Blatant Obfuscation

Introducing...

2012-05-13T06:00:01Z

Miss Mieke Mae. It's the first of two Bengal kittens I am getting in the month of May. She is full of life and as a kitten has an infinity of attacking my feet in the night. I have made it a week with her, and it continues to be fun.

The Social Network -- I have too many passwords

2012-02-07T13:00:00Z

We have all probably had the case of "Email account hacked, it's time to change some passwords." It is an age old tale. I have had it happen to me a couple of times on different email accounts. Each time, I contemplate the closing of the account that was hacked and yet for some nostalgic reasoning I never do it.

Recently (which is a nice way of saying in the last 12 months), I inventoried all my internet accounts. This task was sparked due to a need to change a password on a single account (it wasn't an email account this time) that had been compromised. In going about the process of changing the password ( which seemed harder than it should have been ), I started making a list of all the accounts, user names and passwords. I started with my laundry list of accounts : email, bank, credit card and Facebook. I added in other places that I spend a lot of time on : Amazon, blogs, forums, Twitter, Steam, and other social websites. I then added in the obscure ones : browser games and tech boards. I came to the startling realization I was 'managing' 10 login names with about 30 passwords for all the places that I log into.

I identified two things in this audit of my online profile. For most of the places that I go the login name and the password acts like two independent safeguard mechanisms. And that is mostly deals with depending on the site being visited I might not have been there early enough to get my desired username and had to settle on some variation of that identity ( depending on the rules this could be tricky ) and then depending on the arbitrary security rules the password I use is another hoop to jump thru. More often than not, I end up having to do about a dozen attempts just to find a username / password combination that works. This becomes cumbersome at time, especially when I need to change a password.

The last round of changing passwords ( beyond the 90 day password policy at work ) I spent 5 hours locating where to change a password and then getting them to comply with the password standards of the various sites i frequent. The only reason I persisted and actually changed the passwords was that for a majority of the accounts I was running I was either using an older email account I didn't regularly open and wanted to change that or because the password the site was using was based on a compromised password. So I changed them all and in the process I was thinking of pruning my social network down to just what i regularly and actively use. Than I realized, I had reasons not to eliminate them all

I have a Twitter account. I have it to basically catalog a basic list of feeds that I will occasionally log into read (without having to remember the correct hash tag). I have never posted to it. Yet I have it. At one point here recently I had this great idea of using it and a tool to trend hash tags i was interested in to see if there were changes, so i could be notified to actually log into Twitter. This got as far as being able to pull the tag info automatically but no reporting built around it.
I have a Pinterest account. This one I actually was trying to find a way to gather seemingly 'useful' information ( read recipes ) from the site and catalog them for future use. I thought at one point I had a crawler working but the account it used got locked out. I started another account, but haven't gotten back to that project.
I have others all with similar purposes.

I keep telling people I have plans for the various things, and yet after I work on something; there always seems to be something else waiting in the wings to take over the immediate attention. I am going to get back to all of them at some point. I am just not sure that it is going to be any time soon.

Oh well. The result of all of this. I realized I had too many passwords again. Stupid forking of information everytime I turn around and have another login to create. And now I am going to have to see if i can codify them into a set that is both secure and remember-able.

Pet Peeve - Lack of Source Material References.

2012-02-02T14:32:33Z

I must keep repeating to myself that I love the Information Superhighway and the Social Network. The share amount of information (good, ugly and useless) that is shared day in and day out, happens to amaze me.

Somethings that are the Internet don't need to be shared, especially if you can't resolve the original source of something. Currently Internet Memes are really getting to me. Someone will inevitably share something on Facebook that supports their position, but the only problem the article ( or chart, diagram, picture all work) lacks any 'source material'. There are a couple of them that are floating about that just annoy me because every time I see them I want to answers to basic questions. I recall in grade school that when we first introduced to research and writing that we were to ask the 5 questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? The point was to get us thinking critically about the topic. When reading almost anything that is found on the Internet, I try to keep an open mind on the topic (until I get thru reading the article) and then I begin to ask myself the critical questions about what I read. The most important one that I start off with is "Why did the author post this?" (Okay so it might really boil down to "What's this crazy person's agenda?"). I claim it is my attempt to critical think about things I read and the things I do.

