A couple of big events have taken place in my transient life, but before we get to that, my baby girl has taken to smiling at us with frequency. And staring and actually interacting for long stretches of time. It is quite remarkable. Quite good.
Back to the news now. First, yesterday morning I had to buy a metrocard that isn't unlimited. I had to stand at the machine and mentally count up the number of subway rides I would take between now and September 17th. $45 is the most they let you buy at one time, and including the $6.75 free bonus you get at that level, and considering that a single ride is $2.25(1), I have 23 rides. This is less than the amount I will need, so since I am not accustomed to looking at the little display on the turnstile when swiping, I can guarantee that sometime around September 14th I will walk straight into a rigid turnstile, and hard too because after 7+ years here I am a pro at swiping quickly and smoothly and getting through as fast as possible.
The next thing is, to me, a big step in our transition. We went to the grocery store on Sunday and we only bought things we would for sure use in the next three weeks. No grabbing the bottle of green curry sauce cause it might be fun, no stocking up on penne because it's on sale, no acquisition of frozen foods of any kind, and no olive oil even though we are very close to being out of it and of course it's a staple. Planning a move, scheduling the rental, closing utilities accounts, haggling with the landlord about the timeliness of the return of the security deposit: these are all things you do because you must. They are part of a timeline and are done without emotion or a sense of context, like walking up stairs. A move doesn't affect you on a daily level really until it affects your stomach. Sometime in the next week, I want to make pasta with the delicious little mini dried ravioli that they sell at Trader Joe's, but since I didn't buy the meatballs I am stuck with plain marinara sauce. I also decided not to buy another jar of honey cause we'd never use it in three weeks and it seems stupid to move a jar of honey a thousand miles, so now when we make a salad it will be too vinegar-y for my tastes because I can't add honey.
I also now feel a stronger need to plan my meals. I know there are still two cartons of butternut squash soup, so I know we must eat it soon even though who in the hell wants butternut squash soup when it's 90 degrees outside?(2) There is also a jar of pre-made cheap-looking pesto sauce that I'll feel obligated to eat, even though why does jarred pesto sauce even exist?(3)
1. Inflation. It was $2.00 when I first moved here. Though, they say that the price of a slice of pizza mirrors the price of a subway ride, that it has been a close relationship over time. If this is true, then all you subway riders are in for an increase, because slices average about $2.50 right now.
2. Maybe we could eat it cold? I really love all types of soup and since I'm a normal human being, I really love the summer, but at least for me, the two do not go together at all. I will be a soup-cooking machine in Chicago.
3. Basil, oil, nuts, blender. It doesn't take any subtlety to make it, no perfect combination of exotic ingredients. To make things worse, the jar I have looks like an alfredo-y type of pesto. I hope it wasn't me that bought it, but I suspect it must have been like 99 cents or something and I couldn't resist. It is my dad's fault that I would do something like that. I promise to fight it.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Formulaic Satisfaction
As you know, I have been cultivating and caring for something that is important to me over these last few months. Doing so has at times been frustrating, at times tedious, at times engrossing, but even so always I have enjoyed it.
Of course I am talking about my baseball ratings spreadsheet.(1)
In the last week or so, I've completed what I'm proud to announce is an accompanying spreadsheet that predicts the results of the playoffs. This second file is superior to the first in that it's almost wholly automated. I am required to enter data in just 48 total cells,(2) and the entire playoffs with its myriad possibilities and probabilities fills itself in for me.
I had been playing with this file mostly late at night or early in the mornings while watching the baby, and also some while at work since I was (conveniently, almost) stuck covering the reception desk twice lately. Yesterday was a beautiful moment, when I finally finished the column representing each team's chances to win the World Series. To test for bugs, I did a simple SUM of the column, and when I hit enter and the cell filled in with a clean number "1"............let's just say it felt good.(3) It meant that there were no real mistakes within the four-sheet file, that I'd done it right.
1. I think I'll always have a weird relationship with my first big sheet because definitely the one team I most associate with it is the Atlanta Braves. The Braves are currently leading their division by 2.5 games and are just 2 back of San Diego for the best overall record in the NL. But it wasn't always so. On May 19, they were in last place, already six games behind with a 13-18 record. But my sheet told me they were good. On May 4, my system told me they were the third best team in the league, just a hair behind the Phillies, and in fact it has told me at every checkpoint from April 22 through today that they were a top-3 team. The system never doubted the Braves, and so I found myself rooting for them to turn it around and then maintain their position.
