have come at a better time. With a rejuvenated attitude I will be placing my mythical bets using the Betonline.ag lines as listed on the Yahoo Sports page and as usual for entertainment purposes only with no real money is being wagered.
Phoenix Suns at Minnesota Timberwolves
The Suns have just performed a major shake up of their three guard backcourt, sending Goran Dragic to the Miami Heat, Isiah Thomas to the Celtics while picking up Brevin Knight from the Bucks. I predict the team will struggle until it regains its identity and will pick the improving Timberwolves (winners of four of their last 10 games) to win by more than the line of 2.5 points
San Antonio Spurs at Golden State Warriors
This is normally a tough matchup for the league leading Warriors and they lost their last home game to the Spurs but I'll predict a Warriors win by more than the seven point spread since the Spurs are on a back to back after a disheartening road loss to the Blake Griffin-less Clippers last night.
Portland Trailblazers at Utah Jazz
Portland picked up backup guard Aaron Affalo from the Nuggets at the trade deadline for some spare parts in a move I don't see having a major impact while the Jazz traded center Enes Kanter to the Thunder in an addition by subtraction move to get more playing time for the promising Rudy Gobert. I think the Trailblazers will celebrate management not trading any of their rotation players with a big road win over the Jazz, easily covering the 5.5 point spread.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
What I would tell my past self from the future
“And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” (Luke 9:5)
“It ain’t over till it’s over” Yogi Berra
I watched the movie ’12 Monkeys’ on Sunday night. It was an amazing movie with some of the same time travel concepts as ‘Looper’ with people from the future heading into the past to alter the present which will affect their present which is in the future since they are in the past but will be the present once they return to the future…I’m sure you get the idea. The movie got me thinking about what I would tell my past self if I could go back in time and what I would like to be told when I was younger and I came up with the two quotes at the top of the post.
In the first quote, Jesus tells his apostles that as they go forth to spread the gospel that this they shouldn’t even retain a speck of dust on their feet of those who reject what they say. Matthew:10:14 says ‘It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city’. When I hear this phrase used in a biblical context it is generally used by people who are believers as a reason to avoid non-believers or at least believers who don’t believe like they believe.
I don’t try to judge people on whether they believe like I believe and I don’t try to avoid anyone because of it in any case. What I get from this verse is that if people don’t want you around (‘not receive you’) the best thing to do is get away from them, get far away from them, and stay far away from them (‘shake off the very dust from your feet’). The other practical advice I get from this verse is that when you’re done with an activity or a group or a job (with or without recriminations) make a clean break, shake the dust off your feet, and get on down the road to the next city or adventure.
At first blush, the second quote may not seem to be a match to the first one but to me they are very compatible. While the first quote tells me to make a clean break when I’m done or not wanted, the Yogism tells me that as long as you are involved in the group or activity you are obligated to give your best effort because ‘it ain’t over’. One of Yogi’s less quoted sayings is ‘But when it’s over, it’s over!’ and that’s where everything comes together for me – when it’s not over do the best you can and when it’s over shake the dust from your feet and move on.
I didn’t learn this by reading or thinking – I learned this by experience. When I got fired from my job at the Roy Rogers fast food restaurant (a long story for another day), I used to head over to the restaurant after I got done with my new job to hang out with my old friends. What it took me quite a while to realize was that these were indeed my old friends and that it made them uncomfortable to have me at their place of work since I was no longer one of the gang. It was over and I didn’t recognize it. Since then I can count on one hand the times I visited a place I used to work after I stopped working there. I’ll have lunch or emails with an old co-worker or even take an old employer’s money for doing some work but I don’t visit because I don’t belong there anymore.
My friend Keith was laid off by the Salvation Army last week. Keith was the at-risk youth director and ran the thrift store among many other functions. I don’t know why he was let go but I do know the Salvation Army was short of their fundraising goals and there was talk of reducing staff if they didn’t reach it. Keith had been on the job for eight years and for a lot of people he was the face of the Salvation Army. He was who I talked to when I wanted to hold a tournament or the alarm wasn’t set or I needed anything else. Everyone was in shock when they heard but none more so than Keith was both times I saw him while he was cleaning out his office during chess club.
Aside from being in shock, Keith seemed more worried with how things would run without him than what his next job would be. He told me that he went to the store over the weekend because the staff didn’t know how to operate the machine that bales the donated clothes and some other equipment.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me over the years about situations where they want to leave their job or stop some volunteer effort but feel duty bound to continue because they have skills and knowledge that aren’t easily replaced. Over the years I’ve honed my answer to a fine point and I told Keith what I’d tell anyone : “If you got hit by a truck tomorrow and died do you think the thrift shop wouldn’t open and they’d tell their customers that Keith got hit by a truck so we have to go out of business? No! They would keep going. It wouldn’t be easy and they wouldn’t know how to do a lot of things and they would make a ton of mistakes. But they would muddle through all their mistakes and keep going because they wouldn’t have a choice”. I think Keith took what I had to say in the spirit that it was offered and I know he is going to find a place to continue his work with at-risk youth because that’s what he is driven to do.
I’m sure Keith would have liked more than a week’s time to transition and pass on his knowledge. I think a clean break is the best kind of break and the gaps in knowledge will be quickly filled in. I designed and laid out our church’s newsletter for eight years and when I decided to stop doing it (in the face of some criticism). I sent an email saying that the issue I had just completed would be my last and invited no discussion on the subject. That was four years ago and if I had offered to stay on until someone else stepped up to take on the task I have no doubt that I’d still be putting it together. But someone did step up and the newsletter is still being published.
So these are the two things I would tell myself if I could go back in time like Bruce Willis did in ’12 Monkeys’. I don’t know which is more implausible: whether I could ever go back in time or whether my past self would actually listen.
Normally this is the part of my blog where I'd show off a one-minute chess game I'd recently won and make a joke about wanting to tell my past self about this game and I would except that I've given up one-minute chess for Lent. I haven't given up chess for Lent and have been following the Reykjavik Open in far away Iceland. If you remembered that I wrote about International Master John Bartholomew's incredible play last year (here is the post) you've earned some Broken Pawn bonus points! John isn't at Reykjavik this year but I have been able to follow the games of two other players whose have very bright futures : World 10-year old champion Awonder Liang from Madison Wisconsin who played in Okoboji last year and Marshalltown last month and will be at Okoboji again in April and Richard Rapport from Hungary, the world's top rated player under the age of 18. With one round to go, Awonder has 4 wins, 4 losses, and one draw and is playing to his status as a FIDE master. In this game Awonder accepts wrecked pawns in return for a central pawn majority and continually grinds his opponent until he gets a winning endgame:
Rapport has an energetic playing style and is constantly searching for active piece play. Rapport lost on the top board to tournament leader Chao Li yesterday but held to his uncompromising style even when playing for the tournament lead. Here are two of his wins:
“It ain’t over till it’s over” Yogi Berra
I watched the movie ’12 Monkeys’ on Sunday night. It was an amazing movie with some of the same time travel concepts as ‘Looper’ with people from the future heading into the past to alter the present which will affect their present which is in the future since they are in the past but will be the present once they return to the future…I’m sure you get the idea. The movie got me thinking about what I would tell my past self if I could go back in time and what I would like to be told when I was younger and I came up with the two quotes at the top of the post.
