TiVo this!

On Friday, Sept. 30, ABC's "World News Tonight" will feature a segment on "Freakonomics" and its authors, Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner.

This is based on the book that I have linked on the right side of the blog, Freakonomics. The authors explain the hidden side of things that people wouldn't expect, such as why crack dealers still live with their moms, and why the crime rate dropped in the nineties. This will be an interesting program, so TiVo it if you can't watch live.

What to wear?

My colleague Sylvia and I had a discussion today about a most puzzling problem. Our friend Kelly is getting married in a couple of months at the Texas Renaissance Festival. The venue and the event are highly thematic in nature. Picture all of the movies from Princess Bride through First Knight, all rolled into one. In Kelly's wedding, the men are wearing kilts, the bride is wearing a princess dress, and the flower girl is wearing a fairy costume complete with wings. Essentially, everyone will be in a skirt except for the dragon-costumed ring bearer.

The question of what to wear to a wedding doesn't ever phase me. Little black cocktail dress has served me just fine until now. However, at this wedding, there is a choice of theme or traditional. My boyfriend won't dress up in the thematic garb, so that's out of the question - but the traditional wedding attire at an outdoor event where most of the patrons wear jeans and t-shirts (or chain mail) is not so simple. The cocktail dress would be overstated, but jeans wouldn't be nice enough for a wedding. Anything in the open-toed shoe department will make me hate myself and my choices because of the dirt and gravel grounds I will have to navigate.

Any suggestions?

Job News

As some of you may have already heard, I accepted a job offer last week. The new job will be with a large company that distributes wine, beer, and spirits in Texas and several other southern states. No, I can't get you free samples! I have been hired as a data conversion analyst, so I will be working with their many databases, as well as new development using the .NET architecture. This is a permanent position, with great benefits and considerably greater pay than I am earning now. Not only that, I expect that the position will actually be fun! Needless to say, I'm very excited.

One of the funny things about this job is the amount of hoops I needed to jump through to get it. I went through a thorough background screening and took a drug/alcohol test, both of which seemed normal to me. I started to wonder, though, when they sent me in for a physical. I was downright baffled when I had to take a "Human Performance Evaluation," which consisted of lifting 40 pounds in a box to eye level (harder than it looks!) and pushing weighted stands across the room. Either this job is really worth having, or HR made a mistake and I will report to the loading dock on my first day of work.

The office is located on 290 @ Beltway 8, so it's not far from my current home. My first day is October 10th, so wish me luck!

Northwest Houston Storm Damage

Like me, my roommate fled to her parents' home for the hurricane, which is near the home of my parents in the northwest Houston area. She sent the following update today on her Hurricane Rita experience, including pictures of the damage.

I know a lot of you have been worried, but I want to let you know that I am
doing ok after the hurricane. The damage to my parent’s house was just awful!
Thank goodness the city was shut down for 5 days so everyone could
evacuate…

More storm blogs

It looks like I'm not the only one who waited in a gas line that didn't exist.

The Houston Chronicle is hosting a group who has been blogging the storm from the beginning, called Stormwatchers - just in case you can't get enough.

Lines, lines everywhere

Anyone who happens to be reading this and evaluating whether to return home to Houston, I hope you can feed yourselves and get around for the next several days without access to essential goods and services. The situation in Houston just shows how reliant we are on the food and gas markets to satisfy our insatiable human wants.

The first picture is what happens when only one or two grocery stores are open in a city of 5 million people. Since it's another fuzzy cell phone picture, I'll narrate what's going on.

I was parked across the street from the HEB at Kirkwood and Westheimer. It was the only grocery store I knew of to be open, and since Channel 11 News crews were there, others knew about it, too. What you can see in the foreground is a line of cars waiting to get in the parking lot and find a place to park. This line, for those who know the area, stretched from the store's facade on Westheimer all the way down Kirkwood to the corner at Richmond. That's at least half a mile. There are people standing outside of their cars, because they know they're not going anywhere for a while.

What you can't see is that once people find a spot to park, they get to stand in another line on foot. This one stretches in the same direction, around the side to the back of the store. It's not exactly comfortable out here, either, in the 90-something degree heat. I felt guiltily indulgent riding by in my air conditioned car.

The second picture is of the gas-line-that-wasn't. Since I was down to half a tank, I stopped behind what I thought were very short lines at Kirkwood and Interstate 10. After sitting for a while and noticing that no one seemed to move, I asked the car in front of me what was going on. Apparently, the rumor was that the owner had heard at 3:00 that gas would be there by 5:00. It was now 6:45, and there was still no gas. Their license plates said "Kentucky," but not that it means anything. I'm just sayin'.

