Today is Black Friday, and I didn’t have to go to work and deal with the crowded madness that is the busiest shopping day of the year. I was thrilled. I would have been more thrilled if I had been able to sleep in, but the baby wouldn’t allow that. Still, it was an interesting change to watch the Black Friday sales on news segments on TV from the comfort of my living room instead of having to be part of them. I had no idea such a thing was actually that newsworthy.

I still don’t see how people can stand waiting in long lines in the dark, cold hours before dawn to fight each other over some unusually significant discount or for the year’s hottest toy for their kids. I knew some people who went. I debated whether I should get up early and take a walk to the nearby shopping center just to observe the chaos in person, but I decided against it.

For as long as I’ve been aware of it, most stores open at around 5:00 in the morning on Black Friday. That’s abnormally early, but it never seemed unreasonable to me. It still allowed some time for everybody (employees and shoppers alike) to enjoy their Thanksgiving meals and gatherings before heading to bed to gear up for a day of constant activity. This year, however, Toys ‘R’ Us (and a few other stores, I'm told) decided to extend Black Friday by beginning it at midnight, driving special bargains and popular items throughout the night, and continuing them all through the daylight hours as well. When I found out, I had to write an angry letter to Toys 'R' Us, telling the company’s corporate suits just how cruel that was to the employees who, especially in a rough economy like this one, may not have any choice except to work at that job and to accept whatever hours they were offered. I could see nothing but greed and exploitation in it, and that extended to the customers as well who undoubtedly were willing to sacrifice their sleep and their family time to be the first in line for the event, all in the name of saving money, thus encouraging retailers to continue this kind of cruelty in years to come.

It all serves to strengthen my argument that retail and service employees are rapidly becoming a kind of serf caste in American society.

I'm all in favor of discounts and saving money, but I think 5:00 in the morning is plenty early to start the big sales. As one of my friends once put it, "Shoppers call it Black Friday because they start their shopping before sunrise. Retailers call it Black Friday because they can actually expect to reach their revenue goals. Retail employees call it Black Friday because it is the apocalypse."

In much more pleasant news, though, my creative writing ideas are continuing to expand. If I could find the time for them, I believe I could craft some entertaining and even marketable stories. I have many other things in the way at the moment, but I spent most of today completing them. I want to write a science fiction piece, but that’s proving more challenging than I expected it to be. I have the fiction side ready. It’s the science side that I have to work on. I think the best way to gather the information I need would be to play at being a college student again and write up a report. So that’s going onto my to-do list now: research and summarize the available information regarding the binary star systems of Procyon 2 and 61 Cygni, then compare and contrast.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: tired
What's Distracting Me?: "Just Older" by Bon Jovi

One of my co-workers forwarded a humorous email to me today. Some parts were amusing, but some were questionable. I was in a particularly analytical mood, so, when the workload was relatively low for the day, I started picking apart the email's jokes. I've decided to share them.

The email was titled Spread the Stupidity and consisted of a series of rhetorical questions that were supposed to make the reader laugh at the ridiculousness of parts of our language and society. Many of them began with the phrase "Only in America..." which seemed to suggest that Americans are particularly absurd and that the rest of the world does not stoop to such silliness. I sincerely doubt that all of these things are exclusive to America, but that's not what struck my analyst's nerve.

Below is the text of the email and my responses to each quip.

"Only in America do drug stores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes up front."
- This seems true and a bit annoying because it hints at discrimination against those who want to be healthy while favoring those who seem to want to deliberately damage their own bodies. But don't many pharmacies have drive-up windows? Don't many grocery stores have pharmacies near the entrances?

"Only in America do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a Diet Coke."
- This one has come up often, and it seems to emphasize the apparent discrepancy between a fattening meal and a low-calorie beverage. The keyword is "Diet." But a person who makes such an order is not necessarily dumb enough to think that a Diet Coke will reduce the caloric damage done by the accompanying food. Perhaps he or she is watching sugar intake instead of calorie intake and opted for the beverage with the artificial sweetener.

"Only in America do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counter."
- I must admit that this practice has struck me as odd, and I did chuckle at this comment. I don't know why vaults are so often left open behind the teller counter, though the few times I've been able to see inside one, I've seen locked boxes instead of stacks of cash. The pens, I think, are chained to the counter not necessarily because the bank is too stingy to buy a larger stock of pens but because they want to make sure every customer has easy access to a pen.

"Only in America do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage."
- Cars are resistant to damage by weather; the keepsakes and such usually kept in garages are not.

"Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight."
- This is a simple matter of differences in professions. Bakers count; butchers weigh. And I've seen both buns in ten-packs and dogs in eight-packs at the grocer, so I don't think this is a valid point anymore.

"Only in America do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering."
- Ignoring the Automated Teller Machine Machine redundancy, I think the Braille is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act or some such legislation. And if not, perhaps a blind person would need to use the ATM from the back seat of a friends car.

"Ever wonder why the sun lightens our hair but darkens our skin?"
- No, I haven't wondered that. Not for long, anyway. It involves different biochemical processes. It seems somewhat ironic when stated this way, but it makes sense scientifically.

"Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?"
- Because opening the mouth stretches and tightens the skin around the eyes to which they are applying the mascara. Men do the same thing for the same reason (though they may keep their lips together) when shaving under their noses.

"Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?"
- Because any person who claims to be psychic would know that to enter the lottery and lose without a really good explanation would destroy any credibility he or she had attained. They would destroy their careers. And if they managed to keep their losses a secret, they would have to deal with some severe cognitive dissonance.

"Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word."
- I did laugh at this one. I do every time I hear or read it. Actually, the reason is also kind of funny. It comes from the Latin "brevis" and has just had prefixes and suffixes added to it as it has moved through various languages to its current English form.

"Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?"
- I don't know. I'm sure the answer lies somewhere in the multiple definitions and possible multiple origins of the word, but I laughed at this question, too.

"Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?"
- I suspect that the artificial flavors are used to sweeten or enhance the lemon flavor or to reduce production costs. I'll bet that the dishwashing liquids have artificial lemon-related chemicals, too, but the real lemons are added to create a pleasant scent and for marketing purposes.

"Why is the man who invests all your money called a 'broker'?"
- See my response to the one about doctors' "practicing" their profession.

"Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called 'rush hour'?"
- Because drivers are in a rush to get home? I'm not entirely sure, though I think it has more to do with volume than speed. What I want to know is why it is referred to as an hour when it generally lasts longer than that.

"Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?"
- Probably because cat food manufacturers don't think it would sell well. Some of their customers might like mice as well as cats (or might like animals in general), and since our society does not view mice as food, those customers would not like the idea of mice being killed and made into cat food. It's a good question, though. If I had a cat, I would buy mouse-flavored cat food for it, especially if I thought it would help the cat develop a taste for the mice that might try to come into my house.

"Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?"
- I'm not sure Noah was commanded to bring insects onto the ark. Those creatures probably came aboard of their own accord, following all the animals. Or Noah may have been trying to be as obedient as possible and did not kill any of the animals because God told him not to. Besides, who is to say he didn't swat some more annoying insect?

"Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?"
- I can think of two reasons. For one, the person administering the injection would not want to be accidentally pricked by a non-sterile needle. For the other, manufacturers of hypodermic needles probably don't distinguish product bound for Death Row from product bound for hospitals; there would be too much risk involved in the possibility of mixing up shipments.

"You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?"
- Probably because the plane would then be too heavy to fly or at least too heavy to fly economically. Additionally, the black box is likely "indestructible" due to its small size as well as its structural composition, and I think it might be difficult to build a passenger jet liner that small.

"Why don't sheep shrink when in rains."
- I thought this one was funny, too, but I think wool gains its propensity for shrinking when it is made into clothing.

And that's my two cents for the day.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: geeky
What's Distracting Me?: "It Might As Well Be You" by Del Amitri

It snowed today. I woke up to a very light flurry of snow falling, and I got up to take a few carts back to their stores. For the next hour or so, the flurries increased and decreased every few minutes, but they were never thick enough to cause me any trouble. When I got back to the apartment, the snow stopped, and the rain started... inside.

I had just sat down with the TV on to relax from my cart wrangling excursion and to have some breakfast when I noticed a stream of water suddenly pour down from the upstairs balcony onto the railing of my balcony. The water splashed onto everything we have stored out there (the old desk, the stroller box, the cinder block shelf, the big cooler, the bike rack, the tossed-out stroller, and several other things. I rolled my eyes and wondered why the neighbors above me would throw out water (mop water, perhaps) like that and if they knew that it was effecting me. Then I noticed that the water was steaming as well—-big billows of steam filling the balcony alcove and fogging the window. The stream of water just kept coming. I heard their sliding door open and close and open and close, but the water did not stop. I was starting to get concerned.

That’s when I heard a dripping sound coming from down the hall. I knew it was serious then. It was raining inside again, and I had to figure out where. My first guess was the bathroom because it has rained in there twice already, but the bathroom was dry. The rain was in the office. From the center point of the closet doorframe, two narrow lines of water were pouring down and soaking the carpet. I ran for a bucket to catch that water, but I had a suspicion that I wasn’t getting everything. I woke my wife and told her what was going on, threw on some shoes, and ran outside. My intention was to go to the office to inform them that I had a minor crisis going on.

I ran around the building to the balcony side to see what I could see. I saw my upstairs neighbor peer over the balcony and smilingly tell me that a pipe must have burst. He didn’t seem to think that it was a big deal! In fact, I got the impression that he was just going to let it go until the maintenance guys showed up of their own accord or until the problem solved itself. That angered me. Another man came around the building to see what was going on and yelled up at the neighbor to turn off the water supply to his apartment. He disappeared into the utility closet on his balcony (where the water heater and furnace are located), and the stream immediately slowed. About this time, the girl downstairs from me came out onto her patio, apparently (and with good reason) afraid that she was going to be flooded. Upstairs neighbor reappeared and laughed again that it must be a broken pipe. I mentioned that it was dripping in one of the bedrooms in my apartment, and his response to that was some kind of confirmation that it was malfunctioning equipment and in no way was he responsible for any part of it.

At that point, the water was abating, so I ran to the office to make a report. No one was there. They would still be closed for another hour or so. With nothing else to do, I came back to my apartment to assess the damage. Last week, I replaced a wooden cabinet with some plastic shelves in that closet, and I filled them with our board games and puzzles and a few other things. The plastic was wet. The wood would have been worse, but the plastic was bad enough. I had to clear off those shelves completely and spread out some of the items on them, like the card games and the box of photographs, so that they would dry out. Fortunately, nothing was ruined, but a few things were damaged, and I’m certainly not happy about that.

The water had seeped through the outer wall and in through cracks in the sheetrock until it began pooling between sheetrock and paint. The paint developed blisters of water, and those blisters developed cracks-—some of them rather large-—and began to leak. That water had run down the back of the shelves, wetting nearly everything on them. That’s the third time the upstairs neighbors have sent a rainstorm down on us (the first two times happened in the bathroom). I think it’s time for another complaint to the office and an attempt to get some kind of compensation.

The rest of the day was pretty good, though. I was able to cross off several of the items on my to-do list in spite of having to stop periodically to change a diaper or distract the baby while my wife had something to eat. The snow picked up again in earnest just before lunchtime, and it continued until shortly after sunset. We now have a thin coating of snow on the ground and on most of the buildings.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: sleepy
What's Distracting Me?: Ryan Farish

Some people in this world have musical gifts. I have a musical curse.

Now that I have written that statement, I find myself laughing. I'm picturing the three old hags from Shakespeare's MacBeth around their bubbling cauldron, doing a lively dance and singing the words of their curse to the tune of "Oklahoma." But that's not what I meant. I mean that I have a curse related to music instead of a talent.

I enjoy music. My brain seems tuned to the rhythms and meters in it. I prefer complex music with multiple harmonies and a distinct meter. The more layers the music has, the better it suits me. If it has few layers but has lyrics instead, then I want the lyrics to tell a story or communicate some kind of message. I find that very few of the popular, modern songs fit that bill. I have found some good stuff, though, and my computer is filled with nearly 5,000 tracks. If I listened to the music in my computer for all the hours I am awake (16 each day, on average), I could go for three full weeks and not hear the same song twice. Which makes me wonder: If I have access to so many songs, why do radio stations, who have a much larger music budget than I have, play only 100 or so?

Actually, I know the answer to that question. The radio stations are playing to their target audience. They have advertisers who want to get the attention of a certain portion of the population, and the stations then play the songs that are the most popular among that demographic at the moment in the hopes of catching listeners' attention long enough to sell them something. My complaint is that I have to listen to one of these stations for eight hours a day.