In the first quote, Jesus tells his apostles that as they go forth to spread the gospel that this they shouldn’t even retain a speck of dust on their feet of those who reject what they say. Matthew:10:14 says ‘It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city’. When I hear this phrase used in a biblical context it is generally used by people who are believers as a reason to avoid non-believers or at least believers who don’t believe like they believe.
I don’t try to judge people on whether they believe like I believe and I don’t try to avoid anyone because of it in any case. What I get from this verse is that if people don’t want you around (‘not receive you’) the best thing to do is get away from them, get far away from them, and stay far away from them (‘shake off the very dust from your feet’). The other practical advice I get from this verse is that when you’re done with an activity or a group or a job (with or without recriminations) make a clean break, shake the dust off your feet, and get on down the road to the next city or adventure.
At first blush, the second quote may not seem to be a match to the first one but to me they are very compatible. While the first quote tells me to make a clean break when I’m done or not wanted, the Yogism tells me that as long as you are involved in the group or activity you are obligated to give your best effort because ‘it ain’t over’. One of Yogi’s less quoted sayings is ‘But when it’s over, it’s over!’ and that’s where everything comes together for me – when it’s not over do the best you can and when it’s over shake the dust from your feet and move on.
I didn’t learn this by reading or thinking – I learned this by experience. When I got fired from my job at the Roy Rogers fast food restaurant (a long story for another day), I used to head over to the restaurant after I got done with my new job to hang out with my old friends. What it took me quite a while to realize was that these were indeed my old friends and that it made them uncomfortable to have me at their place of work since I was no longer one of the gang. It was over and I didn’t recognize it. Since then I can count on one hand the times I visited a place I used to work after I stopped working there. I’ll have lunch or emails with an old co-worker or even take an old employer’s money for doing some work but I don’t visit because I don’t belong there anymore.
My friend Keith was laid off by the Salvation Army last week. Keith was the at-risk youth director and ran the thrift store among many other functions. I don’t know why he was let go but I do know the Salvation Army was short of their fundraising goals and there was talk of reducing staff if they didn’t reach it. Keith had been on the job for eight years and for a lot of people he was the face of the Salvation Army. He was who I talked to when I wanted to hold a tournament or the alarm wasn’t set or I needed anything else. Everyone was in shock when they heard but none more so than Keith was both times I saw him while he was cleaning out his office during chess club.
Aside from being in shock, Keith seemed more worried with how things would run without him than what his next job would be. He told me that he went to the store over the weekend because the staff didn’t know how to operate the machine that bales the donated clothes and some other equipment.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me over the years about situations where they want to leave their job or stop some volunteer effort but feel duty bound to continue because they have skills and knowledge that aren’t easily replaced. Over the years I’ve honed my answer to a fine point and I told Keith what I’d tell anyone : “If you got hit by a truck tomorrow and died do you think the thrift shop wouldn’t open and they’d tell their customers that Keith got hit by a truck so we have to go out of business? No! They would keep going. It wouldn’t be easy and they wouldn’t know how to do a lot of things and they would make a ton of mistakes. But they would muddle through all their mistakes and keep going because they wouldn’t have a choice”. I think Keith took what I had to say in the spirit that it was offered and I know he is going to find a place to continue his work with at-risk youth because that’s what he is driven to do.
I’m sure Keith would have liked more than a week’s time to transition and pass on his knowledge. I think a clean break is the best kind of break and the gaps in knowledge will be quickly filled in. I designed and laid out our church’s newsletter for eight years and when I decided to stop doing it (in the face of some criticism). I sent an email saying that the issue I had just completed would be my last and invited no discussion on the subject. That was four years ago and if I had offered to stay on until someone else stepped up to take on the task I have no doubt that I’d still be putting it together. But someone did step up and the newsletter is still being published.
So these are the two things I would tell myself if I could go back in time like Bruce Willis did in ’12 Monkeys’. I don’t know which is more implausible: whether I could ever go back in time or whether my past self would actually listen.
Normally this is the part of my blog where I'd show off a one-minute chess game I'd recently won and make a joke about wanting to tell my past self about this game and I would except that I've given up one-minute chess for Lent. I haven't given up chess for Lent and have been following the Reykjavik Open in far away Iceland. If you remembered that I wrote about International Master John Bartholomew's incredible play last year (here is the post) you've earned some Broken Pawn bonus points! John isn't at Reykjavik this year but I have been able to follow the games of two other players whose have very bright futures : World 10-year old champion Awonder Liang from Madison Wisconsin who played in Okoboji last year and Marshalltown last month and will be at Okoboji again in April and Richard Rapport from Hungary, the world's top rated player under the age of 18. With one round to go, Awonder has 4 wins, 4 losses, and one draw and is playing to his status as a FIDE master. In this game Awonder accepts wrecked pawns in return for a central pawn majority and continually grinds his opponent until he gets a winning endgame:
pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net
Rapport has an energetic playing style and is constantly searching for active piece play. Rapport lost on the top board to tournament leader Chao Li yesterday but held to his uncompromising style even when playing for the tournament lead. Here are two of his wins:
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
(Breaking) Bad Actors
I’d never seen the AMC TV show ‘Breaking Bad’ but after two months of listening to the Rich Eisen NFL Network Podcast discuss each episode in detail and predict how the series would end I felt like I knew the plot and characters well enough to watch last Sunday’s final episode. The episode was very tense and well done if a little on the Mission Impossible side where too many events have to work out just so for the desired outcome but it made me wish I had spent more time following the saga of Walter White’s journey from chemistry teacher to meth cooker to drug kingpin and the characters he meets along the way. As a tribute to the end of the series, I thought I’d devote this edition of the Broken Pawn to some of the bad actors I’ve met in my journey. Naturally, my bad actors don’t measure up to Walter White’s but to my mind they deserve some measure of remembrance.
When I worked at the Roy Rogers fast food chain in the late 70’s, we had a customer who we nicknamed Mr. S**t, but when he was in the restaurant we called him Mr. S. Every Sunday, Mr. S would amble into the store at 10:00 when we opened wearing his omnipresent dirty T-shirt and matching dirty blue sweater along with a newspaper and a dozen donuts. He would buy a small cup of coffee for 25 cents and proceed to sit in a booth for the entire day eating his donuts, reading his paper, getting free refills of coffee, and occasionally selling some of his extra donuts.
