AdventuresInMissingThePoint.com

I recently started drinking more smoothies.  It’s an easy, tastey way to get fruits and vegetables.  It changes things up.  I have two problems with smoothies though.

Smoothies have a bad Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY). That is the high viscosity smoothie leaves itself [to waste] on the blender and in the cup.  This is easy to fix.  I usually make a smoothie and then have some “smoothie water,” which tastes similar to Crystal Light.  This problem is manageable though, as long as you are fine with some hydration consequences.

My other problem with smoothies is that I have yet to thoroughly enjoy* a smoothie that does not have yogurt.  I’ve tried recipes, and tried adapting recipes, but for me if it doesn’t have some plain yogurt it just ain’t got that thang.  Again, this isn’t so bad as I think yogurt provides some nice natural immune builders with the active cultures in it.

*There is an obvious difference between consuming calories and nutrients and enjoyment in my diet.

Smoothier than you are.

“The Purpose of Life” is to solve problems.

I will acknowledge that my field of training is expected to solve problems, engineering.  This could lead to a blind spot for the premise of this idea.

I think life is made of multiple small decisions, which lead to cumulative “bigger decisions.”  Each small decision, is either somewhat or entirely based on a past decision.  This could depend on social, genetic, as well as cultural dependencies, or it could be entirely circumstantial, too.  Each “small” decision requires solving a problem, whatever the method may be.  So the destiny of our tomorrows resides in the decisions of today.  This sounds too simple to be true.  Yay, I can make a boat-load off of this pretentious idea!

This idea is confirmed (in my mind) in capitalism. Jobs are created to solve problems.  This could be making products for consumers.  Jobs could include service to customers.  My favorite type of job is marketing. Marketing notifies the consumer of a problem, or better yet marketing creates a problem for the consumer.  One step farther, a job can create (useless) jobs.

Continuing onward,  Scott Adams found  in Webster:  ”The white collar sector is all about no activity punctuated occasionally by useless activities.” [I can't find it on the internet elsewhere, so it is probably some April Fools thing that I am still being fooled by.]

I hate to end this on a negative spin.  I remember watching The Secret, why I don’t know either, but a part of the information included the Law of Attraction: people’s thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) dictate the reality of their lives, whether or not they’re aware of it.

I visualize the above unicorn when I practice my law of attraction.

I have not been sick for three years.  [Knock on wood for me, please.]  I am confident that this is not a coincidence.  I agree with Early Retirement Extreme’s (ERE’s) post on proactive health care: eat healthly, exercise regularly, and welcome germs from the local environment.  In the health care post, ERE makes the following statement:   

I don’t touch my face around sneezing people, but otherwise I don’t worry about germs. In fact I welcome them. I’d like my immune system to do some low intensity battles.

In the past three years, I took this one more step.  I started eating out of the trash.  Yeah: gross, have-you-no-shame, etc.  I’ve heard it all.  The crux of my airport travel actually centers around trash cans.  I’ve come up with a relatively “low key” method to dig out of airport garbages in airports.  It amounts to carrying around a piece of trash, from one container to the next.  So, throw something out, look into the trash like you didn’t mean to throw it out, and then pick up something new.  Optimize by going for weight.

Now from my experience, I find breakfast the hardest meal to find food.  I think there are two factors at play for this phenomenom.

• Breakfast portions are small compared to lunch/dinner.  For example, check out the McDonald’s Nutrition Facts on a Egg McMuffin (300 calories) versus a Quarter Pounder (410 calories).  It would be interesting to see a frequency chart.  If you actually follow that link, you can make an easy argument against this because I lack frequency data.
• People are hungrier in the morning, and therefore are more apt to finish the whole breakfast meal.

So, I lack data from the interwebs. However using my empirical data, I would much rather dig for buried treasure at noon than in the morning.  In case you cared, I thought of this post after I paid $0.50 for a “refill” on a cup of coffee this morning at Starbucks.

Rethink the paradigm of scavenging and Freeganism, if not for financial benefits for the health advantages.

This is a guest post from that budding, pretentious Eastern religious scholar in me. .  or in all of us??

I like

• coffee.
• making coffee in a French Press.  
• having roommates.  
• avoiding anger. 
• time.

What recipe do you get when you combine the aforementioned ingredients?  A new food processor!

To expand:

I have had three French Presses, all made from glass, during my time on this earth.  I have kept each French Press on top of the fridge.  Three different roommates have broken my French Presses.  Each time, I acknowledge that the failure is bound to happen with the French Press stored at such a place.  I think during each failure the French Press is left hanging on top of the freezer door.  So, just enough of the door catches the bottom on the French Press, and the press plummets to its death, impact with the floor.

After the third death, we had a raffle at work.  The winning prize was a coveted Black and Decker Power Pro II Food Processor.  I just knew it was my time.  I told everyone I was going to win the food processor.  I was due.  I was calling my shot, just like Babe Ruth.

I realize this is risky to mess with higher powers.  However, sometimes you have to follow your intution.

Here is a picture of me, 24 hours after calling my shot.

A Contemporary Babe Ruth Shot Callha

I BABE RUTH’D KARMA!

I predict that this event will be in my 2009 Top 3.

“No running in the halls!!”

Oh, those school teachers hate efficient kids. Is it really that unsafe to run in the halls?

