The Power of a Name.

We give names to things in order to help identify them. A common mistake beginning logic student make is to think the name of specific individual in the universe of discourse carries some sort of weight or information. No so, individuals are named just to make it easier to reference them.

Of course in real life names often do carry some information about the object they identify. Names provide hints to the providence or function of what they are attached to. There is even a study of names called onomastics that deals with the origin of names. I have a name.

If my personal experience is any indicator, people take their personal names pretty seriously. We invest a portion of our identity into our name. (The study of people’s names is anthroponomastics for those of you playing along at home.) When my name is praised, even when it is used without directly referring to me, I always feel good. What’s good for one Bill must be good for all of us, right? In elementary school I remember being thrilled to learn about William the Conqueror. That was a Bill that accomplished something. How nice of him to fix the name William to Conqueror in the public’s consciousness, that saves me the trouble.

All of this is just an absurd, longwinded, introduction as to why I’ve been enjoying my ride to work so much lately. Hurricane season has just started and every morning I get an update on the first hurricane of the season – Hurricane Bill.

The notion snuck up on me. I’m precondition to root against the hurricanes, I think we are all. But I noticed that once they started reporting Bill was gathering strength and increasing categories that I was instantly pulling for Hurricane Bill. We’re going to mess up some Atlantic seaboard, aren’t we Bill. Let’s crush a few Caribbean islands, just to show them we mean business. Go team Bill.

How odd the connection of a name. I’m now personally invested in a hurricane, which is a weather phenomenon I’m usually indifferent to unless it’s driving up the price of gas. I closely monitor our progress. They predict that Bill will easily become a category 3 storm. I have higher aspirations for us.

This morning I started to wonder if I would be disappointed if Hurricane Bill was a non-eventful storm. What if he doesn’t kill people and cause massive property damage? That should be a good thing right? Sill I can’t help but think I’ll be a little disappointed if he just fizzles out over the Atlantic. Somehow it will cheapen the stock of Bills everywhere?

Not to worry though Bills. We got another pony in the race this year. Have you started watching Tropical Storm Guillermo in the Pacific? (Guillermo is the common Spanish translation of William).

Restroom Photojournalist.

I have a confession. I see funny things in restrooms all the times (pause for comic effect) and I take pictures of them… (laugh line).

It’s true, if I see something that makes me laugh in a restroom, and I’m alone (that’s important), more times than not I’ll pull out my cellphone and snap a picture. Why? Because if I drag Dawn in to the men’s room to look at whatever I’ve found people well raise eyebrows that’s why (or think I’m awesome).

Last night’s photo find is below.



I was in a men’s room at a local wine bar and turned around and saw a wine decanter sitting there. Not any type of decanter, but a Rojaus Inverted Wine Decanter sitting there. The very idea that I might need to decant my urine is humorous. I giggled a little. When I started to think about it though…. That’s not a cheap decanter. It will set you back two Benjamins at Amazon. I’ve seen emails where places advertise that the wine tasting will feature wine decanted in such a device. In the future I may pass up such invitations. (How long does one allow one’s urine to decant to really let is “open up” anyway?)

Today at work I saw this sign in the men’s room.

It’s not quite as funny or absurd as the $200 decanter, and for the record, I don’t think you should spit in sink public, private, or otherwise. The reason I took this picture is because the cognitive dissonance that it communications. On one hand it’s telling me not to spit…. But then they underline Si, which of course is Spanish for yes. So yes or no? The mind boggles (or is at least mildly distracted). Perhaps not quite as powerful as when you see the word “blue” spelled out in red letters, but let’s face it, the bar for interesting things you find in restrooms at work is set pretty low.

One warehouse, two worlds

Ever read a situation completely differently than someone else in the room? You’re humming along at a certain wavelength completely oblivious to the fact that others are receiving the information on a complete different bandwidth.

The Setup
Dawn and I stopped by the flooring place to pick up the last few rolls of underlayment for our new floors. We are standing just inside the warehouse on the backside of the building. The warehouse stock person has just informed the nice young saleslady that they do not have any underlayment in stock.

The scene from my point of view:
The soft light of afternoon spills into the warehouse and dapples the floor. The air smells like honeysuckle and the chirping of playful birds fills the world with song. In the distance the soft chant of “bang bang choo-choo train eating sliced meat on the airplane” can be heard.

Saleslady: Is it possible that you acquired your full allotment of underlayment upon your first visit to secure supplies from us?

Bill: (absent mindedly polishing monocle) I do not think that is the case. On the occasion of our last visit there seemed to be a shortage of underlayment so we made arrangements to make a second visit.

Saleslady: How fortunate, we so look forward to your visits.

Bill: Indeed. As a matter of fact, I communicated with a person in your front office yesterday and they expressed their desire for us to visit today to receive more underlayment.

