I was late to the dentist and it made Google better

After my wisdom tooth broke I had to find a dental surgeon that could get me in on Friday to have my two left wisdom teeth removed.  After a marathon calling spree I found one.  I made the appointment.  I pulled up a Google map and found it.  I plotted a route to get there and back and printed a map because my wife was driving my drugged butt home. 

On a side note, this step was necessary because my wife is a whole new level of directionally challenged. She could get lost in our bathroom if she had GPS, a compass, and a string tied to her wrist leading her back to the couch.  A map was 200% necessary.

I drove there.  We got close and I told her to start looking for it.  4 blocks later I knew we must have passed it.  I turned around and we started looking at street addresses.  We found the right address and it was a house…not a dentist office.  I called the dentist office and told them that I was lost.  They gave me directions.  The road I was on went about half a mile and dead ended into a river.  They were just on the other side of the river. 
Crap.
10 minutes later I found my way there.  When I got there I showed the receptionist the map I had from Google, and the incorrect location.  She did not care.  They doped me up and extracted my two left wisdom teeth.  I left drooling like an idiot and went home to suck down painkillers all weekend. 

This morning I had an idea.  There has to be a way to make that bubble accurate.  I looked into it, and sure enough, there is. 

If you find a bubble in Google Maps that is not accurate, click on it, then click on Edit, it prompts you to click on the bubble an move it to the correct location.  I moved the dentist’s bubble, my work’s bubble, and my homes bubble to be more accurate. 

So, because I was late to the dentist, Google Maps are now more accurate.

Ouch

No real post today.  Last night one of my wisdom teeth broke.  Having a broken tooth hurts.  I am complete wuss when it comes to pain.  I will be at home sucking pain pulls until tomorrow when they pull my left two wisdom teeth.  I do not look forward to that, but it will be better than it is now.  Right now it feels like someone curb stomped my face, after softening it with a metal bat. 

Frustration

I think I need to relax this weekend.  I just said the meanest thing I have ever said to someone (that I meant).  I need to point out that I am a pacifist, and when at work, I am soft spoken and reserved.  I have certain areas where I excel, and in those areas I speak out, but most times I am quiet.  No where in life am I confrontational.  It is an exceptionally rare situation where I speak out.  I can count the times I have confronted someone to this extent in my entire life on one hand.  No where was it more justified than this time.

6 months ago a guy asked me for my input on something.  I told them that it was ok, but there was a certain thing that they needed to avoid to make everyone’s life easier.  3 months ago I was asked again to review their progress.  I pointed out that they were heading directly toward the thing that I told them to avoid.  I pointed out why that was bad, and why there was no reason to be anywhere near that bad place.  I then pointed out 4 areas that not only did not have this bad feature, but all the other features were more enhanced.  3 weeks ago I was in a final stage planning meeting.  They were still heading toward the bad place.  The person in charge, and their boss were there.  I pointed out the bad place again.  I told them why it was bad, and what those bad things would cause here at our company.  I showed them the same alternatives that I showed them last time.  I showed them that 3 of the ideas were still possible with next to no re-work of the plan, and then showed them my preference and told them why it was my preference. 

Yesterday the product was finalized.  It was 100% on target to the bad place.  This person did not miss a single pothole that I told them to avoid, and rather, seemed to swerve to hit them.

At the launch training meeting I was stone faced.  During the meeting I asked the offender and his boss to stay behind so we can “talk details”.  After the training I called in my boss, and my bosses boss (also his bosses boss, a VP).  I laid out the problem.  He said “well, you should have pointed that out at one of the planning meetings, it is too late now”.  I turned to his boss, I recited the 4 ideas I demonstrated 3 months ago, and he remembered them. 