There's a conclusion that I have drawn from this whole situation, beginning with Wednesday night's late evacuation: In a crisis, most people don't know how to think creatively.

Instead of focusing on what will help them reach their short-term goals, they get fixated on what they think they're supposed to be doing.

We began our evacuation at 3:30 in the morning, and by just before 5:00 had reached a Kroger store that was about to open. For the fifteen minutes before the store threw open its doors, people waited anxiously. Once they had, the biggest rush of people I've ever seen at that hour flooded the store, practically diving for the water aisle. Right there, in the middle of an upscale Houston suburb (which was, coincidentally, less than two miles from my parents' home, where we would return by the end of that day) was a near-fight over bottled water. A store manger handed people the gallon jugs straight from a pallet that they hadn't bothered to load onto the shelves. I saw a corpulent woman shove the nose of her shopping cart in front of a man who surrendered his spot in line with the realization that there would be enough for him. When we later stopped at a convenience store and waited for gas, I bought bottles of Gatorade, which had gone untouched on the shelves but still hydrate a storm evacuee just as well as water does. There were even shelves in the cooler full of Propel fitness water - which arguably hydrates even better than water - but no one had bothered because it didn't say "Water" on the bottle, it said "Propel." I would even dare say that some to most of these people don't drink much water on a regular basis. It's probably Coke, juice, or even Budweiser lining the shelves of their fridge. However, in this case, the news crews had told them to stock up on water.

Once we were on the road, we made most of our progress (save for a two-mile stretch on 59 north) using back roads. We thought, most of the time, that we may be doing something seriously wrong for heading away from the direction that even the locals seemed to be taking. Most of the time, though, we proved to be right. It is possible in that area to zig and zag along the major highway, even crossing under it at several points, and still end up moving faster than the highways did on that day. Only when we started to run into the major routes for Beaumont evacuees did we run into trouble. I don't know why other people didn't take the back routes. When the traffic moves an average of less than five miles per hour, how much distance did anyone have to lose? I'm convinced that this is another example of the herd-of-sheep mentality wherein people assume that just because everyone else is doing it, then it must be the right thing for them as well.

They don't seem to understand that what's good for one car (to take 59 to get to Arkansas) may not be the best way precisely because everyone else is doing it. In economics, this is called the fallacy of composition. It was even surreal when we were heading back south on 59 toward Houston at over 80 miles an hour, passing tens of thousands of cars just stopped on the road heading north. Fortunately, waiting it out in northwest Houston turned out to be the non-event that the radio media was already saying it would be.

Now, I must say something about the lines at the grocery store as well. What could anyone possibly need that badly? If they are in this side of town, it's presumably because they live here and hadn't evacuated from somewhere else. This side of town has power, and they could easily go home and wait it out. It's not understandable to me that people would pass up several open establishments serving food within the same mile strip on Westheimer, and then stand for hours in a line in the heat. They clearly didn't see that several Walgreens pharmacies, a Sonic drive-in, and even the Fox & Hound Grille and Pub, were open and had food to serve in the form of snacks, fast food, or full meals with beer. People were fixated on needing groceries, and needing them yesterday. What were they going to find in there that couldn't wait until tomorrow, when more places were open? More water?

Gas and food aren't the only things in short supply around here. For some people, there's also an appreciable lack of common sense.

More hurricane photos

These pictures were taken from my uncle's house probably an hour before mine, in the same Northwest-Houston part of town.

The house, with windows taped up tightly.

The dog wonders if something's going on, while bushes flap around in the wind behind her.

The sky to the west.

Sky to the east.

Pictures from Hurricane Rita

These pictures were taken with my camera phone at about 7:30 central time, northwest of Houston in the suburb of Cypress. Sorry about the awful quality, but camera phones don't to well with the nuances of hurricane photos.

About ten minutes after the pictures were taken, the sky was too dark for any more pictures. The wind right now is coming and going, and since about ten minutes ago, something is hitting the window - either rain or pine needles.

Here we have the wind blowing trees from the east. The small one in front won't last the storm.


Next, a juxtaposition of the menacing eastern view (first picture) and the beautiful western view (second picture).
See those people in the first picture? They're playing football. Right now, everyone is semi-anxious, and the excitement of something different has given neighbors an excuse to get out in the street and chat. One of my neighbors asked another, "Where's the hurricane?" He replied, "It's in my blender!" Proud of his joke, he gave a little fist pump and a Chesshire cat grin.

Others have opted for a more specific celebratory drink, margaritas. In a way, this reminds me of the movie Independence Day, when everyone ran up to the top of the Empire State building to "welcome" the UFOs.

The gusts are getting stronger now, and about two minutes ago I heard everyone go back inside.

