Three months

Last Thursday I had my three month review at work. It is hard for me to believe I've already been working there for three months (well, technically that will be next week, but I have been in Boston that long). Even though I don't quite feel settled, I'm aware of routines coming into my life. Although, with the holidays just past and all of that, the routines aren't firmly entrenched, so I still have time to see which are good and which need to go.

It's Cold

Today was the first day I would admit it was cold. There have been other days I described as chilly, a bit nippy, and even acknowledged it was indeed freezing, but today was cold. I actually wore my winter coat (which I only got in the mail a couple of weeks ago) for the first time, and actually needed it. I got to work and checked the weather report. It said that it was 8 degrees outside, with a Real Feel temperature of -12F. It was so cold that there was frost on the office windows, the inside of the office windows! Yep, inside the windows.

In unrelated news, I had a very strange dream last night. I actually dreamt that I was having trouble sleeping. In my dream I kept waking up and tossing and turning. At one point I turned over to find my pillow soaking wet, as if I'd been drooling on it. But I was asleep the entire time. I actually have a problem some nights where my brain doesn't seem to fully go to sleep. My body is asleep, but my mind keeps going. On those nights, when I do dream they are strange, freakishly real dreams. I also don't wake up feeling quite so refreshed.

Happy New Year!

Another year has come and gone, and in my life it was a significant year.

• I was laid off, kind of, and spent months getting paid to look for a job
• I quit my job (before the lay-off actually kicked in) and the company I'd worked for since college
• I got a new job, turning down several other offers that could have kept me in California, moved me to Colorado or Virginia
• I almost bought a house in California, but ended up leaving California altogether
• I moved back to Boston and bought a condo
• I started shaving my head (I'd done this before, but not for this long)

I doubt that 2008 will see quite so many significant changes in my life, but there is always the possibility.

As for New Year's Eve, I spent the evening at Whiskey's. When I first moved to Boston, I had dinner there quite regularly and still go most weekends to watch football. So I figured that would be a good place to close out my year and begin a new one.

I had a lot of fun and met many nice people. A couple from Pittsfield that were in town for New Year's. Two girls who I seem to recall were working as au pair's, one of them was from South Africa (I mentioned I had been there as a kid when there was the big drought, she had no idea what I was talking about, since that had been in 1983 and she was born in 1986, made me feel like a dirty old man). I also met a couple of girls who described themselves as Canadian Pollacks, who were visiting Boston for New Year's. I always find it amazing how people from all over can end up in one place.

It was also a lot different than the New Year's before which I spent in San Francisco. I had a good time in San Francisco, but it didn't have the relaxed friendly feel that I had this year.

Anyway, I hope 2008 brings you happiness and fulfillment.

Betting on the Future

Last year (or maybe it was earlier this year, which makes it almost last year in a couple more days) I read the book "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki. One of the theories espoused in the book was the concept of futures trading for events, not just companies. The idea is that people buy stock or place bets on the outcome of future events. Want to know who will be the next President? Don't poll a bunch of people and ask who they are going to vote for, ask them to put five dollars on the candidate they think is going to win. Apparently using this method with 100 people in some small town USA, was more accurate than any of the polls.

Popular Science Magazine has taken this concept and turned it into an interactive online stock exchange. They call it the Popsci Predictions Exchange. The stocks range from near term, like will HD-DVD outsell Blu-Ray this year, to very long term, like will a team of androids beat a world cup team at soccer by 2050. At the end of the term (when the time limit expires or the outcome is determined) the stocks will have a value of either 100, if true, or 0 if false. So you can buy or sell the stocks based on where the current price is.

The theory is that if the average person thinks the outcome is 60% likely, then the stock price should hover about $60. When an event occurs that might influence the chances, then the stock holders will buy/sell based on the news. It's kind of pointless, but fun as well.

And just like in a real stock market, what you are really betting on isn't what you actually think will happen, but what you think the average stock-holder thinks will happen. Right now I'm buying the EVOTE stock, which says that there will be a problem with US elections due to electronic voting malfunctions. I don't actually think this will happen, but I bet plenty of other people think so. So, now I'm buying. When it gets close to the election, I'll probably sell my shares and short the stock.

On a more personal note: I hate artificial sweeteners. They make me sick, literally.

Completing the Massification

I finally got my car registered in Massachusetts today. It was actually a really painless process as far as these things go. Probably because my last experience was with California which has the worst DMV system I've ever encountered (out of 5 states, but who's counting). I still have to get the car inspected, but at least now people won't look at my car and curse me for being a stupid driver from California. Instead they will curse me for being just another car on the road (if you haven't driven in Boston, you might not understand).

I also went boot shopping today. Unsuccessfully. It seems like most of my attempts at finding footwear are unsuccessful. Maybe because I have to shop in the 13 and up section, instead of the parts of the store that have whole shelves to one size of shoe. It doesn't help that I have a slightly strange shape of foot: the distance from my heel to the closest part of the top of my foot is very long compared to the length of my foot, high arches maybe? I sometimes wonder if my feet have an odd shape because I always outgrew my shoes so quickly. They are a couple of sizes smaller than they should be for my height.

