Expert

What makes someone an expert? I think the term "expert" is thrown around pretty loosely at some places. Seems like if you know a smidgen more about something than... oh pretty much 0, then that makes you the expert. I guess, though, that to the person that knows nothing, the person that knows something, as little as it may be, might seem to be an expert. Sorta like how my 7th grade science teacher would say, the unexplainable is magic until you explain it. Then it becomes science.

So do you think that if you do anything for long enough, you'll pretty much become an expert at it? Like if you study a single topic in school for like 7 years, you know it pretty well, right? Well enough to put a PhD after your name and you're an expert. Or if you practice some musical instrument for 10 years, you'll probably get pretty good at it, and you could play it with expertise. Or if you hit golf balls for 15 years, you could probably hit a golf ball straight. So how many of us have been chasing that girl (or boy I guess to be fair) for year after year and no more an expert at getting them today than when we started?

LOST

Do you guys watch Lost? Back in December in Tahoe I watched a bunch of episodes and sorta got into it. I finished the rest of season 1 earlier this week. This show is freaking crazy!!! If you don't watch it, I strongly recommend you get the 1st season on dvd and watch it! The only thing is it makes me so mad at the end of each episode, because of course they always end each episode on a total cliffhanger... something really interesting happens or there's a huge twist in the plot, and then BOOM... episode is over, and you wanna watch the next episode right now, and so it makes you stand up and scream "F-you!" at the screen and stick your middle finger up at it.

Down With Denmark!

It seems like Muslims all over the world sure are getting their panties in a bunch over those dutch cartoons. So while Islam nation is protesting, rioting, and flinging poo at Denmark, I'm gonna take a moment here to get my cheap shots in, too. I don't think it's so much the cartoons that are the problem with the Dutch (have you seen them? I don't think they're even really that offensive, or funny. oh wait. except for the one about the virgins. That one is funny.) or even their utter incapacity to get a single medal yet in the Winter Olympics this year. The reason I hate them today is because they once again ensnared me in their evil, sinister trap: the dutch crunch bread. You may be familiar with this weapon of mass destruction if you've ever had a deli sandwich to order from any place that makes deli sandwiches besides Subway. It's appearance is quite inviting, and even the first few bites in you may think that the Dutch are your friends. It's only until you're maybe halfway through the sandwich that you realize the damage it's done to the roof of your mouth. Ugh! Sonofa...!!! so you try to do all sorts of silly things like chewing tenderly or eating the sandwich upside down, but it's too late. Your palate has been shredded up into a bloody mess and you've been sneak attacked one more time by those conniving Danes!

He must have been proud

Today I walked into the restroom and I saw this guy, let's call him
Pedro, washing his hands at the sink, and he was looking into the
mirror and smiling at himself.
"Hi Pedro."
He glances at me.
"Hey."
I walk past him and go farther into the restroom to take care of my
business, and my nose tells me that Pedro must have made a poopie.
Then I understood what that self-congratulatory smile in the mirror
was all about.

Sunny Side Up

When I was younger (as recent as high school) I hated when eggs were
not cooked all the way through. Sometimes my mom would give me a fried
egg, and the middle part of the yolk would still be a little runny, so
I would always leave that part. It would just always gross me out.
I'd always order eggs scrambled when eating out. Whenever I ordered
bibimbap, I would have to explain that I wanted my egg fully cooked.

Then sometime in college, I got a kimchi bokumbap, and there was an
egg on top, and it was sunny side up. The big shiny glob of uncooked
yolk stared back at me. I knew it wouldn't be possible to excise the
yolk without breaking the thin membrane holding it together and
spilling its runny contents all over my bokumbap. Should I just set
the whole egg aside? But I want egg. And where would I put it anyway?
There wasn't any room on the plate, and I can't just put a whole sunny
side egg on the table. Think about it. I guess I could have just
asked them to cook it for me, but I was hungry now. And a strange
feeling of "ah who cares" came over me. I popped it and mixed the rice
up really good so that I couldn't see any uncooked yolk. Also I think
I was hoping that the rice would somehow cook the egg if I spread it
out enough.

That day, I really enjoyed it. From then on, I made sure the egg on
my bokumbap was sunny side up. It's helped me be more adventurous.
I'll go w/ over-easy when getting those american breakfasts. It's
especially good with tons of ketchup and some sorta potato like
hashbrowns or those country potatoes and some english muffin or
country biscuit all mixed up together. mmm....

Help a Marshallese this weekend

I'm going to do some volunteer work to help out some people who are
building a diabetes clinic in the Marshall Islands. Read on if you
wanna help, too.

