2017 Spring April 30 Sunday

47 degrees this morning.  No walk (rain, wet conditions)

A lot of heavy rain yesterday (especially in the morning), some heavy damage in the area.  

Hopefully the cool/cold weather will transition to warmer weather soon!  Usually by Mothers Day the cold weather has passed.  

One thing we have found is that it is always hot at the CMA music fest, a time we might enjoy some cooler weather!  

That time of year where events that seemed so far off are now here, or getting close!  Summer will soon be here, the CMA fest is just over a month away, the Courter Reunion, baseball games, July 4, etc, as well as some a major age event this year, so to speak, and other events I’m sure I”m not even thinking of.

I am amazed at how suddenly (when the sun is shining), the “daylight” suddenly is lasting so long.  I hear birds singing when I take my daily morning walk, although it is still a long ways to daylight. 

Thinking about the “Algorithms in Daily Life” book, I realized I was actually using one of them!  

I have been taking pictures of my “Hot Wheels” collection, something I have been threatening/promising  to do for years.  About 3  months ago, I finally got started on the project.

I finally got it gone by trying to do one or two daily.  I don’t make the daily picture, or sometimes even  a weekly picture, but I am making steady progress.  I probably have pictures of about 100 of them on Google + & Instagram.  I have them # so I can find them easy. 

One thing I decided was I wouldn’t worry about the pictures being “perfect” and they certainly aren’t “perfect” or even close, but they do what I wanted which is to document the cars I have.

I guess you could say I am using the “relaxation” algorithm concept.  

Personally, I don’t like the concept of “good enough” (there is no such thing as “good enough” customer service, “good enough ethics”  etc.), but I think in my “Hot Wheels” project, “good enough” is better than “not done at all”.  You could argue with that I”m sure, but I feel “good enough” is better than nothing and that settles it in my mind.

Anyway, someone left a comment on one of the pictures that it was “pathetic”.  I have to admit, I really don’t care what some stranger (or even a friend of relative) thinks in this case, I am doing it for me, not anyone else.

I guess I have to think, why would a stranger care enough about my picture to write a note that it was “pathetic”.  Why not a comment on how it could be improved?  

I have to think that causal attacks on other people and peoples actions etc. are becoming commonplace.  While stating a true opinion is always acceptable, why would someone make a casual derogatory, vindictive comment on a picture of a toy car?  I’m sure the person didn’t take the time to consider if it was a child etc. who took the picture.  Why make a negative comment  that they obviously thought was “cute” rather than a constructive comment?

I have a lot of thoughts that I will go into detail on in the future, you can predict one factor, but I think there are a lot of factors involved.  

It is strange, I didn’t feel any anger at all at the “pathetic” comment and I certainly didn’t react by thinking i would stop doing it, or even trying to “do better”.  I hope for my sake I can improve, but it is really a matter of time.  

That’s it or now, Sunday, April 30, 2017.

2017 Spring April 29 Saturday

60 degrees this morning, no walk, heavy rain, thunder and lightning 

Kind of strange, three was a forecast of “100% chance” of rain at 10 p.m., but no rain!  It seems like they would say “90%” just as a fudge factor!  

Actually it said 100% at every hour throughout the night, but I woke up around 1:00 a.m. and still to rain.

Of course at my usual time to get up and walk, there was heavy rain, thunder and lightning.  

Just had to mess around for literally 30 minutes (at least) with the cable tv.  Of course, one thing is fixed, something else goes wrong.  Nothing worse than having to waste time during morning “hyper time”, although it’s not quite as bad on a Saturday.

One thing I really wish the iPhone had is a “block e-mail” feature, although I expect there is a way I can send many e-mails to the trash.  Too many companies appear to take advantage of “cheap e-mails” and they really don’t care if there e-mails are basically harassment.  

It is easy to block phone numbers, it seems to would be as easy to block e-mails.  