Saleslady: We are honored by your presence. Allow me to confer with other members of our staff.

How Dawn claims it happened:
Saleslady: Did you already pick this stuff up?

Bill: No. You ran out of stock last time we drove out here to pick up the stuff we paid for.

Saleslady: I’ll have to call and see what’s going on here.

I spin and point an accusatory finger at the lady’s face. The hard afternoon lights glints off my cufflinks and the monk buckles on my shoes looking both alien and authoritarian in the warehouse setting.

Bill: I called yesterday and YOU told me that it would be here today. YOU said I could come and pick it up.

Saleslady: (recoiling in shame and horror) Its true! I did talk to you on the phone yesterday and I lied to you. Please, spare me!

Bill: Your incompetence has been noted! Good day.

I’m sure the truth is somewhere between the two accounts. When we got back in the car Dawn said “Well, you really called her out on that.” I was like, called her out on what? “She’s the one you talked to on the phone yesterday. Did you recognize her voice or something?”

Of course I hadn’t. I was only vaguely aware that I had talked to a female person yesterday. Evidently I was using the word “you” to refer to the business but the salesperson was hearing it as a direct reference to her. I wasn’t upset or irate, but evidently I came off that way. It’s strange how two completely different conversations can be happening at the same time with the same participants about the same subject.

A touch of madness

I am fairly sure that I have stepped into some sort of surrealist movie. Lately the same series of events has been repeating itself.

I exit my house via the front door. I get the disconcerting feeling that someone is watching me. I look to the right and a three-legged German Shepherd is staring at me. The three-leggedness is obvious being one of the front legs is missing.

I stop and consider the three-legged dog and the dog pauses and considers me. I say a few kind words and the dog seems to regard me amicably.

We part ways.

I’m not exactly sure what it means but strange times are a brewing. As Hunter S Thompson would say “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Solving the world’s serious problems

Dawn and I do some of our most creative work over lunch. We solve big problems. For instance, a month or so ago we figured out how to solve the child/icebreaker problem. Often, when (being force to) interact with a new person, small talk occurs. People often go for the “do you have children” ice breaker question. I don’t begrudge them for it (at least not more than I begrudge having to talk to them in the first place). After all, the odds are pretty good that I have children…it’s just that I don’t. I always end up saying no…and the conversation turns into a what’s wrong with me conversation instead of a child story swapping conversation.

We decided that this can be avoided if we invent children and banal child stories to swap. How hard can it be? Just make up names and say stuff like “My child ate/looked at/pooped/said (choose one) _______.“ Easy. I’ve already invented child names. I have a pretend boy named Alistair and a pretend girl name Sabine. Dawn and I have been inventing stories for them. Be sure to ask us about Sabine and “reverse taxidermy.”

I digress.

Anyway, today at lunch we solved another big problem. I’ve written about the problem that birthday and thank you cards present. If you throw them away immediately you’re callous. If you keep them you’re collecting clutter. For me the benefit of the card is realized immediately upon opening it (hey someone thought about me!) and then five seconds later it ceases to have a purpose in my life.

Consider this. This morning I saw this website claiming that they can laser etch little squares of beef jerky to make beef business cards…or as they call them meatcards. This is interesting…but I don’t really think it’s well thought out. The whole point of giving someone a business card is so that they will keep your contact information. Encouraging them to eat your contact information is counterproductive. The only useful thing about the technology that I can think of is if you put out one of those fishbowls for people to drop business cards into in hopes of winning a free lunch…and if people start dropping meatcards in your fishbowl….then YOU in fact win the free lunch!

Now consider the meat and laser technology as a solution for the birthday card problem. Beef jerky birthday cards! It’s perfect. You open your card, appreciate the message, and then have a snack. You don’t feel guilty for throwing it away because you won’t be throwing it away. No more cards in landfills. The earth thanks you, your stomach thanks you, and you in turn will be ever more thankful of the person who sent you the card in the first place… EVERYONE WINS.

Oddly enough I mentioned to Dawn that I wanted to get a laser etcher about a week ago for totally unrelated reasons. When she ask for what…I stared at her blankly and could only feebly answer “…you know…stuff…” In truth I have no idea why I want one… I just want to burn things with lasers in a pattern of my choosing. It’s not more complicated or well thought out than that. With the advent of meatcards I think I have a slightly better chance of getting Dawn on board with the laser etcher plan… err… agenda.

What are the odds that I have a child?

I was trying to figure this out for another blog article and I decided showing my work might derail the other entry. Still, I thought it was kind of interesting so I included it here.

Caveat: I am not a statistician. I am not a demographer. I have no special skills or training to be qualified to make these estimates. You have been warned.