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Given the political environment of a Presidential Election year, I find it hard not to scream when reading memes that are overtly political like unto the one on Facebook : The Economics Professor. Okay I wish I could find a better link to the source, but I refuse to spend the time necessary to get to the root of the meme. The point is summed up as "Obama bad". ( I oversimplify the point... ) I took the time to read the first paragraph and all sorts of flags flew. ( I could be an investigator ) What local college? Which economics professor? When (What semester) did this happen in? I shuddered to read further and let it drop. Then it went from one person posting it to several people sharing this on Facebook. The simple fact that people bought into the original posters intention hook line and sinker without questioning the story. After reading the entire story, I came away with a couple of different questions : Why/How is it Obama's socialism? Is there other forms of socialism I should be aware of? Is this a fill-in-the-blank story to demonize some political leader? In the end, I did spend 10 minutes googling the story to see what came up. I found another story with a different spin on the topic. Are either a true story? Probably not given the lack of basic verifiable information contained within.

The other meme that seems to keep popping its ugly head up is the increasingly common "chain posts" on the social network. Now given a lot of people are touched by the message of the post and feel it is their duty to repost and share it with all their friends and so it continues its lifespan. I am fine and dandy with the posts ( I can ignore them just as easily I can ignore other things posted on Facebook ) The thing that irks me is the need for people to make up numbers then claim them as statistics. I am a statistician. I have 2 degrees in the field (BS/MS) and want to get a third in Statistics. The basic tenant is that "a number without context is meaningless" applies to the made up numbers as well. A number pulled out of the air and attached to a post without the necessary data to back it up is meaningless and is no where close to a statistic. A couple of my brothers describe my job as pulling numbers out of the air and being a professional liar. They oversimplify the process. Yes dishonest people can make data say whatever they want. (They tend to exclude data they don't like, or narrow their vision to a very small subset of the numbers). I find the context that the number is represented in as important to understanding what the statistic is saying ( then not overgeneralizing from there).

Back to the Facebook posts, how do you have the data to state that 87/89/91/93/95% of people who see it won't repost? Where did you acquire that data from? It is hard to come close to where that number could possibly have been pulled from. Unless you are Facebook and know what people have seen and what people repost this number is near impossible/improbable to calculate for the layperson. When people start or end a post with a made up number, I find myself screaming at my screen and calling people morons under my breath. It is as bad as people making up 'statistics' on the spot to highlight their lack of intelligence on topics.

I keep being amazed at the vast store of information the Internet has opened up. I keep being dumbfounded how fast people are to believe everything they read without doing some basic critical thinking taught to elementary school children.

Day 578

2012-01-30T16:35:06Z

Taking today into consideration, I have been in the Kansas City Metro area for 578 days. I arrived 2 July 2010 and 578 days later it is the end of January 2012. Time seems to either fly or it drags on by. In the last 18 months it has definitely done a little of both. Right now it seems to be one of those times where life seems to be dragging on by. At the heart of it, there is this girl...

In 578 days, I have had plenty of opportunities for personal growth and changes. I recall the oft repeated line from my youth "Character is what you do when no one is watching". (I would actually know the origin of the quote now I think of it). I would be lying if I said that every one of my choices was made because that is my character, but a fair number of them were.

There is this girl and there is something about her that make me smile. There is something about her that makes me happy. There is this girl...

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Being rather analytically minded, I tend to bucket and catalog things. It doesn't matter what it is be it people, events, or opportunities. I can in some twisted way see patterns and relationships and so things get grouped together. (If I had to describe the reasoning behind it, I would almost be at a loss for words). Having had 578 days to have opportunities to present themselves, I like to lump each major opportunity (taken or not) into groups like "Good Opportunity", "Bad Opportunity", "Crap Shoots", and "Ambivalent." There are more, and it would be nice if they were mutually exclusive buckets, but they aren't. That fact alone makes this reflection a little more entertaining than it should be. I mean good opportunities that really are just crap shoots that may or may not affected my life, but the opportunities that passed me by because I choose not to take that path or because at the time there was no possibility of taking them. Honestly as I reflect, it is really hard not to portray a notion of melancholy in my mood and in my behavior.

There is this girl that I like. You wouldn't have known that from our first interaction with each other. I had been in the area for a few months. It was the Fall. I might have noticed her at church, but honestly I hadn't taken notice. As an introverted person, I made no effort to connect with people. There was this one service project, the time and place have little purpose, because the only interaction. The interaction with the girl happened while we waited for the coordinator to arrive to provide us with what we were supposed to be doing. I, being me, had pulled out my phone and started playing Angry Birds. Her comment to me was a rhetorical question regarding why people wasted time with the game. I remarked that I viewed it as a puzzle game that is just fun to play. Not a lot of thought needed to get into it. I don't think that was the answer she was wanting. We didn't talk and/or interact for a while after that. There is this girl...