One of the more stranger things on my iPhone is someone “ghosts” phone numbers with my prefix only. (The xxx- prefer)  If I try to call back and complain they tell me they didn’t call.  Aliene has even had it happen.  

Of course, if you answer you get some criminal that tries to get your credit card number.  I now just ignore any phone number with my prefix.  I even called ATT and there only response was to get another phone number, which isn’t really a sensible solution.  One of my projects for this weekend will be to figure out either how to block e-mails or automatically send them to “trash”.

One thing I always need to remember is to check my “spam” folder, since e-mails I want frequently are sent there in error.  

Picked up the book “Algorithms to Live By” at the library, so hopefully I can clarify some of the concepts I have listened to.  

Also reading “The Gatekeepers” by Chris Whipple about the Chief of Staff position for each President and how the right person has made a success or the wrong person has created significant problems.  

I have always been  fascinated by the “Fool” position.  While the Chief of Staff (normally) is not a “fool”, it is the same in that the Chief of Staff has to be able to tell the President honestly without being  in a “kill the messenger” situation. 

I think the key to any leadership situation is not being isolated and developing a situation where you only get praise and not criticism, or at least honest evaluation,  from the inner staff  

I think that is the real danger with the lying bully, he craves praise and kow-towing so much he doesn’t get true feedback.

Lights are blinking, I may or may not get to post this this morning.  If it is posted late, it is because the electric went off, although of course if I can’t post this no one will know!

I was going to post it early since I didn’t walk, but with the delay created by having to call about the cable tv, it is about the regular time.  

That’s it for now, Saturday, April 29, 2017.

2017 Spring April 28 Friday

60 degrees this morning, 35:30 minute walk

Almost didn’t walk again this morning due to rain etc., but all of the storms were to the north or already through.  It was a relatively cool 60 degrees.

My pace was 16 seconds slower than my goal.  

Listening this morning to the book on Algorithms, they discussed probability and sampling 

I remember when I first took Statistics, I really thought sampling was voodoo.  I actually learned (or was brainwashed) into accepting that sampling was acceptable and in fact is the only rationale method for some surveys or probability.  

I still kind of secretly chortle when the polls are wrong (except in the last presidential election, although I expect the FBI and the Russians had a strong role in that), but overall I think it is valid and probably the only means of prediction that are cost and time effective.

I had never really thought about it before, but the book mentioned they use sampling prediction in nuclear bombs etc. by prediction of the direction of the atoms splitting (or something like that).

By the same notion, it can be used to predict the failure of parts to an “acceptable” level etc.  

I am waiting to read the book so I can review some of the concepts in more detail over the just listening to them.

I am throughly disgusted by the pandering and demagoguery displayed by the lying bully lunatic.  He was blaming everyone but himself for his failures.  

Anyone who acts so immaturely like that has some severe mental problems.  Hopefully he will be removed for his mental illnesses (or impeached for corruption and lying) soon. Of course, the alternatives aren’t much better.

The way he is trying almost anything to make it look like he has done anything but destroy during his first “100 days” which now he says doesn’t mean anything as he desperately tries anything to try to find something he can say was a “success”.  What a pathetic person.  

I was dismayed by his gross and crude attempt to enrich himself and his family thorough the “tax cuts”, which are really just gifts to the already wealthy.  

Of course, the way the entire family (and his appointees) are ripping off the taxpayers through the crude and low-class (and criminal) use of his position to enrich himself and his family due to his position (making government employees stay at his resorts, getting “trademarks” in other countries etc).   He really should be jailed for theft and corruption.

I expect “what goes around comes around” and karma will assert itself.  You can’t just lie so crudely like the lying bully does (“I’m going to have a tax plan that is better and cheaper and covers everyone” and then presents a version that only benefits the rich and insurance companies and eliminates insurance for 20,000,000 people!)  

Anyway, today is the last day of he work month for April 2017.  May 1 marks three years since our epic journey to China.  I really hope I get to go back sometime soon. 