I figured the first thing I’d need to do was figure out how many Americans are parents. Fortunately the US Census Bureau publishes ‘Facts for Features & Special Editions’ which gives snaps shots of statistics for special occasions…like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. According to those there are 82.8 million mothers and 64.3 million dads. I was kind of surprised how not close those numbers were. I guess the Nuclear Family really is an outdated ideal. So in total there are roughly 147.1 million parents in the US.

Then I decided that I just needed to find out how many US citizens there are and I should be able to calculate the percentage of Americans who are parents. That turns out to be either 298.6 million or 306.3 million depending on where you hastily pull your numbers from. I’m going with 298.6 since I’m pulling other numbers from that table too.

With all those parents running around there are bound to be a lot of kids running around too (for instance, I am in fact, someone’s child). I guess what I’m really trying to figure out is what are the odds that someone who is old enough to have a child has one. I think it safe to subtract out all the kiddies out of the national population. According to that previous table 20.4% of Americans (60.9 million) are between 0-14 years old. I don’t think there are too many parents in this category so I’m going to subtract them out. That’s leaves 237.7 million potential parents.

We know that 147.1 million of those potential people actually are parents, so that means if you are over 14 years old there is a 61.9% chance that you are a parent. Better than 50/50 chance… on your sweet sixteen (relax I’m being facetious, I know there are distributions that I’m ignoring).

To indulge a bit further, let’s pretend that the number of parents under 19 years old is negligible. If you run the numbers again you find out that 68% of people over 19 years old are parents. If you decide that the number of parents younger than 24 is negligible (I think this starts to become an iffy assumption) then 75.3% of Americans are parents.

I’m sure if I spent the time to find a breakdown of number of parents by age then I could come up with some more accurate numbers. Suffice it to say, when it comes to breeding…everyone is doing it.

My suspicion that not having children by my age makes me a bit of an oddball seems to be support by the numbers…and the accusing looks I get from strangers when I tell them that I don’t. Honestly, sometimes it’s enough to make me not want to go and get a haircut.

Update:
I think I found one source of error in the work. The numbers for population by age are from 2007. The number for parents are from 2009. Eh, close enough. I don't feel like reworking them right now.

Octomore? Octoany please!

In keeping on the subject of fine single malt scotches, I saw yet another Luxist article about Islay. This one is about Bruichladdich’s Octomore. Now this is a scotch that I’ve been keeping my eye one since I learned about its existence. Bruichladdich has dubbed their Octomore the world’s peatiest whisky.

While on Islay we learned that part of what determines the peatiness of a scotch is the amount of time the barley is smoked over peat fires. The longer the smoking time the peatier the barley. They measure the resulting peatiness using a PPM measurement which stands for phenol parts per million. The barley used to make Octomore ranks in at 131 PPM. Compare this to scotches that are traditionally considered to be “peat monsters” like Ardbeg and Laphroaig that weigh in at 54 PPM and 40 PPM respectively. Yeah, Octomore is a different kind of monster.

Keep in mind two things.

One, high PPM doesn’t by itself determine the resulting peatiness of the scotch. The shape of the still, configuration of the lyne arm, and the timing of when the stillman takes the cuts all play parts too. The shape of the still and the lyne arm (the long copper pipe coming out of the top of the still) determines whether light or heavy vapors get to evaporate out of the still. As the spirit starts to evaporate out the still the earlier stuff (first cut) will be the stuff with the lowest boiling point. This includes methanol (makes you blind) and weaker concentrations of ethanol. The second cut, or middle cut, is what get aged in barrels. The third cut is the dregs once most of the good stuff has already been evaporated off and collected. Every distillery has a different recipe for what they collect as the middle cut. When and how wide the cut is helps determine the character of the scotch.

Two, it’s always possible that the reason barley isn’t peated for longer periods of time isn’t because it’s more time consuming and expensive…but because it doesn’t make for tastier whiskey. Cooking your coffee down in the pot doesn’t necessarily make for tastier coffee (no matter what the Waffle House says).

I had noticed on Bruichladdich’s website last year that they had released Octomore and it was immediately sold out. This made me sad. There were only 6000 bottles for the entire world to share. It was released after we were on the island and we never had a chance to try it.

Today when I saw the Luxist article my yearning for this potent brew was rekindled and I had an uncharacteristically optimistic thought. What if, hope-beyond-hope, a bottle of Octomore had been pre-ordered by an American distributor and they foolishly turned around and resold it. Wouldn’t that be something! After a bit of digging I found one such store that actually had a bottle in stock. A bit of email and phone call later and I have secured a bottle of the beast. I’m positively tingling. I still have to work out actually getting my bottle (hint, it’s not in Alabama), but plans have already been set in motion.

The datasheet for the bottle claims it’s “an iron fist in a velvet glove – and it’s not for everyone.” Honestly, I can’t wait to shake its hand.