in the realm of the fictionman

50 Times a Day

The city of Rosemont put up a red-light camera at River Rd and Higgins because it's a dangerous intersection. (That's where I got hit by a lady who neglected to stop)

I'm in favor of it.

Today we got an email notice from the police department.

Well over 1000 violations have been recorded by the system since August 1st, with some remarkable results. A majority of the violations involve the failure of the vehicle operator to come to a stop when making a right turn on red. On the majority of the right turn on red violations the vehicle drivers never brought the vehicle to what would be remotely considered a complete stop.

Those were warning tickets. That warning period ended today.

1000 tickets. $100 each. 20 days.
That sounds a little bit like 50 a day, or $5000 every day. (In actuality, it's probably highly skewed towards weekdays, but the idea is there....)

I wonder how much those systems cost to install and maintain.

Memory, Affirmations, and Music

What kind of music do you listen to? Is it uplifting or damaging?

First, let's consider for a moment part of the way memory works. Each individual piece of memory gets written individually, with each piece getting connected to other pieces. Imagine drawing on a soft clay tablet. You experience something, or learn some fact, and you draw a dot in the clay to represent it. If you experience or learn it again you can draw the dot again, writing it deeper into the clay. This is why repetition helps with memorization.

But so far all you have is some fact etched in your (clay) brain. By itself it's meaningless. So your brain makes associations, connecting those dots with lines. (I think Google does more or less the same thing, tracking web sites in part by the links to them.) Those lines turn into a map in your brain. Your memory uses this map to find what you want to remember. The more (and deeper) lines run to a fact or experience, the more likely it is that your memory will be able to find it.

This ties into how scent can be such a powerful trigger. Imagine that as a child a big, scary dog made you fall off your bike. You skinned your knee and bled all over. You ran in tears home, where your mom was making cookies. She cleaned you up and took care of you and made you feel better. Then she gave you a cookie.

So, what did your memory do? Well, the scary dog and the falling got connected to all the other big dog references. You have Big Dog connected with Scary connected with Falling and Ouch. You have Ouch connected with Run Home. You have Run Home connected with Mom Comforting. You have Mom Comforting connected with Cookie. Now, Run Home was probably already connected with Comforting. So now that connection is a little bit stronger. Each connection probably isn't actually new, but they get reinforced. You also have the smell of the cookie, which gets associated to the event, the comforting, and everything else that was going on in that short span. Smelling cookies again can bring the whole memory back... or maybe just brings the same sense of comfort.

So, later on you encounter a big dog. Maybe it isn't even a scary one. But your memory will look at Big Dog, and everything connected to (associated with) it. If there are more Scary connections than, say, Friendly connections, you'll tend react according to Scary (at least to some degree). That, of course, just reinforces the association, even if the dog doesn't do anything to reinforce it. Maybe Little Dog never made that same association, or didn't make it as strongly, so Little Dog doesn't bring the same reaction.

Now, you can follow some of the lines that connect more commonly, and you see a recurring path from Scary or Ouch that ends in Cookie. Comfort food in a nutshell.

So, the more often the association is made, the stronger the link, and the more effect it might eventually have on our behavior or our thinking. That leads us to affirmations. The idea is that repeating some positive statement often enough builds those associations behind the scenes and helps us. Maybe every morning you get up and say out loud, “Big dogs are friendly.” That doesn’t mean that the very next time you see a big dog you run up and hug it. Plenty of things have already connected Big Dog and Scary. But, over time, the number of connections between Big Dog and Friendly start to catch up, and the Scary response weakens and eventually gets out-voted and goes away.

Of course, traumatic events get written more deeply to begin with. So the big dog scared you (+1?). You probably thought at least once "That big dog was scary" (+1?). You got home and told Mom, "A big dog scared me."(+1?). Total +3? (probably multiplied by something for the trauma part). You get the idea. So the spoken affirmation counts for more than just thinking it. Anything spoken is already repeated once, because you thought it first.

Which all explains why I get hungry more often at work than any other time. There's just so many associations connecting to food. "X long until lunch", "I'll just take a break for a snack"...

Now, children's brains start off with pretty clean clay. Their brains are eagerly trying to learn, and they'll make all the connections they can. Children are also perfectly happy to watch the same bit of TV over and over and over and over....

So if the child is around while you're watching TV, what connections are they making? You sit on the couch while the police chase down and shoot at the bad guy. Maybe you never even see the bad guy get shot.