This rooting for the Braves is odd for me, because as a sports fan I've more or less always hated them.(A) In the early 90s, I was a fully developing baseball fan, my little league career coming to an end and my analytical love for it still a decade away. At exactly this time, my Pirates happened to be winning, and doing so with one of the best players of all time, Barry Bonds. They won three division titles in a row and twice in a row finishing just a game shy of the World Series. Both of these losses came to the Braves, the second in especially tragic circumstances.(B) And even though he wasn't my favorite Pirate, even at my young age, I was well aware that he was easily our best player, the best in the league. He won three MVPs in a four year span. Most people forget this now because of his (alleged) steriod-fueled romp to four straight a decade later, but Bonds was totally robbed out of four straight in the early 90s. The one year he lost was 1991 and the player he lost to was Terry Pendleton, of the Atlanta Braves.(C)
2. There are eight teams that qualify for the playoffs. For each team, I must fill in the team name, the team rating (which of course I copy from the other spreadsheet), and the four individual pitcher factors for the rotation member (which of course I also copy from the other spreadsheet).
3. So here is what you really want to know, the odds for each team to win it all, based on current standings, in order:
Yankees - 24.0%
Rangers - 17.3%
Phillies - 17.3%
Braves - 12.5%
Rays - 11.1%
Twins - 7.0%
Padres - 5.8%
Reds - 5.0%
A. Outside of the usual suspects like Michigan, Notre Dame, and the Cleveland Browns, and maybe Dallas Cowboys, my list of hated teams has varied. As a kid, I hated the 49ers because I didn't want them to tie the Steelers' Super Bowl record. As a teenager, I hated the Pacers and the Heat (and even MJ and the Bulls for a little while) because they always had emotional playoff contests against the Knicks. As an adult, I've hated both the Patriots and the Red Sox for obvious reasons, and also the Seahawks for less obvious ones (oddly, I don't like bitterness, or complaining). My OSU alumni status required me to hate Florida in recent years.
B. I'll never forget you, Francisco Cabrera, you piece of shit. My dad had already bought game 1 World Series tickets for us that year. I've still never been to a World Series game, and Pittsburgh has not yet had another winning season. It's not the Curse of the Bambino, but in many ways, it's more pathetic.
C. Bonds had more than two more WAR than Pendleton, and double the WPA. If you don't know what those acronyms mean, I'm sorry.
Of course I am talking about my baseball ratings spreadsheet.(1)
In the last week or so, I've completed what I'm proud to announce is an accompanying spreadsheet that predicts the results of the playoffs. This second file is superior to the first in that it's almost wholly automated. I am required to enter data in just 48 total cells,(2) and the entire playoffs with its myriad possibilities and probabilities fills itself in for me.
I had been playing with this file mostly late at night or early in the mornings while watching the baby, and also some while at work since I was (conveniently, almost) stuck covering the reception desk twice lately. Yesterday was a beautiful moment, when I finally finished the column representing each team's chances to win the World Series. To test for bugs, I did a simple SUM of the column, and when I hit enter and the cell filled in with a clean number "1"............let's just say it felt good.(3) It meant that there were no real mistakes within the four-sheet file, that I'd done it right.
1. I think I'll always have a weird relationship with my first big sheet because definitely the one team I most associate with it is the Atlanta Braves. The Braves are currently leading their division by 2.5 games and are just 2 back of San Diego for the best overall record in the NL. But it wasn't always so. On May 19, they were in last place, already six games behind with a 13-18 record. But my sheet told me they were good. On May 4, my system told me they were the third best team in the league, just a hair behind the Phillies, and in fact it has told me at every checkpoint from April 22 through today that they were a top-3 team. The system never doubted the Braves, and so I found myself rooting for them to turn it around and then maintain their position.
