Working? Hardly

In 1942, Britain realized they were short of staff at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. (The school was working on breaking the Enigma's encryption, a vital war effort.) So, they placed a crossword puzzle in the Daily Telegraph, and challenged readers to complete it within 12 minutes. 25 readers responded as having done so, were invited in, and were issued a second puzzle with the same time restriction. 5 completed the puzzle in the time frame, and a sixth had only one word remaining. All six were interviewed and recruited to the school.

So, does this mean that -- as long as I have no other tasks to perform -- I can do puzzles at work guilt-free?

Kiter's remorse

I tried flying my stunt kite today, because the wind was supposed to be 13 mph. However, my cheap, heavy kite can't fly in the wind unless it's steady, rather than gusty -- and it was gusty. (Actually, I stood out for several minutes, and only felt two gusts, and from vastly different directions. So sad.) :(

I think I might have to put this kite away for now, and reserve it strictly for beach use. However, I found this kite. It's flyable even in no wind (check out the video), and it's affordable! It also has short line, which is supposed to increase responsiveness and make tricks easier to learn. Maybe then I'll be able to do something with my other one when I take it to the beach. That's my hope, at least. (Even if I can't get it to do tricks, I can always put a tail on it and just do loops and turns, leaving a trail in the sky. I think that would look cool.)

I just need to get to the beach, so I can use that big (heavy) one. I've never been to beaches up here in Maryland -- either out at the eastern shore or the Chesapeake Bay. The bay is actually fairly close, while the eastern shore is about three hours out. But I don't know how the wind will be as good at the bay. Still, it should make a fun trip someday.

What do you think?

Volleyball keeps a dear school

Lessons learned from hours of volleyball on a Friday night:

1. Playing as a 5'5" hitter: humbling.
2. Playing as a setter in a 6-2: fun.
3. Playing as a setter in a 5-1: tiring.
4. Playing as a setter in a 4-1: awkward.
5. Playing for six hours: sore.

The customer [data] is always wrong

It's been some time since I've written here. I could offer excuses, but I already have those recorded for posterity on just about every page of my journal. In truth, I haven't had my schedule be so dictated to me that I couldn't take the time to write here. I think my problem is twofold: 1) I try to make these posts perfect (I write and rewrite until my grammar is flawless, at least to my limited understanding of the English language), interesting to read, and long enough to have some substance; 2) I don't want to spend that much of my free time writing blog posts.

It used to be that I wasn't busy every minute I was at work, so I could write little-by-little there. Well, that's changed. I've even been putting in overtime to finish a very important project, for which I have a large amount of responsibility. I also don't often have things in my life that qualify as "interesting to other people," and I'm not good at just discussing something on my mind; it almost has to be an external event to get me to talk about it. The project is rather interesting, and would make a perfect subject for a post -- if I were permitted to talk about it.

At risk of sounding like a whiner, I wanted to detail the trials I've had with my first major move. It's kind of funny looking back on them. Some are resolved, some still aren't, and every now and then another one pops up. I hope I've seen the last of them, but I'm not counting on it. So I present, for your amusement, the list. When I moved from Virginia to Maryland....

My apartment complex:

• got the address wrong on my lease agreement, twice.
• raised the rent noticeably between the time they accepted my application and moved me in.

My phone company:

• took over a month to activate my DSL service.
• failed to send a DSL modem with my service activation kit.
• sent the modem later, but charged me for it when it was supposed to be free (as part of my service plan). On top of that, the charge was 50% more than the advertised fee for the modem independently.
• charges my credit card directly, rather than sending any kind of bill or statement. So I was rather lucky that I even noticed the overcharge.
• drops my cellular phone calls rather frequently in my new residence.

My power company:

• wanted me to give them my SSN. I refused at first.
• wanted to charge me in the triple-digits for a deposit, for some reason that they wouldn't tell me.
  
• had to activate my service three times. This is because I had the address change twice. After the first activation, I realized that they wanted to charge me the large deposit because I had not given them my SSN, which they intended to use for a credit check.
• eventually got my SSN out of me. (I didn't have much money at the time of the move, or else I would have gladly paid for the deposit.) But they still managed to misspell my name, and repeated attempts to correct them have gone unacknowledged. (I wrote them a very passive-agressive note about it.)
  