That’s it for now, Friday, April 28, 2017.

2017 Spring April 27 Thursday

42 degrees this morning.  Walk 34:48 minutes

Really dreaded the thought of walking this morning in 42 degree weather!  Of course, as it turned out, the walk was excellent, there was no wind and it was cold, but not a “bitter” cold and it was an enjoyable walk.

Pace was 3 seconds faster than my current goal.

Setting goals can be difficult.  I feel I need to at least set a goal I can achieve, but that isn’t too easy.  My current goal for my “pace” is good because I can reach it, or even significantly exceed it (that is, I am faster than my goal), but it also pushes me because if I don’t always make it.

As I discussed recently, at some point I may not make any more goals, but that doesn’t mean I don’t maintain goals or some type of minimum standards.  

Setting a goal I can’t make in the hopes I will work harder to achieve it doesn't make a lot of sense, any more than setting a goal I can make every time.

I don’t really follow the rule when it comes to my weight lifting since I can normally meet my goals every time.  I guess that is a little different in that it depends on my goals aren’t the same as they may have been years ago.  

Picked up a few concepts in listening to the Algorithm book.

“Quitting sooner”   (my term) is one where you assume your first ideas are the best, but you simply base your decision on your first ideas.  

One thing I really don’t like about listening to books is the difficulty (read impossibility) of going back and checking on something I’ve read!  

Of course with the internet, it makes it a lot easier, except that now I don’t want to take time (it is hyper time) now to look up the correct term. 

Similar to this is only basing your decision on what you can get on a single page of paper (or something in the same concept).

Kind of makes sense in a lot of ways, the your best ideas will occur first and the chances are you will make the best decision on your first thoughts and you won’t get muddled down with a bunch of extraneous thoughts that may not really have a lot of impact on your decision.  

Of course, I can think of many times when some odd idea popped up that made all the difference and those don’t necessarily pop up first.  

I may well do this just out of necessity due to the lack of time, so I assume for most decisions, that is a good policy.

The next concept was “relaxation”, which, in my words, means “nobody’s perfect” and it may be efficient to make a “less than perfect” decision.  

This isn’t exactly correct, since in dealing with numbers, it just means you may round off.  As an example, in deciding on the number of fire stations, you may “relax” the criteria to consider “fractional fire stations” and simply decide you are going to “round up” a fire station and “round down” depending on some set criteria.

That is a very brief summary of “relaxation”, I’ll need to look at the book on this.

The next concept was the use of “randomness” in decision making.  The book was just getting into that.  

That’s it or now, Thursday, April 28, 2017

2017 Spring April 26 Wednesday

53 degrees this morning, walk 35:36 miles

Walk this morning was definitely on the cool side, there was a cold edge to the wind.  It is hard to explain, but it was a “cold 53 degrees”, much cooler than other days in this temperature frame.  

Pace was 14 seconds slower than my goal.  I expect I will improve as the weather warms up.

Listening to the book on “Algorithms”.  It is interesting to listen to, but I’ve found retaining information is not that great, as far as just repeating it.  

What is interesting is that when I read or hear something relating to the book, my mind will be jogged and I will remember hearing it from the book.  

I always heard that you retain only small portion of what you hear, see or read.  I don’t remember the numbers, but I do know if i really want to retain something, I can try to explain it to someone, or write an explanation of what I think I learned. Then I probably will retain it forever.  

Several months ago, I noted everyone “learns” different and probably more research should be completed on identifying how we learn best.

Of course, that also assumes that we know what type of “learning” is best.  

The book on Algorithms this morning mentioned that basically “you get what you measure”.  As the book mentioned, if you measure “how many meetings” or “contacts”, you get a lot of meetings and contacts, but they may be meaningless or even counter productive to your overall goal.

Obviously a lot of businesses have found this out, and if customer service is the true goal, you need to find a way of measuring that.  