I said “I warned you 6 months ago to avoid this, then again 3 months ago.  I gave your 4 alternates 3 months ago, and another 3 alternates 3 weeks ago that were still possible.  Now, you did not avoid this problem.  This problem is going to cost us 10+ man hours for each of the 4 people that do what I do.  You just added 40 hours per week to our workload.   What are you going to do to get that work done?  We already work 45 hours a week, we can’t work 55.  What is your plan to deal with this work?”

His response “well, you guys will just have to get it done.’

My response “Do you think before you vomit words on us?”

The VP laughed. 

I continued “I am telling you that my 4 person team will need 25% more capacity because you did not listen to warnings when there was still time to do something about it.  We told you where you were heading, and gave you guidance as to where you could head instead.  It would not be an issue if we came to this because there was a reason, but from every perspective the situation would be better if we had NOT ended up here.  So, my question is, you created a hole in our time budget, how are you going to fill it?”

His boss interrupted with a different point to change the subject, and I took that as my cue let it go. 

After the meeting the VP told me that he understands the situation and that he would deal with it.

We all got an e-mail that there was going to be a meeting with the VP’s to determine the best way to shift some man hours from his department to mine to cover the problem. 

The guy just had a mini meeting with me to see what it would take to reverse this problem so that he didn’t have to sacrifice a team member to our team.  I pointed out a pair of the easier to do options.  After we settled on one that seemed like a good idea he said “This has gotten all blown out of proportion”. 

I said “No, it is finally being blown into proportion.  I was invited to the planning meeting because I offer a different perspective, and more specifically, so we can avoid problems like this one.  I am a tool to grant you insight into problems, yet you continued to wear a blindfold, and missed the problem until you ran into it…now you are complaining about a bruise, when I pointed out the pitfall in plenty of time to go around it.”

He said “Well…don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel.”

Me “ok, much like a rock concert benefit for the environment, your department seems to make a lot of noise, and get a lot of attention while making the grand gesture of appearing to do the right thing, while behind the scenes, no actual change is brought about.  Selling the sizzle only works if behind the sizzle is a steak.  You mage the grand gesture of inviting me, and then even were sure to point out what a good planner you were for doing so, when in reality my time would have been better spent taking a nap.  You wasted the companies time, and worse, my time by inviting me to a meeting simply for show.”

I was looking at him with a hurt look, conveying that I sad and disappointed, not mad. 

He softened and said that he would work to make this better, and that he had an upcoming project that he wanted me in on. 

I HOPE this means that he really wants my input.

How do you deal with this?  I feel bad for getting on his case like that, but I also think that the situation justified it.  I am on salary, and refuse to work an extra 10 hours a week because someone else screwed up, especially when I pointed it out pre-screw up.

***edit.  While writing this his boss and the VP came to my desk.  They informed me that they wanted me in on all new product planning meetings, and that I would be reporting that duty directly to his boss, so he could keep tabs on things. This made me happy.
 

I’m not even smooth in my memories

This past weekend while visiting family my wife and I told of how we met.  I heard this story about some un-smooth guy making a pass at a girl.  I tried to remember a moment in time that I may have been smooth.  I had a little flashback into my past.

It was the summer of 1997.  I had just moved into the dorms at Western Michigan University, and was a wide eyed freshman.  They have a big event the weekend before classes start in the quad and all the groups on campus have tables set up to let everyone know who they are, and what you can do.  I wandered around for a couple hours taking flyers of interesting groups. 

In the large grassy area in the middle a group started to form and there was music playing.  The cheerleaders were out there dancing.  Who am I to miss a chance to watch cheerleaders close up.  Let me tell you, if you think they are eye candy from sitting in the bleachers, from 5 feet away they are eye diabetic coma.  So, for 20 minutes or so I stood there oogling them.  They took a break, but the crowd and I stood there in anticipation that they would resume.  All of a sudden the girls scattered around the crowd and each grabbed 2-3 guys…I was one of them.  The girl that came over to me was a girl that I had seen in my dorm, and was UBER MEGA hot.  I stood there like a deer in headlights.  They explained that they were incredibly short on guy cheerleaders, and the best way to find out if you could do it is…hands on experience.