Never wanted to leave a Rita... until this one

For those who are completely in the dark (I'll give you credit if you're in another country) there is a Category 4 hurricane approaching the gulf coast right now. There are tons of stories on the web and the news right now. Here's mine.


Wednesday : Realization

My office sent out a building-wide email and an announcement that they would close on Thursday and Friday. Everyone was expected to pull loose things away from the windows, put monitors on the floors under our desk, and exercise a strict "clean desk" policy of everything out of danger of becoming a flying projectile. Whereas I hadn't even considered the idea of evacuation before, the magnitude of what was going to happen in the next three days hit like a ton of bricks.

My boyfriend and I decided to pack up that night, and take up my aunt on her offer to shelter us in her home near Jonesboro, Arkansas. We would leave in the middle of the night to avoid traffic, and I was to take the first driving shift. I packed my nonreplaceable papers and put together a weekend's worth of clothes. Sunny, my bike, is cowering in my closed bathroom where she would hopefully emerge unscathed.

Thursday : The uncalm before the storm

We thought we were geniuses for leaving at 3:30 a.m. So did everybody else. Beltway 8, Interstate 10, and any other major road we passed had become parking lots. We decided that the only way to get out of Houston was back roads. We took a crazy combination of streets: Briar Forest, Eldridge, 529, Barker Cypress, Spring Cypress, 2920, 1488, 242, College Park, and finally, we arrived at Highway 59 and essentially parked ourselves. The highest speed we reached on this road was 15 mph, but the average was under 5.

The small portion of time we spent on 59, perhaps about five miles, had taken up at least 25% of our time and didn't cover more than a finger-width of distance on the map. Cars were bailed out left and right on the roads. People were walking dogs, throwing footballs, and using nature's "facilities" right there along the side of the roads. Someone had even set up a tent, apparently not cognizant of the kind of shelter required to last through a hurricane. Those who still had gas rolled along while some of their passengers walked alongside the car or pushed it (a conservation method I'd never thought I would see). The heat was 100 degrees, but with no gas stations still vending petrol, nobody had the gall to run the air conditioning. Despite being hot, scared, and out of gas, people were generally friendly. Few people gave so much as a dirty look to their fellow motorists, and most offered friendly assistance when they saw a chance.

Once again, we turned to the backroads with a trusty map as our guide. At first, this worked beautifully. We sailed along at 60+ miles an hour with seemingly very few cars who had the same idea. We made it about 20 miles east and probably the same distance north. Then two things started to become apparent that our zig-zag plan would be foiled. First, the authorities announced on the radio that the storm could head for Beaumont, almost directly south of where we had now arrived. A mandatory evacuation was called for all of Liberty County, the one we were presently driving through. Every time we used one of our two lane roads (one in each direction) to get to an intersection, it was blocked several miles back with Beaumont-area evacuees. We didn't want to sit and waste gas on waiting.

The especially dangerous part was that gas wasn't just in short supply - it was in non-supply. Once we reached just half a tank, a luxury on those roads, we found a country road gas station to top off the tank. There were twenty two cars in line in front of us when we joined up with the gasless and the weary at the country store. They had four pumps and still offered full service. They had this situation down as well as I've ever seen. One volunteer at each pump would pump the gas and send the driver inside to pay. By the time the driver had arrived at the front of the line, probably with a handfull of oatmeal cream pies, Gatorade, and Cheetos, the volunteer would yell the total to the cashier. Never in my life have I seen a line for gas, much less a station completely out. This situation was unimaginable to me, and probably most of the other people on the roads. The unprecedented nature of it all added to the fear.

By about 1:30 p.m., after 10 hours of driving, we had hit a decision point.

Option 1: We stay in this mess, which we have no reason to believe will get any better, and try to get to Arkansas. We will be in the direct line of the storm, and possibly in our cars near Lufkin when it hit, 30 hours later. We would be out of gas, out of water, and scared. By the time the eye wall hit, scared may turn into "dead."

Option 2: We backtrack to my parents' home, northwest of Houston in the suburb of Cypress, TX. We would be well south of where we could possibly get with the continued driving, and with the uncertainty of the storm, possibly also in the direct path of the third strongest hurricane in history. We'd be with family, but probably without power (and air conditioning, and phones) for several days. We had a full tank of gas now, and we knew we could get there since it as opposite the direction that everybody else wanted to go. It was a known evil, and we chose this route.

It took us less than two hours to undo the progress of ten hours northward. We had to be careful, because even though we could get back into Houston easily, we may never make it back out 290 to their home. We chose to retrace the same steps we had taken to get out of town in the first place, making a huge loop around the north and west sides of Houston so that we were always headed inward and away from traffic. We have worried like crazy for the people stuck in their cars. We came home yesterday convinced that we had seen some faces that would not survive the weekend.

