Monday, September 29, 2008
playset production weekend
This weekend was consumed by assembling the playset that J bought while I was in Colorado. My parents visited for the weekend and my dad and I spent all day Saturday working on the playset. This project was another opportunity for my desire to optimize to conflict with the practical reality of needing to suffice. My natural desire and visceral expectaion is to do everything at a professional or world class level. The reality, of course, is that I have neither time nor resources to do everything at a high level. The way out of this psychological conundrum is often simply not to do a thing rather than doing it in a way with which I will not be satisfied. I am not an absolutist about this, and I compromise with myself all the time. I have come to live with many inadequacies mostly by becoming numb to them. Each new endeavor is a fresh opportunity for optimizing and sufficing to wrestle in my mind. I find it difficult to derive any pride or sense of accomplishment from instances wherein I feel I have merely sufficed.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
is this the best Peoria can do?
Is this really Peoria's greatest claim to fame? Is this the thing we most want people to know about Peoria as they drive into town from the west on 150?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
a bygone era
I think we are past the point where it might have been necessary to distinguish electronic computers from mechanical computers.
Friday, September 19, 2008
lacking direction
It seems like my shrink appointments have gotten a little aimless. I don't know what I am supposed to be driving towards with them, or maybe I know, but don't like it. There has been some insight into why I am the way I am, but I am unsure about a next step of doing something with that. It is interesting to have some potential explanations for my psychological state, but I don't have the motivation at this point to change it. I think that is because I cannot really imagine being any way other than the way than I am so any potential benefits of change have no substance to me.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
another solo night out
Left work late (~6:40), went to Panera and ate. Then I went to Old Chicago to make some progress on the Oktoberfest mini tour. After a couple games of trivia, I went to Tomcats to play some darts. There were two couples there hanging around near the dart machines. When I went to start playing by myself, one of the women offered to let me play in her place. So I partnered with the other chyck of the foursome and played against the two guys. Fortunately we were all similar in skill level so nobody was embarassed (most importantly me) and we split two games of Cricket. They left and I continued to play out the rest of the credits they had put into the machine before I arrived. While playing, I noticed a bat flying about the establishment and mentioned it to the hot bartender. I asked her if she was ovulating, because bats are attracted to the scent of ovulation hormones.
oil and gas price data
Following up on this post from the Blargen Blog, I made a couple graphs of oil and gas prices with data from the US Department of Energy.
First we have a plot of gas and oil prices. I got the data here and here. The weekly data for both didn't start until January 1997 so that's where I started the graph.
The dates for the gas and oil data do not line up perfectly, they are offset by 3 days. Nonetheless I took the gas price per gallon for that week and divided it by the oil price per gallon for that week to get a ratio. You will notice that the ratio has actually been lower in the last couple years than the average over the last decade.
And lastly if we plot the gasoline price with its ratio to oil, you can see that while gasoline prices have gone up, the ratio to oil prices has NOT.
You can draw your own conclusions, but based on this data, I conclude that companies are NOT profiting more by selling gasoline in the US today at $4/gal pump prices than they were 6 years ago at $1.50/gal.
Yes, I know that this data does not account for lots of things (tax changes over time, regional price and formulation differences, strength of the dollar, et cetera). It is a simple look at the retail price of a product and the wholesale cost of its primary raw material.
I will send you the Excel file in which I made these graphs if you want to work on it yourself.
First we have a plot of gas and oil prices. I got the data here and here. The weekly data for both didn't start until January 1997 so that's where I started the graph.
The dates for the gas and oil data do not line up perfectly, they are offset by 3 days. Nonetheless I took the gas price per gallon for that week and divided it by the oil price per gallon for that week to get a ratio. You will notice that the ratio has actually been lower in the last couple years than the average over the last decade.
And lastly if we plot the gasoline price with its ratio to oil, you can see that while gasoline prices have gone up, the ratio to oil prices has NOT.
You can draw your own conclusions, but based on this data, I conclude that companies are NOT profiting more by selling gasoline in the US today at $4/gal pump prices than they were 6 years ago at $1.50/gal.
Yes, I know that this data does not account for lots of things (tax changes over time, regional price and formulation differences, strength of the dollar, et cetera). It is a simple look at the retail price of a product and the wholesale cost of its primary raw material.