My co-workers like to have music playing while we work. Given the nature of our tasks, I can't complain. I like having music as well. They like the popular stuff. I generally don't. They've agreed on three or four stations, and each of those stations seems to pick their top song or two for the month and play it to death. What's worse, is that lately, most of the really popular songs are the really repetitive ones. We've tried bringing in mp3 players, but the batteries don't last. We've tried playing CDs, but we can't always interrupt our work to switch discs.

One song played five times today, which is bad enough. But it's by some teenage girl (who really has no right to be so popular, if you ask me, because she doesn't strike me as being all that talented as an artist) who decided that the best way to rhyme her lyrics was to just repeat the same six-word phrase five times in a row with slight variations in pitch. GAH! It's maddening.

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In other news, the word "please" is dying. Sure, parents still teach it to their children as "the magic words," but, according to my observations, adults themselves seldom use the word. They've developed other phrases to replace it.

"Please" can be used as either an interjection or an adverb (it also has a meaning as a verb, but I'm not referring to that usage). We all know that it is an essential part of a polite request. However, it seems to have taken on the ability to portray weakness. Americans don't want to appear weak. We want to appear strong, independent, and assertive, to show the world that, somehow, we will get our way! "Please" indicates the need to rely on someone else to achieve our goals and meet our needs. Additionally, in the era of rampant political correctness, we generally don't want to give orders, make demands, or take away the freedom of another person. This puts us into an interesting bind.

Simple English should prompt us to use the phrase "Will you" to begin a request. It is a direct, closed-ended question. It clearly communicates our desires, and it requires a direct affirmative or negative response. In the workplace, this could easily be used by supervisors to subordinates to assign or delegate tasks. Adding "please" to that same request makes it polite, makes it easier to the recipient of the request to decline if necessary, and clearly designates it as a request rather than an order. Unfortunately, "will you" is dying just as quickly as "please."

Over the past several years, I have noticed a remarkable upsurge in the use of the phrases "Do you want to..." and "Is there any way..." The former is best explained in the workplace setting. My supervisor could say, "Will you please deliver this to Jim?" That's a polite request, and I can decline if I'm busy with other things. Or he could say, "Will you clean under your desk?" That's a nice way of giving an assignment, and I would have to come up with a good reason to decline. Instead, he'll say, "Do you want to deliver this to Jim?" Maybe I don't like Jim. Or he'll say, "Do you want to clean under your desk?" Maybe it's dusty and cluttered and possibly hiding a spider or two. Of course I don't want to do those things, but the phrase is a substitute for "will you please," and I know that I really don't have much of an option.

"Is there any way" works best in a customer service setting. It seems that retail and service employees, whether dealing with us in person or over the phone, are generally viewed as somehow lower class. Basic psychology steps in, and those who have accepted this impression of customer service folks will subconsciously take on the role of a superior. They simply cannot say please because that would force them to lower their perception of their own status, but they still have to be polite (in most cases), and they believe that direct questions are impolite. "Is there any way" began by sticking to its literal meaning. "Is there any way to speed up my delivery?" was a genuine question, asking if it was possible to, for example, pay a few dollars extra for a rush order. Now it can still be used in that sense, but it can also be used this way: "Is there any way for you to change the address on my account?" Of course there is a way to change an address in a customer's account. The customer is not asking about the possibility; rather the customer is making a request that his or her address be changed.

Our language is being warped by our strange need to be polite without being polite, to make requests without making requests. It's clutter. It complicates communication, and that complicates relationships of all kinds. And I refuse to participate.

It's still not as bad as "your guys's," but that's a rant for another day.

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Lastly, I want to note the increasing marketing power of the word "only" in advertisements. It seems like an innocent, innocuous word, but it has great influence. Think of recent advertisements. A car is "only $20,000." A small apartment is "only $699 a month." A box of cereal is on sale at "only four dollars." Ever notice that cars are being sold with many of the same features for less than $20,000? Notice that apartment is actually fifty dollars more per month than one the same size across the street? Notice that the same kind of cereal is sold in bags double the volume of a box at the same price?

"Only," when used in marketing and advertising, makes the target audience subconsciously assume that it is a low price, a good deal, a fair value. This may or may not be true. Beware of "only." It's a sneaky little thing.

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And, no, I'm still not a dad yet. The baby is late.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: anxious
What's Distracting Me?: "Eddie's Drumpire" by Eddie from Ohio

This morning, while reading an article in the Dana Foundation's "Brain in the News" newspaper (free subscription from www.dana.org for various summary articles on neuroscience research--click the address if you're interested). It was about reading and how the brain actually processes written language. I was interested in it, and it was well-written and informative, but while I was reading, other brain activity made a couple of new connections. I think I now understand part of the reason why the apostrophe is being so commonly misused these days.

A refresher in punctuation usage: An apostrophe is used to make contractions out of two words (for example, "you are" becomes "you're" and "would not" becomes "wouldn't"). An apostrophe is used to show possession (for example, "the dog's fur" and "the girl's doll"). An apostrophe is NOT used to make words plural, but it can be used to make individual letters, digits, and some initials plural where the lack of an apostrophe would create confusion (for example, "seven A's on a report card," "three 8's in the phone number," and "SALE: CD'S AND DVD'S," though the last example would change to "Sale: CDs and DVDs" if the whole thing was not capitalized).

Unfortunately, people are forgetting these rules and flinging the apostrophe wherever they think it fits, most commonly using it to make plurals out of normal words (for example, "making plural's out of normal word's"). This has been termed "Apostrophe Abuse," and a whole website (click to visit) has been created to showcase it along with all the other abuses, like throwing apostrophes into verbs ("get's" and "move's") or leaving them out of contractions ("theyre").

I think I have come up with one possible explanation for this behavior. Before I can explain it, though, I also have to explain reading.

Generally speaking, there are two methods for teaching or learning how to read. I've talked about one before in my complaint about the "Your Baby Can Read" program that's currently on the market. The Dana article I just read also suggests that this program can be problematic because the brain is usually not ready to learn the concepts of reading until about age five, though it does strongly encourage reading to and with a child to help prepare him or her for that later education. The method employed there is word memorization, in which we simply learn to recognize whole words based on their complete shape instead of based on the individual letters from which words are constructed. The other method, which has been shown to produce better readers with better reading comprehension, involves learning the shape and function of each letter and "sounding out" words by mentally combining the letters.

Even those who are taught the "sounding out" method will memorize many of the most common words, but they are much less likely to skip words they do not understand or to mistake one word for another than those who start with word memorization.