Canvasback (http://www.canvasback.org/mission/index.html) is building
a diabetes clinic out in the Marshall Islands. With the integration
of western civilization and the processed sugars and food added to
their diets, over half of the Marshallese over the age 50 have type 2
diabetes. Add that to the poor medical care and there are people
losing the sight and getting their limbs amputated all the time.

So Canvasback is building a diabetes clinic in Majuro, the capital of
the Marshall Islands. The goal is to treat diabetes through a
lifestyle intervention utilizing proper diet and exercise.

How can I help?

Date: February 12 (this coming Sunday)
Location: Benicia, CA (Near Vallejo)
Description: We are loading a 40 foot container with the medical,
office, and exercise equipment that we need to build the diabetes
clinic. This container is scheduled to be loaded on to a freight ship
and sent to the islands next week. So, we are trying to complete the
loading of the container by Sunday. We are looking for a few
volunteers who want to pitch in and help out without having to commit
to a month-long mission trip or a plane ticket or something like that.
It's local, and it's only one day!

Do I need to contact someone to inform them I'd like to help?
You can contact me (email, cellphone, or leave a comment), and I'll
relay the message on to my contact at Canvasback. We'll give you info
like exactly where to show up.

What time will it be? and for how long? what about lunch?

We will meet at 11am in Benicia, eat an early lunch (pizza provided)
and then start loading the container. We hope be to done before it
gets dark.

Do I need any special clothes/shoes?

Volunteers should wear work clothes. I would recommend an old
t-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes.

I'm interested in other volunteer / mission work for this Marshall
Islands diabetes clinic. What other ways can I help?

There are a number of more commitment-heavy opportunities available,
both health and non-health professionals related. I have more info.
Let me know if you're interested.

It's like some kind of natural law

Like the tendency to move from order to disorder, or for tighter supply to command a higher price, or the number of transistors sqeezed onto a chip doubling every 18 months...

It's like when you see the perfect parking spot, right up close to the front, nearest to where you gotta go, but you can't get it because you were just a little later than the other guy who pulled into the parking lot a second before you... so you drive around until you finally find an open spot, waaaaay on the other side of the parking lot, but then when you walk all the way back to the front, you see another spot near the front has opened up.

It's like when it's almost time to go, so you start wrapping things up and getting ready to go home, and just then your boss comes by and can you just take care of this one last thing, and so you start everything back up do it as fast as you can and then rush down and run to the station and to the platform just in time to see the doors closing and your train leaving, and then you realize you just missed the last direct train and so you won't be getting home for another 2 hours or so and you start thinking about how hungry you are.

It's like when you finally get a chance to wash your car when it's been long overdue, and so you take a little extra time to get it really clean and then it rains the next day.

It's like when you been been holding out on buying that thing you want because it's too expensive and you just keep telling yourself you'll buy it when it goes on sale but it never does, so you finally just buy it and then later that week it goes on sale.

It's like that girl that sits alone you've been wanting to talk to but just not have had enough courage to approach but finally you wake up one day and you feel good and you know you can do it so you get all worked up and you see her that day but you find that some guy has swooped in and he's like totally all over her and she actually seems to be enjoying his attention.

Happens all the time. It's like that's the way the world works, and the sooner you realize it the sooner you'll stop feeling like punching yourself in the face so much.

Don't believe me? Think I'm a pessimist? A fatalist you say? Well, I'm not the only one that's observed this law. I was trying to look up the name of that law about transistors on a chip doubling every 18 months (turns out it's Moore's Law... I was guessing all these names that start with 'M') when I ran into Murphy's Law.

Groundhog Day

So today is Groundhog Day. I remember hearing about Groundhog day
ever since I was little, but think about it, isn't it like one of the
weirdest "holidays"? I didn't even think it made sense... if the
groundhog sees its shadow, doesn't it mean that the weather is nice,
and shouldn't that mean that days will get sunnier? and that if
there's no shadow, then the weather is crappy, so it wouldn't be
surprising if it was crappy for a while longer? It's all backwards!
And what kind of animal is scared of it's own shadow (or even notices
it) anyway? What does it do on all the other sunny days of the year?
So I read a little bit about Groundhog day on wikipedia (type wiki
groundhog day into firefox) and there's some pretty good information
there. Turns out it has pagan and Christian roots, just like
Christmas. I've never heard of Candlemas before, but it sounds like a
pretty ho-hum holiday. I'm not a huge fan of tamales or crepes, which
is what they eat in Mexico and France, respectively, to celebrate
Candlemas, but I do find it more interesting than groundhog, which is
a pretty weird looking animal, by the way. I thought they ate tamales
in Mexico and crepes in France everyday anyway, Groundhog day or
not... when they weren't eating eating burritos or snails, of course.
I like burritos.