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!

Lemon Quickies III - The One Where M Gets Pregnant

Before you say it, I know that I've been neglecting my duties on this blog thing.  Hopefully this one makes up for my absence.  There's an underlying theme with this one.  I have sprinkled subtle clues throughout this post hinting as to what the surprise might be.  If you can't figure it out by the end, all will be revealed to those who never caught on.

So starting with some new toons of the kids, I recently took Ash with me to get my haircut.  When Ash goes to get his hair cut, we usually cut it really short and there's a chance he will come home with a mohawk.  Well he thought it would be funny the throw out some direction to the lady who was cutting my hair:

Needless to say, I wanted to keep it long, Ash wanted me to have a mohawk, so we compromised and I had it cut short.  For the record it is way too short, but it will grow back...oh yes, it will grow back.

As the kids grow older, you really start to see the differences in their play styles.  Yes, they both still like to play Horsey and Moon Ride, but they are starting to disagree on the more gender related games during their make believe sessions:

Poor Ayris, all she wants is to play Princess and marry a handsome prince.  For her sake, I hope the next one is a girl.

Now that Adler is teething, we've been feeding him more solids.  The exciting part for me is I get to try everything we give him to make sure it tastes good.  I recently tried some of his banana flavored puffs, which tasted exactly like those bland, melty wafers churches serve during communion.  Obviously I had to get M to try one of these too.  Since she's going through this phase of strange food cravings, I thought it would be better if I masked it as me trying to give her communion:

I chased her all over the house trying to feed her one of these puffs without success.  Ah well...more for me, I mean Adler.

We recently celebrated some milestone birthdays in our household.  As you may have seen in previous posts, Ayris is now 5 and M just turned 30.  One morning Ayris was commenting on how her neck was hurting after sleeping in an uncomfortable position all night:

Apparently one of them is aging more gracefully than the other...

For one reason or another, M seems to be going through this phase where she has to clean...almost like she's nesting or something.  Unfortunately, this also comes with a high frequency of forgetfulness (like the blood that is usually going to her brain is going someplace else now):

To be fair, schools and government offices seem to have more days off than they are actually open.  "Happy National Bacon-Pants Day!  We're going to take the rest of the week off..."  Actually now that I type this, I too would proudly stand up and celebrate a day dedicated to pants that were made entirely out of bacon!

M seems to be going through a phase where she is constantly tired.  It's almost like her body is working overtime or building something.  All she wants to do is sleep (mostly) and she doesn't want to have special time with her special man anymore:

It's getting so bad, she doesn't even want to lavish me with admiration like she used to:



And even worse yet, the Joneses are starting to catch up to us:

Then of course, there's her inability to keep a secret:

Thankfully my aunt Tammy realized that M was too trusting of the intimate privacy known as Facebook wall posts and deleted the string before anyone caught on (thanks Tammy!).

So there you have it.  Did you figure it out yet?  That's right, M is Facebook friends with my aunt Tammy, she's always tired and she still doesn't find me funny.

Oh yeah, and she pregnant...again!

-Cheers!

Have an AWESOME Day!

When I was in high school, I used a clock radio as my alarm.  I would set it to play music which would calmly sooth me out of my nightly slumber.  Unfortunately, the noises from the outside world sometimes make their way into my dreams which could cause a lot of bizarre "plot twists".

One of my first memories of this was when I was having one of my reoccurring nightmares of being chased by Barney.  For some reason, that purple dinosaur scared the hell out of me and in my dreams he would chase me down trying to become my friend and turn me into one of his mindless minions.

Creepy stuff.  But this one morning when my alarm went off:

The strangest thing happened in my dream:

That's right, Barney stopped chasing me and we started singing together.  To this day, I still have trouble listening to Motley Crue's Home Sweet Home without a chuckle (or a shudder).

While turning a bad dream into something sort of freaky and funny was fine, I knew I had to make a change when it started to interfere with my good dreams.  When I was 17, I was madly in love with Alyssa Milano (as were many teenage boys my age at that time).

One day, that stupid radio alarm ruined it all for me:

And here comes the alarm:

That was the end of it all for me.  I have never used the radio as an alarm since.

So here we are in the present day.  Alyssa is now a distant memory and Barney no longer haunts my dreams with cruel intentions of brainwashing or duets to rock ballads.  But I am still hearing noises in my dreams.  It's usually Adler since he's still getting up several times a night to be swayed or adjusted or someone to rub his head and assure him he's not abandoned or alone in the Universe.  On one particular night recently, he was having a hard time with things.  Not sure if it was his ears or his teething or he was growing and hungry or what, but he was getting up more often than usual. 