Fall turned into Winter. 2010 turned into 2011. In January, I experienced my first brush with the possibility to lose my job. The alumni that got me the job, was fired, and I really didn't know what my standing was. I think that the first time that I began to question what happens if I did. In the past I had taken things in stride and enjoyed a laissez-faire attitude on thinking about the future. I think this was an eye opening experience.

In the months that followed, I think I was slow and cautious about what I did and didn't do. I don't think I enjoyed the annual snowboarding trip just because I wasn't sure what my future held. It was definitely something that was in the back of my mind for the next few months. It didn't help that in that time, every time I talked with my brothers there was no support for the choices I have made. I was isolated in my own little bubble.

There is this girl, who happened to be dating a guy I hung out with. They seemed to be a good couple together. There were game nights and there were social occasions where in small enough groups I had no problem talking and conversing. There were games of Killer Bunnies. It was what it was. Winter turned to Spring, and then life changed. There is this girl...

Spring brought with it the worst project in my career. When the boss' boss decides that something is important, it needs to be acted as if it was the most important thing in the world. It really didn't work out that way, but that has everything to do with so many people trying to get a piece of the pie when there are already a ton of people vying for the pie just didn't make sense. I got burned out on the project, because it was mind numbing and dumb and made zero sense. Other projects came about in early summer that let me recover from the dreaded failure, but the slow to accept work process in the company really eats away at the soul. My year at the company came and went, and the thought of "Oh, I can leave the company now" crept right in. But I trudged on thru. There were things to be done.

There is this girl. In the months that came and went her boyfriend moved away and she moved. And in that I helped out due to some twisted sense of loyalty to people. I helped move people. It might be a trait learned from my father. It was just what it was. In the weeks that followed, there was this moment that I looked at the girl and I didn't see the girl from the service project or the girl that had a boyfriend, but rather I saw a girl that I liked talking to and doing things with. Summer rolled on by and the boyfriend broke up with the girl. And I felt stuck somewhere in the middle being 'friends' with both parties. I think in there were times that I got a brunt of the 'anger' the girl harbored because she needed to vent to someone and I seemed to be the one to vent to. There is this girl...

End of summer and the changes that work brought were nice, the end of summer meant that my younger brother decided to visit. He came and it was a mostly pleasant visit, but his expectation was for me to entertain him, which is never returned when I visit. When you have two different personalities and two different moral codes it is hard to make all parties happy. His visit was short and sweet.

There is this girl. Being a third party to the aftermath of a breakup was an interesting experience. If I were to chart the ebbs and flows from good and happy days to moments when I felt like I was stepping on eggshells I could have an interesting chart correlating the social settings we found ourselves in to each change in mood. There is this girl that I like. She has such a nice and cheerful demeanor, and then she would hang out with some of her friends and the results would cause her mood to gray. And then later she would be cheerful. On day in the Fall, I was working and I was asked why I had a grin on my face. To be honest, I didn't realize I was grinning. I got teased and tormented about liking a girl. (It was like in elementary school). There is this girl...

Fall came and went and the endless shuffle of task upon task at work, wore on me. There had been a change in the department. There seemed to be a lack of communication. Day over day, tasks were given without ever knowing big picture items of where they went or why they were. The weeks were only interrupted by random days off ( taken in order to burn off PTO by end of year ). Thanksgiving came, and for some reason I decided Utah would be nice. (I was hoping for snow and snowboarding). I worked from there for a week. It was nice before coming back to the KC area for the Christmas holidays.

There is this girl. And what started out as a fun thing began a series of weird interludes. Thru late Summer and into Fall, every time that this girl and I were to do something another girl, the girl's constant companion, seemed always to be involved. If it was the movies the 2^nd girl was right there along. At some point there seemed to be competition to see who spent time with the girl. It was a losing competition, no matter how I tried, I lost. I even tried to reason with the 2^nd girl, but to my dismay she proved too.......................................

There is this girl...

There is this girl that I like...

There is this girl that makes me smile when I think about her....

There is this girl that makes me want to be better person....

There is this girl...