I saw a story the other day that business schools have been emphasizing “return to shareholders” versus good customer service, etc, or above even making good products and ethical actions. 

That shows (as well as the lack of ethics) in many recent stories about business, including the airlines, banks, price gouging by drug companies etc.   

The book on algorithms had some interesting stories about what they called “overfitting”.  Don’t know how it relates to anything, but he had several stories about training for emergencies.  

In this case, it related to police/law enforcement training.  Police are trained to disarm someone, and (supposedly a true story), a Police Officer efficiently took a weapon away from a criminal in “real life”, but then did as he was trained to do during training and handed it back!  

When training, Police Officers were trained to take the weapon away from the instructor and then they give it back to the instructor, so even in an actual situation, the Officer acted as he had been trained to do.

There was a similar situation with FBI agents who trained by taking two shots and then holstering their weapon.  In real situations they continued to take two shots and holster their weapon even when they are in a shoot-out and were still in danger!

The book didn’t go into how they “untrain” such behavior or how the training was changed.

Colder weather today, this is a “field day” so may have to deal with rain and cold.

That’s it for now, Wednesday, April 26, 2017.

2017 Spring April 25 Tuesday

63 degrees this morning, walk 35:11 minutes

Windy walk this morning, but overall not bad.  Pace was 3 seconds slower than the goal.  

Listening to the book on Algorithms in daily life on probability. I have to admit it left me a little disbelieving  Some theory that “anything will last twice as long as it is now” was absolutely untrue and no matter how much they tried to justify it with other “rules”.  It just doesn’t make any sense in real experience.  

When I get the book, I”ll look at it a little more.

Weather is supposed to be in the mid-80’s today, which I am looking forward to that! 

There is a song on tv that just caught my attention, Tina Malia “Om Sarve” from the album “Bridge to Valiabha” from 2015.  Wanted to note it because it was a really beautiful song.  Among my other early morning experiences, I sometimes listen to “New Age” music on the tv music channel with the “quotes” which may be meaningful or maybe not.  

Sometimes the quotes and the music really hit home, other times it is just the background.  When I do hear something I really like or see a quote which really hits home, it is worth the time and effort.

The “new” shoes I recently purchased (the ones I use only for walking) are now into approximately 33% of their lifespan.  Amazing how fast time passes!

Sometimes the inefficiency and just flat incompetence of “business” amazes me.  (I have to wonder about people who say “government should be run like a business”.  I spent about half an hour on the phone last night just trying to explain I had gotten a suspicious e-mail and was wanting to check if it was valid.  

Anyway, I ended up getting a $40 refund on something I hadn’t even asked about!  While the original person I talked with was well-meaning, I don’t think he had been trained very well.  

On another subject, I have a medical device that needs supplies.  Even though it is in their best interest to sell me as much as possible, I have a very hard time getting supplies, and when I get them, they are he wrong ones!  The inefficiency and incompetence amazes me.

Over the weekend we found that two LED “long lasting” bulbs burned out after about 4 or 5 months.  So much for 20 years! 

Of course, there were made by GE.  As I noted some time ago, I got a GE “night light” that was supposed to be a LED that would last for 14years.  After 3 months, it started malfunctioning.  I complained and get some kind of brush off letter with a $5.00 coupon, no question as to the malfunctioning light.  I sent it back and they did ask for the defective device so they could check it out.  Later I was sent four of the LED motion detector night lights  (no explanation) that actually work great and I wish I could find some more.  

However, I noted GE makes some of the “nuclear” medicine machines, I hope they pay more attention to quality control on the machines as they do on the lights bulbs!  (We are just throwing  away the defective GE LED bulbs, we use don’t want to hassle with it.)

Dream, first one I remembered fro awhile:

Dream 4-24-17:

Dreamed I was making a call at work  For some reason Aliene and Angela were with me.  

I want on the call, which was i a long older white building built up on a high foundation.  

Afterwords i got in the car and started diving and stopped someplace else.  