/GULP.

You mean….could it be true….I get to TOUCH them!?!??!?!??!!!!

/GLEE!!!!

So, the first thing we got to try was a “Toss”.  A toss is when I stand behind the girl, put my hands on her waist, then she jumps and I push her up as hard as I can.  Simple enough.  Apparently, most of these guys did not pay attention in physics when we were taught about gravity, and what goes up must come down.  About half struggled to even get the girl into the air, and about half of those that could throw them, then neglected to CATCH them. To those guys: Hey dumbass, something that soft lets you touch it, DON’T DROP IT!  The incredibly cute girl from my dorm came over and had me throw her.  She rewarded me with a hug when I did not drop her, like she had just been dropped.  

So, those guys were kicked out of the middle, leaving about 20 of us.  The next maneuver was called “The Chair”.  This starts with a throw, then I hold my right arm up, palm facing up, and catch the girl with her sitting on my hand.  Her foot is pointing down, grab it and hold it to your chest.  BALANCE.  Do not drop the girl.  Then, in a controlled manner drop the girl and catch her.  Sounds relatively straight forward.  It is much harder than it sounds.  Don’t get me wrong, when you have a girl sitting on your hand…your hand is narrower than her body, and the idea of her…mommy parts pretty much in direct contact with your hand…hey I was a freshman in college, this was the coolest point in my life up to that then. 

So, toss the girl, catch her on your hand, balance, drop her, catch her, and set her down gently.  No problem.  At this point only the tiniest girls were being thrown, and the other girls were standing around us in a circle as spotters.  The 20 or so of us that could get the girl into the air, about 50% of those could catch them on their hand, about half could balance, and only a few of us could drop the girl and catch her.  So, there were 4 of us left in the middle that could actually complete a “Chair”.  Over and over we were tossing them in the air.  As soon as one hit the ground, the next would jump in her place to be tossed.  We were in effect being interviewed. 

At this time I need to mention, this was my first year of college.  My freshman year of high school I was a football player, then later took up swimming.  My first year of college I was 6’2”, 250 lbs, and less than 8% body fat…I didn’t float.  In fact, I sank like a rock.  I was shaped like a tree trunk.  I mention that because it becomes relevant in the nest paragraph.

The cute dorm girl came over and said “do me next”.  I was a little let down when I realized she meant for me to do “the chair” move with her…but more than excited to do the chair move with her.  Girl after girl I popped them up in the air.  After the little light girls, the more solid ones came.  No problem.  Two guys walked off exhausted, leaving three of us.  At this point the trainer / coach person came out and was talking to us.  The tallest girl on the team came over and stood in front of me.  The coach looked at me with wide eyes as I balanced her over my head. When I sat her down the coach got an evil gleam in her eye.  She called out to some girl that had been standing behind me.  When she did the entire team looked at her in a combination of shock and disbelief. 

The girl walked around the front.  I would not call her fat, but she looked like a cross between a rugby player, and the women’s basketball team from East Germany in the 80’s.  She was husky.  About 5’10”, and pushing 200lbs.  Not that I am dainty or anything, but I would not describe her as someone that could be thrown easily.  So, she nervously took her place in front of me.  The entire team circled around us, partly to watch the pending injury, partly to act as spotters should we topple. 

I took a couple deep breaths (i.e. the noise a power lifter makes just before attempting to give a semi truck a piggy back ride).  I stepped close behind her and I put my hands on her hips.  As I did I whispered for her to jump hard.  WE HAVE LIFTOFF.  She jumped, I crouched, I got my hand under her, I pushed with all my might.  I got her up.  One little wobble is all it took for me to get my balance.  I was red faced and trembling.  She was giddy up in her new vantage point.  The coach congratulated her and I.  I said “ready?’ asking her if she was ready to dismount.  She told me to wait.  The seconds seemed like YEARS as the minor trembles turned into a cross between Parkinson’s and a seizure, and my face was a shade of burgundy not seen on a living human. 