The Kansas City Job

2010-07-05T04:57:59Z

I am sitting here Sunday night with very little to do and what seemed like a good idea several moment previously was to run through the various thoughts and ideas that were on the top of my head. Of these I decided it was about time that I took the effort to update things I do every so often.
I am currently in the Kansas City area waiting for Tuesday to come to start work. Tuesday will be my first real job since obtaining a Master's of Science in April, but in reality it is my first real job with benefits and 401Ks and the things that should be considered. Previously all my work experiences never really had these things. This is definitely a new chapter in my life, especially since I have spent the last 6 years in Utah attending school.

]]> The past month has seemed like a blur. It has happened really fast. The job search had been brutal over the last 6 months until the offer from the company in Kansas City came along. I started looking for employment in late December early January shortly after realizing that my hopes of pursuing a PhD had been dashed. I think I had gone thru 25 weeks of actively looking for a job before I had an opportunity open up to me. By chance back at the end of May, an alumnus (Nathan) had contacted my advisor (Dr. Scott Grimshaw) with a possible set of jobs. I was forwarded the information and I soon wrote an email inquiring more. In what seemed like a lightning strike, I began a quick succession of events that lead to the job.
In recalling the events, it seemed that I sent Nathan a copy of my resume late one Wednesday afternoon and by early Thursday, the HR recruiter had contacted me to complete a Statistical Assessment over the following weekend. I had finished up whatever else I had been working and began working on the assessment early Friday afternoon. In the course of the assessment, I ran into stumbling blocks of sorts and spent most of the weekend trying to reason out the assessment. I felt somewhat proud of the fact that the assessment not only used what I had been taught in a class but forced me to extend my understanding in a different way.
I turned in the assessment that Monday night (the 21st of May) later than I had planned and went home to sleep. I awoke the next morning and went about my day. In the late morning I got a call from the HR person wanting to setup a phone interview that afternoon. What seemed at the time as a whirlwind, I was done with a phone interview in the early afternoon for about 30 minutes when the HR person called back to set up an in-person interview.
The fly-out was set for the following week and I began to prepare. I flew out late on the Tuesday after Memorial day and traveled to Kansas City to interview. The interview seemed to have lasted all day Wednesday, but in reality was from 10ish until 3ish and I was back on my way to Salt Lake City. The interview was a lot of things that at the time just went over my head and didn't let me focus on one single thing. By the end I was tired and felt like I had been trying to drink from the fire hose while going thru the entire day.
I arrived back in Salt Lake City close to midnight, but not before having fun with flights that were delayed and the possibility of staying a night in either Kansas City or Houston was raised. Luckily I was able to get a flight to SLC back thru Denver on a different carrier. I came to dislike the Denver airport on this trip just for the sole reason of landing on one end of the United terminal and having to make it to the opposite end of the terminal in a short amount of time was a little too tight.
The next morning I had determined to sleep in a little since I arrived home late and need the rest as I justified it. So as I lay half thinking I would get some more sleep around the 9am mark Thursday morning, I got a fun call from the HR guy again with a job offer. Now I was no where close to being fully awake nor was functioning at anything close to enough to fully comprehend what was being said to me, but I do remember the offer being made and me asking how long I had to respond to verbal offer. I made some mental notes after receiving the offer and then quickly got up and moving.
In due course, I accepted the verbal offer for a written offer to be sent to me. I read over to offer and thought a lot about it. I thought about what my options were and then signed and sent back the offer. I had a job to start the first of July. It was the 8th of June and my mind was racing. I had lots to do.
The first task was to begin using internet tools available to look for a place which in and of itself sort of fell flat on itself given the lack of later success in that arena. But then boxing up things and trying to sell things became a priority. I had lived at the same place for 4 years and so there was a lot of work that went into getting ready to leave.
The last weekend in June, the company flew me out to Kansas City to house hunt. I had gone out with a set list of places to look at and appointments and general areas of town to search in. After 2 long days of searching, I had come up flat. I soon learned that most of the places on my list which said they were available immediately meant that the apartments would become available end of July or beginning of August. I did get a good understanding of how the Kansas City Metro area worked though and could by the end navigate myself around fairly well. I flew back to SLC Sunday afternoon and found myself doing the last of my packing.
The enjoyable part of the weekend was on Friday night. I was asked if I wanted to help out on fireworks for a corporate party. I agreed and was taken out to Kearny, MO in the evening. Once we got to the sight of the show, I helped set things up and then for the show I loaded tubes while my friend Mike lighted the mortars off. It was a lot of running back and forth for the entire of the show with not a lot of chance of getting to sit back and enjoy the fireworks. It was fun.
Sunday night Dad arrived in Provo and after jockeying cars and moving things around we crashed at a brother's house to wake up early and head into SLC to have windshields replaced. A couple hours later we were back in Provo packing up the things into a truck and car to head to Colorado and the parent's property there. Once in Colorado, I got to spend Tuesday unpacking things, making determinations on what needed to go with me to Kansas City and what could stay, and then repacking the truck and car. It was simply a long day and for good reasons.
Wednesday morning, things were finalized and every ready to head out. I helped out where I could as Dad had a list of things he needed to do before heading to Kansas City with me. By the time the list was completed it was nearly 4pm and we jumped in the truck and head across southern Colorado and Kansas to Kansas City. We arrived late morning (about 11ish) and found a storage unit for me to put all my stuff in. We unloaded the car and the truck and then I put clothes into the car to use. Dad and I toured around the town for a couple of hours seeing things of interest like where I was going to work and where I had been looking at living. Finally the time came; we ate dinner and then parted ways.
The last four days, I have been in Kansas City and I have been filling up my time. Because I do not have a permanent home yet, my brother in law arranged with his aunt and uncle for me to stay with them temporarily and that has been a fun experience. The two in-door cats here have been fun just for the mixture of mistrust the have in me and how curious they can be. Needless to say I have had to clean up a couple of fur balls that are left for me after I have stepped out of the bedroom. I did spend most of Friday and part of Saturday refining my search area on apartments and looking at other options. This has been a combination of looking at different options and locations.
Saturday night, I was again invited to help out with a fireworks show. This one was put on by the same people but there was food prior to it and plenty of things to do. The show was again a load and fire for 30 minute fest but instead of loading I was lighting the mortars. Still it was a lot of little 10 yard dashes away from the tubes after things were lit.
Sunday I awoke and read part of a couple books I have been reading. I got ready and attended church and then came back to read some more. I was planning on venturing out to find a 4th of July fireworks show but about dusk there was a good rainstorm and I just decided to sit it out and finish the book I was reading.