When I got back the car  had water in it (not just damp, but about a foot of water).  I started the car and the water went out, I was thinking it had gone into the radiator and engine, but it least it disappeared. (That is actually impossible, but the was a dream!)

Angela (as a little girl) had been out of the car and didn’t want to get back in because the water, although it wasn’t around anymore, Angela said the water had made the car cold.

Started to drive, when I woke up.  

That’s it for now, Tuesday, April 25, 2017.

2017 Spring April 24 Monday

50 degrees this morning, walk 35:46 minutes

Walk this morning was “on the cool side”, pace was 23 seconds per mile slower than my goal. I’m not sure how I’ll ever cut a minute off my goal (and actually meet or exceed my goal), but I think when it warms up I may be able to do it.  Basically, I just need to walk a little faster.

If I’m figuring  right, I would need to increase my pace approximately 6%.

Finished “Downton Abbey”.  Watched it only while I was on the stationary bike and while at Starbucks.  I believe it is probably about roughly 50 hours of watching.  You know a series is good when you personalize the characters and, which rationally you know better, emotionally you feel they are actual characters.

I am going to try to watch other movies or series while I am on the stationary bike or at Starbucks, but it will somewhat depend on finding something that holds my interest.  I tentatively started watching the “Untouchables”, but I” not sure it that will be interesting or not.  

I may go back to reading the paper on my stationary bike and a book at Starbucks.

Actually, if my cough continues to subside, I will start riding my bike for “real” again, which would really be nice.  So far, so good on the cough.

I”m still not sure if it is the food (stopping or at least minimizing eating too fast and/or too much) or the new medicine that is controlling my cough. Time will tell.

Listening to the book on “Algorithms in Daily Life”, i found that my tendency to “piles” off paper etc. may be the most efficient  means of  organization, or at least a good way of organization  I believe it is based on the “last most frequently used” filing system.  

This has been a very interesting book.  I was glad to find it in the library system, so I am borrowing it so I can physically read it also.  I enjoy listening to it, but it is hard to retain some of the more technical information/

Today the book discussed “scheduling”.  The book went into a lot on the most efficient way of scheduling (which is kind of a contradiction in terms), but it basically said there is no really efficient method of scheduling .

Even a computer will have to schedule tasks “one at  time”, it is  just that it does it so fast you don’t notice it.  Kind of an optical illusion I guess.

The book mentioned the most inefficient part of the computer is that it has to be ready for the operator, so it has to keep checking back to see if I am inputing something.  Apparently they try to figure out the optimal delay that a human can accept without making it obvious that there is a delay!

Weekend included a lot of baseball (very cold baseball) over the weekend since we had tickets to games over the weekend. (along with the associated food!).  It was cool to cold,  Sunday afternoon was great, Friday night we spent the entire game inside!

Starting the last week of April 2017.  Time goes so fast. The beginning of the week and I”m sure it will be Friday before I know it!

That’s it for now, Monday, April 24, 2017.

2017 Spring April 23 Sunday

47 degrees this morning, 34:45 minute walk

Coolish walk this morning.  Pace was 4 seconds faster than the current goal.  However, my overall goal is to make my goal one -minute per mile faster, so I would be 56 seconds slower than my real goal.

After I reach my future goal (of one minute faster than my current goal), I will probably be happy with that and just be concerned if I meet that goal.

Thinking about goals during my weight lifting session this morning.  While I have probably pretty well achieved my permanent goal in the dumb bells (it will probably be some time before I even consider going up), I am getting ready to increase my weight on the bench press.

My current weights on the bench press are pathetic to say the least.  I’m not even going to say what I currently lift on the bench press, except that I am going up about another 20 libs or so.  Just say it is a lot less than the 300 lbs I used to bench press, and I really don’t even expect to get close to that again.  

My increase in weight in the bench press is measured by increasing weights over a period of months, and probably years, not weeks!  The increase in weights on the dumb bells is definitely measured in the “years” before I increase weights again.  