This hypothesis is easily due to my disdain for authority, but I think the time children stop running everywhere is when they enter school. I think it’s funny and enjoyable to watch children. Run to water fountain; run to a swing-set; run to stick in the playground; etc. They run everywhere! But, that’s just the status quo, so no one questions why they are running. . . until they enter the school system. Now, they must learn to stop running.

But when I decided to ditch my bike and more importantly my jacket because I kept losing it at college, running looked preposterous to my fellow peers. . . because the status quo is to walk. I’ll have you know: I never lost my coat on those days!

So great, we have to walk everywhere. We lose efficiency and calories by doing so. Teachers, think it through. How important is it, for society, that those students walk in an empty hallway?  How many safety accidents happen from “students running?”

Is this thought too idealistic and laissez-faire? Perhaps.

I am a fan of the Urban Dictionary and of women.  This post connects the two.  From my experiences, I eventually noticed that the most efficient way to predict the mannerisms and characteristics of women is by their purse, or lack there of.

From the pursenality entry:

using a woman’s handbag or pocketbook as a form of identifying her most definitive characteristics

Shoes, hair style, and clothes are also useful for judging, but I don’t think they are as prompt to distinguish differences. . . although, maybe I just think my wallet is really cool.

Little did I realize in my first engineering class that I would learn the ultimate weight loss solution.

accumulation = in – out + generation

This is the fundamental balance in engineering, which is applied to mass, energy, momentum, charge, benjamins, etc.  In non-engineering speak: You accumulate whatever you take in and whatever you generate, but less whatever goes out.  Think of a scenario involving vegetables and a vegetable garden.

At a your current state:
      You have 2 carrots in your fridge.

Today you take in:
      You buy 5 potatoes and 2 onions at the store.

Today, you generate:
      You harvest 7 tomatoes from your garden.

Today you take out:
      You eat 2 potatoes, 2 tomatoes, 1 carrot, and 1 onion in your stew.

For the day, you accumulated:
      You have 3 potatoes, 1 onion, 5 tomatoes and had a net loss of 1 carrot.

Net:
      You now have 1 carrot, 3 potatoes, 1 onion, and 5 tomatoes.
      And, you have energy for your body as well as a food baby forming.

That was fun to figure out. You can also apply this balance to your weight. If you want to lose weight, think that you want to negatively accumulate weight. If you want to maintain your weight, you want accumulation to be 0.  Or, you can beef up.  I don’t know how to generate weight. So, the equation becomes simpler: everybody wins.

acc = in – out

Yes, there are lot of uncertainties revolving around “out,” like how much energy we burn in sleeping, metabolizing, or killing proverbial kittens.  But, if I am gaining weight, I either need to take in less energy (eat less) or use more energy (exercise) to maintain my weight.  Weight loss, to me, seems so simple. Yet, I think capitalism, by way of marketing to people’s immediate gratification desires, has other options for us consumers.

Here’s a fun thought experiment.  How much weight would you gain if you supplemented your current diet/lifestyle by adding a Coke to your daily intake for an entire year?

(1 Coke) x (140 calories / 1 Coke) x (1 g fat / 9 calories) x (1 lb / 454 g)

= 12.5 lbs!

It can be astonishing that small differences, over time, can add up.

I recently rode on a newer bus line, Megabus. The reason I chose Megabus is due to cost: $45; a Greyhound ticket cost $75. I didn’t check other alternatives. The book A Confederacy of Dunces taught me that a bus ride is necessary every once in a while, to keep collecting good life experiences.  A rider on this trip catalyzed my 2009 Social Experiment goal!  I digress.

I find Megabus’ business model interesting.  That is the company charges people less the earlier they buy the ticket. The first seats purchased on a Megabus ride sell for $1!  This is a logical business plan.  A lot of businesses in the travel industry use this method, like airlines and hotels.

Using my University of Wikipeidia knowledge, it turns out this method is called Yield Management. I think the benefits of yield management is predicting cyclical trends, maximizing profits, and even controlling cyclical trends.  At a given future time, the more tickets sold, the more likely that passengers will be wanting to travel on that trip. For predictability purposes, yield management can raise prices to maximize the profits, if you are willing to add extra resources, in this case an extra bus.  Megabus can do this by “just renting another bus.” However, this is not as easy for airlines or hotels, so the price discrimination often raises drastically for the later industries to maximize profits while considering the available resource restraints.

I found Roscoe’s, my Megabus driver, loyalty to the company quite amazing.  He informed us passengers that Megabus is hiring, and an experienced bus driver can make $60,000 a year.

Whoa whoa whoa!

I am assuming that Greyhound does not pay their drivers near this amount.  Even with government subsidies, Greyhound has additional costs that Megabus does not: bus stations, ticket agents, and a lot more infrastructure and overheard to support many more, unpopulated stops than Megabus. For, Megabus only goes to major cities, i.e. New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, etc.

In general, I think Megabus adapted yield management to a good service.  I also think Megabus has, and can afford, a slightly higher operating expense, like giving Roscoe a little extra pay, possibly to prevent driver turnover.

I wonder what other markets could benefit from yield management.  I think sandwich shops could, to help control and maximize the profits of the lunch and/or dinner rushes.  I think the Wikipedia article has a good section on pointing out the drawbacks to Yield Managent, namely pissing off the customer.  “You paid less, WTF!?!”