That said, I think that people are using apostrophes to make words plural because they were taught to read exclusively through word memorization or because they have read so little since finishing school that they have essentially forgotten the principles of the "sounding out" method and have lapsed into memorization-only simply because it is an easier way to read. When writing, then, they will see a singular word and want to make it plural, and they will not remember how to do it. I'll use the word "baby" for an example. The correct plural of "baby" is "babies." The correct possessive form of "baby" is "baby's." However, if my idea is correct, the apostrophe abuser will make it plural by simply writing "babys." Then a kind of cognitive dissonance kicks in. That form of the word just doesn't look right (because it isn't). Their brain will search for the closest visual representation of the same word because it has adapted to read based on the shape of the word as a whole instead of on the letters or on grammatical rules. The "babies" form, though similar, doesn't look like "babys," so the brain is not likely to encounter that image first in its search. It will instead find "baby's" because of the extreme similarity, and the writer will assume that is correct.

It's the same concept that we use to distinguish animals or breeds of animals. If I ask my friend to guess the breed of dog I'm thinking of, he's likely to first guess something like a Golden Retriever because it is the most representative example of the general "dog" schema. If that's wrong, his next guess might be German Shepherd because, like the retriever, it possess a majority of the traits that he has assigned to the "dog" description in his mind. It will take him several guesses to come to the Pomeranian I've thought of because it lacks some similarities to his general concept of "dog."

This, of course, is only my idea. It is incomplete; it is untested; it does not account for all the apostrophe errors. But I think it is a good idea, and if I was in a position where I could conduct research, I'd probably be putting together a study right about now.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: contemplative
What's Distracting Me?: I-215 Freeway Noises

My car decided to take up smoking recently. I had to have an intervention and then take it to rehab. So far, it looks like it's going to make it.

Last month, I had an oil change done. After an oil change, I usually have a lingering oil scent in the car for about a day. I'm used to that. This time around, though, the oil smell stayed for just over a month, and it got progressively stronger. I eventually had to drive with my windows down all the time just to avoid inhaling all those fumes (though I probably would have had the windows down anyway because of the summer heat and the lack of functional air conditioning). When I finally decided that I'd had enough of that, I took the car to the shop where I'd had the oil change done to have them look at it.

I have forgotten the exact diagnosis of the problem, but I think they determined that I had a small oil leak and replaced the gasket. As I drove the car during the next week, though, I noticed that it still had an unusual smell to it. Instead of oil, I smelled what I can best describe as roasted sweet corn. Obviously I wasn't roasting corn under the hood, but that's what the smell made me think of. Then I noticed smoke coming from under the hood. I could understand a tiny wisp or two because that might be leftovers from the leak that was repaired or condensation hitting a hot engine, but when I stopped at red lights long enough after the car had been running for ten minutes or so, I would get enough smoke to convince me that there was another problem. Thankfully, it was never enough to force me off the road, and the car did not act as though there was anything immediately wrong.

Last week, I took a co-worker out to look at the car with me during lunch. Apparently one of our IT professionals is good with computers and cars, which I found impressive. He pointed out a few spots he thought another oil leak might be coming from and told me what he would do if he was the mechanic working on my car.

On Wednesday, I took the car to the shop again and had them take a second look at the repair they'd done the week before. The lead mechanic there first pointed at some buildup on my engine and suggested that it was just burning off that buildup. Armed with the suggestions from my co-worker, I said that I could accept that explanation if not for the fact that new fluids appeared on the engine every day and had disappeared again by morning. He looked a little more closely at the car and at my service records. He then informed me that they had installed a cork gasket, and, according to him, that just wasn't good enough on a car with as much mileage as mine had. It didn't seal properly and looked like it was dissolving in some places. He held up the company's warranty and had the work redone for free with a more expensive rubber gasket. I have not seen any smoke from the car since that last repair, but I also have not driven it much yet. This week will be the test.

The repair shop I used is almost four miles away. I could take the bus to and from it, but because of the routes and timing, it would take just as much time as walking, so I decided to walk instead. I took a route that led me through a series of subdivisions, and I looked at the houses as I went, deciding which features I liked and which I didn't like in preparation for the day I will eventually purchase a house for me and my family. I also brought a book along and read as I walked, which was an interesting challenge.

On Saturday, as I took an early morning walk to get the car, my route took me down a walkway along the river. I noticed several ducks in the water and on the banks. They did not immediately fly away when I got near them, but they were wary of me just the same. I reasoned that these ducks had formed a kind of mental template for human behavior. They knew that some humans (probably children who liked to chase animals) were a potential threat to flee from. They also knew that other humans were sources of food (bread crumbs). While I walked past, I watched the ducks watching me, ready to be the first to run away or the first to snatch up a piece of bread, and I could almost see them trying to decide which of the two human types I was: food source or foe. I continued past them, and they eventually went back to pecking at the grass.

My wife contested my dichotomous explanation of duck thought and suggested that there was a third human type for them to consider: the human who is neither food source nor foe, the one who just walks by. While that is certainly a valid hypothesis, I think that the duck mind is just a little too simple for three categories. I think they're more likely to take note only of the humans who have some sort of direct influence on their survival, that they will simply ignore any human that does not fall into one of the two categories.

After my brief encounter with the ducks, while I was still in an analytical mindset, I heard the rush of bike tires coming up the path behind me. I stepped to the side and watched seven serious cyclists pass me. With their spandex outfits and aerodynamic riding stance, they looked like they could be training for a bike race of some kind. And I suddenly found myself comparing cyclists to fowl.

The seven cyclists were riding in formation down the side of the road. One was clearly in the lead. The other six were staggered behind him, not quite single-file but not quite in pairs either. If I could view them from above and draw lines from the leader down either flank of riders, I would come up with an elongated upside-down "V" shape, much like that used by migratory flocks of birds, just narrower. I know that birds migrate in a "V" formation partly to increase the distance they can cover, each bird using the air currents created by the bird in front of it to reduce the effort of flying, and each bird taking turns at the lead. I wondered whether similar aerodynamic effects could be felt by the cyclists.

Then they did something that really got me thinking. The lead cyclist suddenly extended his right arm down his side and pointed at the ground. The second cyclist immediately did the same thing, pointing at the same spot on the ground. I saw a small, circular dip in the pavement, and in it was a metal cap that probably allowed access to some city utility line, such as a water pipe. That dip could have posed a hazard to someone on a bicycle, damaging a tire or even throwing the rider off balance enough to cause a crash. For a group of cyclists riding so close to each other and at relatively high speeds, that posed a serious threat. The leader noticed the threat and indicated it to the others. The rider on his right flank also pointed out the threat to the other riders on the right leg of the formation. The rider on the left flank ignored the signal because it did not apply to the left leg of the formation. Without a word, they all weaved a few inches to the left and avoided the dip in the pavement.