This rooting for the Braves is odd for me, because as a sports fan I've more or less always hated them.(A) In the early 90s, I was a fully developing baseball fan, my little league career coming to an end and my analytical love for it still a decade away. At exactly this time, my Pirates happened to be winning, and doing so with one of the best players of all time, Barry Bonds. They won three division titles in a row and twice in a row finishing just a game shy of the World Series. Both of these losses came to the Braves, the second in especially tragic circumstances.(B) And even though he wasn't my favorite Pirate, even at my young age, I was well aware that he was easily our best player, the best in the league. He won three MVPs in a four year span. Most people forget this now because of his (alleged) steriod-fueled romp to four straight a decade later, but Bonds was totally robbed out of four straight in the early 90s. The one year he lost was 1991 and the player he lost to was Terry Pendleton, of the Atlanta Braves.(C)
2. There are eight teams that qualify for the playoffs. For each team, I must fill in the team name, the team rating (which of course I copy from the other spreadsheet), and the four individual pitcher factors for the rotation member (which of course I also copy from the other spreadsheet).
3. So here is what you really want to know, the odds for each team to win it all, based on current standings, in order:
Yankees - 24.0%
Rangers - 17.3%
Phillies - 17.3%
Braves - 12.5%
Rays - 11.1%
Twins - 7.0%
Padres - 5.8%
Reds - 5.0%
A. Outside of the usual suspects like Michigan, Notre Dame, and the Cleveland Browns, and maybe Dallas Cowboys, my list of hated teams has varied. As a kid, I hated the 49ers because I didn't want them to tie the Steelers' Super Bowl record. As a teenager, I hated the Pacers and the Heat (and even MJ and the Bulls for a little while) because they always had emotional playoff contests against the Knicks. As an adult, I've hated both the Patriots and the Red Sox for obvious reasons, and also the Seahawks for less obvious ones (oddly, I don't like bitterness, or complaining). My OSU alumni status required me to hate Florida in recent years.
B. I'll never forget you, Francisco Cabrera, you piece of shit. My dad had already bought game 1 World Series tickets for us that year. I've still never been to a World Series game, and Pittsburgh has not yet had another winning season. It's not the Curse of the Bambino, but in many ways, it's more pathetic.
C. Bonds had more than two more WAR than Pendleton, and double the WPA. If you don't know what those acronyms mean, I'm sorry.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Do you want to see something awesome? Of course you do.
That is what happens when I have a baby. Data. We have it for every day of our baby's life starting with Day 4, July 12. You can get a pretty amazing picture of what it's like to raise an infant through the first six weeks just by looking at this chart. She fed from mom's breast 20 times in her fourth day. Think about that for a second. She dropped somewhat quickly over the next 8-9 days as she learned how to feed better, how to take in more during each feeding, and then stabilized into a very slow downward trend. At 6+ weeks now, she feeds between 7 and 10 times per day, which is pretty much exactly average for a baby that age. This makes me as a father feel good.
Another thing that is "supposed" to happen with babies her age is that they are supposed to start having few messy diapers as the digestive system gets more mature and learns how to not simply pass "shit" through. You can see this in the graph (though not perfectly thanks to the little increase in the last couple days, an increase that is attributable to grandma being in town and giving mom and dad a hard time and forcing more than the necessary amount of changes). Anyway, she has indeed had a real decrease from a previous level of averaging about 8 per day to 6-7 per day now.
The final line on the graph doesn't quite tell as big of a story, which really is itself the story. Lula's hours awake is the yellow line. Aside from one odd spike when she was awake for 14 hours at her one-month-old mark, her time awake has been very consistent. There is no real trend to the line, at least as presented here. If I were to have two plots of time awake--one for time awake during the day and one for time awake at night--then there would be a remarkable difference apparent. Starting 3-4 weeks ago, the time awake at night line would drop a lot, and for the last three weeks, the line would hover just slightly above zero. That is right, my baby pretty much sleeps through the night, and has done so since before she was even one month old. This is my first chance to parent-gloat and so I'm going enjoy it.
Changing subject here briefly, I have tried out some different forms of music with our little one to find out what she likes at this age. No, I am not going to assume that her tastes at 5-6 weeks will remain her tastes for life, and probably it's less about taste than simply about sound, but let's say that early results have been encouraging.
Most happily for me, she doesn't seem to react much at all to what would be considered kid's or baby music, the grating crap that comes out of kid toys. She enjoys the tune that comes out of her stuffed pink rabbit, but I think that's more a function of the rabbit and not the music. All the rest of that stuff goes under her head.