Up to this point I had the entire flock of cheerleaders eating out of my hand.  They Loved that I could throw girls that the other guys could not, and had the balance and agility to catch them, and the sensitivity to not crush them as I caught them.  Far be it from me to entice these women without doing Something to muck it up.  I am simply not capable of doing something smooth like that.  About 7 months passed (in my time) as I stood there balancing her mid air (it was more like a minute).  Finally I said “I REALLY need to set you down, I’m pretty sure my spine is fusing, and my feet have probably ruptured.” 

Apparently, in girl speak, that was me calling her fat. 

Apparently, calling a girl fat is a bad thing.

Apparently, cheerleaders are a very close group. 

Apparently, calling one cheerleader fat makes all of them mad at you.

Apparently, hot girl from the dorm felt the same way.

/sulk.

I ended up having a class that conflicted with practice so I was not able to do it.  Later it dawned on me that being a male cheerleader might not seem like an incredibly masculine thing.  Then, I realized that having girls ask you to throw them up in the air and fondle them was a good thing, and that having to do it over and over and over would be an incredibly good thing.

Painful realization

The last post I made is a little out of character for me, and followed a pair of sleepless nights while contemplating the universe.  All of this stemmed back to a simple observation. 

Why do we do what we do?

My wife told the in-laws that we would not be visiting for Easter due to a tight budget.  She asked me if I wanted to make a nice Easter dinner.  I said not really.  She asked why.  I asked her why why?  Why do it?  Both of us have religious beliefs and were raised in religious households, but neither of us attends church.  Both of us strive to do what is right, but do not practice our religions.  She said “because my family ALWAYS has Easter dinner.” 

The dinner was the event, Easter was just the catalyst.  The reason for the gathering was family, not a celebration of religious piety. 

So, that set the hamster in my brain to running on the little wheel, and that energetic bastard would not stop.  Why celebrate a holiday that has no religious significance to you?  Which degenerated into: Why do things that are not important to you?  Which degenerated into: Why do things? 

After pondering my motivations and what makes me do things I came to a realization that was incredibly painful. 

I am selfish. 

I do what I do because it helps me.  Even things that seem like I am doing something out of charity, I do because I can find some fathomable reward for my doing so.  I will go out of my way to help someone move, just because I want that person to be better friends with me, so I can invite them to do things with me.  I want the fun out of them going somewhere with me, and I pay for that fun by helping them.  I run people thru instances because then when I am leveling my alts I can ask them to do it for me.  I run people thru instances to gear them up, so Kara goes better, so I can get more things that I want.  Nearly everything I do is done with the knowledge that there will be some return for doing so.

I never understood the phrase “Ignorance is bliss” until now.

Size

I want to begin by physically describing myself.  I’m 6’2”.  I am barrel chested, wear size 44 pants, and am just shy of 300lbs.  I look like a side of beef with hair.  I have had people run into me hard enough that the recoil of the collision knocked them to the ground, but never disturbed my stride.  When my parents moved I carried a full size stand up freezer circa 1980 up a flight of stairs, and loaded it on to a trailer by myself.  I carried a washer and drier down a flight of stairs, around three corners, out a door, to the driveway, loaded them on a trainer, unloaded them, and carried them thru two rooms and up a flight of stairs to their new location all without the help of a cart, and without dragging them (other than sliding them on their side up the stairs).  In college, a frat was having an Olympics in their backyard.  I won the “throw a cinderblock” event with a winning throw of 19 feet.  Second place was 11 feet.  When I was 14 my summer job was setting up canopy tents for a rental company.  I was the one that drove the 4 foot long 1” diameter iron spikes into the ground like John Henry.

To say that I am a big guy is an understatement. 
However.
I am not too big to admit that I was wrong.