Migrating birds have similar behaviors as they call to each other repeatedly during flight. Some research says that their noises are a kind of continuous roll call while other research suggests that changes in the birds' vocal patterns are used to indicate potential threats or changes to the flight plan.

And thus, I spent much of the rest of my walk to the car shop not reading my book but instead contemplating the flocking behaviors of bicyclists. It almost made me wish I was back in my social psychology class so I could use that as a topic for a research paper.

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Yesterday, I retired a watch. The plastic band finally failed beyond the point that I could repair it with electrical tape and staplers as I had done twice before. It was a pity, really. It was an amusing watch. The numbers on its digital LED face were different colors. The hours were blue, the minutes green, and the seconds red. I bought a replacement with a band of woven nylon, and I expect it to last longer, perhaps even long enough for the battery to die before some part of its structure breaks.

Buying the watch was entertaining. Our cashier seemed somewhat unhappy as we approached her lane, but my wife cracked a joke or two, and I followed along. By the time we finished the transaction, the cashier was laughing and making a few jokes of her own. On our way out, she said, "You have a great sense of humor." I think she was talking more to my wife than to me, but I was happy for the compliment, and I like to believe we made at least that part of her workday just a bit easier.

And speaking of work, I am once again poking at the Oregon job market. I have applied to several government jobs and some university jobs. No response yet from any of them, but I expect them to take some time.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: analytical
What's Distracting Me?: "Sunshine in the Rain" by Ryan Farish

Today was a day of battling annoyances.

We have a small fan in the bedroom. My wife likes to turn it on at night when we open the windows in an attempt to favor the cool night air over the air conditioning system. The fan is effective, but it vibrates rather energetically. This means that it makes enough noise for me to have a little trouble sleeping, so I turn it off usually before midnight.

Last night, my wife turned on the fan when she went to bed. Then I turned it off when I came to bed a little over an hour later. Around 12:30 AM, she got up and turned the fan back on again, but it had somehow changed position by this point (either by me or by her). I could hear it vibrating on the top of the dresser, rotating and migrating toward the edge. To keep it from falling off the dresser or from turning itself around to point at the wall instead of the bed, I arranged some books around its base before going back to sleep.

I was tired from all the walking (to and from the car repair shop) and moving of furniture and boxes (for a neighbor and for my dad) that I did yesterday, so the noise of the fan was not as much of a bother to me as it usually is. At 4:00 AM, though, I woke up to find my wife pulling the blankets up over her. I think it's pointless to use blankets with a fan going--kind of like driving with the brakes on--so I got up and turned it off.

Then, around 6:00 AM, just a few minutes before my alarm clock sounded, my wife reached out, grabbed my elbow, and squeezed it in just the right place and just hard enough to trigger my "funny bone." I think it had something to do with whatever she was dreaming at that moment, but it was bothersome.

I'm not angry at my wife over these things. Or anything else, for that matter. It's all situational stuff and nothing I can fault any one person for directly.

I won't go into so much detail on the other things that I found annoying today. The only other two worth mentioning were when I cut the wrong piece of fabric for something, making more work for my wife, and when I got more career advice than I really wanted at the moment (I generally don't mind career advice--I just wasn't in the mood for it today). Most of my annoyances were really minor things, and, separately, I would have had no trouble dealing with them. They all piled on in one day, though, and that was frustrating. But I managed to suppress the annoyance response and have a good day attending church meetings and having a backyard dinner with my family.

The backyard dinner was actually a lot of fun. As always, we had great food. One aunt used a relatively new cookie recipe and did rather well with it, though I still think it's virtually impossible for her to make a bad cookie. I was also impressed by my other aunt, hustling around the house and making sure that everything was perfect and somehow managing to never appear stressed by any of it. We all had a good time. I was only disappointed in my inability to call back my teenage appetite so I could enjoy more of that great food.

Apparently, the trees behind my aunt's house are a favorite hiding place for several hummingbirds, so she's put two hummingbird feeders on her back porch. Those tiny birds were out in force today, and, even in the heavy rain that came in late in the afternoon, they kept coming back to those feeders. It was interesting to watch them. I saw several different color patterns--white necks with brown spots, black necks, red necks, green wings, brown wings, tiny jewel-like dots of iridescent feathers just under the beak, a small crest of brown feathers on top of the head, and so on. It was fascinating. I'd never seen so many of those birds up close before, and they were not afraid of us at all. I stood no more than two feet from one of the feeders, and they had no problem flying right up to get a drink. In fact, some of them were much more interested in bickering with each other than in whether or not I was a threat. My wife commented that they could get a lot more food and use a lot less energy if they'd stop trying to chase each other away.

During dinner, talk of baby names came up briefly. We mentioned some of the names that we are considering for our baby. Dad is still convinced it's going to be a boy because he thinks he heard me use "him" as a pronoun in conversation instead of the "it" that I've been using. I will neither confirm nor deny the validity of conclusion. I will, however, be interested to see his reaction when the baby does show up and he learns the gender for certain.

But the talk of names reminded me of another conversation I had last week. One of my wife's friends brought her boyfriend to visit, and all four of us went to dinner. Again, we started discussing baby names. We offered the names we had been considering, and the other couple mentioned some names they were thinking of should they decide to have a child. The boyfriend said he thought it would be amusing to give several children names that were essentially phonetic spellings of letters, such as Kay, Dee, Jay, and Zee. I think a sci-fi movie did that a few years back for code names... Anyway, I thought that it was an interesting idea, but I would never do that to my children. Then my mind did its usual activity of running away with an idea and coming back with what I think is an amusing conclusion. I then said, "That poor kid. If he ever left the country, he'd have to say, 'Hi, I'm Zee, but in Canada they call me Zed.'"

It was much funnier when I said it aloud than now after I've written it down, but I still think I'm clever.

Finally, speaking of my mind running away with odd ideas, I have to mention my new dessert. A week or so ago, my wife and I were talking, and she tried to use the word "fruition" but could not seem to pronounce it. After several attempts, she just said, "Dang!" I filled in for her so she could finish her thought, and moments later, I connected what I'd heard and came up with "Fruit Dang." I decided it should be a dessert, and I even came up with a recipe for "Fruit Dang with Fwlap." It's not an amazing or even unique recipe, but it sounds good to me, especially with the name I gave it.