I will send you the Excel file in which I made these graphs if you want to work on it yourself.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
bathrooms at work
I have finally followed up on the inspiration provided by this post from my friend.
Here are pics of three bathrooms in my office building:
The yellow one reminds me of middle school, including the smell. I especially like how the urinals, sinks and stalls are all numbered. The blue one seems a little better than the yellow, but smaller. The gray one is the best: it has touchless paper towel dispensers and is just more appropriate for a professional office. Guess which one is closest to my cube and which one is next to the plant manager's office?
Here are pics of three bathrooms in my office building:
The yellow one reminds me of middle school, including the smell. I especially like how the urinals, sinks and stalls are all numbered. The blue one seems a little better than the yellow, but smaller. The gray one is the best: it has touchless paper towel dispensers and is just more appropriate for a professional office. Guess which one is closest to my cube and which one is next to the plant manager's office?
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Colorado 2008 vacation day 7
Hiked a trail near the Leadville Fish Hatchery. Trail was kind of lame except for all the huge boulders. Nice orange lichen on one of them.
We returned to camp and packed, had lunch in Leadville again and headed to Denver, cleaned up, had dinner, slept and flew home the next day. Vacation over.
We returned to camp and packed, had lunch in Leadville again and headed to Denver, cleaned up, had dinner, slept and flew home the next day. Vacation over.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Colorada 2008 vacation day 6
Describes events of 9/4/08.
We drove to Horseshoe Mountain and began hiking up the old mining road. It was sunny, but the air temperature was cool with strong, gusty winds.
View Larger Map
As we went higher, the gusts increased in frequency and strength. When we got to the col between Peerless and Horseshoe, we faced sustained gale force winds. Rather than face a couple more hours of that, we headed down and checked out the abandoned mining camp.
We drove to Horseshoe Mountain and began hiking up the old mining road. It was sunny, but the air temperature was cool with strong, gusty winds.
View Larger Map
As we went higher, the gusts increased in frequency and strength. When we got to the col between Peerless and Horseshoe, we faced sustained gale force winds. Rather than face a couple more hours of that, we headed down and checked out the abandoned mining camp.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Colorado 2008 vacation day 5
Describes events of 9/3/08.
We stayed in the tent later than usual this morning since we were planning on a recovery day. We hoped that the sun would come out so we could cleanup in the nearby creek without freezing to death. That didn't happen. Instead we drove into Leadville and took showers at the local laundromat. We went to a small snack shop on the main drag in Leadville and had nachos for lunch.
We then went to the forest service office to look for information on some less intensive hikes that we could do in the next couple days. It was clear at this point that a 4000'+ climb of another 14'er was not in the cards. We bopped around town for a little while and scoped out a place for dinner. We drove to the west end of Turquoise Lake and did some minor hiking there. On the way back to town we checked out an interesting cemetery that included some rather flamboyant grave sites.
Returning to town, we had pizza at High Mountain Pies. The pizza was excellent and watching the frenetic owner with bushy eyebrows operate his business was entertaining. After the very satisfying meal we returned to the Pastime Saloon for a beer. The cute bartender demonstrated the trick of sticking a dollar bill to the ceiling by folding it over a thumbtack and a quarter and hurling it upward.
We returned to the campground and stayed out of our tent until after dark to take advantage of the clear sky and high elevation to do some stargazing. Unlike in the light polluted cities we most all live in, here you could see the Milky Way itself in addition to many, many times more stars.
We stayed in the tent later than usual this morning since we were planning on a recovery day. We hoped that the sun would come out so we could cleanup in the nearby creek without freezing to death. That didn't happen. Instead we drove into Leadville and took showers at the local laundromat. We went to a small snack shop on the main drag in Leadville and had nachos for lunch.
We then went to the forest service office to look for information on some less intensive hikes that we could do in the next couple days. It was clear at this point that a 4000'+ climb of another 14'er was not in the cards. We bopped around town for a little while and scoped out a place for dinner. We drove to the west end of Turquoise Lake and did some minor hiking there. On the way back to town we checked out an interesting cemetery that included some rather flamboyant grave sites.