Kid Logic says:
They’re watching this. This must be what they like to see. They wouldn't watch something they didn't like...
They're not paying attention to me. I want them to pay attention to me.
They like to watch people running and yelling and shooting guns.
If I run and yell and shoot guns then I'm doing something they want to watch. Then they'll pay attention to me...

So how does all this tie into music? You hear a song. Maybe you sing along. You have to think the lyrics some to sing them, so there's three levels of reinforcement right there. But that's not all. I think everyone has had the experience of a song that gets stuck in their head. Sometimes just a single sentence, or part of one. Each repetition writes it a little deeper in the clay. More and more connections get drawn, and many of them get redrawn as the lyrics repeat. So what happens if those lyrics reinforce a stereotype? Or what if they reinforce a negative self-image? Those lyrics can be reinforcing all kinds of positive or negative associations. If the song gets connected to "I am fat" or "I am ugly" then that thought gets more and more ingrained and harder to get rid of. The song lyrics don't even have to mention those ideas, just connect to them.

So, what kind of song lyrics are around you, or stuck in your head? What do they say? What associations are they reinforcing? What songs are your children hearing? What are they seeing on TV? What are they aware of you watching on TV? Don't even get me started about what advertising they are being exposed to!

So that's one of the big things I've been mulling over lately. I listen to quite a bit of music on the way to work. I get lyrics stuck in my head very easily. I'm starting to look at the kinds of music I listen to. I might make some changes. It might be something to look at in your life, too.

The Truth Behind Gravity?

Why do things go down?

Peer pressure...

Movies and TV

When we had our house in Streamwood we watched a lot of movies. We also spent a huge amount of time with computer games--but another time...

The Blockbuster staff knew us by name. They knew what we liked, and often held aside a copy of new releases for us. They would stay upen an extra fifteen minutes if we hadn't come in yet. When customers asked for movie reviews they would sometimes get sent to us if we were there. We could walk down the new release wall and comment on nearly every non-horror title.

Listening to movie reviews on the radio, or watching previews, was a hobby...something I earnestly liked. I knew which times different radio shows reviewed movies during commuting hours. That hobby lasted past the active watching era.

Now, on the other hand, I've pretty much accepted that movies are not a significant part of our lives. I think we've seen one movie on the big screen this year, although I couldn't tell you what. Oh, other than Ratattoille, which counts separately since we took the kids and it was work-sponsored. We now average one to two rentals a month. Hardly dominating our time.

I've finally (and somewhat recently...over the last few months probably) stopped bothering to listen to movie reviews. For any movie that comes out...we're actually pretty unlikely to see it. And even then only the high-priority ones. Movies--and therefore movie reviews--just aren't important anymore.

Right now it's TV that has us. But not purely because we want to watch it, per se. It's light escapism. The kids go down and we just want something simple for an hour or so before bed.

Sometimes we get stuck and go to bed an hour later than planned. We don't watch anything while the kids are awake, and there are a few shows we really like.

But at the same time, I sometimes ask myself: If we cancelled the dish and went withouth, which ones would I genuinely be frustrated at missing?

Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, and the 4400.

Bionic Woman (has good potential--curious where they're taking it...), Stargate Atlantis (Ronan rocks, but is the main strength of the show), Eureka (which just wrapped up season 2--we'll see if it gets a 3rd), Moonlight (fun so far, if it lasts...?), Chuck (still too new to know and probably doomed anyway)... All those I would get over before all that long.

There are plenty of ways our lives could improve if we unplug. Plenty of other ways to fill the time. But maybe right now we still need the sanity break time. Or maybe it's holding us back from fixing the things causing some of the stress in the first place.

I just don't know...

My Own Unsent

Dear Kim - High school was a complicated time, wasn't it? Thanks for putting up with a guy with so much to learn. If you ever noticed me upset when leaving, I hope you know it was never your fault. I hope you've come to realize how amazing you can be, and are really living your own life.

Dear Robin - I guess our timing was just off. I still have the tape you made me. I hear a couple of the songs on the radio and remember how I probably heard it first. Thank you for needing someone to help you relax and unwind.

Dear Jessica - I'm glad we were albe to be friends for each other--I think we both needed just that at the time. I can't hear Billy Joel's Scenes From an Italian Restaurant without remember an evening by the piano at that...was it a pizza place? It's long gone now. I'm sorry we grew apart, but I did that to a lot of friends. Please don't let yourself think it was just you.