At some point, I’m sure I will either decide (or have decided for me) that I have reached a permanent limit.  

I think permanent limits are a concept that is hard for me to accept, that I have reached a maximum in something or have some limit on something I can’t (or can) do and it will not change.  

You spend your life thinking of increasing results and suddenly (or maybe gradually, but it seems like suddenly), there are limits to your life.

The other day I read about “cars people drive for ten years or more’, and while it was interesting, my main thought was I’m not sure if I’d want to limit myself to driving a certain car for ten years!  Makes you to not want to buy one if you limit your future cars!

Actually I plan on driving the current car I use the most for 7 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first and I”m happy with the idea.  

That is part of the problem I am having with the “tee-shirt quilt” is that as I start to select shirts for the quilt, I realize it means I can never wear it again!

Of course, it doesn’t matter that maybe if haven’t worn a tee shirt for 10 years or whatever, but say at least for a year), it seems it wouldn’t matter but it does.

Anyway, I like the concept of the tee-shirt quilt enough I am going to proceed, even if I have to use the “select one shirt a day” conception the theory that if I select one shirt per day, it will be 90 days and I will have enough shirts for a quilt.

Also, it will give me a chance to reconsider and wear a shirt one last time.  Actually, I think once I get started, I won’t have any problem finding shirts that I can commit to the quilt!

That’s it for now, Sunday, April 23, 2017.

2017 Spring April 22 Saturday

47 degrees this morning, walk 35:35 minutes

Obviously true “Spring”  (warm weather and warm breezes) isn’t here yet!  Yesterday was miserable, with a huge storm in the morning (rain and wind) and cold and miserable all day.  

There was a lot of short-term flooding and some isolated areas of wind damage.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to get out yesterday, thank goodness!  

Wouldn’t have minded quite so much except we had tickets to the baseball game last night. We are not cold weather baseball fans (we are fans, but only if we are not sitting outdoors in the cold and wet!)  It is a little easier because if we are fast enough and find a good table we can watch the game from inside, but it isn’t near the same.

Walk this morning was cold, but wasn’t too bad.  I just was in the phase of putting one foot in front of the other and finishing the walk.  Pace was 20 seconds slower than the goal.

Listening to the book on Algorithms this morning.  I always seem to learn something from it.  The book this morning went over “sort and search”.  If I understand it correctly (and I may well not), the more important the “search” time, the more time you spend on the “sort” aspect to improve the “search” time.

The book mentioned that “search” was really important to Google etc., but in other areas, the “search” time is not all that important and the “sort” time isn’t really worth it.

He mentioned how looking for a book (the “search”) may not be worth the time it takes to “sort’ the books etc.

Another item they discussed was the “cache” or short-term memory.  Probably explained for one of the first times so I really understood it.

The best example he used was if you needed a certain number of books, if you got the books in one trip to the library, it didn’t matter that you didn’t have immediate access to the entire library, all you needed was access to the specific books.  

Basically, as I understand it, the cache is for immediate  access and contains items that are accessed a lot. Makes sense, and then you need to decide what to do when the Cache gets full and how you decide what to delete.

Based on discussion in the book, apparently the best method for deleting  existing cache  is  to make room for new information is the “least frequently used”  method.  I may have that wrong, I need to research this on the internet or get a copy of the book!

Just saw a feature on tv about the New York Times crossword puzzle.  For some reason, I have never gotten into crossword puzzles or similar puzzles.  Maybe I don’t have the patience, but it is just something I have never gotten interested in .

As I mentioned yesterday, the week started slow and then suddenly it was Friday!  Now the weekend is here!

I am just amazed that 4 months of 2017 is almost over and I still am not even used to writing 2017!

The weekend probably will not be a good weather weekend, which is too bad since we have tickets to the baseball game today and tomorrow.  That’s the breaks I guess!

That’s it for now, Saturday, April 22, 2017.