Maybe I Was Wrong

Lebron might be a Romantic figure.  We might be "witnessing" the greatest.

But if he doesn't win, I will be disappointed.  There are only so many "next years."  He is one injury away from irrelevancy.  

Depressing

I thought Lebron could be a great Romantic figure.  I thought he could single-handily slay the mediocrity of the NBA.  For some reason, I really wanted to see this.  I didn't feel like I was old enough to appreciate Jordan's reign.  I wanted to see the "greatest."

But I will not see it this year.  And I am disappointed.   

The Value Of A Bottle Cap Or An Exam Question

Coke offers rewards if you have the patience to enter their bottle cap codes on the Internet.  Eight bottle caps lead to a free 20oz drink.  A 20oz drink costs $1.49 at the campus store.  It is less at other places.  Coke seems to be doing away with 20oz bottles in favor of half-liter bottles.  Many people recycle their bottles with the caps left on them.  I recover these caps from the recycling bins.  This costs me very little except for funny looks from passer-bys.  I readily admit I drink too much soda.  It is bad for my acid reflux.  I prefer Diet Pepsi to Coke Zero or Diet Coke.  I usually buy store brand soda (Big K).  There are other rewards (offers) from Coke for bottle cap points, but I find these unattainable and overpriced.  

What is the value of a Coke bottle cap?

    

NBA Morning Thoughts And Another Stupid Thing I Have Done Or Doing A Good Thing The Wrong Way

1.  I really want to get into the NBA playoffs.  The Lakers are my villains.  I want Cleveland to win.  I thought and still think that Houston doesn't have a chance without Yao.  Dallas is tragic.  Denver is a story.  The Magic, Celtics, and Hawks just aren't that good.  If everything goes as planned and there is a Cavs-Lakers final , I will stay interested.  If not, I will pay attention but not care.

2.  I grew up on the Bad Boy Pistons.  Rest in peace Chuck Daly.        

3.  I went home Saturday.  The grass was long.  My dad had to work Sunday.  I got on the riding mower and started to cut.  I was being a good son.  I was bringing up mud, and the other half of the grass wasn't trimmed.  I blamed it on the grass being wet.  The tires were pushing the grass down, and since the grass was wet, it didn't have resiliency.  I finish.  I park the mower.  The grass looks horrible.  When I was a kid, it wouldn't have been acceptable to my dad or myself.  Now it was cut.  And that was good enough.  My dad gets home.  "Why is this so uneven?"  He looks at the mower, and it has a flat tire.  Yes, I mowed the lawn with a flat tire.  We pumped up the tire, and my dad went back over the lawn as I push mowed some places.  It still looks horrible, and I am worried about some spots that were cut too low.  I might have brought my parents neighborhood shame.  But it is cut, and I am back in Blacksburg.       

Sunday Afternoon Or Stupid Things I Have Done

1.  I listened to the Braves beat the Phillies.  The Braves are a .500 team.  And a lucky .500 team has a chance.  All I need a chance is to keep my interest.

2.  I am listening to the Yankees beat the Orioles.  I don't like the Yankees.  I don't really care about the Orioles.  I just find the Yankee situation entertaining  The Braves are a .500 team.  At least they don't spend a billion dollars on players and a new stadium to be a .500 team.  

3.  From Ayn Rand's Foreword to We The Living: "Writers are made, not born.  To be exact, writers are self-made."  I find this encouraging.

4.  I did a little Spring cleaning yesterday.  I changed the bed and put on a Summer blanket.  I left the windows cracked last night.  I woke up shivering this morning.

5.  I have shoes that have to be fifteen years old.  They were one of the first pairs I bought when my feet stopped growing.   I still wear them.  There is a crack in the sole.  When it is rains for 40 days and 40 nights, one should not wear fifteen year old shoes with a crack in the sole.

6.  I've been trying to do too much and not getting anything done.  It is time to rectify this.

    

       

You Have To Believe

The belief that you have something relevant to say has to supersede the fear that the people who hear won't care.  

Depression is letting the fear of people not caring get in the way of the belief that you have something relevant to say.  

It really doesn't matter what is.  All that matters is that you believe, and you don't let anyone take that belief away from you.    

Some More Things

1.  I think it is time to close this school for good.

2.  Twitter.  I don't know what to think about it.

3.  I thumb downed Coldplay today.  I had to do it.

4.  Three things are better than none.  I guess.     

Some Things To (Hopefully) Get Me Started

1.  I can't decide what makes you stupider:  

1.  Sports Talk Radio  

2.  Country Music Radio Stations  

3.  Reality TV Shows

2.  Getting started is imperative to finishing anything.  

3.  I slow-cooked this Boston Butt.  I tried to mimic North Carolina Barbecue.  But I didn't have the ingredients.  I didn't have the energy and time to do it right.  So my finished product wasn't great.  It was (barely) edible, but it wasn't great.   There is a lesson here.  But I can't determine what exactly the lesson means.  Maybe the lesson is that the Boston Butt is really insignificant in the grand scheme.