Dear Ann - I hope you're well. We were together while we were both at low points. I'm sorry we weren't looking for the same things at the same time. I'm sorry the last time I saw you ended up as it did.

Dear Michelle - Why did we lose touch so abruptly? I'm sorry if I drove you away. I was at a vulnerable point and probably not at my best. Thank you for showing me what passion could look like. I never forget one amazing night when our clothes stayed on. I hope passion like that is still a part of your life.

Dear Sheila - I don't think I ever said goodbye. I should have, I owed you that. I was afraid to admit that I needed something different. I hope you find what you're looking for. Maybe you've already found it. I hope you don't look back with hard feelings. You've got a great heart--please don't ever let it get bitter.

Dear Leah - I hope you've found a true home. It sounded last time we talked like maybe you had. I'm sorry things were complicated. I'll always welcome you if you look me up. I'll respect the distance you've put behind you until then.

Dear Liz - Thank you for offering to cook me breakfast. I needed that at the time. It was a fun night that I haven't forgotten. I'm sorry if things got complicated for you with the others. Any unflattering things they may have said after I left...were probably true.

Dear Amy - For a wannabe writer I'm not very good at expressing myself. It's the stuff we write together...over a lot of coffee, perhaps...that's always the best. We put down words then that have never stopped being dear and true to me. No matter what life brings... I love you. You really are my soulmate.

- Brian.

Travel Mug, Travel

At some point around the weekend, Friday or so, we noticed a big, purple, plastic travel mug in our front yard. It had been set leaning against a tree where it couldn't be seen from the street. No accident, this, I'm sure.

Curious about it, we noticed it for a couple of days. Not curious enough to investigate it in the rain. If it was still there by garbage night, we decided, it would go in with the recycling.

What was in it, we wondered. Drugs hidden from cops, perhaps? Quick, stash it before he pulls us over!...

Then at one point Sunday I happened to look out the window with Jareth. It was gone.

But look--one house down, leaning against their tree such that it couldn't be seen from the street: a big, purple, plastic travel mug. Funny, I don't recall anyone in the neighborhood having any lawn gnomes...

As of right now it's still there. I'll have to remember to watch tomorrow and see where it ends up next. One house down, perhaps?

I've Never...

Something earlier got me thinking about different things I've never done. Here are some of them:

• I've never had a reserved parking spot.


• I've never been recognized in public.


• I've never been to a party where the cops showed up.


• I've never had neighbors complain about me being loud.


• I've never been to the kind of party where the hosts keep everybody's keys.


• I've never known the kind of people for me to host such a party.


• I've never woken up in an unknown place after drinking.


• I've never owned a new car.


• I've never ordered food at a restaurant without considering the price.


• I've never ordered the most expensive thing on the menu.


• I've never submitted anything to a contest.


• I've never spoken in front of an audience with a microphone.


• I've never attended any kind of political rally.


• I've never been on TV.


• I've never called a radio station.


• I've never taken music or singing lessons (other than grade school chorus class, which doesn't count).


• I've never been Employee of the Month or been recognized on a company bulletin board.


• I've never pulled over to help a stranded motorist.


• I've never worked for an annual salary.


• I've never attended a local government meeting.


• I've never been in anyone's wedding party (obviously my own doesn't count).


• I've never smoked a cigarette or done drugs.


• I've never committed an act of public vandalism.


• I've never been on a cruise.


• I've never left the continent.


• I've never gone on vacation by myself.


• I've never had a professional massage.


• I've never intentionally done something embarassing in public.


• I've never sang karaoke


• I've never been called to provide a job reference for someone else.


• I've never worked in a managerial capacity.


• I've never had a song dedicated to me on the radio.


• I've never hitchhiked.


• I've never snuck into a movie without paying.


• I've never had to wear a tie every day.


• I've never had my stomach pumped.


• I've never been to a Halloween costume party.


• I've never invited neighbors to a party.


• I've never been to the opera.


• I've never sky dived or bungee jumped.


• I've never flown an aircraft.


• I've never ridden in a limosine.

All the More Reason to be Getting Out of Retail Now

As it does every year, the local Lite radio station has switched to 24/7 Christmas music.

It used to start just after Thanksgiving.

Then it was around Thanksgiving. I think last year was the week before Thanksgiving.

I'm so not going to miss that part of working retail...

The Half Forgotten Holiday...?

Since we basically forgot about it this year, I'll share the following dumb joke in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day:

How does a pirate go on a camping trip?