Returning to town, we had pizza at High Mountain Pies. The pizza was excellent and watching the frenetic owner with bushy eyebrows operate his business was entertaining. After the very satisfying meal we returned to the Pastime Saloon for a beer. The cute bartender demonstrated the trick of sticking a dollar bill to the ceiling by folding it over a thumbtack and a quarter and hurling it upward.
We returned to the campground and stayed out of our tent until after dark to take advantage of the clear sky and high elevation to do some stargazing. Unlike in the light polluted cities we most all live in, here you could see the Milky Way itself in addition to many, many times more stars.
Colorado 2008 vacation day 4
Describes events of 9/2/08.
Tuesday morning dawned cold but sunny and we made our standard oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast and got on the trail at 8 AM. The first 1500 to 1800 feet of elevation gain on the trail were below the tree line. Up to that point we thought the trail was relatively steep, it turned out that that was just a warm-up for what followed. Above the tree line the trail became an unrelenting series of steep uphill climbs strangely devoid of switchbacks reaching one false summit after another. The only real bright spot during this portion of the climb was the hot German girl that passed us. As has happened before in these kinds of situations, my dad questioned whether he would make it and whether he should bother climbing mountains anymore. 5 1/2 hours after starting we were on the summit of Mount Elbert, the second-highest mountain in the United States outside of Alaska.
The weather continued to be perfect on the summit where we stayed for about half an hour before beginning the long trudge back down to our camp. I felt no sense of accomplishment from the day's exertions. It seemed silly to take much pride in doing something that many others had done, many have done better and/or with more working against them. Older people have done it, younger people have done it, heavier people have done it, people have done it faster and under much more difficult weather conditions than did I.
Tuesday morning dawned cold but sunny and we made our standard oatmeal and hot chocolate for breakfast and got on the trail at 8 AM. The first 1500 to 1800 feet of elevation gain on the trail were below the tree line. Up to that point we thought the trail was relatively steep, it turned out that that was just a warm-up for what followed. Above the tree line the trail became an unrelenting series of steep uphill climbs strangely devoid of switchbacks reaching one false summit after another. The only real bright spot during this portion of the climb was the hot German girl that passed us. As has happened before in these kinds of situations, my dad questioned whether he would make it and whether he should bother climbing mountains anymore. 5 1/2 hours after starting we were on the summit of Mount Elbert, the second-highest mountain in the United States outside of Alaska.
The weather continued to be perfect on the summit where we stayed for about half an hour before beginning the long trudge back down to our camp. I felt no sense of accomplishment from the day's exertions. It seemed silly to take much pride in doing something that many others had done, many have done better and/or with more working against them. Older people have done it, younger people have done it, heavier people have done it, people have done it faster and under much more difficult weather conditions than did I.
Colorado 2008 vacation day 3
Describes events of 9/1/08.
We woke to a cold, windy and cloudy morning, but at least it was not raining. The clouds kept rolling into the basin even as there were flashes of blue sky in the distance. We made oatmeal and hot chocolate and then retreated to the warmth of our sleeping bags and debated what to do. Go up and hope for better weather or go down? I knew what the answer would be, but participated in the pretense that it was an open question.
We went down and drove to the Elbert Creek Campground (run by the Forest Service). Both the road to the basin trail head and the road to the campground provided some fun driving. Not crazy rock climbing 4-wheel drive stuff, but where you definitely appreciate the Jeep Cherokee you rented and are happy you are not in a 2 wheel drive passenger car.
We woke to a cold, windy and cloudy morning, but at least it was not raining. The clouds kept rolling into the basin even as there were flashes of blue sky in the distance. We made oatmeal and hot chocolate and then retreated to the warmth of our sleeping bags and debated what to do. Go up and hope for better weather or go down? I knew what the answer would be, but participated in the pretense that it was an open question.
We went down and drove to the Elbert Creek Campground (run by the Forest Service). Both the road to the basin trail head and the road to the campground provided some fun driving. Not crazy rock climbing 4-wheel drive stuff, but where you definitely appreciate the Jeep Cherokee you rented and are happy you are not in a 2 wheel drive passenger car.
Colorado 2008 vacation day 2
Describes events of 8/31/08.