But that’s not how Mr. S got his nickname from us – he got his nickname from his mid-week meal trick. Mr. S would come in during the dinner hour at least 3 times a week and order a 89 cent hamburger (which in those days was a quarter-pound burger). Ten minutes later he would ask to speak to the manager. Mr. S would then show him the remaining 2 bites of his burger and say in a voice just loud enough for the customers to hear that his burger ‘smelled funny’ and that he wanted another one. Since one of the last things a restaurant needs is to have a loud customer saying the food smells funny, a new burger was always quickly ordered for Mr. S, who would eat the new burger except for the last two bites and again ask to see the manager. On the second trip, Mr. S would raise the stakes by asking for a roast beef sandwich and no matter what manager was on duty a roast beef sandwich would be made for Mr. S. I asked one of the managers why he always gave Mr. S his extra sandwiches and he told me that the managers all figured that Mr. S knew everyone in town and they didn’t want him shooting his mouth off about how the food at the restaurant smelled funny.
By that standard I could have never been a fast food restaurant manager since I would have told Mr. S to get lost when he tried to scam his second burger and wouldn’t have even let him bring his donuts in on Sunday morning. I don’t think it would have cost us any business either since if Mr. S knew everyone in town that means they also knew all about him. Maybe Mr. S had a lot of trouble making ends meet and saying the burgers smelled bad was the only way he could get a decent meal but if he had put a fraction of the effort into making a living that he did into getting free burgers and roast beef sandwiches he would have been a successful car or insurance salesman or had a career in politics or maybe even became a meth cooker and drug overlord like Walter White. Mr. S had a heart attack and died a year after I started working at the Roy Rogers. I assume his arteries were clogged from all the extra hamburgers he scammed over the years. All the other workers talked about how much they were going to miss him but since no one inquired about Mr. S’s funeral arrangements it was only the kind of kind sounding things people say after someone dies while I said it would be nice not to have to make extra sandwiches and we wouldn’t need to make as much coffee on Sundays.
After high school and before college, I spent some time as a midnight shift security guard at the Shop-Rite supermarket’s food distributorship in Elizabeth New Jersey. Because I could stay awake all night, I was considered a top performer and was given the assignment of working Post #1 which was the main gate. My duties consisted of calling Shop-Rite internal security every hour and saying ‘Post #1 – all secure’, keeping an eye on the parking lot across the street from the post and the cars parked in front of the gate facing the building, and making sure I saw everyone’s ID badge when they came in the gate. The warehouse workers would take smoke breaks at 1 and 5 and a lunch at 3. A few of the workers would go to the parking lot to drink some beer or get high and would show me their badges when they came back in and if they forgot I would ask because I knew if internal security (mostly ex-cops) didn’t like you they would have someone try to sneak in so they could get you fired (It was a very big brotherish type of operation and it wasn’t even 1984 yet!). At seven there was a shift change and I would go outside the little guard shack and watch the third shift leave and check the badges of the first shift and the office workers as they arrived.
One time the president of the Corporation, David Silverberg, waked through without showing his badge and I asked him to show it to me. He showed me the badge and the next day I got a visit from internal security. They told me that Mr. Silverberg had mentioned to them that I asked him for his badge and he wanted them to make sure I knew who he was and that I didn’t ask to see his badge in the future. I didn’t really consider my job as checking badges more than keeping an eye on the parking lot overnight for the third shift workers.
Willie Dobbs was a first shift warehouse worker who had a huge Lincoln Continental. He would sit his car blocking half the street until one of the few street side parking spaces would open up and then traffic would be blocked in both directions while he carefully backed his car into the spot. A few times the internal security made him get out of the street and park in the parking lot. One day Willie forgot to show me his card so I asked him to show it to me. He gave a big sigh, pulled his wallet out of his pocket, opened his wallet with the ID card in one of those see though pockets, and shoved the card about an inch away from my face, and sneered as only a New Jerseyan can sneer ‘Happy?’ While Willie wasn’t a small guy, he wasn’t especially big either and since after a whole night hanging around a guard booth for minimum wage I wasn't too interested in the Willie Dobbs’ of the world shoving their wallets in my face I said in my best menacingly matter of fact voice ‘I wouldn’t do that again if I was you’ Willie gave the time-honored reply ‘You ain’t me’ and as he walked away with a snide chuckle the game was on.
The next day when Willie came through the gate he looked at me and I looked at him and he looked at me and I looked at him and as he kept on walking I asked him to show me his badge. Willie gave a big sigh, pulled his wallet out of his pocket and was in the process of bringing it up to within an inch of my face when the back of my hand intercepted it about six inches short of its mark and sent the wallet flying across the pavement, knocking loose a stack of 20 dollar bills that flew every which way.
After Willie gave his best impression of an ant that got caught under a kid’s magnifying glass scooping up his twenty dollar bills accompanied by the snickers of his co-workers (none of whom helped pick up anything) he went inside and must have ratted me out like a little school boy. I got yelled at by Willie’s union boss and the head of internal security (a former New York detective named Kirk who could really yell), and then by both of them at the same time. I figured I was going to have find myself a new minimum wage job but after the yelling was done, the union boss got me on the side and told me Willie was a ‘prick’ and he wished I had clocked him and after that Kirk got me on the side and said while I should never touch anyone on company property he would have ‘put the SOB in the hospital’ if Willie had tried that on him. A few minutes later, Willie came out to his car and called me a wise guy and said ‘Yer gonna get yours…’ I mentioned that I was right there if he wanted to give me anything and tried to compliment him by telling him what a nice car he had and what a shame it would be if something were to happen to it while it was parked in the lot. I only worked as a guard for a few more months after that but for every day I was there Willie Dobbs pulled his wallet out before I had to ask and opened it up on his hip so the other guys wouldn’t see it and we never talked again. I looked up Willie Dobbs for this post to see if I could find his obituary but I couldn't which to me was a shame because that would have been some easy reading.
I was going to stop my character profiles at Willie but the weekend may have brought a worthy addition to my ‘rogues gallery’. The retail software company I was employed by from 1994 to 2008 stopped supporting the desktop product earlier this year and since then I’ve been helping users who haven't switched to the new 'cloud' version with their problems for an hourly fee. On Friday, I got an email from an old acquaintance asking if I could call a user to help them with a problem with the software. I called the user on Friday night, helped with a couple of problems, and emailed my acquaintance to inform of my progress and I quickly received an email back asking if there was anything they could do. I called the user back and asked for an email address so I could send a bill for my time. The user had a heavy foreign accent and I couldn’t understand the email address so I gave her my email address and told her to send me an email and I would reply. I didn’t get an email and 2 emails to my acquaintance asking for the user’s email address have gone unacknowledged. It looks like I’ll have to write off this fee but when I get another email asking for assistance it will be my turn to go to ‘radio silence’. Hopefully the software was really being used for a retail store and not a real life version of Walter White using my old retail software for some drug lord business or the next time their software breaks it may be unhealthy for me to refuse to help.