In an Aarrrr-V.

Yeah, I know. You needn't say it.

Um, But...

On a jar of Reduced Fat Jif Creamy Peanut Butter:

"25% less fat than peanut butter"

?

Web hit sources

Reviewing the traffic stats on a blog is always amusing. I just checked out mine on a whim:

I ranked 6th on a Yahoo search for "breastfeeding witch".

Other amusing search strings included:

"breastfeeding husband"

"John Malkovich his wife"

"encourage husband to work"

I'm never quite sure which to wonder about more--ranking high on something like "breastfeeding witch" or someone following the 30th or so link for "breastfeeding husband"...

Winter is Coming

Another way I can tell the days are getting shorter:

This morning I took a moment to revel in the bright full moon before the sun came up.

On the way home, after the sun had set, I paused at a red light to admire the same full moon over the other horizon.

This morning at work the day started off gray and rainy. Everything was quiet--no customers. A couple of people expressed some disappointment about that. The rain stopped and a couple of customers came in. At one point we turned to see who was next. There, on the counter, stood a large praying mantis looking around calmly. Nobody had seen it come in. The man standing at the counter, just inside the door, not two feet from it, hadn't noticed it.

I pointed out that in several cultures they were considered good luck. We offered it some paper to step on and it obliged, and we set it out on the grass out front.

The day ended up being a busy one, with a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Winter is coming, but I have a feeling it's all going to turn out.

Jesus in Jail

Did you ever notice how many people find Jesus in prison?

I wonder what he did to get locked in there...

...To The Day.

Something just occurred to me while posting something at The Cauldron (explaining the story of my escape from the Corporate Rat Maze):

My job at Sara Lee officially ended 7/31/054.
My job at the dealership officially started 8/1/065.

It took me a year. Pretty much to the day.

First Impressions?

This morning I had a short interview with a new recruiter before work. I'd interviewed with the temp reps at the agency before, but she's the direct hire recruiter and wanted to meet to discuss interests and target jobs. It was an 8:00. In my usual interview form, I was there fifteen minutes early. The office was locked, not a light on. At 8:13 I was starting the car to leave when she pulled in next to me.

And through the whole thing she kept saying, "I'm never late...never." She repeated never every time. Part of me just wanted to say something. It was a quote from The Princess Bride that came to mind:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Perspective and Context

One bit I heard on Mancow one morning months ago was that children have an easier time seeing the arrow in the FedEx logo.

What arrow, you ask?

Look closely:

See it? Between the E and the x.

After I heard it on the radio it was a couple days before I saw a FedEx truck. And then I saw the arrow. It was wierd suddenly seeing it where I never had before.

Another example came from an email from one of the members of the pagan groups I've been communicating with:

Apparently, while adults immediately see a couple in an intimate pose, children don't have any context for that image. All they see are the dolphins. The dolphins I had to look for.

Almost makes you wonder if kids and grownups see the same world through different eyes, or if we just see different worlds...

You Might be a Geek

My head works in strange and mysterious ways. Tonight's quote comes from...well, that's a good question, aint it?

I'm just a CMYK guy living in an RGB world...

Natural Music

There's something magical about the sound of rain falling on water. It can be a river in Canada, or just a lake, or even puddles on the street once they reach a certain depth.

That sound, natural music, is what I got to hear today on my morning jog. It was raining--still is raining--and I didn't let that stop me. I just accepted that I was going to get wet. I'd grabbed spare sweats and t-shirt to change into. My hair is down to just damp now. It isn't actually a lot of rain.

But I liked the sound of it. It meant that during the jog I wasn't thinking about what I need to do today, or what I want to do today, or how different the two lists are likely to be from what I'll probably end up doing today.

Water is an interesting thing to be thinking about just now. Water is about introspection, self-knowledge, self-balance.

Yesterday I went on a job interview. Today I'll be calling the agency that set up the interview to tell them I won't take the job if I get it offered. The company manufactures expensive home water treatment equipment. I'm all for water purity, although I'm not that big on reverse-osmosis water. I think it's a bit flat, it doesn't make good coffee, and in a too-pure state it'll try to dissolve almost anything it touches. Including or appliance parts, metals, plastics.

More importantly, their sales/distribution system relies entirely on entrepreneurial, franchise-like distributors. Some of them are good and ethical. Apparently they're the exception and not the rule. From what I've read, many of their sales tactics border on fraud.