Things I was told

2010-07-04T05:06:50Z

I have been told a couple things this past couple of weeks that I find at the least bit noteworthy.
First off, I was told since I was leaving Provo I should at the very least confess my undying love to someone. This exchange came as I chatted with a friend about my frantic search for apartments in KC and the struggles of moving. He thought it would be fun to do just to change the stress levels in my life. He had suggestions as to who I could make such declarations to and why they would be prudent to do. I ignored this bit of advice.
Secondly, I have been told many many many things about benefits and new jobs and financial changes that will be occurring over the next little while in my life. The best line from people unnamed was “Don’t be a cheap ass bastard, splurge on yourself every now and then” It makes me laugh only when I think of the thick Texan accent it was said in.
Lastly, I was encouraged my father to not delay in my educational pursuits. This has actually been told to me a couple of different time but altogether it was the same. It was something about once being out of school over time parts of the brain shut down due to inactivity that you don’t otherwise use.
It is not like I have had time to really process these things, but it was one of those things on the back of my mind this afternoon.

I passed the Project Defense

2010-03-05T18:00:00Z

The slow realization that I am almost done with a Master's degree has finally landed. After one failed project (there are bitter feelings there) and 8 of some of the longest weeks so far in my higher education, I defended my project. With the single class I am taking this semester to finish, I am rather close to finishing the degree. All looks as though I am on track to have an April graduation date, which was the goal from the start of this experience.

All that is now left to do is to get edits back from the department editor and then go thru the steps to submit the write-up to the University. There are two major deadlines left one this week and one next. I think I can make both of them which will be nice. At some point I will have to come up with a simple explanation of what the project was. It just wont be today.

As I study

2009-05-04T21:43:23Z

I spent all of last week studying. I am spending today thru Wednesday studying a lot of material, so that come Thursday at 8, I can take the first of two parts of the Statistic Department's comprehensive exam. Of the 5 core courses required, there is a lot of material to cover for the two day exam. I am looking at all of the topics covered, the theorems discussed and the homework done, I am surprised at the volume of material and the amount of paper it all takes up.
Come Friday at 2 it will be over, which is probably a good thing to have this hurdle almost out of the way. After that, assuming I pass, the project awaits to be finished. Wahoo...wahoo...