When I worked at the Roy Rogers fast food chain in the late 70’s, we had a customer who we nicknamed Mr. S**t, but when he was in the restaurant we called him Mr. S. Every Sunday, Mr. S would amble into the store at 10:00 when we opened wearing his omnipresent dirty T-shirt and matching dirty blue sweater along with a newspaper and a dozen donuts. He would buy a small cup of coffee for 25 cents and proceed to sit in a booth for the entire day eating his donuts, reading his paper, getting free refills of coffee, and occasionally selling some of his extra donuts.
But that’s not how Mr. S got his nickname from us – he got his nickname from his mid-week meal trick. Mr. S would come in during the dinner hour at least 3 times a week and order a 89 cent hamburger (which in those days was a quarter-pound burger). Ten minutes later he would ask to speak to the manager. Mr. S would then show him the remaining 2 bites of his burger and say in a voice just loud enough for the customers to hear that his burger ‘smelled funny’ and that he wanted another one. Since one of the last things a restaurant needs is to have a loud customer saying the food smells funny, a new burger was always quickly ordered for Mr. S, who would eat the new burger except for the last two bites and again ask to see the manager. On the second trip, Mr. S would raise the stakes by asking for a roast beef sandwich and no matter what manager was on duty a roast beef sandwich would be made for Mr. S. I asked one of the managers why he always gave Mr. S his extra sandwiches and he told me that the managers all figured that Mr. S knew everyone in town and they didn’t want him shooting his mouth off about how the food at the restaurant smelled funny.
By that standard I could have never been a fast food restaurant manager since I would have told Mr. S to get lost when he tried to scam his second burger and wouldn’t have even let him bring his donuts in on Sunday morning. I don’t think it would have cost us any business either since if Mr. S knew everyone in town that means they also knew all about him. Maybe Mr. S had a lot of trouble making ends meet and saying the burgers smelled bad was the only way he could get a decent meal but if he had put a fraction of the effort into making a living that he did into getting free burgers and roast beef sandwiches he would have been a successful car or insurance salesman or had a career in politics or maybe even became a meth cooker and drug overlord like Walter White. Mr. S had a heart attack and died a year after I started working at the Roy Rogers. I assume his arteries were clogged from all the extra hamburgers he scammed over the years. All the other workers talked about how much they were going to miss him but since no one inquired about Mr. S’s funeral arrangements it was only the kind of kind sounding things people say after someone dies while I said it would be nice not to have to make extra sandwiches and we wouldn’t need to make as much coffee on Sundays.
After high school and before college, I spent some time as a midnight shift security guard at the Shop-Rite supermarket’s food distributorship in Elizabeth New Jersey. Because I could stay awake all night, I was considered a top performer and was given the assignment of working Post #1 which was the main gate. My duties consisted of calling Shop-Rite internal security every hour and saying ‘Post #1 – all secure’, keeping an eye on the parking lot across the street from the post and the cars parked in front of the gate facing the building, and making sure I saw everyone’s ID badge when they came in the gate. The warehouse workers would take smoke breaks at 1 and 5 and a lunch at 3. A few of the workers would go to the parking lot to drink some beer or get high and would show me their badges when they came back in and if they forgot I would ask because I knew if internal security (mostly ex-cops) didn’t like you they would have someone try to sneak in so they could get you fired (It was a very big brotherish type of operation and it wasn’t even 1984 yet!). At seven there was a shift change and I would go outside the little guard shack and watch the third shift leave and check the badges of the first shift and the office workers as they arrived.
One time the president of the Corporation, David Silverberg, waked through without showing his badge and I asked him to show it to me. He showed me the badge and the next day I got a visit from internal security. They told me that Mr. Silverberg had mentioned to them that I asked him for his badge and he wanted them to make sure I knew who he was and that I didn’t ask to see his badge in the future. I didn’t really consider my job as checking badges more than keeping an eye on the parking lot overnight for the third shift workers.
Willie Dobbs was a first shift warehouse worker who had a huge Lincoln Continental. He would sit his car blocking half the street until one of the few street side parking spaces would open up and then traffic would be blocked in both directions while he carefully backed his car into the spot. A few times the internal security made him get out of the street and park in the parking lot. One day Willie forgot to show me his card so I asked him to show it to me. He gave a big sigh, pulled his wallet out of his pocket, opened his wallet with the ID card in one of those see though pockets, and shoved the card about an inch away from my face, and sneered as only a New Jerseyan can sneer ‘Happy?’ While Willie wasn’t a small guy, he wasn’t especially big either and since after a whole night hanging around a guard booth for minimum wage I wasn't too interested in the Willie Dobbs’ of the world shoving their wallets in my face I said in my best menacingly matter of fact voice ‘I wouldn’t do that again if I was you’ Willie gave the time-honored reply ‘You ain’t me’ and as he walked away with a snide chuckle the game was on.
The next day when Willie came through the gate he looked at me and I looked at him and he looked at me and I looked at him and as he kept on walking I asked him to show me his badge. Willie gave a big sigh, pulled his wallet out of his pocket and was in the process of bringing it up to within an inch of my face when the back of my hand intercepted it about six inches short of its mark and sent the wallet flying across the pavement, knocking loose a stack of 20 dollar bills that flew every which way.
After Willie gave his best impression of an ant that got caught under a kid’s magnifying glass scooping up his twenty dollar bills accompanied by the snickers of his co-workers (none of whom helped pick up anything) he went inside and must have ratted me out like a little school boy. I got yelled at by Willie’s union boss and the head of internal security (a former New York detective named Kirk who could really yell), and then by both of them at the same time. I figured I was going to have find myself a new minimum wage job but after the yelling was done, the union boss got me on the side and told me Willie was a ‘prick’ and he wished I had clocked him and after that Kirk got me on the side and said while I should never touch anyone on company property he would have ‘put the SOB in the hospital’ if Willie had tried that on him. A few minutes later, Willie came out to his car and called me a wise guy and said ‘Yer gonna get yours…’ I mentioned that I was right there if he wanted to give me anything and tried to compliment him by telling him what a nice car he had and what a shame it would be if something were to happen to it while it was parked in the lot. I only worked as a guard for a few more months after that but for every day I was there Willie Dobbs pulled his wallet out before I had to ask and opened it up on his hip so the other guys wouldn’t see it and we never talked again. I looked up Willie Dobbs for this post to see if I could find his obituary but I couldn't which to me was a shame because that would have been some easy reading.
