An Engineer's Logic

A software engineer's productivity is directly proportional to the amount of junk food consumed. This has been well documented elsewhere. Suffice it to say, yesterday as I was working on some code I needed junk food or my productivity would have come to a halt, and soon. I walked down the hall to the vending machine. Being the health-conscious junk food consumer I am, I selected one of the healthier choices presented, the Baked Lay's sour cream and onion chips (140 cal, 3.5g fat, 2g dietary fiber). The cost was 90 cents. I put a dollar in the machine and got in return the bag of chips and....AND...? Where was my dime? I was short changed 10 cents!

I began to think about the problem. Overpaying for the chips by 10 cents was clearly unacceptable. However, as I studied the problem a solution began to present itself. I returned to my office and got 90 cents in exact change (I was unwilling to risk losing 10 cents again). Walking back to the vending machine, I inserted the 90 cents and bought another bag of chips. Now I had two bags of chips, each of which had cost me an average of 95 cents. This was better than the dollar average after buying only one bag. Since I liked the direction this was going, I decided to repeat the process a third time. Now, I had three bags of chips which had cost me $2.80 total for an average of 93.3333~ cents per bag. Even better.

I think you see where I'm going with this. We can state that as the number of bags of chips purchased approaches infinity, the average amount of money overspent per bag approaches zero.

So, given enough bags purchased, my loss will be nearly completely wiped out. All I have to do is approach infinity in the number of bags purchased. I was planning to do that anyway.

Utah Audiences Just Want To Be Loved

The event I attended tonight had six out-of-state storytellers performing for a mostly Utah County audience. The performers were well aware of the predominant religion in the area. This type of setup often produces an interesting phenomenon. Here's how it works.

Out-of-state performer: Hmm. I wonder in what ways I need to tailor, or even censor my material? Will this audience understand worldly references, or do I need to just talk about jello and large families and BYU?

Utah audience: We're going to prove to this performer that we do understand worldly references! It's not like our predominant religion is weird or anything. Mitt Romney was almost the President! We can laugh at these jokes, because we get them and they're not too offensive. Heck, I lived out of state for two years when I was 19-21! We get these performers!

Out-of-state performer: OK, I said something about coffee and they didn't freak out. And I am getting a LOT of laughs. Maybe this audience is OK after all.

Utah audience: See? We're OK after all! And we laugh at your jokes. A LOT! We'll be the best audience you've ever performed for!

Out-of-state performer: OK, at first I was really into this audience, but now they're laughing after every single sentence I say, whether it's funny or not. I have to be polite and not point that out, but it's weird. Kind of creepy. Why are they doing this?

Utah audience: We can't stop laughing! Why are we still laughing? Is he even still talking? This is getting weird and kind of creepy. Why are we doing this? We can't stop laughing!

Seriously, I've witnessed this very thing every year of this festival--especially on the opening night. But next year we'll prove ourselves all over again!

All of my kids are officially teenagers

My oldest turned 18 last month, and my youngest turned 13 on Sunday. The one in the middle is 15 and says his life will be soooo much better when he turns 16. I'm dubious, although his life isn't too bad now.

We had a fun party for David on Saturday. Jonathan crashed on his longboard on Monday, which oddly gave him a sense of euphoria for a while. He loves his battle scars and is hoping they will give him an in with the ladies. ;) He's serious about that, but I think he's a crack up.

Over the weekend my aunt and uncle got remarried too. I'm really happy for them, and it was nice to see most of my cousins there (many of whom I hadn't seen for years), and all of my aunts and uncles from that side of the family.

My thoughts are with Blaine (my step-father) tonight. He's in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. They replaced one valve and repaired another. The surgeon says it went really well. Blaine has always had great stamina and endurance, so I expect him to come through this just fine.

Profundity

On Facebook, I introduced this blog by saying that you won't find anything profound on it. I'm serious about that. If you're reading this, expecting me to wax philosophical, or political, or something that might actually matter in the grand scheme of things, you will be sorely disappointed. You should stop reading/following this blog now. Really.

OK, are the profundity seekers gone? Good. Now I can finally share with you the meaning to life and the universe... Ha! Gotcha. Not gonna happen. No, really. Not. Gonna.

I mean, the only deep thing I'm likely to write is how deep the water was when we attempted to give the cat a bath and it tore the shower curtain and our flesh to shreds. Anything written here will be seriously boring stuff to anyone but me, and probably to me too. In fact, the only reason I write it down is so I won't forget how to spell stuff. I hope I've convinced you of the utter uselessness of reading anything written on these pages. ;)

Unlimited Texting

Sarah, Jonathan, and I are having a blast with unlimited texting. I've recently added them both to my family plan and bought unlimited texting for the plan and we've kinda gone nuts with it. Sarah got well over 300 in the first week, Jonathan close to 300, and I was about 200. Kinda fun, if pretty banal. But anything that gives me another way to communicate with my kids is good!

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ydhsu/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Sarah's Birthday

Sarah turned 18 on August 12th so she's legally an adult! I was going to give her a cell phone and pay for her monthly cell phone service, but she wanted to pay her own way with a cell phone. So, I added her to my family plan where the incremental fee is only $10 and she plans on giving me that once a month. But that left me without a birthday gift for her, so I came up with an idea, went online, and ordered something for her.

It's a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog. I had it matted and framed and sent to her and I helped her hang it on her wall last night. It looks really good.

It has significance because this summer Sarah took a trip to San Francisco to visit her aunts. While she was there, Sarah walked the Embarcadero and over to the Golden Gate Bridge and then all the way across it and back. I wanted to give her a visual reminder of her own inner-strength and determination. It seemed to go over well and she says she really likes it.

Thanksgiving Point Gardens

Ever since I missed golfing with Dad earlier in the summer, I've been looking forward to getting together with him some other way. We finally made it happen on Tuesday when we got together at the gardens at Thanksgiving Point. I think the gardens was the second-to-last venue I had never been to before at Thanksgiving Point--the last being the golf course. Someday.

The gardens were beautiful. Dad and Leslie came. I asked Sarah to come and she did. It was really nice having her along. Rachel was planning to come, but had a very bad day at work (probably more about that later), so she went straight home from work.

I took these two pictures as we walked the gardens. Dad was hamming it up and Sarah just looks lovely.

After walking the gardens, the four of us went to the deli and had sandwiches, salads, soup, baklava, and ice cream. Yummy!