On another shopping note... I went to the grocery store today and hit the peanut butter aisle. Alright, so it was the aisle that had a bunch of stuff including peanut butter. *gasp* They didn't have Peter Pan. I left the cart in the middle of the aisle and went to find where I could put in a request. I ended up talking to the manager and he said they hadn't stocked it since the recall and weren't going to be ordering any more. Ever. So I left and didn't do my grocery shopping. I'll just have to go to another store which stocks Peter Pan Peanut butter, that's all. But the good news is that when coming back from Hilltop Steakhouse (more on that later) I decided to take a little detour and hit Big Lots. I'd never been but knew it was in that general vicinity. Much to my surprise they actually had Peter Pan! Of course, it was only the medium small size jars, so I had to buy a whole pack of 12.

So Hilltop steakhouse... I hadn't been there in about a decade. But they still have the same place mats that are a butcher's chart of where which cuts of meat come from in the cow. Along with such facts as that a 1000 lbs steer will only give you 75 lbs of steak. Actually, Hilltop in a way was the inspiration for my idea of the World's Largest Steakhouse. They have a few different dining rooms, each as large or larger than most steakhouses. I think they can seat close to a thousand people all told. Oh, and they have a butcher's shop so you can get steaks to grill at home. Anyway, my idea is something even bigger, so big that the only possible name is The World's Largest Steakhouse. With a name like that though, it makes it difficult to franchise.

P.S. I nearly forgot. At Big Lots, they had "Rap Snacks" I could hardly believe my eyes. They are apparently potato chips that are endorsed by various rappers/groups.

Family Birthday Party

This weekend we had a bit of a family reunion in Kentucky, ostensibly to celebrate some birthdays. My great uncle turned 80, one of my mom's cousins turned 50, and a couple of others turned something or other.

Anyway, we had about 30-40 members of my mom's side of the family (descendants of my mother's grandparents). It was quite interesting hearing stories about my parents from when they were dating, especially because those stories weren't always told the way my parents told them. I think most of it was that my mom put a more romantic spin on things.

But, I also learn things, or hear tell of things that I had never heard before. According to one of my mom's cousins, I might be 1/32 Native American. Which is all news to me. Of course, looking back at some old pictures of my great grandmother, and my grandmother, there might be some truth to it. But if so, it's so watered down in me that it hardly matters. I still get sunburned in less than 15 minutes.

I was actually really lucky weather-wise. The forecast for the trip down said there might be quite inclement weather in Lexington which worried me for arriving. Then there was supposed to be a huge snowstorm in Boston today which would have made returning home difficult. But the delay going to Lexington was only long enough for me to get food between planes. If it hadn't been delayed I would have had to rush just to make the plane. On the way back, there was a bit of a delay in Charlotte because they had to kick the standby passengers off the plane. Apparently there is a weight restriction flying into Boston, and because they had to carry extra fuel in case of a diversion this meant we couldn't fly with a full plane of people.

Actually, my flight down was even more exciting than I made out. The woman two seats in front of me had called the steward because of a draft (at least that's what I gathered from what I could see). Apparently the guy in front of me objected to the woman reclining her seat. So in retaliation he turned on his air vent to blow onto her. The steward found the source of the draft and turned it off. The man in front of me objected and complained about her seat. The steward told the man she had the right to recline her seat and the man didn't have the right to harass her. So the guy turned the vent back on. The steward turned it back off and they snapped at each other some more. I was really afraid the plane was going to get diverted because the guy was being unruly. For an old guy he was very immature.

I don't know why the guy was complaining so much. It wasn't like the seat was banging into his knees or anything like that. I object when people recline their seats because it causes me physical pain when their seat smashes into my knees, for this guy it meant he couldn't read his paper as comfortably.

Last note... I had some weird dreams last night. It seems to happen when I get a really poor night's sleep (no dreams) one night, and then get a relatively good night's sleep the next night. I won't go into too many details, but what really made it odd was that in a main part of my dream I went into a catatonic state. I was just lying there (in the dream) and I could see and hear everything that was going on, but I wasn't moving. It felt like I could move if I wanted to, but I had no desire to move and so didn't.

Roller Derby

Last night I went to the Roller Derby! My friend Alicia's sister is a player on the Cosmonaughties (Alicia, her sister "Ivanna Clobber" and Alicia's twins) and they were having a match against the Nutcrackers. It was a lot of fun, and not nearly as violent as I thought it would be. Probably because I remember watching roller derby on TV years ago, and that was one step removed from pro-wrestling. This was much more of a competition. Also, although they played hard, there was a lot of camaraderie between the two teams. It could have something to do with there being only three teams in the league.

Anyway, it is definitely something I'll go to again, probably try to drag some other people along as well.

Yeah, I suck at taking pictures. Of course, it isn't easy when they are moving fast and they have the lights down.