4.  This A-Rod book could be an interesting character study if Pat Jordan did it.  I am not old-school, but there seems to be too much inuendo and unnamed sources in Roberts' work.  Pat Jordan would have followed A-Rod around for a week or six months and captured his ego-mania with specific quotes and stories.  

5.  This one is complicated, so bear with me.  I wonder when some one will start a (Swine) Flu research foundation.  I have always had an issue with people who have been directly affected by a disease or situation starting foundations and raising money for these or other related foundations.  Michael J. Fox comes to mind.  He is a good guy and has done a lot of good things.  But if he started raising money for heart disease or cancer or AIDS, I would have more respect for him.  "I have Parkinson's disease, but AIDS affects a lot more people and is more devastating."  The idea being that it would be less self-serving more utilitarian and encourage cynical (people who believe in incentive-theory) people like myself.  The point here is that there are a lot of good causes and flu research is one of them, but the relative importance of these is very subjective.    

A Sentence I Read This Morning

"The core function of a university is to educate students."

I am not going to cite the sentence. Of course it is from an academic article. I have written worse sentences, but this one caught my eye this morning.

Fiber Plus Bars

I am sitting in my communal office. I have been trying to increase my fiber intake. I get up to correct my laptop stand. I faintly fart. Thankfully I didn't shit myself. And like the soldier I am, I went about my business like nothing happened.

Do I Go To The Spring Game Or Not?

There is no such thing as Hokie Nation or Red Sox Nation or Yankee Nation.  They don't exist.  They are fictional constructs.  Fictional constructs that help the media describe events.  "Nation" is just a word to generalize, to aggregate, to demonize, to patriotize.

But we want "nations."  We want the order, the identity, the rules, the standards that "nations" give us.  Most people run into problems when they lose their identity, when they lose their tribe, when they lose their "nation".  They search for something, and they usually end up lost, at least for a time.  

There is something important, something significant, something essential to having an identity.  I don't know if that identify has to come from a "nation."  But it has to come from somewhere.       

Free Writing Friday Afternoon

You have to have a vision before it can be implemented.

You have to have help to implement anything.

The guy in the office beside me was a good athlete, a good catcher. I am sure he could throw a lot of people out. I was just learning how to hit when I stopped playing ball. He couldn't throw anyone out anymore. And I can't hit anymore.

Struggle is part of life and not necessarily a bad thing.

You'd better stand for something or you will fall for anything.

Spring games are what they are. Exhibitions.

Some times you have to get excited about something. As GGM says, "You have to blow out the pipes." I haven't gotten really angry lately. Anger isn't always a bad thing.

Over and out, good buddy.

Some Things

1.  I am really digging Google's Chrome.  It reminds of Opera but seems more stable.

2.  I have been listening to too much Pandora.  I cannot make a decision on Coldplay.  Most of the time I just don't feel them, but they keep popping up and I don't ban them from my playlist.

3.  I started a post on the foolishness of buying a house.  The idea was that I (and most people) place value on things that does not hold value for other people.  The house I grew up in is worth much more to me and my parents than anyone else.  Cars are the same way.  In other words, houses are not investments unless you treat them like an investment.  (I was going to use this logic as support for my new assessment system.)  I was going to relate this to my personal struggles.  Maybe I am not valuing the right things.  But I didn't finish the post.

4.  Coldplay came on Pandora again.  I skipped the song but did not ban them.  

5.  I haven't called my shot put buddy.  I will soon.  I hope.

6.  I might make Chrome my default browser today.

7.  The song from Pandora I am listening to now isn't very good either.  But it is better than Sports Radio.  

8.  My next research project is going to be on what kills more brain cells: sports talk radio or country music stations.  Every now and then I like listening, but I never feel that good afterwards.  It always seems like I am listening to avoid thinking. 

I Once Knew This Guy

He was one of the best athletes I ever met. He could dunk a basketball. He could bench 365 pounds without trying. He almost qualified for nationals in the shot-put. He was a great friend.

He saw athletics as this thing where if you worked hard, good things would come to you. I saw academics as this thing where if you worked hard, good things would come to you. We would argue about this all of the time, accusing the other of being lazy. I would say he could be a better student. He was a great friend.

He would say I could be a better athlete. We used to play basketball with this freshman. We screwed with that freshman so much he wanted to cry. He was a great friend.

I went to graduate school. I don't think he ever graduated. He was a great friend.

We've talked once or twice in the last six years. Yesterday, he found me, sent me his numbers, and asked me to call him. He was a great friend.

I can't do it. I don't want to do it. I can't face calling him and rehashing my last few years. I am not that unhappy. I just don't want to talk right now. I just don't want revisit the past or catch up. I want to concentrate on the future. I want to move forward. I want to be better than I am right now. But I will eventually call. He was a great friend.