I got into an argument with someone.  The whole argument was over the fact that I was wrong, and I was unreasonably short with them.

I was arrogant and stubborn and selfish and I lied.  They did not deserve hostility; they were the one being honest.  I have deep seeded trust issues, and used that argument to push you away because I could not predict you.  I don’t trust things that are random and I am afraid of the unknown.

If you choose not to accept this apology, then so be it.  I understand after some of the things I said. 

p.s. Just to be clear, if you are the person that used to turn red when I said Tomato, then this is addressed to you. 

Lesser Curse

A customer that I work with did something today that absolutely made my blood boil.  It was amazingly rude, inconsiderate, unreasonable, and poorly timed.  I could not scream out my real thoughts when someone asked what I would like to do to them (mostly because most people don’t like to start their day with a mental picture of someone being lowered into a wood chipper feet first and very slowly, or the thought of being cut in half by a sledge hammer).  Instead I sat there for a few minutes coming up with minor curses that I wish I could inflict on them that are much worse.  Here is what I came up with:

-I wish that her shoes would come untied ever 2.5 hours, and exactly half way between her car and the office.

-I wish that every third staple she used would jam the stapler.

-I wish that every time she walked into the bathroom all the toilet paper rolls would instantly only have 3/4 of one sheet left.

-I wish that every pen she touches would only have enough ink to write 1/2 of a sentence.

- wish that she would lose the ability to discern good milk from that which has turned, and also she does not know she lost that ability.

-I wish that a bright red sock would find its way into every load of laundry she does.

-I wish that she suddenly would suffer from a 20 second episode of turrets every time she came in contact with a manager / VP / or police officer.

-I wish that she would become a very large producer of static electricity, shocking everything and everyone she touched.

-I wish that every time she opened a pop it would overflow.

-I wish that every paper clip she reached for would be linked thru 5 others. 

-I wish that she would have a near permanent case of foul flatulence….and I don’t mean the “Who did that” kind of smell, I mean the “Dear GOD it smells like a zombie is eating a three day old dead fish”. 

-I wish that not only did she have Windows Vista, but also that each and every action she did, every click, required verification.

-I wish she would get a paper cut at least once a week, and it would coincide with the day she decides to eat things that are really salty, or require fresh squeezed lemon juice.

Ok, this is the Statistics talk I have been meaning to have.

Most statistics are a comparison of two things.  For example if you did a study of a medication, you give some people a placebo (sugar pill) and some people the real medicine and see if the real medicine people get better faster than the Placebo group.  Lets say you gave 5000 people with a headache a sugar pill, and 5000 people with a headache a new asprin.  If 300 people with the sugar pill were better 4 hours later, and 301 people with the new drug got better, then you would state that the new drug did not significantly help against a headache. 

There are two words that are fundamental to any statistic.  Correlation and Causation.

Correlation means that two things are tend to happen at the same time.

Causation (pronounced cause-a-tion) means that one CAUSES the other.

Most of the time things are correlated there is some form of causation, but not necessarily.  Let that sink in….I’ll wait.

Ok.  Some examples. 

If you look compared how long people lived with and without being shot, you would observe that there is a very strong correlation between being shot and a short lifespan.  You would then be able to conclude that being shot does in fact shorten your lifespan.  That is an example of two factors (lifespan and being shot) that are both correlated AND there is causation.

If you were to evaluate two sandwiches made by McDonalds, the chicken sandwich and a cheeseburger.  There is a very strong correlation between mustard and catsup.  Nearly every sandwich with mustard also has catsup.  However, the fact that you have mustard did not CAUSE the fact that you got catsup.  They are both caused by another factor. 

It is very important to keep these two distinctions in mind when seeing statistics.

For example, I just read in Prevention magazine that women that do not get mammograms are 12% more likely to get breast cancer.