Notes in Passing

2009-04-02T20:25:34Z

Even though it is Spring...it just doesn't feel like spring.

For the past four years I have been plugging away at getting a higher education. Last year, I fulfilled the requirements for a Bachelors degree, in that I came to realize I wanted more than that, applied to Grad Schools, and waited. About this time a year ago, I decided where I was going and what that would mean to me.

Since September and in contradiction to people around me, I have been spending my time preparing and studying. In about five weeks I get to take a comprehensive test covering the materials from classes over the last five years and there is a part of me that seems a little apprehensive about that. I don't think I am ready for that test despite the hours of time I have put in weekly preparing, learning, studying.

I dont really think it is spring because I havent spent anytime outside playing.

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I can recall a time while in Germany, using the idiom "Water off a duck's back", and then getting to explain what I meant.

The past few days, I have felt somewhat like that goofy boy trying to explain an english idiom to a german speaker in german...

It's not like I have said something out of the ordinary, it just seems that way...

A random aside into sports

2009-02-13T20:11:34Z

If given the time and opportunity, I tend to have on ESPN or Fox Sports turned on the TV when working. Over the last several days, which I would think has become common knowledge, A-Rod admitted to steroid usage. This has caused that for the better part of the week, sports reporters and commentators to be obsessed with steroids and baseball again. It was recently I heard [don't remember who or when] a suggestion that the drug testing needs to be in a different form, which is what I think is needed.
The commentator used it the form of RIP. Random. Independent. Public. I think all three of those things need to exist in order to assure the best case of avoid the "scandal" that now is brewing in baseball. I don't follow baseball, unless it is in the form of box scores printed in a paper, but I do think that the visible side of the sport is tainted with accusations of steroids and other banned performance enhancing substances.
I think it needs to be RANDOM. My current understanding is that the current system is far from the random, more deterministic than anything else. Random wouldn't allow for people to cheat the system. In the fact that you would never know if you were or were not going to be tested at any given point, would allow the test to better reflect the average daily usage versus the current system.
I think it needs to be INDEPENDENT. I think there is too much in the current system that is tied to Unions and agreements, that for the results to be trustworthy, that an outside entity is payed to come in and perform the tests and test them, independent of any conflicting arrangement that could otherwise exist.
I think the results need to be PUBLIC. This is a good way of showing a good faith move on part of the fans and the general public. It is the only way to have the testing mean something. A test that is never made public is as if it never existed.

Now for the current situation, I think that there is a need to black box the past, because there is not a lot that can be done about it now, but I think at the same time that there is a level of the past needs to be undone. There are too many awards and achievements that have been tainted by the use of this substances, that make it hard to believe that it was the person alone doing it. I think of them for those implicated currently should be vacated and the previous record holder should be reinstated as the only accurate record we have. If not that, a huge asterisk place by the record to fully account for the uncertainty of the record.

Now I just wish that we could end all of the commentary on it and focus on something else.

Things to note

2009-01-16T00:17:32Z

Someone walked up to me, and for the fourth or fifth time in 24 hours asked me how to do the same task. It wasn't that hard to do and were someone to google the question it shows up as the first result. I will go further and say that were you to have to ask more than once how to do it, it would have been a good idea to write down the response. So when the response from me was "you're an idiot" slipped out of my mouth, I was shocked when the offended party asked me to clarify why I said that.

I think there are simple rules of education, and it is really broken down on a person's willingness to find out things on their own. This also forms the basis of my generalization of underclassmen around me and therefore is used to apply when people begin to talk to me.
First when given a problem you look at it and begin to see what you know and try to solve the problem, you probably are an intelligent human being. I expect these types of people not to bother me because if they ask a question it has some thought behind it.

Second when given a problem, you first ask for a hint on how to do it. Yeah these are the people I begin to question why they are near me. I have a good chance of referencing you on some level of an idiot. I think the world is filled with this type of people and they wonder why things never seem to work for them, it maybe because they expect someone else to do them.

Lastly when given a problem, you must be walked thru every step. This is also known as the high school mentality. I have no problem calling you an idiot. There are some lines that shouldnt be crossed and asking to have the problem worked out for you causes me to think that maybe the college life is beyond your level to think and reason. I am pretty sure these people are where they are in life because of the efforts of people around them and not of their own volition.