I was going to stop my character profiles at Willie but the weekend may have brought a worthy addition to my ‘rogues gallery’. The retail software company I was employed by from 1994 to 2008 stopped supporting the desktop product earlier this year and since then I’ve been helping users who haven't switched to the new 'cloud' version with their problems for an hourly fee. On Friday, I got an email from an old acquaintance asking if I could call a user to help them with a problem with the software. I called the user on Friday night, helped with a couple of problems, and emailed my acquaintance to inform of my progress and I quickly received an email back asking if there was anything they could do. I called the user back and asked for an email address so I could send a bill for my time. The user had a heavy foreign accent and I couldn’t understand the email address so I gave her my email address and told her to send me an email and I would reply. I didn’t get an email and 2 emails to my acquaintance asking for the user’s email address have gone unacknowledged. It looks like I’ll have to write off this fee but when I get another email asking for assistance it will be my turn to go to ‘radio silence’. Hopefully the software was really being used for a retail store and not a real life version of Walter White using my old retail software for some drug lord business or the next time their software breaks it may be unhealthy for me to refuse to help.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Conversation Pieces
What do you say when someone says ‘How are you?’ When someone asks me that, I generally have to stop and think about it because I don’t think much about how I am. If I’m doing OK, I’ll say “I’m OK”; if I’m doing good, I’ll say “I’m doing good’. Every so often I’ll say “I’m great!” and if I’m feeling bad I’ll say “Hanging in there” because even though I’m feeling bad I’m not giving up. If I’m feeling impish I’ll say “Worst day of my life” just to see if the person asking me is even listening.
I’ll say hi to everyone I know but I don’t ask too many people how they are. It’s not that I don’t care (although in many cases I don’t) but I’ve noticed I just get the same answer from the same people and it seems like a lot of wasted effort. There was one guy at work that would always say “super-fantastic” and I hope he was. If you want to see if someone is listening after they say ‘How are you?’ and you don’t want to say “Worst day of my life”, just say “I’m fine” and nothing more. If your mileage is anything like mine, at least half the time your partner in conversation will tell you their stock “How are you?” answer followed by an uncomfortable pause.
If someone at a cash register or waiting on a table says “How are you?” to me, I will always tell them and ask “How are you?” right back. I like to do this because I hardly ever see anyone do this so I expect the service person would like to be asked and also because it generally takes the service person by surprise and one of my many quirks is that when I talk to strangers, I like to catch them off guard. One of the most common responses I hear when I ask “How are you?” is “Not too bad”. I have no idea what that means. If they’re not too bad they could be anything from really great to really, Really, REALLY bad. Here I am asking a simple question and I only get a sliver of an answer. Could you imagine asking somebody what the weather was outside and having them tell you, “It’s not too cold”. How about asking somebody the score of the big game and being told, “It’s not three to nothing”. If somebody asked my how a movie ended, I wouldn’t say “They didn’t all die!” Maybe the next time someone asks how to get to Route 30, I’ll just point in a random direction and say “It’s not that way”.
I’ve always struggled with how to reply when someone tells me they’re “not too bad”. I used to say “I didn’t ask you how you aren’t.” but most people look at me like I have three eyes when I say that. I guess if they could follow that kind of logic they wouldn’t have said they weren’t too bad in the first place. Eventually, I gave up and now when someone tells me that they are “not too bad”. I just slowly repeat the words “not…too…bad”, which ends the conversation pretty quickly. Yesterday, I was getting gas at the Kum & Go in Marshalltown and the clerk said she was “well” and thanked me for asking.
Another un-favorite phrase of mine is “No problem”. This is a fairly common reply I get when I thank someone for helping me. Maybe “no problem” means that I don’t need to thank anybody because it was “no problem” to help me, At least that’s something called the Wiktionary website says. I always take “no problem” to mean that if it was a problem I wouldn’t have gotten any help as opposed to a statement on the level of effort on the part of the person helping me. I’ve yet to thank anyone and have a reply like “You should thank me. It was a big problem to help you!”
It’s bad enough to need someone’s help and even worse to be told no problem when you thank them but when I thank a customer service person and then they tell me it was “no problem” to help me that really riles me up. I always want say “I’m so glad that it was no problem for you to do your job” but I never do.
In New Jersey, I had a guy named Marty working for me. Marty always said no problem when I asked him to do something. I eventually got him to stop saying it around me. One time we went to lunch and on the way back I stopped to get some gas. As New Jersey requires, the attendant came out, filled my tank and I paid him. The attendant gave me $10 too much change so I called him over and gave him his ten-spot. When the attendant thanked me, I deliberately said “No problem”. Marty was looking at me with a shocked expression and I told him that is really was no problem for me to give the attendant HIS money back.
Something I hear a lot now instead of “Good-Bye” or “See you later” or “Have a nice day” is “Have a good one”. I know I’m getting old because I don’t have a clue what that means. Why only one? Can’t I have a good two? How about three? Saying “Have a good one” sounds kind of cool, but I’m afraid to say that to someone I don’t know. What if they’re going to a funeral? Or to a chemotherapy session? I wonder if death row inmates say “Have a good one” to each other?
If you were to ask me how my football playoff picks were doing, I’d have to say pretty poorly. I was ahead by $190 going into the Ravens-Patriots game 2 Sundays ago. I had picked the Patriots and even though they were driving up and down the field in the first half, I knew I was in trouble when they had to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns and only held a 13-7 lead at the half. The Ravens took the lead early in the second half and while the Patriots where still driving up and down the field, they started turning the ball over instead of even getting field goals, leaving me with a loss and down $205 for the playoffs.
I’ve picked against the Ravens three times and lost three times in the playoffs (My record is 4-4). The Super Bowl is the most gambled on football game because it is the last chance for the gamblers to catch up on the season and I am no exception even though my bets are only for fun and no real money is at stake. I like the 49ers to win the Super Bowl, but since I clearly have no clue when it comes to picking games involving the Ravens, instead of picking a winner I’ll bet the ‘over’ and wager $330 that more than 47 points will be scored in the game by both sides combined using the line established by betonline.ag on the Yahoo Sports odds page If I lose I’ll be down $535 for the playoffs and if you ask me how I am I'll say “Not too good”, but if I win I’ll be ahead by $95 and when you ask me how I am, I’ll say “Not too bad” and that my playoff bets were “no problem” and that I “Had a good one”.
I’ll say hi to everyone I know but I don’t ask too many people how they are. It’s not that I don’t care (although in many cases I don’t) but I’ve noticed I just get the same answer from the same people and it seems like a lot of wasted effort. There was one guy at work that would always say “super-fantastic” and I hope he was. If you want to see if someone is listening after they say ‘How are you?’ and you don’t want to say “Worst day of my life”, just say “I’m fine” and nothing more. If your mileage is anything like mine, at least half the time your partner in conversation will tell you their stock “How are you?” answer followed by an uncomfortable pause.