The strange part of this night, was somewhere hidden within his pile of toys came a message I had never heard before:

It's not uncommon for toys to jump out of their restful state and come to life with one of their programmed movements or recorded messages (my friend Sean calls these "random toy encounters"), but I had never heard this one before.  I had no idea which one of Adler's toys was even making this confidence boosting comment, so I just decided that it was meant to be.  That this night (knowing it was going to be a rough one) was actually supposed to be AWESOME and I should give thanks to whatever toy it was that was making it so.

Unfortunately, as Adler continued to wake me up, my enthusiasm starting to ween as the night/morning went on:

So where am I going with all of this you may ask (or maybe you're not, but whatever).  Well, going back to my previous part about noises interrupting my dreams, it happened again with this toy.  Since I had AWESOME on my mind apparently, I had a dream about Chuck Norris (for those of you new to the internet, Google "find Chuck Norris" sometime).

In this dream, we were playing lots and lots of table hockey:

When suddenly this happened:

Strangely enough, I have yet to find which toy it was that was speaking up that night, and even stranger, it has stopped talking altogether.  But for what it's worth, I definitely did have an AWESOME day that day.

-Cheers!

Grown Man Watches Cartoons

For those of you who don't know me very well, I like to watch cartoons.  That's right, I said it - I like cartoons.  And not just Sponge Bob, Family Guy or The Simpsons, I like Futurama, South Park, Venture Brothers, Metalocaplyse,  Robot Chicken...the list goes on (I know that Robot Chicken is more stop motion than cel animation, but let's just put our "pretend hats" on and think outside of the norms for a second m'kay?).  Cartoons are no longer for just children.  In fact, there are several of the ones I just listed I would not allow my kids to watch.  Cartoons have become a fun medium in an otherwise stale world of craptacular television programing.

Earlier this year, I went to Vegas with some of the guys for our friend Jim's bachelor party.  Since I had an assload of frequent flyer miles, I decided to use some for the trip.  While Delta has a decent frequent flyer program, they don't allow you to upgrade your flight to first class if you're using your miles to fly.  This was fine because it was an empty flight (had the whole row to myself) and my friends Jerry and Jim were sitting right behind me.

After takeoff, it was time to settle down for the long haul to Vegas.  I pulled out my PSP and started watching an episode of Family Guy.  I was about ten minutes into the show when the flight attendant wandered by.  She was an older woman who appeared to be in her late 60s.  She glanced at my little movie player and bent down so she could get a closer look at what I was watching.  All of a sudden, she jerked back like someone just smacked her in the face.  She then turned to me, shook her head and walked away. 

About five minutes later, she comes back with the following comment:

I was shocked, I didn't know what to say.  Before I could react, she strolls away, up the aisle, leaving me dumbfounded with confusion and soon to be brewing angst.  I was thinking to myself, "Dude, what the hell?  Haven't you ever seen or heard of this show before?"  I then realized that while I may know adults who watch cartoons, this woman apparently didn't.  I was starting to feel a little silly about my initial reaction to one person's opinion about cartoons, but then I started thinking about it more. 

There is a lot of crap on TV these days.  Yes, there has always been crap, but we're really starting to flat line cater to the lowest common denominator in all of us.  Awful "talent" shows that make 3rd rate, one-time famous "stars" attempting to do off the wall activities just to not get voted off by the viewers.  Seriously, we are about two Nielsen points away from Farting with the Stars. 

Other shows like Biggest Loser can be motivational / inspirational, but I feel a sharp hint of guilt every time I sit down to watch it.  While I understand the premise of the show and that really hasn't changed, I can't help but think that the network execs are doing nothing more than pitting large, overweight people with low self esteem against each other for my entertainment...and what's worse, I enjoy it.  Yes, the finale is always emotional which is full of "good for you" type moments, but throughout the season, I can't help but roll my eyes when the trainers make someone cry just to build them back up again with new found sensitivity and tough love.

But what's worse than this (and I am guilty of it too), are these fake "reality" shows where fake "real" people, go through fake "real" situations and the cameras just happen to be there to capture their fake "real" emotions, reactions and outcomes.  You know these shows, the ones where the women can't hold onto a single thought and blink at the same time.  Where all the men are meaty douche bags who love themselves more than anything else and where everyone talks about their fake "real" problems and how "hard" life can be.  Like I said, terrible stuff, but I'm just as guilty of watching as much as anybody else.

I digress, back to this flight attendant and her arrogant comment.  After thinking about all the rest of the crap that is currently polluting our televisions, I started to realize that cartoons are not the root of all evil and a grown man watching them is NOT the sign of the apocalypse.  Throughout the remainder of the flight, I continued lamenting about my lack of response to this obvious calling out of my maturity and challenging my role in the Universe.  I had a series of those "I should have said this..." type moments which made me start to feel a little better about letting this one go and not retaliate.