Finally, there's the job itself. Their four-person consumer relations center gets around eighty calls a day from irate customers. They're having trouble keeping that fourth chair filled. After a little research, I understand why.

There were a number of red flags during the interview. A thought-provoking number of paragraphs started with "To be honest, ...." The last person "made it about a year" and then started having attendance problems. He talked a lot about attendance problems. He too-often said that "obviously not all our sales force is like that." But he admitted they couldn't control the methods the sales force was using. Some of them were pretty aggressive and sometimes deceptive, promising things the equipment couldn't deliver, etc. He also warned I'd get callers saying "some pretty insane things."

Now, I worked an 800 number for gumball machine company. I got one call from a woman irate that her child cut his hand on glass when the kid hit the glass globe with a hammer. I either offered or sent her the plastic replacement. She might have refused it, threatening to sue instead. At the time, I wanted to jokingly suggest that maybe it was the hammer at fault, and she should sue the hammer manufacturer.

But after reading up on what people on-line were saying about this water treatment company and their distributors, I think I understand the kind of calls to expect. I found a lot of people describing their experiences. Maybe one in thirty was positive. I probably read a couple hundred. One rule of thumb is that for every one who takes the time to call and complain, there are ten more who are complaining, but not to the company. I don't know how many installations there are per day, but the ratio of that to the eighty-some-odd complaints per day doesn't seem promising.

No, that's a job I'm unwilling to do.

Feathers

Feathers have long been a symbol of creativity. While there can be many other symbolic meanings, that one in particular has always resonated with me. Most of my earrings are feathers.

And for a long time what was commonly used as pens? Feathers. Even the icon I chose for the fiction links shows a quill pen.

Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidence. But it is interesting, I think. Something to meditate on.

Therapy Handout

This was a handout given to me in therapy last night:

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS
by Portia Nelson

I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in
I am lost...I am helpless
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidwalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place
but, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidwalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidwalk.
I walk around it.

V
I walk down a different street.

Garbage Day

Yesterday morning was not garbage day after all. I realized this Tuesday night after I had all the garbage bagged and the recycling sorted and in bins. I was getting ready to drag it to the end of the driveway when I saw the lack of garbage at the end of other driveways.

"Oh, yeah, that's right. Holiday."

So it sat up by the door until last night. Now it's out with all the others.

Looking out the window I can't help but notice what I noticed yesterday while walking down to the 7-11 with Jareth (Garbage day is one day sooner at that end of the neighborhood).

Our garbage generally all fits in one white kitchen garbage bag, except on weeks that Nora's litter box gets emptied and refilled. Add to that two bins of recycling (paper, and plastic/aluminum).

And then there's the rest of the neighborhood. Three to four heavy (often wheeled) garbage cans is pretty much the average.

If I fill half a can, and they have 3–4, then they're generating 6–8 times as much garbage as we are. Two adults plus one infant (1/2?) times just six is worth, what, a family of 15? Am I wrong to wonder what people are doing, or should I just feel like I'm doing something right?

In other news, I've made some fixes to my site template. For one thing, there's now a list of categories in the sidebar. That also illustrates that I haven't been labeling categories very well. More for the to-do list.

Strange, or sad?

I generally only think to check the stats on my blog about once a month. I do get a little bit of traffic, which is always nice to see. Averaging 20 unique visits and 150 hits per day.

There is one bit of stat trivia about which I'm not entirely sure what to think.

Every single month, since I first posted about it back in March, there has been at least one person who found me by searching for "Lambuel." I'd almost be tempted to go see if the site has been updated with more stuff to react to, but I'm almost afraid to look. I don't need that kind of disturbing stuff right now.

Then again, maybe I should, since it's a traffic draw.

Who knows. Just mentioning it again probably puts me one listing higher on Google. I am the 71st listing.

That also, however, implies that at least once a month someone is doing that search, and actually scrolling down that far looking for links to click.

I think that just maybe I should be vaguely concerned about that...

101

Amy Recently posted about getting her 100th comment.

By contrast, this is post 101 for me. My comment count is considerably lower than that, but I never did take the time to import them by hand from Blogger.

Today is day 249 of my blog, so I'm averaging a post every two and a half days...

Quite a to-do list today, including a trip to Wal-Mart. Amy needs new clothes for temp agency interviews and such. On the down side, well, it's Wal-Mart and shopping. On the plus side, I'll have someone to play with (and show off, yeah...) while she's trying things on.