Now, this is a great example of a BAD statistic.  Are they trying to imply that mammograms somehow ward off cancer?  I would bet that the more likely cause is neglect.  Those women that do not get regular checkups are more careless, and therefore do more cancer causing activities.  The fact that they did not get a mammogram is not the cause as they implied, but rather an indicator of a the actual cause.  In this example there is a correlation, but not a causation. 

So, the next time you see a statistic, or hear about someone testing something, consider if the results of what they are testing is actually a worthwhile test or not.
 

Words down the toilet

I despise Al Gore. 

I’m made that the entire paragraph because I think that four word sentence articulates all that I intended to say.  I posted before about how incompetent his ‘Inconvenient truth” movie was. 

I have been stuck listening to NPR for the last few weeks at work because our offices got temporarily moved and I can’t get any good stations.  I have heard some good news stories in the mix, but a lot of the stories are fluff that have no bearing on anyone’s life what so ever.  I heard recently a bit where someone uses Al Gore as a reference to substantiate their ideas. 

Let me be clear.  A SCIENTIST used a POLITICIAN as a reference to make is SCIENCE ideas seem more credible. 

I started writing a post.  I am somewhat well read, and 4 years of statistics in college lent me to evaluate the science behind all the claims I hear.  I begun with writing my ideas.  Then I started to research to find the articles I have read to support those ideas.  I learned that my ideas barely scratched the surface. 

Here were my views (please note the Were):
-There IS global warming.
-There IS an increase in CO2.
-However, MAN has NOT been the cause of those things. 

After reading many (I actually saved links to 37 sites from reputable sources) articles on the subject of Man Made Global Warming I learned that I was wrong.  Here is my new statement of Views.

-There is evidence to show that there is any global warming beyond NORMAL variations.

-There has not been an increase in CO2 levels since man has became industrialized, and there are many times pre-dating man where the levels were much higher.

-Man has not even been a blip on the radar.  There is nothing to indicate that man has had any impact on the global climate what so ever.

-Most people research things that have no useful outcome.  (I’m going to write an entire post on this later.)

My post grew and grew as I amassed more and more information.  At last count it was just over 2200 words, and I figured I was about 80% done.  Some of the best stuff came from the reports and evidence pertaining to the lawsuit in England.  Apparently, in England the national school board decided to issue the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to their teachers to show to students.  Someone realized this and sued the school board for distributing something full of errors. 

Here is a link to the statement given by one of the witnesses for the prosecution. 

http://newparty.co.uk/UserFiles/File/carterstatement.pdf

I read this and realized that he is saying everything I was saying, and more.  PLUS, he is someone that has credentials in that profession, so his words carry more weight than my own. 

READ THAT ARTICLE!!!!  It has some things that shocked even me.  On a side note, I have researched a large number of the articles that he referenced in his statement.  I have not found a single time where anything was taken out of context, or mis-stated.  This is a well written and well documented piece of work. 

I should be SO Smurfing fired.

I work for a high end wood office furniture manufacturer.  I help customers design custom things, but occasionally have to deal with questions that are just strange.

We have a bunch of different wood types we can use, and also many stain colors that we can apply to them.  It is common for someone to order pieces of furniture from more than one manufacturer and put them in the same space.  When that happens, they give us a sample of the wood that they chose from the other company and we match it.  We sometimes get requests for wood that is un-stained, to which we apply a protective clear coat.  Once in a great while we get a request for “Unfinished” wood that they plan to stain and finish at the job site.  We will not do that.   This customer was just confused as to what they want:

Customer: can you do custom stain colors on wood?

Me: Yes, we have a very good color lab, Stain To Match is a 10% additional charge to everything.

Customer: What about blue?

Me: blue?

Customer: Yes, blue, but they said that they don’t want any stain on the wood.  They just want unfinished wood.

Me: That is blue?

Customer: yes.

Me: Unfortunately, our wood supplier can not get smurfwood, so you are out of luck on the naturally blue wood.  I can see if we can stain something blue for you.