She pretty clearly likes jazz, especially Thelonious Monk, but including all that I've played for her. She is mostly ambivalent to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, but has a truly shocking affinity for Led Zeppelin and even seemed to enjoy the limited amount of Springsteen she heard before falling asleep.
That is what happens when I have a baby. Data. We have it for every day of our baby's life starting with Day 4, July 12. You can get a pretty amazing picture of what it's like to raise an infant through the first six weeks just by looking at this chart. She fed from mom's breast 20 times in her fourth day. Think about that for a second. She dropped somewhat quickly over the next 8-9 days as she learned how to feed better, how to take in more during each feeding, and then stabilized into a very slow downward trend. At 6+ weeks now, she feeds between 7 and 10 times per day, which is pretty much exactly average for a baby that age. This makes me as a father feel good.Another thing that is "supposed" to happen with babies her age is that they are supposed to start having few messy diapers as the digestive system gets more mature and learns how to not simply pass "shit" through. You can see this in the graph (though not perfectly thanks to the little increase in the last couple days, an increase that is attributable to grandma being in town and giving mom and dad a hard time and forcing more than the necessary amount of changes). Anyway, she has indeed had a real decrease from a previous level of averaging about 8 per day to 6-7 per day now.
The final line on the graph doesn't quite tell as big of a story, which really is itself the story. Lula's hours awake is the yellow line. Aside from one odd spike when she was awake for 14 hours at her one-month-old mark, her time awake has been very consistent. There is no real trend to the line, at least as presented here. If I were to have two plots of time awake--one for time awake during the day and one for time awake at night--then there would be a remarkable difference apparent. Starting 3-4 weeks ago, the time awake at night line would drop a lot, and for the last three weeks, the line would hover just slightly above zero. That is right, my baby pretty much sleeps through the night, and has done so since before she was even one month old. This is my first chance to parent-gloat and so I'm going enjoy it.
Changing subject here briefly, I have tried out some different forms of music with our little one to find out what she likes at this age. No, I am not going to assume that her tastes at 5-6 weeks will remain her tastes for life, and probably it's less about taste than simply about sound, but let's say that early results have been encouraging.
Most happily for me, she doesn't seem to react much at all to what would be considered kid's or baby music, the grating crap that comes out of kid toys. She enjoys the tune that comes out of her stuffed pink rabbit, but I think that's more a function of the rabbit and not the music. All the rest of that stuff goes under her head.
She pretty clearly likes jazz, especially Thelonious Monk, but including all that I've played for her. She is mostly ambivalent to Bob Dylan and the Beatles, but has a truly shocking affinity for Led Zeppelin and even seemed to enjoy the limited amount of Springsteen she heard before falling asleep.
Friday, August 6, 2010
A Mask
I am looking for a job now. This is very necessary and very evil. Constant looking and what I will call relentless waiting. Because I have to sign up for many websites in order to look for or apply to jobs, my inbox is filling up with job "opportunities" from people I don't know. The problem is that all of these are crap, and most are computer generated, trying to get me to sell something for them. I am not a salesman. Sometimes they are trying to get me to apply to a very menial job or to sign up to their headhunting agency (which is a whole other story). Of all the email there has been only one that seems legitimate (it was accompanied by an actual phone message from an actual person), but I haven't made real contact yet so I don't know what kind of prospect it is.
Job-searching is about patience and persistence, but mostly it's about selling yourself and by extension lying. I am terrible at these things. I am terrible because it makes me very uncomfortable talking myself up. My whole approach to life is to simply get my things done as best I can and to let that speak for itself. I don't need credit and I don't need praise. Selling yourself requires generating your own praise and claiming credit often for things undeserved.
The paragon of the entire process is of course the resume. When making connections to other people, or in networking yourself through helpers, usually the only currency involved is a resume. Plenty of times when applying directly for a job you are given the opportunity to also include a cover letter, but the convention behind this is also far too formal to be worth a damn, and besides when dealing only with contacts cover letters are never used. It's always simply the resume.
It's a little intimidating and absurd that your whole professional existence could be reduced to a single page of words, or that your entire essence should be shoe-horned into something so formulaic.