Acid Reflux, Emergency Rooms, And Habits

A month ago I spent an afternoon in a Richmond (VCU) Emergency Room. As I had done three times in the previous month, I got something stuck in my throat. My acid reflux had inflamed my throat. I forgot to thoroughly chew a piece of apple, and I choked. I tried to throw it up for three hours. I tried to relax. But it just stayed there. I was getting dehydrated. I had a hour and half commute home. I was making a fool of myself. I had to do something. The ladies in the office were concerned. The emergency room was two blocks away. So I went.

Once I "sign in" to the emergency room, I swallow the apple to a point where I am not regurgitating, and I can swallow water. I keep asking if I should leave, because there are some really sick people there. The nurses, all say "stay." I am in an emergency room with a number of sick prisoners from local jails, correction officers assigned to watch them, and state troopers investigating traumatic accidents. The orderlies and maintenance workers are discussing their sexual exploits and what they would like to do with some of the student nurses. I do not want to "stay." But I do, and it will cost me a few hundred dollars.

Earlier in the day I drank black coffee from Starbucks. This has always had a detrimental effect on my acid reflux. My stress level was high. This has always had a detrimental effect on my acid reflux. I had choked three times in the previous month. I started taking Prilosec again, but it clearly wasn't solving the problem. It was just helping mask the symptoms and the real causes. It was just helping maintain my bad habits of black coffee and stress.

Most of life is habit. If you step back and evaluate most of your daily decisions, they involve some type of "rule of thumb," some type of decision rule based on experience and past information. Black coffee wakes me up. Writing this blog makes me feel better and helps me avoid other things I have to do.

Some bad habits are necessary. But a successful life involves overcoming bad habits and replacing them with less bad habits. This is what I am trying to do, and that has to be good enough.

An Idea I Almost Forgot

In a nearby community, the county increased property value assessments on a number of houses. As expected during these times, this caused an outrage with some of the owners. "It just doesn't make any sense. The housing market is bottomed out, and "they" increased my taxes."

My libertarian side says this situation is purely government failure. There shouldn't be property taxes and government. This is just another example of government coercing people.

My realistic side says we have to pay for some local quasi-public goods and services. Property taxes meet the wherewithal principle. There could be a worse way, and nothing is changing soon.

My economist side says the problem is valuation. These assessments are just made-up. I have seen a lot of economic valuation models, and they all have flaws. (They are all bullshit.) So here is what I think, if the county assesses a house at $X, they should have to be willing and able to buy the house at $X. If the owner thinks his house is assessed at too high of a value, he can sell it to the taxing authority. And the taxing authority would have to buy it or reassess. People could truly "vote with their feet" by moving in and out of communities.

This idea is certainly not new. But I was reminded of it when I reading this about changing the rules in baseball and football. The problem with changing rules is not rational benefits and costs, but something more visceral. Changing rules causes emotional responses, causes a fundamentally different way of viewing things. My first reaction to Posnanski's post was "sometimes you just have to win." Kneeling and intentional walks are about winning. But this isn't a rational response. It is just how I view the world. No rationale is going change my mind.

It is hard to change rules. And maybe that is a good thing. And maybe it isn't. But I certainly don't want to eliminate the intentional walk or the ability to kneel down to end football games.

But I do want to change the way counties assess property values.

(Yeah, Posnanski says the same thing except better, but I had to try.)

Charles Bukowksi Quote Of The Day

From Ham on Rye pg. 194:

"And yet I knew that what I saw wasn't as simple and good as it appeared. There was a price to be paid for it all, a general falsity, that could be easily believed, and could be the first step down a dead-end street. The band began to play again and the boys and girls began to dance again and the lights revolved overhead throwing shades of gold, then red, then blue, then green, then gold again on the couples. As I watched them I said to myself, someday my dance will begin. When that day comes I will have something that they don't have.

But then it got to be too much for me."

Opening Day

I hear these commentators talk about how every baseball fan has hope for their team this week. Every team has a chance to win the pennant. Every team has a chance to be special.

I should feel this way about the Braves, especially after last night, but I don't. They don't have the bats to win. Their pitching is old, injury-prone, and inconsistent. They might stay close, but the cream (the Mets and the Phillies and even the Marlins) will rise to the top before the year is done.

But it is opening day and Spring is officially here, so I am going forget the Braves and take full advantage of my MLB.com radio subscription.

"Make It Up. Make It Happen."*

I won my "Bracket Challenge." Now I have to get the organizer to pay out. This might be difficult. This is another problem I don't necessarily need. It is another thing to pass the time.

I had Michigan State losing in the first round. I am ranked 60,537 in Facebook. So either I was lucky or my competitors were bad.

But some times, you just have to win.

*This is in David Allen's Getting Things Done. I know he wasn't the first to write it, but I am too lazy to look up the reference.

What I Am Doing Or What I Have To Do Or What I Should Be Doing...

Research is all about producing information and selling the information you produce. The best researchers sell themselves with their information. Most research takes some leap of faith. People cannot have faith in research or information. They can only have faith in people.

My dad knows how to sell. No, my dad has learned how to sell. He tries. He fails. He takes calculated risks, not probabilistically conceived but based on instinct and experience. He sells his information and himself very well.

It is time for me to start following his example.