Troubleshot

Troubleshot just sounds like an odd word to put on a resume. But I have to say that troubleshooted would look worse.

Just one of those things...

Um, wait...

Job searching. Saw this for an administrative assistant position:

AA degree and/or Certified Professional Secretary designation preferred plus 3 or more years of related experience.

1. Knowledge of technical and business vocabulary.
2. Detailed knowledge of company operations, organizational procedures, and personnel.
3. Ability to employ basic reasoning skills.
4. Working knowledge of Microsoft Office software.
5. Must have experience in a professional, multi-tasked, high-paced, confidential environment.

Now, which one of those jumps out??

"Ability to employ basic reasoning skills."

Apparently they felt the need to spell this out. Which leads me to wonder...

2% Milk.

Ever wonder what the other 98% is?

(Yeah, I know...)

Memorial Day

So today is Memorial Day. Any day that includes a paid holiday is a good day.

I won't actually be doing a lot to celebrate it, per se. How many people actually do. Back in the Civil War re-enacting days we did memorial services. I might start back into re-enacting this summer, maybe next summer. Never again as heavy as I used to do it, though. I over did it one year. Got a little burned out.

I don't think that not celebrating today publicly makes me unpatriotic. I'm very aware of what so many people have done and given for this country. I know a bit about history. I've also seen it from the Civil War re-enacting perspective and from an in-the-Army perspective.

But I don't just save that awareness for one day a year. Yes, I'll think about it a little more today, but it's something I'm aware of all the time. Maybe I don't actively appreciate it every day, but certainly more than weekly.

I don't take our freedoms for granted. I don't take lightly the kinds of sacrifices that have created this country, and are still going on.

Plenty of people are thinking about those soldiers, those sacrifices, the struggles and the triumphs. But I think that most people do take it all for granted for the rest of the year. I think that's a terrible shame, for I think that's one of the things contributing to the problems of our nation as it is today, and as it is shaping to become.

Have a happy Memorial Day. And think about all the events, both large and small, that have contributed to us being able to have the freedoms and nation that we have. There are a lot of people in the world in so desperately different situations. Sometimes it?s hard for us because for so many of us we?ve always had them. One of the lessons I've learned, and am still learning, is what happens to the things you take for granted. Inevitably they are lost. Make freedom special, make it sacred, and never let it go.

Misconceptions.

At work there were kids in for Bring Your Sons/Daughters to Work Day. While they were here, they each drew a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up.

One kid drew a courtroom scene, and wrote:

I want to be a lawyer to help people and be nice

"Um, no" and other stuff

8:45 a.m. and the phone rings.

I scamble to answer it before it wakes up Amy, who isn't scheduled to wake up until I go in with French Toast at 10:00.

Me: Hello?

Loud music in the background.

Me: Hello?? (louder this time)

Her: Hello, is Kim there?

Me: I'm sorry, you have a wrong number.

her: Oh, I'm sorry. (pause) I'm verifying references. You don't know a Kimberly Howard?

Me: Um, no.

• Observation one: If you're a professional type making phone calls, you should keep the music low. If you're hard to hear over your music, you're not conveying an image of professionalism.
• Observation two: Okay, I'm not sure what observation two is yet. It may have something to do with making up references. Maybe it was someone who looked up Kimberly Howard in the phone book and wrote down a number above or below it.
• Observation three: It's not 9:00 yet, never mind the preferred 10:00. Only friends and family should get away with calling between ten (ampm) and ten (pmam). (Ed. - Brian's having difficulties today.) Can't that be a simple common courtesy?

—-

In completely other news, thanks to Barb for this BBC News link about RSS feeds.

—-

Now available on the blogroll is The Diary of Samuel Pepys. This is the online publication of the diaries of a 17th centutry London diarist named Samuel Pepys. The site is loaded with background information to help set the scene. Each day another entry is posted.

Guerilla Marketing?

This article was posted on the Intranet at work. I'm not sure if the confidential nature of a corporate Intranet affects the copyright law that seems to be broken, which is something I just thought of. What's the usual wording, "...not be copied, broadcast, retransmitted or republished..."

Fair Use doctrine of the copyright laws let me post snippets for discussion, but not repost the entire thing. But I digress.

In summary (also quite legal, thank you):

Proctor & Gamble has set up a marketing company called Tremor. They work in an insidious way. They cultivate a network of the most social kids, and send them free samples and "inside scoop" to give these kids the impression that they're input is being taken. These kids, now feeling like empowered insiders, run around and tell their friends how cool this new product it.