My car company:

• associated my new car with a person from New Jersey with my first and last name in their database. They also recorded it as not being attached to any service plan, despite the thousands of dollars they charged me for one.
• replaced this information with more incorrect information. They got my apartment number wrong, but even worse, put me in Minnesota instead of Maryland.

Meanwhile, the USPS:

• always managed to get my bills to me, no matter how messed up address and charges were!

Is it any wonder that I'm not in a hurry to activate any other service, like a land-line phone or cable/satellite TV?

Numbers, numbers, everywhere

Like someone I know, I too am a little disappointed in the low amount of reading I do. (Unlike said someone, I don't think 15 books in half a year is "far too few." But maybe my judgment is clouded because my mind is "rotting in the abscesses of illiteracy" more so than said individual.) So, I've determined that I want to read more -- and not just fiction, though that can be a fun experience. I want to learn, and to "better myself," whatever that entails. To this end, I've determined that I will read at least one non-fiction book per month every other month. (No need to set the bar excessively high. I'd hate to fail and be consequently turned off to reading. Like exercise.)

I determined that I should stick to my interests. For example, last year, I read Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, and I really enjoyed it. So I began by perusing the physics section of the local ginormous chain book store/music store/movie store/coffee house. (Unofficial slogan: "Consoooom. Get hyped up. Repeat.") I browsed the titles and was a little overwhelmed. There were books on topics I had never heard of. I was looking for something that would be similar to Hawking's book, but focused more narrowly on a single topic, like quantum physics or string theory. Not finding the perfect book, I next wandered over to the astronomy aisle. This search was more directed, but still time-consuming. Eventually I found a book on binocular stargazing, a hobby I'm taking up. But I would classify that book as more of a guide than a non-fiction book. So I still didn't have a book to fit my demanding criteria.

Then it happened, by total chance. On the way out of the science section and towards the checkout counters, my eyes inadvertently scanned over the mathematics section, specifically a bookcase that was parallel to the aisle, while all the others are perpendicular. And I saw what I immediately knew would be my first book: The Numbers Behind NUMB3RS: Solving Crime with Mathematics. The book is co-authored by NPR's 'Math Guy' and the math consultant for Numb3rs. I've only read three chapters of the book thus far, but it's very interesting, even if you're not a math geek. (In fact, it's geared towards the layperson, so math geeks might find the book less interesting than the average person would.) It describes the background of the methods Charlie (the mathematician on the show) uses: who developed them, how they work, and how they've been put to use to catch or prosecute criminals.

Anyway, you can see I'm excited about reading again. And now, some numbers of my own:

5 - Ideal number of words in the title of a CNN news feed item. This leads to some difficult-to-comprehend headlines in the name of brevity. An example: "Sardinia row as trash ship docks." That's one extra word, and I still don't understand it. Is the city rowing a small boat? Or are they engaged in a quarrel?

3 - Number of thermometers in my living room. (One is on my digital clock. The other two are Galileo thermometers, which are awesome.)

76 - Degrees Fahrenheit my thermometers read at which I stop shivering in my apartment. (They can't all be reading higher than the actual temperature, can they?)

65 - Dollar amount Verizon tried to overcharge me on my first internet bill. Did they hope I wouldn't notice?

60 - Minutes spent getting Verizon to give me a credit to my bill. (Apparently they can't revise their bills?) I hate calling customer service. From any company.

1 - Number of tasks I had at work a a weeks ago.

0 - Number of tasks I have at work now.

2 - Number of changes in ownership of my employer in the past 3 years.

92 M - Dollars being paid out (from stock shares) to employees' 401K plans due to the most recent acquisition of the company. (Even though the amount per employee is calculated from his time with the company, making my amount small, my estimated amount is still enough to make me glad I was hired before the buy-out.)

33 - Days since my last blog entry. (Sorry. (I'm assuming you read this blog because you like it and/or me.))

4 - Days this entry has been written but unreleased because it's only "nearly complete." It's still not complete in my mind, but whatever. I'm done with worrying about making it perfect. If I have other things to say, I'll revisit them in other entries.


P.S. Vote in the poll. Just a reminder for those of you who use readers instead of visiting my site.