Friday : The waiting game

Aside from my dad's constant jokes about rationing, it has been rather comfortable here. I had cookie dough and pizza for dinner, and we have been studying off and on all day. My car, with an unheard of 3/4 tank of gas, is sitting safely in my dad's garage.

The news and internet reports show that within Houston, the major highways have cleared. I am honestly shocked and relieved that this happened. The talks of metro busses with water and national guard tankers with gas may have worked. They got people filled up enough to make it out of town to a place where there was more gas. Many stranded people have been scooped into shelters.

The pine trees outside my window have been rustling intermittently. At one point, I heard a strong gust of wind and glanced outside to see all of the needles on one tree pulled to the side by a the force. Even though it will be hours before Galveston sees their first drop of rain, the proverbial calm-before-the-storm has given way to an uneasy, but slow, crescendo of wind.

I expect that there will be no power here for several days, and we have taken precautions like filling the bathtubs with water and hoarding food. It will be scary, but not as horrible as it could have been. I will update more when I can, but this may not be for a while.

If you're in it, stay safe. If you're not, please pray.

Good Problem / Bad Problem

It's finally time that I weighed in on the Hurricane Katrina disaster, since it is the topic du jour and I do live in Houston, the city where many Katrina evacuees plan to settle down. Rather than mention the whole scope of the issue, which is enormous, I'll just talk about two separate angles from which I have seen both the good and the bad side of things.

A Good Problem to Have

Yesterday, I finally went through all of my clothes and cleared out about 1/3rd of my wardrobe that doesn't get worn. I felt a bit foolish for having clothes - nice clothes - from places like Ann Taylor and J Crew and the like, while there are people still in shelters who don't have anything but the clothes they left New Orleans wearing. I packed them all into boxes, along with a full size bed set I've been harboring ever since I got a queen bed, and set them in the living room while I found a place to take them. I searched the internet and made phone calls for two hours and never found a place that would accept them.

The Star of Hope Mission, a great organization for Houston's homeless that I have worked with over my last several years at my company, is widely listed on the Internet as being the place to drop off clothing donations. Just to be sure, I called.

Star of Hope Mission, how can I direct your call?

Hi, are you still accepting clothing donations?

Oh, well, no, I don't think... just a second. [covers the phone, and I hear a muffled "We're not taking clothes anymore, right?"] No, we have received too many and we no longer have any room for the clothes. We're trying to sort them right now.

Okay, that sounds like a good problem to have. Do you know where I can take them?

No, sorry, I don't. But we appreciate the thought!

They have TOO MANY clothes. Repeat this conversation by calling five churches, three "Assistance Ministries" locations, and the Salvation Army. The response was one of two options: either "You have to take them to such-and-such church," or, upon calling such-and-such, "No, due to overwhelming response, we have too many right now."

Incredible. I must say, Houston residents have really poured out their hearts, and their stuff. I am truly proud of how my city, and countless others like it, have handled the assistance effort in this disaster.

Well, mostly...

A Bad Problem to Have

I talked with a friend yesterday, who told me she was upset with the way that "the hurricane victims" (in a wide, general, sweeping sense) were handling their debit cards. She listed several examples that she had heard of on the news, where people were taking FEMA-issued debit cards and buying watches, liquor, and Louis-Vuitton purses with them. Her husband later added that some of these people "have it made," because they had nothing in New Orleans, and now they're getting all this free stuff. I understand that the city in general is one of the poorest, and had one of the highest crime rates, in the country. Duly noted. However, one would have had to be homeless to essentially have more by living on an Astrodome cot with thousands of other evacuees and getting only a few donated items of clothing to wear.

Granted, if I were a store clerk and had given $300 of my own money just to personally witness $250 of it go to a gold piece of bling, I would be upset. But to generalize the entire group as such is unfair. After some back-and-forth discussion, we agreed that a few bad apples doesn't ruin the whole bunch.

We hear stories on the news, both of the heartwarming and the nauseating sides of the disaster. Just like the proverbial dissatisfied restaurant customer, however, bad news travels more quickly and more broadly than good. Who remembers when we first started fighting the Iraq war, and the talk on CNN and Fox was all about winning the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi population? The idea of an Image War is just as prevalent in this disaster as in any military coup or political election. It's important, and by those in charge, it is the one aspect of this situation that I think has been handled the most miserably.

If it's true that there are two sides to every issue, the two sides may well be REALITY and PERCEPTION. Since only God has the omniscient view of reality that we so crave, it is important to carefully control everyone's own view of the situation - their perception. To reach everyone, it must be overdone and obvious.