Has anyone ever felt truly satisfied with their resume? I'd like to think that if you do your job well, and you contribute beyond simply what's in the job description--that you always actively apply your brain--that it should be impossible to boil down your value into an easy description. Part of this is the nature of the comprehensiveness of my job, but I find it difficult to succinctly even describe my current job. How am I then supposed to compress my experience into something that would be appealing to a recruiter?
I am not someone who makes great first impressions. I don't think I put people off--well, sometimes, but mostly not. I just am not a person that a stranger will walk away from and think "Gee that guy was really nice or really personable." For one thing, it's been my experience that a person who will cause that reaction is a horrible phony. I don't really enjoy or tolerate chit-chat, and that is basically what job-searching is all about.
I like to think that when someone deals with me, that there is always something more to me than I offer. I don't feel it's necessary to always supply the punchline or interject with a witty remark. It's ok to let a conversation flow naturally even if it doesn't flow directly through you, and even if you have something to add. Anyway, I am really just usually so confident with myself that I don't feel the need to show myself off or to attempt to create any kind of adoration in those around me.
My hope is that the more that people get to know me and the more they uncover the more they will like me. This approach isn't very compatible with looking for a job. And I can somewhat accept that, since it is me doing the looking and therefore needing to be proactive. It's just a necessary evil.
I'm not sure what my intent is in writing this post. I'm not trying to complain, and I'm not trying to offer a better solution. I guess I'm just haplessly describing a situation, putting something out there that I can re-read after successfully completing my search and landing a superduper job. For now I will go touch up my resume, which is kinda like perfecting a mask of myself with the intent of wearing it and making it seem like me. The world is really not ready or patient or interested enough to just see my real face.
Job-searching is about patience and persistence, but mostly it's about selling yourself and by extension lying. I am terrible at these things. I am terrible because it makes me very uncomfortable talking myself up. My whole approach to life is to simply get my things done as best I can and to let that speak for itself. I don't need credit and I don't need praise. Selling yourself requires generating your own praise and claiming credit often for things undeserved.
The paragon of the entire process is of course the resume. When making connections to other people, or in networking yourself through helpers, usually the only currency involved is a resume. Plenty of times when applying directly for a job you are given the opportunity to also include a cover letter, but the convention behind this is also far too formal to be worth a damn, and besides when dealing only with contacts cover letters are never used. It's always simply the resume.
It's a little intimidating and absurd that your whole professional existence could be reduced to a single page of words, or that your entire essence should be shoe-horned into something so formulaic.
Has anyone ever felt truly satisfied with their resume? I'd like to think that if you do your job well, and you contribute beyond simply what's in the job description--that you always actively apply your brain--that it should be impossible to boil down your value into an easy description. Part of this is the nature of the comprehensiveness of my job, but I find it difficult to succinctly even describe my current job. How am I then supposed to compress my experience into something that would be appealing to a recruiter?
I am not someone who makes great first impressions. I don't think I put people off--well, sometimes, but mostly not. I just am not a person that a stranger will walk away from and think "Gee that guy was really nice or really personable." For one thing, it's been my experience that a person who will cause that reaction is a horrible phony. I don't really enjoy or tolerate chit-chat, and that is basically what job-searching is all about.
I like to think that when someone deals with me, that there is always something more to me than I offer. I don't feel it's necessary to always supply the punchline or interject with a witty remark. It's ok to let a conversation flow naturally even if it doesn't flow directly through you, and even if you have something to add. Anyway, I am really just usually so confident with myself that I don't feel the need to show myself off or to attempt to create any kind of adoration in those around me.
My hope is that the more that people get to know me and the more they uncover the more they will like me. This approach isn't very compatible with looking for a job. And I can somewhat accept that, since it is me doing the looking and therefore needing to be proactive. It's just a necessary evil.
I'm not sure what my intent is in writing this post. I'm not trying to complain, and I'm not trying to offer a better solution. I guess I'm just haplessly describing a situation, putting something out there that I can re-read after successfully completing my search and landing a superduper job. For now I will go touch up my resume, which is kinda like perfecting a mask of myself with the intent of wearing it and making it seem like me. The world is really not ready or patient or interested enough to just see my real face.
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