In reference to all that, I have been told I should be nicer. It was just something of note.

Two weeks later...

2008-09-29T18:46:53Z

So I was introduced to FLINGSHOT FLYING ANIMALS and then bought everyone minus the monkey [only because the monkeys screams]. Now I bought them brought them to my office and have used them to startle or scare people at random [but not the statistical random there].

September 16th
James is enjoying flying farm animals that make sounds as they soar down the hall....

It has been fun, it is probably the only excitement I get, speaking that I spend a lot of time reading and doing homework and studying.

So beyond the flying farm animals, I dont think I have had much to report. I dont think I really ever have much to report.

New Facebook statuses....

2008-09-11T23:10:00Z

September 10 - James is laughing as he creates quizzes for his students...
September 4 - James is finding it interesting the shear amount of time he has spent on campus since Tuesday...
August 30 - James is a newly minted "Armchair Political Pundit".

Those were my last set up updates...

The August 30th corresponds to the start of my new endeavor, which I am working out some of the kinks on. But despite the wrong beliefs of others was something I have been thinking about for a while, and has nothing to do with them, but they can think they are that important.

The 4th of September is something of a joke for me. In the first 3 days of school I had spent 40 hours on campus either in class, working or doing homework some where in the Talmage Building. For those who have a clue about acronyms on BYU's campus know that the Talmage is designated as TMCB, which is meant for Talmage Mathematics and Computer Building. This became a joke of a project because realizing the building is more than a math and computer building, it isnt not appropriately named, which seems to be an important thing here at BYU. So I have been looking into since the 4th, the right place to have the building's acronym updated to either all thing there located or to reflect the person for whom it was named. So those acronyms would be TMSCB (by year of inclusion) or the JETB.

The 10th, I was working on one of my assignments in the department, which is instruction for Stat124, which means helping people 'learn' SAS but in reality it is to prepare people for the Base SAS certification exam. As it is a grades class, there must be things like quizzes and assignments...which make me laugh as I make them up. I get humor out of these things and it is just great.

A New Endeavor

2008-08-30T22:01:11Z

Announcing for those of you interested, I have with help from Jordan set up a new site to discuss my status as an "Armchair Political Pundit".

http://www.armchairpolitics.net

I am doing this for two reasons really. Mainly I wanted to share my political views and knowledge, but I didn't feel it fell under a Blatant Obfuscation topic. Also I felt I wanted to give others I know a place where they could also share their political thoughts with the understanding we have no real clue the inner workings of the minds of politicians nor the any clue of the back room deals made within the political machines also known as political parties.

Well, enjoy those who venture there...

Start of the NCAA Football Season

2008-08-30T18:43:50Z

To the surprise of a a lot of people, I tend to be knowledgeable in the realm of sports. Now mind you I don't know a lot of the particulars or the records that are set, but I do know enough of about each of the sports to hold my own. Problems arise that I have a hard time following most team sports because the number of games played in a single season exceeds my artificial limit of interest.

Take baseball, the season starts in April and ends in October. Baseball isn't interesting until September because you start 'weeding' out historically the best teams. I will admit I will watch the All Star game in July just because it has merit for the World Series, but otherwise all of the information that can be provided by playing so many games is not very interesting. I guess the same can be true for basketball.

I am partially biased due to hearing announcers come up with random facts, pass them off as a statistic and talk about nothing really. I am not really interested in hearing about batting percentage of a left handed hitter against a right handed pitcher during a night game on Tuesdays. It seems useless.

Now I will follow football. I follow football religiously. It may have something to do with the place I was raised. [Football is a religion in Texas...it just is...] But it is one of those things that you start in September by December the season is over. You know things. Football over the last 10 years has extended the bowl games for college into the second week of January and the NFL goes until the first of February. 19 games is the most I have to follow.

Interesting things come into play. Looking at a stochastic decision model, it is important to look at what you have available to you, where you are on the field and what down it is. A decision becomes interesting if you know that going into the wind your quarterback can make a 15 yard pass, your opponent is gonna blitz on the down because you are on the 30 yard line, so the question is the best play to call. [If anyone is wondering stochastic models are interesting to me...stochastic is a form of random...]

So this week marks the beginning of a 17 week enjoyable time, with college games on every Saturday, and an opportunity to be armchair coaches come Monday to discuss what teams should have done, and what the outcome of the upcoming week will be...