We drove south from Leadville through Buena Vista up to the trail head for Mt. Harvard and the Horn Fork Basin. It was cloudy when we started hiking and began to rain about half way to the tree line. Before that though we encountered a "mad cow" at about 11,000'. He really did look angry and had to be crazed to have wandered up this mountain away from the herd and food.
It became full on rain by the time we had arrived at a decent campsite above the tree line. So there we stood in our Precip jackets and pants while the rain and wind beat on us for about an hour as we watched a dozen others flee the basin. There was a brief break in the rain during which we were able to set up our tent. We retreated to the tent as the rain returned. I tried to put myself into stasis (no eating, drinking or excreting). 12 hours later (at 3am) the rain let up and I was able to relieve myself.
We drove south from Leadville through Buena Vista up to the trail head for Mt. Harvard and the Horn Fork Basin. It was cloudy when we started hiking and began to rain about half way to the tree line. Before that though we encountered a "mad cow" at about 11,000'. He really did look angry and had to be crazed to have wandered up this mountain away from the herd and food.
It became full on rain by the time we had arrived at a decent campsite above the tree line. So there we stood in our Precip jackets and pants while the rain and wind beat on us for about an hour as we watched a dozen others flee the basin. There was a brief break in the rain during which we were able to set up our tent. We retreated to the tent as the rain returned. I tried to put myself into stasis (no eating, drinking or excreting). 12 hours later (at 3am) the rain let up and I was able to relieve myself.
Colorado 2008 vacation day 1
Describes events of 8/30/08.
Flew to Denver this morning. Flight was on time. The stewardess (flight attendant) was friendly, competent, efficient and a little bit sexy. I met my dad in Denver. His flight was also on time. We went to REI to get some supplies for the week's adventures and headed west out of town. The traffic was surprisingly crappy up to the Eisenhower Tunnel so it took longer to get to Leadville than I had planned. We checked into our hotel and then had dinner at the Pastime Saloon where we had GREAT cheeseburgers. They claim to be the only remaining bar on the street that had 65 saloons on it during the mining boom days of the late 1800's in Leadville.
Here's a picture from the hotel parking lot in Leadville.
Flew to Denver this morning. Flight was on time. The stewardess (flight attendant) was friendly, competent, efficient and a little bit sexy. I met my dad in Denver. His flight was also on time. We went to REI to get some supplies for the week's adventures and headed west out of town. The traffic was surprisingly crappy up to the Eisenhower Tunnel so it took longer to get to Leadville than I had planned. We checked into our hotel and then had dinner at the Pastime Saloon where we had GREAT cheeseburgers. They claim to be the only remaining bar on the street that had 65 saloons on it during the mining boom days of the late 1800's in Leadville.
Here's a picture from the hotel parking lot in Leadville.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
I hope she did
Just got back from Colorado (there will be several posts about that later). I caught some news while I was there, but not much of it. One thing I did catch was somebody whining that Sarah Palin had insulted or demeaned "community organizers". I hope she did. What does a "community organizer" do exactly? Where can I apply for such a "job"? Who paid BHObama to be a "community organizer"? If being a "community organizer" is a self-employed kind of thing, then what value is produced?
Bank teller, carpenter, teacher, truck driver: these are job titles that mean something and people understand. "Community organizer" is not. It sounds like someone who tries to funnel my tax dollars into the "community" of parasites suckling at the government teat. People who are productive, net-taxpayers do not have, need or want "community organizers". They are too busy taking care of their own lives (while simultaneously supporting the parasites through their taxes) to be "organized" by lawyers like BHObama.
Bank teller, carpenter, teacher, truck driver: these are job titles that mean something and people understand. "Community organizer" is not. It sounds like someone who tries to funnel my tax dollars into the "community" of parasites suckling at the government teat. People who are productive, net-taxpayers do not have, need or want "community organizers". They are too busy taking care of their own lives (while simultaneously supporting the parasites through their taxes) to be "organized" by lawyers like BHObama.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
prediction check 1
Time to check on Brad Carter's first prediction from the blogger bash of July 29, 2008.
- Washington Mutual will fail or receive a government bailout within 6 weeks (i.e. before September 2)
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