Occam's Razor

Before I get into this latest post, I need to update everyone on several items.  First, yes M is pregnant.  Sorry for those of you (Jim and Jason, looking at you two) who may not have caught the subtleties of my previous post.  Second, I have recently gone in for surgery on my hip (total joint replacement).  While it's going to someday soon be a great thing, the recovery has been difficult.  I was not fully prepared by myself nor by my surgeon of what to expect in regards to pain, fatigue and the wonders of narcotic medication.  That last part has played the most havoc on my lifestyle in recent weeks.  If you've known me most of my life, you may be surprised to hear that I actually don't like taking drugs that make me feel out of control of my own body.  So having to take both morphine and Oxycodone to manage my pain has been an interesting experience for myself, M and the kids.  Regardless, I have come up with tons of new ideas and sketches and material for this blog, but since I don't have a way to conveniently dispense narcotic medication to you the readers, I'm sure most of the crazy stuff I've come up with won't make any sense.  So I'm sifting through the mountains of "what the heck does that mean" type material to see if there's something I can salvage for a more sober reader population...stay tuned.

For this post, I wanted to follow the theme of Occam's Razor.  For those of you not familiar with Occam's Razor, it's a principle that suggests we should tend towards simpler solutions to solving our problems.  Now there are going to be "Occam Snobs" out there that may cry foul and accuse me of oversimplifying the intent of the principle.  To those people I suggest you look elsewhere for intellectual debate...I don't care and will offer no rebuttal to anything you have to say in regards to your thoughts on the teachings of Father William of Ockham.

So how does it work?  Well again, we want to keep the theory as simple as possible as it will most likely be the correct solution.  For example:

One good theory, but let's make it more complex:

And now let's apply the Occam's Razor principle:



So which one do you think it was?  That's right, it was an Asher fart all along.

Recently I've noticed a trend in some of the more common children's songs that we play for the kids.  We have a nighttime noise machine that plays just the music (no singing) to some of these more popular songs.  M's mom recently stayed over to watch Adler one night and she made the same discovery:

For those of you who just stopped to sing each song, yes, it is the same melody.  So while some bands out there can play the same three chords and call it their latest album, all of that inspiration comes from these children's songs.  Our kids are capable of singing an entire repertoire of songs, but can only whistle one?  If you're as outraged as I'm sure you are, I suggest writing your congressman as I have (on several occasions).

I recently witnessed an interesting display of "David and Goliath" a few months ago during one of our last big snowstorms.  It was around the same time as the height of the union war going on in Wisconsin, so I couldn't help but post the following status on my Facebook page (which resulted in some amusing responses) :

If you read the entire string of comments, you will see that my friend Nik has requested that I turn this into a blog post.  Well, Nik, this one is for you:

Now please don't get mad.  I by no means am comparing my situation to the one in Tienanmen that looks similar to this.  It is more of my way to non-politically point out that we live in a society of rules and bureaucracy that has caused most citizens to sit back down and say "f*ck it, it's not worth the effort".  That one man with the means and the drive can accomplish the same as the bigger people as long as there is something worth standing up for.  That we all need to be held accountable for our actions, to stop playing the victim, and stop blaming others (teachers, unions, employers, government, law enforcement, big business) for our current state of the world.  That change starts right here with each one of us and I yearn for the day when we all can stand up and say, "I am a part of the problem and the solution starts right the f*ck here!" 

And we're back...sorry about that.  I try so hard to keep my political views to myself as much as possible.  Why?  Because I'm usually wrong.  I'm not fully on the right or the left side of the issues so when I voice my opinions, I have both sides telling me why I'm not seeing the issues for what they are...not a fan.

Anyway, back to the reason for this post.  I tend to over engineer the heck out of my life when I really shouldn't.  I wouldn't call it a curse, but there are times when I wish I could apply Occam's Razor to my life more often.  I have a mentor in this plight who goes by the name of Mike Wheeler.  If I'm too complicated in my actions, Mike is the antithesis of that.  He sees and exploits the simple points of any situation in a way I can only covet.

Folks, meet Mike Wheeler:

And of course, one of my favorites:

The entire Express Scripts Implementation team spent some time together during our annual Team Building event.  For some reason, we always schedule it over Wheeler's birthday.  So this year we wanted to make it up to him.  When the dessert came out one night at dinner, the entire team received a bowl of raspberry sorbet served with a mint leaf on the side.  It was delicious, but we wanted to acknowledge Wheeler's birthday and try to make it special for him.  So he received a piece of cake with candles and the whole team to sing Happy Birthday to him.

Course, in typical Wheeler fashion, this was his reaction:

So there you have it.  Occam's Razor, my views on the irrelevancy of choosing sides, and Mike Wheeler all in one giant post.  Again, once I can get my head back from the "Oxy Pixies", I hope to share with you some of the more obscure observations / experiences I have endured over these past few weeks.

In the meantime, I will leave you with the answer to an open item I'm sure is still on your mind - yes, Mike Wheeler did get his raspberry sorbet after all.  Cara was nice enough to track down another bowl so he wouldn't feel left out.

Before I end this post, I'd just like to make a comment about the recent earthquake in Japan.  We have some friends that recently moved to Tokyo for a job opportunity.  While CNN can attempt to tell you what is really happening, nothing can be more eye opening than the recent posts made by our friends who have had to evacuate Tokyo for a safer place.  People like Anderson Cooper can give stats and show colorful graphs and charts, but when they start making room in their display case for their next award, they neglect to mention that each one of those statistics is an actual person with a real story to tell.  Every statistic has a name and three of those names are Erik, Tami and Kjerstin.  Be safe guys, we love you and glad that you're all okay!

-Cheers!