In this case, it has been neither.

Example #1: Our Commander-in-Chief

President Bush has been raked through the coals for his handling of this situation. Even I, who voted for Bush twice, am disappointed by his performance. Is it realistic that he may have been at his Crawford ranch since Monday gathering data and reports from others and coming up with a plan? Sure. Could it be realistic that it takes longer than twenty-four hours to even begin to understand the scope of what one must do, let alone come up with a plan to solve it? Of course. It it realistic that it is unclear in the first several days who is in charge, and that each of those who thinks they may be has different levels of excrutiating lose-lose decisions to make? Without a doubt.

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume, for the sake of argument, that those are the realities. [Note that I'm not trying to defend him, I just want to show as wide a juxtaposition as possible.] How much of that did the public see? None. We saw him hovering over the scene from the comfort of a lackadaisical Air Force One trip several days after the disaster, making short-sighted comments like "It must be doubly devastating on the ground." We saw that it took almost a week to evacuate people from the Superdome, with no explanation why. If his publicists made any effort to portray concern on the part of the President, it was neither overdone nor obvious.

Example #2 - Bad Apples

Going back to the conversation with my friend, it is unfortunate that so much bad news is getting out and is able to overshadow the good. The reality that I want to believe is that there are thousands upon thousands of people who are grateful for what Houston has done. We do see these on the news every day. I have a realistic story that I can share from my own family.

My mother is a girl scout leader for my much younger sister's troop. One of the girls in the troop is from New Orleans and had, until recently, twenty six additional members of the family living with them. These aren't poor people, but it is safe to say that they've lost everything. Since most of these people can't go back home, they are starting to find jobs and apartments in Houston. My mom had a lot of extra furniture: my old bed and television, my sister's old bedroom furniture and bed (she got new ones for her birthday) and some smaller items. When the Father/Husband came over to pick up the stuff, he was embarrassed. "We're usually the people helping out others. I can't believe we're in this situation." This drives home the idea that it could happen to most of us, as well. For those who rent instead of own, like myself, FEMA doesn't give a "rental" reimbursement for people whose homes are destroyed. We're simply forced to find another place to live.

The perception of this situation is controlled by two parties: the victims themselves, and the media. Since there is no way to insist that victims behave appropriately with their $2,000 FEMA cards, the media can and should pay a larger part. Shame on WorldNetDaily, MSNBC, and our own Click2Houston for bloodying the water with reports of debit cards used at strip clubs and to buy expensive handbags. In not one of these reports did I see anything about how this is a minority of the population, or that most people are being responsible with the money. All we have heard is a scathing report of abuse of the system, with no effort to mention the scope.

To these media organizations, I ask, what's the point? Do they not recognize that the media owes its public a fair and balanced report? I would love to see some of the local and national media own up to their role in creating a responsible and positive report, as much as to highlight abuses taking place. I can already hear the disagreement coming through - people want to know the whole truth, and in no way to I suggest that they conceal that from us. I understand that sensationalism creates clicks and ratings, but after a while, people get sickened enough that they just stop reading and watching the news.

It's also up to all of us. Word travels just as much through word of mouth as through the news. Next time you lament the increased crime rate, the rush on Louis Vuitton bags, or the dismal response of the government, don't forget to thank God that so many people got out of there alive.

Job Satisfaction

From my limited world view, job satisfaction is at an all-time low -- or at least, I'm just now beginning to notice it. My mother would like to return to school and earn a degree in landscape architecture. My dad wants to sell his business and embark on a new career. A good friend plans to attend law school and leave his current job behind. I, as was hinted in my previous post about changing majors, intend to finish my studies and one day do the same. Most of my colleagues - particularly those of the contract variety - would leave their jobs in a Monster.com minute for something that either paid a little better, offered "real job" benefits, or made them feel if not fulfilled, then important. While there are probably hordes of people out there who love and live for what they do, I simply don't know many of them. I have to wonder, if every one of these people were working in a way that best fits their interests and talents, would the world be noticeably different? I think it would.

What turns a job into a passion? My one semester in introductory Psychology discusses the concept of motivation. A task is intrinsically motivating if doing the task brings enjoyment that is its own reward. Extrinsic motivation, then, is comprised of external factors that make the task rewarding, such as compensation. People often enter a career for one of two main reasons: that they have a true calling for what they do, or that it pays well.