Directions:
- Chop three or more different types of fruit into chunks. Fruit can be peaches, pears, apples, bananas, strawberries, pineapple, or any other sweet fruit that can be chopped. Do not chop it into equal pieces or similar shapes. Just chop it into pieces so that someone else might look at it and say, "Dang! You've NEVER chopped fruit before, have you?"
- Dump fruit chunks (a similar amount of each type) into serving bowls. For added effect, use bowls of mismatched sizes and designs.
- Use your favorite semisolid cream as a topping. This must be in a bowl (real whipping cream, dream whip, vanilla pudding, Cool Whip, etc.) and must be scooped with a spoon; do not use cream in pressurized cans or liquid creams. Scoop a spoonful of the cream and flick it over each bowl of fruit so that it is flung onto the fruit with a "fwlap" sound.
- Serve.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: mellow
What's Distracting Me?: "Noonday Sun" by Deep Forest

I just got back home from a concert of sorts. I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, but I'm not tired yet. I have to write down several ideas.

Two of my friends decided to have a musical get-together in their back yard. The weather was perfect. Everybody brought some sort of snack food, so dinner for me consisted mostly of cookies, crackers with cheese, and a brownie. It was great.

The idea behind this musical get-together was to have food and socialization while giving the hosts and their musically talented friends a chance to perform for a small audience. We heard an impressive cello quartet (they played three arrangements by a group called Apocalyptica whose music I never liked on CD but thoroughly enjoyed live) and one cello solo, but then the entertainment was all up to the hosts. Nobody else wanted to perform. I briefly considered singing Eddie From Ohio's "Very Fine Funeral," but I wouldn't have any accompaniment (without the banjo, that song just doesn't work), so I dropped the idea.

I enjoyed watching the two performers. He was on a guitar, and she was on cello. The two of them somehow managed to communicate without speaking as they decided during the songs who should take which solos and such. But, again due to my fascination with psychological stuff, I couldn't help noticing their facial expressions.

In the human brain, a certain area controls motor function and muscle movement. The collections of neurons that control the movement of the hand and fingers are very close to the collections of neurons that control facial muscles. Sometimes the movement messages among those neurons spread to others. That is why one will often see children sticking their tongues out as they draw or play with sculpting clay. The cells controlling their hands will, in a way, "nudge" the nearby cells and stimulate tongue movement. This fades as we age, but it never completely leaves, and in my experience, this is especially true for musicians. As they perform, their mental focus is much more directed to their music--rhythm and pitch and so on--than to their appearance.

In the case of our host duet, I could see this effect in both of them in different ways. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration and would twitch ever so slightly as she played her cello. For him, it was the muscles around his mouth and nose that moved, almost as if he was fighting a series of miniature yawns as he played his guitar. My question, then, became one that would require more observation. Why does one concentrate with her eyebrows while the other concentrates with his facial muscles? Is it due to physiological differences in the structure of their brains, or is it related to the different movements required to play their two different instruments? (I'm not going to try to find out. I just like asking questions like this from time to time because they make me think, and I believe there is far too little thinking going on in this world these days.)

---

My car is having trouble yet again. It acts like it's going to overheat. I took it in for an oil change about a month ago. I'm accustomed to having a motor oil smell in the car for about a day after each oil change, and I imagine it has something to do with the changed filter or the mechanics' clothing. This time, though, the smell did not disappear after the first day like it usually did. Instead, it got stronger. In fact, I can no longer stand to drive the car with the windows up more than halfway because I start feeling the effects of the fumes, which is just as well because it's too hot to roll the windows all the way up anyway. The smell is coming from the ventilation system, and I know that's not right.

Meanwhile, the car is running at a much higher temperature than it should, and oddly enough, this seems to be most common in the evening. The temperature gauge reaches the point where, if it increased just a few more degrees, the "too hot" idiot light would come on. This usually happens while I'm idling at a light. Then I'll see tiny wisps of smoke come from under the hood. They are tiny, so I know I can still drive if I can get some cooling going on around the engine, but any smoke from the car's innards is bad smoke.

Tonight was its worst night yet, though I still was able to drive without any obvious problems. It might be a worsening problem, but it might also have had something to do with the hot day. I have the ventilation system set at the "no heat" setting (my air conditioning doesn't work, so I don't bother to turn it on). The fans should just be blowing in air from the outside at the ambient exterior temperature. Instead, they start pulling engine heat away from the engine block, increasing the temperature in the car. That's both a blessing and a curse because it is taking some heat away from the engine and keeping the car from overheating, but at the same time, it is an indicator of a bigger problem looming.

Fortunately, I had planned to take it to the shop tomorrow morning. I made this decision about a week ago, so the timing is probably just right. Unfortunately, I also have two assignments to help people move furniture, so I have to take the car in as early as possible and hope that it is done by early afternoon so I can use it to get where I need to be.

---

I may have just made a significant contribution to the success of my employer. Well, maybe not that significant, but it is something that could affect the financial bottom line.

While driving to a FedEx drop-point the other day, I passed the plant of a company called Greenfiber. They had a sign out front that said, "We buy paper." I was intrigued by this sign and looked up the company online when I got home. They are a paper recycling facility, and they turn all kinds of paper products--cardboard, phone books, office paper, paper bags--into an insulation used in construction. According to their site, 85% of their product is post-consumer recycled paper, and the remaining 15% percent is flame retardants and fungus growth inhibiting agents.

I emailed the local Greenfiber representative and asked a few questions. Their procedure involves placing a collection bin on the property of the businesses they partner with. They collect the contents of the bin regularly and actually pay the partner business $15.00 for every ton of material collected. I thought that sounded like a much better idea than paying rental fees for a cardboard baler and pay for a company to collect it and not recycle it.

I told my boss about this company. He was interested as well. So I set up a meeting between my boss and the local Greenfiber representative for Monday. With any luck, they'll come to an agreement, and everybody will benefit from it.

---

Now to the real meat of this journal entry. Make yourselves comfortable for this one.

For reasons unknown to me, one of my co-workers set up a motivational meeting for which our whole small department gathered in one of the conference rooms and watched a portion of a video called The Secret, which is based on a book of the same name. The introduction made me think of an action/thriller movie along the lines of National Treasure or works based on Dan Brown's novels. The content of the video was definitely different.