If someone at a cash register or waiting on a table says “How are you?” to me, I will always tell them and ask “How are you?” right back. I like to do this because I hardly ever see anyone do this so I expect the service person would like to be asked and also because it generally takes the service person by surprise and one of my many quirks is that when I talk to strangers, I like to catch them off guard. One of the most common responses I hear when I ask “How are you?” is “Not too bad”. I have no idea what that means. If they’re not too bad they could be anything from really great to really, Really, REALLY bad. Here I am asking a simple question and I only get a sliver of an answer. Could you imagine asking somebody what the weather was outside and having them tell you, “It’s not too cold”. How about asking somebody the score of the big game and being told, “It’s not three to nothing”. If somebody asked my how a movie ended, I wouldn’t say “They didn’t all die!” Maybe the next time someone asks how to get to Route 30, I’ll just point in a random direction and say “It’s not that way”.
I’ve always struggled with how to reply when someone tells me they’re “not too bad”. I used to say “I didn’t ask you how you aren’t.” but most people look at me like I have three eyes when I say that. I guess if they could follow that kind of logic they wouldn’t have said they weren’t too bad in the first place. Eventually, I gave up and now when someone tells me that they are “not too bad”. I just slowly repeat the words “not…too…bad”, which ends the conversation pretty quickly. Yesterday, I was getting gas at the Kum & Go in Marshalltown and the clerk said she was “well” and thanked me for asking.
Another un-favorite phrase of mine is “No problem”. This is a fairly common reply I get when I thank someone for helping me. Maybe “no problem” means that I don’t need to thank anybody because it was “no problem” to help me, At least that’s something called the Wiktionary website says. I always take “no problem” to mean that if it was a problem I wouldn’t have gotten any help as opposed to a statement on the level of effort on the part of the person helping me. I’ve yet to thank anyone and have a reply like “You should thank me. It was a big problem to help you!”
It’s bad enough to need someone’s help and even worse to be told no problem when you thank them but when I thank a customer service person and then they tell me it was “no problem” to help me that really riles me up. I always want say “I’m so glad that it was no problem for you to do your job” but I never do.
In New Jersey, I had a guy named Marty working for me. Marty always said no problem when I asked him to do something. I eventually got him to stop saying it around me. One time we went to lunch and on the way back I stopped to get some gas. As New Jersey requires, the attendant came out, filled my tank and I paid him. The attendant gave me $10 too much change so I called him over and gave him his ten-spot. When the attendant thanked me, I deliberately said “No problem”. Marty was looking at me with a shocked expression and I told him that is really was no problem for me to give the attendant HIS money back.
Something I hear a lot now instead of “Good-Bye” or “See you later” or “Have a nice day” is “Have a good one”. I know I’m getting old because I don’t have a clue what that means. Why only one? Can’t I have a good two? How about three? Saying “Have a good one” sounds kind of cool, but I’m afraid to say that to someone I don’t know. What if they’re going to a funeral? Or to a chemotherapy session? I wonder if death row inmates say “Have a good one” to each other?
If you were to ask me how my football playoff picks were doing, I’d have to say pretty poorly. I was ahead by $190 going into the Ravens-Patriots game 2 Sundays ago. I had picked the Patriots and even though they were driving up and down the field in the first half, I knew I was in trouble when they had to settle for field goals instead of touchdowns and only held a 13-7 lead at the half. The Ravens took the lead early in the second half and while the Patriots where still driving up and down the field, they started turning the ball over instead of even getting field goals, leaving me with a loss and down $205 for the playoffs.
I’ve picked against the Ravens three times and lost three times in the playoffs (My record is 4-4). The Super Bowl is the most gambled on football game because it is the last chance for the gamblers to catch up on the season and I am no exception even though my bets are only for fun and no real money is at stake. I like the 49ers to win the Super Bowl, but since I clearly have no clue when it comes to picking games involving the Ravens, instead of picking a winner I’ll bet the ‘over’ and wager $330 that more than 47 points will be scored in the game by both sides combined using the line established by betonline.ag on the Yahoo Sports odds page If I lose I’ll be down $535 for the playoffs and if you ask me how I am I'll say “Not too good”, but if I win I’ll be ahead by $95 and when you ask me how I am, I’ll say “Not too bad” and that my playoff bets were “no problem” and that I “Had a good one”.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
We got back from vacation on Sunday at around 1 in the morning after leaving New Jersey at 7 in the morning on Saturday and 18 hours of driving and breaks. By Sunday night we had Daisy and Baxter back from the kennel and were settling back into our normal routines and one of my routines is to watch the TV show ‘Falling Skies’ on TNT every Sunday night at 8. Ben told me what a great show it was last summer but I spent my Sunday evenings watching reruns of ‘Law & Order : Special Victims Unit’ on the USA network until I happened to catch a rerun of Falling Skies one Saturday morning and got hooked. The show centers on the adventures of a group of survivors from the Boston area in a post-apocalyptic United States after an alien invasion has destroyed most of the world’s population. A typical episode shows the band of survivors forage for fuel and food and attempt to retain their humanity while they battle the aliens who have superior firepower and technology and the ability to turn the younger humans into aliens. This season, the group has been attempting to make their way to Charleston, South Carolina where there are rumors of an organized government and resistance movement.
Even though I doubt the survivors would have any chance against these aliens (especially since they unleashed their new flesh eating spider type creatures 3 weeks ago), I still find myself carried along in their weekly fight for survival. This past week as the group made their way to Charleston they had a choice of 2 roads to take. Captain Weaver (played by Will Patton in his best role since Quentin Glass in the epic 2004 film 'The Punisher') decided to take the East road. I wondered why and the writers anticipated my question by having the Captain's driver ask him. In answer, the Captain asked his driver if he could smell the sea air. It was an easy decision for the Captain to make since he had no way of knowing if either or both roads would lead them into an alien ambush, but having made the decision, there was no turning back. Even heading to Charleston instead of hunkering down in Massachusetts for the winter was a big decision, probably made easier by the fact that without the road trip there wouldn't be any more episodes.
I’ve never had to make a decision about which road to take to avoid hostile aliens. At work I make plenty of decisions about how to solve programming problems but the only consequence of making the wrong decision is spending some extra time getting things right later on. On Saturday, I had to make a more important decision. We were driving to Iowa from New Jersey and ran into some rain halfway through Indiana. The rain quickly turned into a downpour with wind, lightning, and bending trees. Motorcycles and some cars took refuge under every available underpass to wait out the storm. It was hard to see and there were drivers with their hazard lights on going 20 miles an hour in the right hand lane, effectively rendering Interstate 80 into a one lane highway. Then Matt called a friend in Iowa and told me there were tornado warnings right where we were in Indiana. It was pretty hard to see even with wipers on full blast, but I decided to keep on going. After a half hour of traveling at around 40 MPH the storm broke and I was back traveling at 75 miles an hour.