So, imagine this carefully crafted network of gregarious youngsters. Some 280,000 of them. The most outgoing of the most outgoing. These kids are already networked with their friends, talking in school, cell phoning, texting each other as if lack of social contact was lack of oxygen.

It used to be that a jacket or shoe brand would become The Hot Thing because it was featured in a movie, or in advertising. Who hasn't seen one example or another of something that everyone had to have?

Now it works a little differently. More subtly. Perhaps there's a new shoe brand, or a new lipstick color, maybe a new pair of jeans. The normal focus group testing is done a little differently. They send out a small letter to this group of teens. Vote for the new style you like best, the letter says, asking them to pick the style the brand should be, or which new logo they like best. Ask a teen their opinion on something. Anything. What kind of response rate can you expect? Better than regular bulk mail by a massive margin. But they'll look at the jeans in the pictures. They'll make their own decision, whether they respond or not.

A few months later, they get another letter in the mail. Thanks to your input, we're proud to announce our new product, it says. The letter features pictures of the elected brand/style/logo, and the majority of recipients look at it and think, "Wow, that's the one I picked! I did that!" But the letter goes on. In a couple months, everyone will want these. They'll be the one thing all your friends will be talking about. Everybody who's cool will have them, and everyone else will be jealous. So here are some coupons. Go buy yourself a pair now, before everyone is grabbing them. And tell your friends.

And they will. And because these socially obsessive kids tend to have friends who are also so socially outgoing (and a lot of them at that), those friends will tell others. The kids don't even know their selling anything.

It's clever, I have to admit that.

It's Amway meets... the Apple Evangelists meets...SARS.

It's clever.
It's insidious.
It may even border on evil.
It's sooooo Corporate America.

The Way of the 8-Track

Every generation has things it experienced or remembers that younger generations don't have. I never saw newsreels before movies. But I can just barely remember going to drive-in movies with my parents when I was little.

This morning I found myself thinking about things that today's students mostly wouldn't remember.

Passbook savings and the arrival of the ATM
Thermal-transfer fax paper in rolls
Sniffing fresh mimeograph pages (My wife, one year younger, doesn't remember these. Her school must have upgraded sooner than mine.)
A separate machine at Jewell that you had to run checks through as a sort of pre-approval
Flipping over floppy disks to use the other side
Audio tape drives (Commodore 64)
Rotary phones :-)
The parking brake was a separate pedal on the floor. Brights/highbeams were a button on the floor you stepped on.

But that got me to wondering what things we have today, that we probably take for granted, that 20 years from now will have dropped out of our culture. What will today's kids look back on in their 30s as things they remember that (their) younger generations didn't experience?

It seems like the 70s and 80s were times of developing new technologies, and new ideas. It seems like recently has been more about refining things than replacing them. Maybe I'm just not noticing some of the differences. The Paperless Office certainly hasn't happened. The E-Book is pretty new, but paper books aren't going away in the immediate future. Maybe audio cassettes are the next dinosaur. First CDs then MP3s. I guess MP3 goes on the list. I watched the birth of the World Wide Web. How many people under 25 or 30 had any experience with Usenet, UUNET, or Gopher, or dial-up BBSs, or computers that didn't have mice? I think it was HJKL that were the earlier cursor keys...

So in ten years, or even in twenty, what won't we have anymore? What will we have then that will be so ubiquitous to every day life that some people won't remember life without them?

Corded phones? Maybe in 20, but in 10 they'll still be around.

Floppy disks are pretty close to going away. That probably counts.

So what else, then?

Altitude=Happiness?

For some time now I've wondered why Jareth (7 months old today) gets such a kick out of being held high in the air. Now I know, and here's the answer. Other parents can use this knowledge. I offer it up for the benefit of all.

Here are the experiment results:

Baby is crying in playpen. Pick up baby. Baby stops crying.

Sit down in chair with baby on lap. Baby starts crying.
Stand up, baby stops crying.

Hold baby up above head. Baby laughs.

When he's put in his crib upstairs, he plays for a little bit and falls asleep. When he wakes int the morning, he's content to play for quite some time before deciding he really is hungry.

When he's put down downstairs, he is frequenly unhappy right away.

Conclusion is obvious:

Happiness is slightly lighter than air, and tends to float. Unhappiness is heavier than air, and tends to sink.