The Secret is a self-help video. It claims, like so many others like it in the past, that positive thinking can improve a person's life. It claims that "The Secret" is what made men like Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Plato, and Beethoven the famous men they became. It claims that "The Secret" is more than positive thinking--it is the "Law of Attraction," which states that anything we believe in strongly enough will become reality, that if we focus our thoughts hard enough of something we want, then the universe with rearrange itself to give us what we want.

Two of my co-workers really believed it. Two others were interested but not convinced. I don't know about the other one. I thought it was a load of malarkey.

With vague apologies to anyone who thinks "The Secret" is hard truth, allow me to at least pick apart this video.

The video is done in a typical documentary style. About a dozen "experts" and witnesses tell their stories to a camera and explain the concepts between various reenactments of events or experiences. It was the speakers that first made me question the material. My co-worker excitedly told us before beginning the video that she thought it was fascinating to see actual scientific proof that positive thinking can improve our lives and that there were neurologists and doctors who talked about it in the video. (Positive thinking can improve lives. I've seen it, and I've read some of the studies and research findings. I'm not trying to argue that point.) However, I didn't see a single neurologist in the half of the video I saw. In fact, I didn't see anything I could call science. I saw one doctor, and he was a chiropractor with about seven seconds of screen time. Instead of the anticipated neurologist, we were "educated" by several authors (mostly self-published), a philosopher, a quantum physicist, a metaphysicist, and a revered with a Doctor of Divinity degree who gave himself the title of "visionary." By definition, none of those things qualify as a science except quantum physics, and that is currently confined to subatomic particles, wildly complex theories involving space and time, and unsolved theoretical equations. In fact, metaphysics is essentially the "study" of events that, according to our understanding of normal physics, should not be possible--the science of non-science!

Again, real science (psychology, mostly) has proven that positive and negative thoughts can influence a person's behavior, health, cognitive function, and emotional well-being. But one of the speakers in this video stated, "Science has proven that a positive thought is 1000 times more powerful than a negative thought." He gives no operational definitions for "positive," "negative," or even "thought," and not only does he fail to quantify just how "powerful" either thought is, he fails to explain what that power does, causes, or is used for. In other words, he was blowing hot air.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the philosopher then tried to make a point (which I have conveniently--perhaps deliberately--forgotten) by stating that he doesn't understand electricity. In fact, according to him, no one really understands electricity and how it works; we just know that it works and that it can "cook a man's dinner." Though I could have, I didn't bother to suppress a derisive snort of laughter when I heard that. I understand what electricity is and how it works. The electricity he's describing is caused by a controlled flow of subatomic particles through a conductive material. My wife suggested that she learned that from watching the cartoon The Magic School Bus. I know I learned that in middle school, and I think I learned at least a portion of it in elementary school. And even without formal education, it's on Wikipedia! At that point, I bid farewell to what little was left of the philosopher's credibility.

I heard so many claims during this video that were mutilated versions of real psychology, attributed to the power of The Secret. I wanted to shout at the speakers. "Self-serving bias! Fundamental attribution error! Mere exposure effect! Familiarization! Working memory!" I couldn't do that, though. I would have disrupted an "enlightening" experience for my co-workers.

Even if I could accept the video's crackerjack cast of characters, I can't accept the core concept of The Secret. It speaks of the Universe as I understand it: a collection of matter and energy. But it also speaks of the Universe as a conscious entity that can change itself. The Universe is even compared to the genie in Aladdin's lamp in the famous story. The Secret tells me that I can tell the Universe to reshape itself to my whims. While I do believe in a higher power, I do not believe that I can make commands and expect the world around me to obey them in order to fulfill my desires.

The so-called Law of Attraction is impossible. Brainwaves are tiny electromagnetic impulses that are the detectable side-effects of changes in the electrical charge in the membranes of neurons caused by chemical interactions. Brainwaves cannot affect the physical world, as much as some of us might like to believe they can. And, as the video depicted, brainwaves most certainly cannot send shockwaves of energy out from our skulls and into space.

The concept of The Secret is that what a person focuses his or her thoughts on most strongly becomes real. The producers illustrated this with a few examples. A man wanted a fancy car and dreamed about it every day. One day, he got it. Another man wanted a fancy house, so he put a picture of a nice house he liked on his wall. Five years later, he was living in that very house. One man was overly concerned about debt, and the only letters he found in his mailbox were bills and repossession notices. According to The Secret, the Universe doesn't know whether we think about something so much because we want it or because we are afraid of it; we just get what we think about most.

That, of course, creates the circular reasoning and indisputable "evidence" that this kind of false science is so famous for.

Circular reasoning:
If I want a big house, according to The Secret, I just have to focus all my attention on that house, and I'll get it. This has some basis in truth. Thinking about buying a fancy house often enough makes the brain more alert to such opportunities, so the chances of finding the desired house are much more likely. But buying a large house usually involves a great deal of money. So now I have my mansion, but I also have a massive debt to go with it. So did I get a house because I wanted one and focused so hard on getting one that the Universe gave it to me, or did I get a house because I was worried about debt and the Universe thought that making me buy a huge house was the best way to give me the financial troubles I'd been focusing on?

Indisputable evidence:
I want to get a job in Oregon. I've wanted one since at least 2005. I've been trying to get one since April of 2008. I still don't have a job in Oregon. Why is that? A proponent of The Secret might answer that I haven't been thinking about it often enough or visualizing it clearly enough. But I would argue that think about it nearly every day, and I imagine myself in various jobs I find open in Oregon just to see if I might like them. The proponent would then answer that it must be because I'm focusing too much on the difficulty of getting a job in another state that the Universe is only giving me that difficulty and not the job. Or the proponent might say that I'm worried that I'll never get a job in Oregon, so the Universe refuses to give it to me. Or perhaps I'm just not properly aligned with the Universe, whatever that means. The "theory" of The Secret has an explanation for every situation and no empirical basis for anything.

And, of course, it never addresses the concepts of a person's desires that might not have positive outcomes or that might directly conflict with another person's desires. The video conveniently avoids such topics.

It's almost as bad as the Christian leader who once tried to explain away the concept of primordial life (amino acids coming together millions of years ago to form the first strand of DNA) by pointing out that he has never opened a sealed jar of peanut butter and found a new life form in it.

The Secret was preposterous. And I don't care whether Oprah likes it or not, it should remain a secret.

However, I must admit that I'm happy I can share these ideas with some measure of anonymity like this. I couldn't share them with my co-workers because, not only would they be offended, they probably wouldn't understand my points anyway.