I didn’t really have to think about this decision since I’ve driven through a lot worse going back and forth from work. I’ve worked from home because of snowstorms a lot of times, but in 16 years, I’ve only stayed at work one time after I had already made the drive to Des Moines. One of Newton’s laws is that a body in motion tends to stay in motion (unless acted upon by an outside force) and I think that applied to my decision to keep driving through the storm on Saturday. I wasn’t too concerned by the threat of a tornado since I figured we were equally likely to be hit by a tornado no matter where we were, but I wanted to keep getting closer to home.
I made a much more questionable decision on Sunday. After getting a few hours of sleep, I turned on my computer to work on my emails, get the vacation pictures loaded, and get my blog posted. I wrote my blog on Saturday in the car when it wasn’t my turn to drive. I was working through my tasks when I went to print an email and my computer went into a major slowdown. My email froze, Word froze, Excel froze, Internet Explorer froze. Everything froze. I rebooted my computer and it took 20 minutes to reboot. I could go into safe mode and things would be fast, but in safe mode I had no access to Word, Excel, or Outlook. I backed up my computer and then I went back to non-safe mode and was back to waiting 5 minutes between I clicked on an icon and the program to appear on my desktop. I was about to bring the computer to a friend of Matt’s to look at when Ben came downstairs looking for breakfast so I asked him to look at the computer. Ben asked me if I had changed anything and I couldn’t recall anything.
I was pretty upset at this HP computer. I had 2 Dell computers for 4 years each before they died and here was this HP computer broken after less than a year. I had the computer for a year before that as a backup but it mostly had sat in a box. I realized I should have had a backup computer ready when I put the HP into commission, so I went to Staples and bought an inexpensive Dell computer to at least have for my youth tournament on Saturday. When I got home, Ben had the computer running a little faster by disabling the anti-virus and some Windows services, but it was still nowhere as fast as it was before it froze at 8 in the morning. Meanwhile I loaded my tournament software and Microsoft Office on my new computer. As my new computer was loading, I realized I did change something on my computer on Saturday. Since I was using it in the car without a plug, the battery was being used up quickly and I changed the power settings to conserve my battery by dimming the display. I went to the HP computer, reset the power settings to not dim the display, and ‘Viola!’ – everything was working like it was before. After everything was all said and done, Matt chided me for running out and buying a computer at the drop of a hat just because I was having problems with my old one. I had to agree that it was a pretty panicky move, but after looking at it, the poor decision was made months ago in not having a contingency plan in the case of a computer crash.
Next week I’m heading to Jackson, Minnesota to play chess at my friend Sam Smith’s Jackson Open. Jackson is 20 miles north of Okoboji and Sam has run this tournament for 6 years. He has never had more than 14 players and made some big decisions this year to try to boost attendance. The first big decision was to make the tournament open only to players under the expert level since he has rarely had more than 1 or 2 expert or better players each year. The other big decision was to guarantee the $700 prize fund which represents a major financial commitment. As a tournament organizer I’m not sure I like the idea of excluding players based on rating, but as a sub expert player I like the idea of being able to have a realistic chance at a big money prize. I’m sure these decisions were difficult for Sam to make, but in my opinion well worth the risk to boost attendance and regain momentum for his signature tournament.
Sam has always been a big encouragement to my chess efforts and ran a couple of chess camps with John Flores on Matt’s behalf to help with the travel expenses of representing Iowa at the National High School championships so it was an easy decision for me to head up north to support his tournament. I have no idea what to expect from my first chess tournament in Minnesota. I’ve played in 2 tournaments this year. In the March CyChess I felt as sharp as I ever have only to have a bad tournament in which I was lucky to draw 2 of the 3 games to go along with a painful loss, while in the week before the May CyChess I couldn’t stop giving away my queen yet played exceptionally well in winning the tournament with only one mistake in 100+ moves. I may be heading into a Minnesota-Iowa border buzz saw with the 3 prime movers of chess in that area enjoying big successes in 2012. John Flores win the Okoboji Reserve in April, Jodene Kruse (the Okoboji Open Organizer) won $1200 at the National Open at Las Vegas in June and Sam just picked up 100 rating points and $165 at the Catfish Days chess tournament 2 weeks ago . In any event I hope I won’t be preparing for the tournament by hanging my queen every chance I get from now until next Friday.
Even though I doubt the survivors would have any chance against these aliens (especially since they unleashed their new flesh eating spider type creatures 3 weeks ago), I still find myself carried along in their weekly fight for survival. This past week as the group made their way to Charleston they had a choice of 2 roads to take. Captain Weaver (played by Will Patton in his best role since Quentin Glass in the epic 2004 film 'The Punisher') decided to take the East road. I wondered why and the writers anticipated my question by having the Captain's driver ask him. In answer, the Captain asked his driver if he could smell the sea air. It was an easy decision for the Captain to make since he had no way of knowing if either or both roads would lead them into an alien ambush, but having made the decision, there was no turning back. Even heading to Charleston instead of hunkering down in Massachusetts for the winter was a big decision, probably made easier by the fact that without the road trip there wouldn't be any more episodes.
I’ve never had to make a decision about which road to take to avoid hostile aliens. At work I make plenty of decisions about how to solve programming problems but the only consequence of making the wrong decision is spending some extra time getting things right later on. On Saturday, I had to make a more important decision. We were driving to Iowa from New Jersey and ran into some rain halfway through Indiana. The rain quickly turned into a downpour with wind, lightning, and bending trees. Motorcycles and some cars took refuge under every available underpass to wait out the storm. It was hard to see and there were drivers with their hazard lights on going 20 miles an hour in the right hand lane, effectively rendering Interstate 80 into a one lane highway. Then Matt called a friend in Iowa and told me there were tornado warnings right where we were in Indiana. It was pretty hard to see even with wipers on full blast, but I decided to keep on going. After a half hour of traveling at around 40 MPH the storm broke and I was back traveling at 75 miles an hour.
I didn’t really have to think about this decision since I’ve driven through a lot worse going back and forth from work. I’ve worked from home because of snowstorms a lot of times, but in 16 years, I’ve only stayed at work one time after I had already made the drive to Des Moines. One of Newton’s laws is that a body in motion tends to stay in motion (unless acted upon by an outside force) and I think that applied to my decision to keep driving through the storm on Saturday. I wasn’t too concerned by the threat of a tornado since I figured we were equally likely to be hit by a tornado no matter where we were, but I wanted to keep getting closer to home.