This highlights a natural imbalance between some jobs that are naturally desirable, and others that aren't. Surely the reason that many undesirable jobs pay well is that there aren't enough people with an intrinsic motivation to seek those jobs, and others need be attracted with "greener" pastures. Consider law school entrants versus graduates. It is a common axiom that many bright-eyed would-be lawyers enter law school with big dreams of doing something that serves the public good, gives them the satisfaction of helping people, and lends purpose to their lives. After three years in law school, however, the best students tend to be rewarded with highly sought-after (and probably, pragmatic) jobs in very profitable mega-firms working ungodly hours for high pay, but little career fulfillment. Another analogy are the unsung heroes of Americana - teachers, firefighters, police, and military - who are said to have a calling specifically because of the notoriously low average pay of these roles.

Maybe after a while, even the jobs that people seek because they have a genuine passion for the work fall into tedium and begin to require more extrinsic motivation to achieve satisfaction. If that's true, then we are all in danger of seeing the job we used to love turn into the job we just go to from 8 to 5.

I can think of two people who appear, on the surface, to know that they are doing exactly what they should be doing. One of my favorite bloggers, Eclectic Econoclast John Palmer, is clearly sewn into his life's work. This is evident from reading one of his numerous blogs on the subject of economics, or even in his curiosity for fundamental economic problems (Has the penny outlived its usefulness? What does society do with all of these leftover fast food contest cups?). The other person - my grandfather - is retired, and has earned the right to report only to the interests that suit him.

High school counselors, career advisors, pastors, and a multitude of self-help books instruct people to "Do what you love and the money will follow." Those who learn young what this career love is are certainly the lucky ones. More often, I hear middle-aged people say about their own careers: "I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up."

Aquadan 2.0

Alright, kiddos, it's time for another round of Aquadan. For those who are new to the blog, last year I banned myself from drinking anything that wasn't water or Crystal Light during the daylight hours. This time the rules have changed to be a bit more practical and goal-oriented:

NO CARBONATED BEVERAGES.

That's it. I can still have coffee, tea, juice, Crystal Light, wine, and of course, water. What I can't drink are soft drinks, Perrier, and (according to this article) beer. The goal here is not to see whether I can sacrifice all but one kind of beverage, as I did last time. Instead, I am trying to improve my health by not drinking the things that - even in diet form - do unsavory things to one's insides. Now that the goal is for health, I am choosing to change the daylight-hours restriction and not drink them at all, day or night. Hopefully this will be the start of a change in habit for me and the end of my soda drinking days.

Since I have my first poker night this evening with some friends from work, Aquadan 2.0 officially starts tomorrow. Can anyone suggest some socially acceptable non-carbonated poker friendly alternative that is less pompous than wine? This may help me get a jump start and actually start Aquadan 2.0 today.

For the record, that is not me in the photo.

Late Night Studying

I actually posted the following on my online Macroeconomics class message board. When did I become so geeky?

When reviewing Chapter 2, the model used extensively throughout deals with a Pizza/Robot Economy. Did anyone else actually order pizza when reviewing this chapter? I did!

However, after three slices I felt very full. The marginal benefit of enjoying the pizza was usurped by the marginal cost of feeling full (and if I would eat too much, feeling sick). In the end, my total cost was less than the total benefit and I have 2/3rds of a pizza sitting in the fridge.

Tomorrow I will review Chapter 3. Good thing there are two cans of corn in the pantry!

Lesson: People who are hungry should neither grocery shop nor study Economics.

John Palmer should like this one.

Change, Change, Change

My apologies to both of my loyal readers for a lack of posting activity as of late. My nonexistent internet connection (caused by my reluctance to learn how to troubleshoot my new MandrakeLinux OS) has made this incredibly inconvenient, if not impossible.

Several things have changed since I last posted.

Charting a New Course
Many people subscribe to the "Do what you love and the money will follow" philosophy. I always have been, too - for other people. It was somewhere halfway through this semester when I realized that I didn't just lack an interest in Electrical Engineering, I despised it. Some of my fellow students talk eagerly about the courses they will take next semester or the engineering internships they hoped to land. My plan had been that this was simply a means to a law school end for me. God forbid that I would ever get a job in engineering and be forced to work in the field for which I had trained.

I joined the ranks of the engineering school dropouts and decided to major instead in something that will get me much further in law school: finance. I'm finally excited about my upcoming courses, the way that I used to be a year ago before I thought that engineering was a good idea. This could actually work.

Of course, GPA and LSAT scores are the two most significant factors in law school admission, and I must take advantage of the direct control I have over the former. I dropped Calculus II like a hot potato before allowing it to become a waste of good GPA points. This means I have no classes for the rest of the semester, but I've still found plenty of ways to use my time. Read on.

Windows Has Been Usurped
I finally, reluctantly, installed MandrakeLinux on my home computer. This, in itself, is not a life-affirming event for most people. However, making the switch has occupied such a significant portion of my time and attention that it's worth commenting on having joined the ranks of the penguin-affectionate geeks. There is one big thing separating me from the people who camp out for Star Wars tickets: I know nothing - and I mean nothing - about Linux.