My first thought was to be kind, sincere, and intellectual about the whole thing:

That was a good first try, but I could come up with better responses if I gave it some more thought.  I then decided that since this was a flight to Vegas and I wasn't sitting in first class, she probably thought I was some infrequent flyer that she can say anything to because who cares what "Joe Flies Once a Year" feels about the hospitality of her airline.  I then wanted to pull out my Delta Diamond Medallion Sky Miles card and shove it in her face while I act like a total prima donna:

If my status with the airline program didn't mean anything, I thought I'd follow it up by bragging about my overall banked miles/points:

Course, since I was heading through all the stages of my downward spiral, I couldn't rule out the offensive and unoriginal, but always effective:

But I think my friend Wheeler had the best comeback of them all:

Yeah, I should of said that!

So there you have it.  One comment almost ruined my Vegas trip.  While I'd like to say I got over it quickly, I was still fuming about it as we got off the plane.  I cordially said goodbye and wished the flight attendant a good day and never looked back.  20 minutes later, Jerry, Jim and I were having a beer in the Vegas airport waiting for Derek's flight to land before we could begin our fun filled weekend of Vegas excitement (or Vegacitement).

Incidentally, on the way home I got called up to the ticket counter before we start boarding.  The ticket person told me she had never seen this happen, but I was somehow upgraded to first class for the flight home.  Not sure how that happened either, but for what it's worth - thanks Universe!

-Cheers

Urgent Care = The New DMV

The Latin poet Virgil once said, "If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell".  I've always wondered how that would have turned out for him in our modern age.  In a time of total efficiency, process improvements and constant change, I still can't help but wonder why so many things continue to be so disorganized and poorly executed.

I recently had to go to the Urgent Care because my ears had been hurting and it was screwing with my hearing.  M thought it would be a good idea for me to take Adler along because he too had been crabby and sensitive with his ears...that and he was overdue for his next ear infection.  So after work one night, the two of us headed to the Urgent Care to get checked out.

The unfortunate part about this evening at the Urgent Care was that there were already a bunch of people waiting when we arrived at 6:07pm (it opened at 6pm).  There were about 5 people ahead of us in line and by the time we reached the front, the receptionist had already reached the max limit on her Estimated Wait Time sign:

The waiting room was filled with the sounds of "sick".  Coughing, sneezing, wheezing, cell phone chatter, moans and groans and the constant drone of the awful muzak.  It reminded me of what it must be like if you took an entire day's worth of elevator rides and compounded it into one 30 second interval.

As I started to zone out in an attempt to save brain cells, the guy across the room started a sneezing fit.  Now normally I wouldn't care (we are after all at the "sick house" trying to make ourselves well again), but this freakshow wasn't even covering his mouth...not once.  It was loud and boisterous and you could literally see the crud inside his body exiting and dissolving into the air like fresh pee in the shallow end of the kiddie pool.  It was rude and disgusting and it pulled both Adler and me out of our trances immediately:

So much for conserving brain cells.  To help pass the time, Adler decided to tell everyone in the room a story:

Once the levee finally broke with the patience in the room, the funniest thing happened:

For anyone who has visited this site before, I hope you just enjoyed a little chuckle.

Anyway, soon after that it was Captain Snotball's turn to go in to get checked out and there was much rejoicing from the remaining guests who were left behind in the waiting room:

So with what I thought was the end of an entertaining series of events in the waiting room, I tried to go back to my mouth breathing and not think about the fact it had already been like an hour since we first arrived.  Suddenly, I was brought back to reality when the new guest that sat down next to me realized I was holding one of the cutest babies in the world (PLEASE NOTE:  I said ONE of the cutest babies - please don't leave comments arguing why yours is way cuter...I don't care):
 

Things went downhill from there:

Seriously, what the hell does that even mean?

Stating the obvious in 3, 2, 1:

I shouldn't judge.  I'm sure she was just trying to make conversation...maybe...but after sitting there for over an hour and a half, I was in no mood to find out.

So we eventually were called and made our way into one of the clinic's many patient rooms where we were granted an audience with the evening's on-duty medicine wizard-like guy (aka The Doctor).

Okay...

Um, hrm...

Really?  Just my luck...

By that point, I was in no mood...

But Adler sure was!

So after all of that, it turned out Adler was fine and didn't have an ear infection like we thought.  I, however, did have an irritation and required some medication to help my inner ear canal heal and improve my hearing.

So it was off to the pharmacy and a 30-45 minute wait while the pharmacist tech on duty finished her burrito and pulled a pre-packaged box of ear drops off the shelf to complete my order.  All the while, I couldn't help but feel like I was reliving a moment I had recently tried to escape from no more than a mere few hours earlier:

So for those of you who know what it's like to experience the tormented abyss that is commonly known as Urgent Care, I feel your pain and ask that one day we rise up against our health care providers and ask for a better process.  If nothing else, please at least get some better muzak...

-Cheers!