I made a much more questionable decision on Sunday. After getting a few hours of sleep, I turned on my computer to work on my emails, get the vacation pictures loaded, and get my blog posted. I wrote my blog on Saturday in the car when it wasn’t my turn to drive. I was working through my tasks when I went to print an email and my computer went into a major slowdown. My email froze, Word froze, Excel froze, Internet Explorer froze. Everything froze. I rebooted my computer and it took 20 minutes to reboot. I could go into safe mode and things would be fast, but in safe mode I had no access to Word, Excel, or Outlook. I backed up my computer and then I went back to non-safe mode and was back to waiting 5 minutes between I clicked on an icon and the program to appear on my desktop. I was about to bring the computer to a friend of Matt’s to look at when Ben came downstairs looking for breakfast so I asked him to look at the computer. Ben asked me if I had changed anything and I couldn’t recall anything.
I was pretty upset at this HP computer. I had 2 Dell computers for 4 years each before they died and here was this HP computer broken after less than a year. I had the computer for a year before that as a backup but it mostly had sat in a box. I realized I should have had a backup computer ready when I put the HP into commission, so I went to Staples and bought an inexpensive Dell computer to at least have for my youth tournament on Saturday. When I got home, Ben had the computer running a little faster by disabling the anti-virus and some Windows services, but it was still nowhere as fast as it was before it froze at 8 in the morning. Meanwhile I loaded my tournament software and Microsoft Office on my new computer. As my new computer was loading, I realized I did change something on my computer on Saturday. Since I was using it in the car without a plug, the battery was being used up quickly and I changed the power settings to conserve my battery by dimming the display. I went to the HP computer, reset the power settings to not dim the display, and ‘Viola!’ – everything was working like it was before. After everything was all said and done, Matt chided me for running out and buying a computer at the drop of a hat just because I was having problems with my old one. I had to agree that it was a pretty panicky move, but after looking at it, the poor decision was made months ago in not having a contingency plan in the case of a computer crash.
Next week I’m heading to Jackson, Minnesota to play chess at my friend Sam Smith’s Jackson Open. Jackson is 20 miles north of Okoboji and Sam has run this tournament for 6 years. He has never had more than 14 players and made some big decisions this year to try to boost attendance. The first big decision was to make the tournament open only to players under the expert level since he has rarely had more than 1 or 2 expert or better players each year. The other big decision was to guarantee the $700 prize fund which represents a major financial commitment. As a tournament organizer I’m not sure I like the idea of excluding players based on rating, but as a sub expert player I like the idea of being able to have a realistic chance at a big money prize. I’m sure these decisions were difficult for Sam to make, but in my opinion well worth the risk to boost attendance and regain momentum for his signature tournament.
Sam has always been a big encouragement to my chess efforts and ran a couple of chess camps with John Flores on Matt’s behalf to help with the travel expenses of representing Iowa at the National High School championships so it was an easy decision for me to head up north to support his tournament. I have no idea what to expect from my first chess tournament in Minnesota. I’ve played in 2 tournaments this year. In the March CyChess I felt as sharp as I ever have only to have a bad tournament in which I was lucky to draw 2 of the 3 games to go along with a painful loss, while in the week before the May CyChess I couldn’t stop giving away my queen yet played exceptionally well in winning the tournament with only one mistake in 100+ moves. I may be heading into a Minnesota-Iowa border buzz saw with the 3 prime movers of chess in that area enjoying big successes in 2012. John Flores win the Okoboji Reserve in April, Jodene Kruse (the Okoboji Open Organizer) won $1200 at the National Open at Las Vegas in June and Sam just picked up 100 rating points and $165 at the Catfish Days chess tournament 2 weeks ago . In any event I hope I won’t be preparing for the tournament by hanging my queen every chance I get from now until next Friday.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Geek Hunting - Jersey Style
Mike the Geek owner!
Left turns - Jersey style.
The day clerk at the Holiday has an act that you could take on the road!
2 sides of the Jersey Shore. The beach on the left and the bay on the right.
Patrick Stewart
contemplating his next big role.
Food, sun, sand, candy, and games. The Jersey shore has it all!
My brother Ed came down on Friday to spend the day on the beach with us. While we were hanging out on the boardwalk, an old guy caught my eye as he kept on screaming at every passer-by to ‘Shoot The Geek’. That game has been on the boardwalk for years. I remember the ‘Geek’ having a giant head with glasses in years past and I thought I remembered this same stand offering to let me shoot ‘Saddam’ or shoot ‘Osama Bin Laden’ with their paintball guns in years past. I think the Geek was lucky Clint Eastwood wasn’t at the shore (‘Shoot the Geek…Sure, I’ll Shoot the Geek’ and out comes the 44 Magnum!). I got a few minutes of video of this guy (whose name was Mike) exhorting everyone to ‘Shoot the Geek’ and offering a free bottle of water to anyone willing to fork over the $10 for the chance to ‘Shoot the Geek’. Once I got done filming, Mike managed to talk an older lady out of a cigarette and then started yelling at me to ‘Shoot The Geek’, saying things like ‘C’mon I see you watching’ and ‘C’mon buddy, you know you want to’.
As we walked up and down the boardwalk, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Mile the barker. He was 3 times the age of the other barkers (who are mostly kids with vaguely Eastern European accents), but he was also 3 times louder and 3 times as hard working. No halfhearted ‘c’mon dad…win the kid a prize’ from this refugee from a Rodney Dangerfield lookalike contest. He made it sound like shooting the Geek was going to be the highlight of your life and all for a measly 10 dollars…and you got a free bottle of ICE-COLD water to boot! As we made our way back down the boardwalk, I decided that even though some of my best friends are geeks (really they are, really!) I was going to take the ten dollar plunge and shoot a Geek.
I tried to get Matt, Ben, or Ed to join me in shooting the Geek, but they just wanted to be voyeurs and live vicariously through me. I gave Mike my 10 dollars and asked him if this guy had suited up as Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in years past. Both Mike and the Geek denied ever allowing people to shoot Saddam or Osama (which made me question their patriotism), but they admitted to letting customers shoot Snooki (of Jersey Shore fame) and Barack Obama! At that point my gun was loaded, the Geek had his body armor on, and I fired 100 pellets of paint into the Geek as he drunkenly tried to avoid my marksmanship.
Left: How to talk people into shooting a geek. Right: My turn!
Bring on them GEEKS!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
An 'off' week
Once the games started, no one cared that I arrived only 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the tournament.
We did manage to start within 5 minutes of the 9:30 start.
‘Oh! You could have just gone in the on-line order line'.
Given a choice of 2 lines, I went in the wrong one! To quote the prophet Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!". Serves me right for trying to be just like 'Everyone else'. On the other hand, I did manage to snap this picture of John Kerry. When I asked him if he was indeed John Kerry, he told me he only gets recognized in Iowa every 4 years or so...
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