Case in point: this week, I brought my Linux machine over to a friend's house who is experiencing computer problems. We had trouble hooking it up to an old monitor, so I did some significant desktop configuration and somehow set it to not log me in automatically anymore. Big mistake! As stupid as it sounds, I have never logged in to my own machine since installing the Linux OS. I got a line that asked for the Localhost Login and it effectively locked me out for days because I couldn't, to save my life, recall the password for Localhost. Just when I was frustrated enough to throw in the towel and call my ultimate source for tech support. I happened to try logging in as root. It worked! I logged back out and then in again as myself. Worked again! It turns out, once I got into configuration again, that there is no actual user called Localhost. I am a retard.

Now that I'm back up and running, I'm eager to try the one thing (besides have a stable machine) that I couldn't do with Windows: install Freevo. If anyone else has any ideas of other cool Linux-only things I can do to make me feel like this was worthwhile, please leave them in the comments.

Moving On
About a month ago, my friend April was planning her move back to Houston from Austin and asked me to room with her. I have been looking to move closer to the office, and moving in with a roommate would save me some good money on rent. I jumped on the offer, and we are soon going to be roomies.

I have known April for a long time. We first met in the same fifth-grade homeroom class. Later, in the seventh through twelfth grades, we were in the high school band together. She has spent the last six years in Austin, earning a degree at UT and working. We agreed that we would make the perfect roommates because we're close enough that we can share the same place, but not so close that one of us would ever feel hurt if not invited out with the other and our separate friends. I'm looking forward to the move.

There is actually a lot more going on beyond the scope of this post, some of which involves office scandals and dirty gossip*. To be continued...


*Some of the facts have been exaggerated to induce the impression that I am interesting.

MS 150 Fundraising Update

Since I posted on Monday about my fundraising goal, I have reached $1,030! Thank you again to everyone who made this happen. My biggest cheerleader is a very kind co-worker who put up $160 to get me to my initial thousand-dollar goal. Thank you, Jeff!

On Tuesday night, I talked to my Pedal Partner for the first time. Pedal Partners is a program which gets cyclists together with MS survivors so that we can share stories and have someone to ride 'for.' She was incredibly sweet, and very thankful that I was riding. Our conversation was cut short because her medication prohibited her from getting too chatty, although it's absolutely essential to control the pain. Wow. I'll wear her signed bandana tomorrow, and hopefully it will fuel me up at least a couple of those dreadful hills.

It's not too late to help me get to my new goal, which is $1,200 for MS. To pledge for my ride, please click here.

Whether you pledge or you don't, please give me and the 12,999 other cyclists a thought and a prayer sometime this weekend for a safe ride.

A note from Anna

It is now less than one day before the MS 150, and I'm starting to field the email messages and visits from co-workers wishing me luck and a safe trip. The one I recieved this afternoon from Anna made gave me pause. I never think of myself as a hero of any kind, though I do ride for the purpose of finding a cure.

What she's not writing in here is that Anna is a real hero for MS. It's not all about riding bikes (though that's a lot of fun). It's the money raised for research that makes an impact. Every year, Anna sponsors about a dozen people in the ride, and not for a small chunk of change. It's people like Anna that deserve the cheers from people on the side of the road.

Her message:

Have fun, save lives, be safe, don't chafe

Howdy all you awesome MS-150-ers,

I wanted to wish all of you the best of luck this weekend and let you know how PROUD I am of each and every one of you.

Even if your not able to bike the entire ride, just the fact that you're trying is AWESOME!! AND the fact that you raised so much money to try and help save lives is HEROIC.

You probably don't feel like a hero, but to the person that may have an opportunity to get out of a wheelchair, etc. thanks in part to your assistance, you ARE their hero.

Y'all are great people. Have fun, don't fall, try to laugh, and above all - use that butt cream.

Wahoo!
Anna

Almost there!

The MS 150 Bike Tour is fast approaching, and I am inching closer to my goal of $1,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. My current fundraising total is $870. Thank you so much to everyone who has helped me get this far!

As I haven't updated much about my training, the synopsis is that I'm now as ready as I'm going to be. I've been on several training rides with my two fun riding partners (thanks, Wayne and Ben, for sneaking me into the CP rides!) and a few on my own. This past weekend's excursion took me from Pattison to Huntsville and back for a nice 65 mile jaunt. I was even a member of a few pace lines, including a steady-moving 6 person group and a slow-but-fun 13 person [!] double line. The real thing can't get here soon enough for me.