Tags: car, cello, greenfiber, malarkey, movie, music, recycling, the secret
Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: irritated
What's Distracting Me?: "Desert Walk" by Deep Forest

I'm sure I'm not the only internet user who has received the standard Nigerian email scams messages. I have an email account that is almost exclusively devoted to them. Today, I found 26 messages waiting for me in that account, and all of them were new since the last time I checked that account, which was yesterday morning. Of the 26, one was a newsletter, two were advertisements from some internet merchants from whom I've made previous purchases, and one was a notification about shipping for an item I ordered recently. The rest were either offers for various bodily "enhancements," cheap medications, and scam attempts.

In the scams, I had several that told me I'd won a foreign lottery I never entered. One claimed to be an FBI agent (using a Hotmail account) who had intercepted an inheritance payment for me from someone in Africa. And I had quite a few of the scams in which some Nigerian banker wants my help retrieving a huge amount of money that was left behind by some wealthy businessman who died without noting a beneficiary or next-of-kin. But I encountered a new one. One fellow claimed to be a refugee whose father had been killed by some mercenaries out for revenge. Apparently, his father left behind ten million dollars, and he needed my help to get it out of Africa and into a safe account. His English wasn't very good, though, because, when he was describing his death-defying escape from the mercenaries, he wrote, "...I escape dead..."

Because I enjoy getting these scammers to waste time on me, I forwarded that message to an email account I set up with a fake name and location, and then I responded to the scammer. I quoted his message and asked, "So, are you telling me you died?"

He was quick to reply to tell me that he was certainly not dead and to ask me for just about every personal detail he could think of so he could "start the process of transferring the fund" to me. Of course I wasn't going to give him any of that, but I wanted to string him along a bit more, so I sent a message back saying, "Oh, good. Congratulations on not being dead." For once, I actually managed to get a scammer angry enough to write back to my simplistic comments and insult me.

He started his letter with "Dear Idiot" and proceeded to tell me how stupid I must be. He warned me to mind my own business (which is funny in itself because he was the one to contact me first), and called me a "mugu" twice. Apparently, that is one of the worst insults available in Nigeria and has become a standard term for Americans who are dumb enough to buy into these scams. I was quite pleased with that response. I know I can't stop them, but at least I can slow them down.

---

As far as work goes, the whole document shipping thing seems to have blown over. I am right back to sending papers as normal. We are, however, getting quite a few of our clients to switch to paperless delivery of their reports, which saves a great deal of money for both my company and theirs. We're accomplishing this by finding out which ones have nonworking fax numbers and simply asking them if they'd like to switch to paperless in the same message in which we notify them of a bad fax number. It's really quite simple, and it is proving the point I was trying to make months ago when I suggested that we ask our clients if they want to continue receiving faxes or not instead of always faxing certain types of paperwork.

I don't know how long I'll be working with this company, but I want to be able to leave knowing that I did some good while I was there.

---

Yesterday, Kate and I did some shopping at a store called Kid to Kid. It sells "gently used" clothing and toys for children from age 0 to about age 12. We had a coupon we wanted to use. We picked out some clothes for our baby so that, when it emerges in approximately two months, it won't have to come home from the hospital naked. This trip was actually kind of fun for me. I got to pick out clothes that I think would look good on my kid, and I didn't really have to worry whether the kid would like them or not because I don't really think it'll care much. And they were CHEAP! We got a half dozen of those little bodysuit romper things for an average of $1.50 each.

Unfortunately--though completely unrelated--we also discovered that the cheap second-run movie theater just down the street from us has closed. Their marquee read "Closed Forever" when we drove by. That's sad. I liked that place. Even though we only went there twice, I liked knowing that there was a theater within walking distance where I could go watch a movie for a price that was more than fair and had no previews. Kate saw it and immediately said, "Let's move." I think I agree with that statement.

---

Lastly, at a ward party last week, I learned something interesting about today's teenagers. I know about text-messaging (or "texting") via cell phones. I've sent and received a few texts myself. I know that many people, mostly in the 12-25 age range, live on texting. They'd rather communicate by text than by a phone call. I've seen signs in movie theaters asking people to not use their phones for calls or for texts as both can distract other movie-goers. I know I've been annoyed by students in my college classes who text during lectures and by co-workers who text instead of doing their jobs. But apparently, some teenagers even text in the shower!

I heard of one who puts his phone into a Ziploc bag to protect it from the water so he can send messages from the shower. Another just sets it on the bathroom counter next to a towel and will reach out of the shower to dry her hands and send a message. To me that describes an obsession. I don't see why they can't live without it for more than those 10-20 minutes. What really makes me wonder, though, is this: What do they have to talk about that makes these text conversations last so long?

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: calm
What's Distracting Me?: "Young at Heart" by Ryan Farish

I have noticed our downstairs neighbor doing something I've seen many apartment dwellers do. She put a full bag of garbage on the ground next to her front door. When I've seen others do the same thing, the bag of garbage disappears sometime later that same day or early the next day. I suppose the idea is that it is easier to take the trash to the dumpster when leaving the apartment for some other reason as well, like going to work or grocery shopping. I imagine that our downstairs neighbor does it with the same idea in mind, but it doesn't quite work when she so rarely leaves her apartment. I've seen a bag of trash sit by her door for more than a week.

Anyway, a month or two ago, while I was taking out my own trash, I saw the neighbor's bag by her door and thought, "I'm going to the dumpster anyway. I'll take a few extra seconds to take her bag as well." And I did just that. The next week, I did the same thing. I figured that it was a neighborly gesture, even though I doubt she realizes that it's me.

The problem is that I've now gotten myself into an operant conditioning trap. She's leaving more trash beside her door, and she's leaving it there for longer periods of time, probably expecting it to magically disappear. It's negative reinforcement ("negative" meaning "to take away"--in psychological parlance, "negative reinforcement" does not equal "punishment") as I relieve her of a chore, which, of course, encourages the behavior of leaving the trash in front of the door. It's also a variable reinforcement schedule as I only pick up her trash when I am also going to the dumpster or in that general direction (relatively infrequent). That type of conditioning--a reinforcement (either negative, which is taking away something unpleasant, or positive, which is adding something pleasant) delivered on a variable (unpredictable and apparently random) schedule--is the strongest type of conditioning.

By doing something nice for my neighbor, I have inadvertently encouraged her to be lazy. "No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose," as Dad would say.

Where Am I?: My Desk
How Am I?: hungry
What's Distracting Me?: None