If there is anyone remaining who would like to support my ride from Houston to Austin, please visit my donor page on the MS 150 web site. With only $170 yet to go, I know that my goal is within reach. With your help, we can find a cure for MS!

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to walk out of my office wearing idiotic bike clothes and head for my short trail ride this afternoon.

Another quiz

I wonder what this one says about me? Probably not much more than a testament to the $700 I gave to Texas School of Bartenders as soon as I was old enough to have a credit card. For the record, if you think I scored well, I have co-workers who could quiz me under the table in this category.

Thanks, Dave Tepper, for another quiz link!

Bacardi 151 Congratulations! You're 144 proof, with specific scores in beer (80) , wine (133), and liquor (113).

All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure, you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is most efficient.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 89% on proof You scored higher than 94% on beer index You scored higher than 98% on wine index You scored higher than 99% on liquor index

Link: The Alcohol Knowledge Test written by hoppersplit on Ok Cupid

Not quite as good as crispy roaches

What is the one thing that will make even the most rugged of grown men cringe? Apparently, watching someone eat a Peep.

My co-worker has a package of Peeps sitting on his desk. They've been there, seemingly for display purposes only, until someone is "brave enough" to try one. As evidenced in my previous post about the not-so-healthy foods I ingest as of late, I don't see any problem popping a big yellow-coated gob of sugar and marshmallow into my mouth. Watching the reaction as four grown men looked on in disbelief was reward enough for me.

I don't see what the big deal is. Sugar and marshmallows. Sounds an awful lot like a raw s'more to me. It even says, right on the box, that Peeps are a fat free candy! One of the guys commented that he'd rather eat a crispy roach, because at least he'd know where that's been. Contrary to the beliefs of my peep-eating audience, I have not yet developed hypoglycemia or diabetes.

Okay, that's enough posts about food for a while. I feel obligated now to come up with something exercise-related.

UPDATE: Maybe I wasn't supposed to eat the Peeps because of their value to the scientific community. Some people have done extensive research on Peeps, and it appears that the Peeps have conducted some research of their own. You can join the movement to ban the cruel practice of Peeps research here.

Not My Finest Hour

Nora has her humiliating moment at the drive-through window, and now I have mine. A little background is necessary first.

My friends John and Nora have jetted off to London for spring break. Of course, I'm supremely jealous, but that's not the point. I agreed to watch John's cats (that's right, ladies, he's well-dressed, clean, can quote Shakespeare, and has cats) while he was gone. In lieu of the Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt that I was offered, I told him half-jokingly that I would be happy with some caramel ice cream and a collectible hurricane glass. To my amusement, John's parting voice mail instructions included the phrase "and there's ice cream in the freezer."

Since I received the message on Saturday, my growing curiosity about the specific kind of ice cream in the freezer could no longer be contained. As unexciting as my spring break will be, this ice cream has somehow emerged as the highlight thus far. When I stopped by his house today, one of the cats greeted me politely and followed me straight to the freezer where my treasure awaited. There must have been a dozen different pints of ice cream there, almost all containing caramel. Haagen Dazs Dulce De Leche spoke the loudest and I indulged myself straight out of the pint cup with a plastic spoon. Of course, since he had purchased all of the ice cream, I was obligated to take this one home with me so that I could feed my guilty pleasure in the privacy of my own recliner in front of the TV. Recall that I am on spring break.

On the way home, I stopped at Chick-Fil-A, God's chicken gift to the suburban masses, and ordered a chicken strips combo. The wait at the drive through was long. Really long. When I was the third vehicle from the front, I couldn't resist checking on the ice cream pint wedged into my cupholder. It was beginning to melt around the edges of the container and was in serious danger of becoming a liquidy mess in the console of my car. I did what any good eater would do and dove face-first into the cup.

At this point, we take stock of the situation. The car in front of me had moved up to become the first car in line, creating a gap between her Chevy Suburban and my stationary vehicle. I glanced up, nose-deep in the pint of Haagen Dazs, desperately trying to work my tongue into the finer grooves of the cup to prevent any more meltage for the immediate time period. By the time I emerged, the corpulent teenage girl hanging out of the drive through window had caught sight of this oddity and was staring. Right. At. Me. Apparently, it was a "you've got to see this" moment, because two seconds later a lanky boy with messy hair was also leaning out of the drive through window and smiling - obviously amused - in my direction.

Busted.

I rested my pint on the passenger seat where I didn't think they could see it, and proceeded to drive through for my order of more unhealthy junk than I need in one day. Despite the fact that I've lost about 20 pounds in the last year and that I exercise regularly, I sometimes find the need to splurge on days like this. It just helps when I don't have any snotty kids in the drive through to make me feel like a shameless fool.

Let's just say that this was not my finest hour.