Math, not Meth.
~A pretty solid article on this whole Ethynol PseudoScience.

~Kitler Update: US cat 'predicts patient deaths'. Oscar meows in protest if removed from the room of a dying patient. "Doctors said most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably do not know he is there, so patients are not aware he is a harbinger of death."
~Albert Ellis, influential psychotherapist, dies at 93.
~Mortal Kombat in Central Park.
~Hedge Your Retirement Savings With Currencies.

The Takoma Park city council unanimously approved a resolution Monday urging Congress to go forward with impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney Yet another piece of TP legislation...

/P.S. Just read an article that calculated US inflation relative to that of the global market, and estimated it at approximately 10% (for this current year). Further, our dollar is now worth the same as the Canadian dollar.

So I guess life changes. Our baby E has yet to watch TV, but she gets to play on the computer every now and then. (She knows how to turn on the MSFT search, so she can see the "doggie".) Anyway--While in the CLT airport, she became infatuated with an Elmo doll housed in a kid' toy shop; it was truly love at first sight. (Thus, Elmo came home with us.) Later, I did a search on YouTube for Elmo, and found this. I never cared about the band, but now I think they're pretty cool. We've probably watched the video about 20 times... (P.S. E also loves Spider Pig.)

Looks to me like something that would be better explained by a physicist.

... In other words, to answer your question, very hard.

But hey, if you want, I could prove that

N(α) is prime in Z => α is prime in Z[i],

that is, if the norm of a Gaussian integer is prime, then the Gaussian integer itself is prime. Anyone? Anyone?

(I just had our "midterm exam", so this stuff is just spilling out of me.)

Hey Matt--how hard would it be for you to explain the math that's involved here?

Glad to hear from you M; sounds like that PROMYS thing would be a good time, because you get to spend time with the best and brightest about the stuff that you all are passionate about. Those are indeed good times.

But now for something completely different--while the RIAA continues to flounder, the MPAA is having a good summer in my book. The mindless Transformers was a good time, and I'm actively excited about The Simpsons and Rocket Science. The former will likely be in my small town, but I may have to drive to Memphis to see the latter--and given the writer/director and subject matter, I just may do so.

I've been going through quite a bit of family crap, but I honestly am so tired of it that I've not even bothered posting about it. Maybe I will when I actually get the emotional energy to discuss the insanity. But on a positive note, I just got my first tube amplifier the other day. And while it sounds indistinguishable from my other 2 (modern transistor type) that lay unused (and are about to be sold--feeling guilty about not using them), this new (tube amp) has glowing glass. And there's something to be said for aesthetics. What can I say? It's pretty. (And very child un-friendly.)

And since we're talking amps, one must segue into music--and ultimately bourbon. John Coltrane is currently playing; the album is actually called "John Coltrane Plays the Blues". Fantastic music, but some of the recording is distorted due to clipping. I've got a glass of Knob Creek at my side, which is a terrific yet passive bourbon; how they bottle it at the price is beyond me; its an absolute steal. I've got some Bakers downstairs, but at 107 proof, it's serious business; tonight's just not a Bakers night. And while at the beach, I picked up some Bernheim Original Wheat Whiskey, which is: (1) not bourbon, and (2) quite innovative for it's atypical use of (exclusively) wheat. No corn, rye, or anything else typically found in a whiskey. It was actually quite smooth and with an unusual (but pleasing) flavor, but I didn't want to fly with it--so my Mom will bring it with when my kid turns 2. I got the Bernheim, simply because I am trying to branch out and (the gay guys who owned the store) didn't sell mini-bottles. But at this point, with the little that I actually do imbibe, mini-bottles just may be the way to go. (After the two or three years that it will take to finish what I already have.) Wondering what you guys are into; would be interested in getting some reviews for new things to try out...

Oh--and it looks like this MTV thing is going to happen, for better or worse. And now my chair wants a piece of it. Her actions at this point are almost comical. It's my research, I got the offer--but now I'm told to remember that I'm a team. Sorry hunny, there is no "U" in team--so stop trying to control what I can and cannot do relative to the publicity of my personal research.

Matt,

It's good to hear your voice, friend. It's been too long. You asked about the kids and how we are dealing with the news that we will be having a third boy. It's not quite as easy to answer as you might think. Take myself for instance. If I was operating in a pure vacuum with no outside influences, I can honestly tell you that I was fine with either a boy or a girl. I love being a father to two little boys, and I think adding a third to the mix will be a blast. But I would loved the change of pace as well. I would have loved the opportunity to see what raising a girl was like. How it was different? How it was better? Worse? You know what I mean.

But as I said, that's me in a vacuum. The truth of the matter is, I don't live in a vacuum. And Sarah really wanted a girl. And so, for me, the hurt is seeing her loss of a dream. I greive, not for myself, but for her.

But even there, that makes it sound like she's a basket case. And she's not. In fact, I was just saying to someone the other day that when she was first talking about it after the ultrasound, I had one of those moments where I am looking at her and I'm just terribly proud of her as a human being. She was getting it totally right. She was grieving the loss of a dream, while at the same time not losing herself in that grief. She felt free to express her various sorrows, but at the same time would state with confidence: "This is what God has planned for our family; and I know that His plan is the best. So I rest in that and find peace in that." Moreover, she's talking about how her loss pales in comparison to the losses of my brother and his wife who are struggling to even conceive. And in that comparison, she could see that her "loss" was nothing next to what they were experiencing. So it was this perfect blend of feeling free to express her true feelings while not allowing them to selfishly dictate her response to the news. She was just awesome.

So that's how we're processing all of this. We excited, sad, relieved (that pregnancy is almost a thing of the past), hopeful, etc... And in four months, we're going to have another little boy (who will probably, but not definitely, be named Aidan Micah) that were are thrilled to meet.

Yeah, I have to admit that watching Crammer is sometimes difficult. He tries so hard to be entertaining that you find yourself doubting the stability of his wisdom. But do a little research and you'll discover that he is actually really sound. The Hedge Fund that he personally ran for 14 years averaged a 25% return per year. You don't average 25% per year by being either dumb or lucky. You do it because you know when to buy, at what volume to buy, on what conditions to buy, at what sell-point to get out (never when it hits "the ceiling"), etc...

As for O'Neil, the major difference between his work and Crammer's is that O'Neil is a "chartist." He believes that you can make sound investments by charting the progress of only the most successful companies over the years. For instance, buying only a stock is within 5% of the RS line and trading in large volume. These kinds of things.

I can't honestly say that I am an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But these are texts that my brother Ron has given me as homework. And I trust him evaluations because he is (1) extremely conservative with money, (2) extremely astute is the field of mathematical analysis, and (3) very successful in his fusion of the two strategies he has me learning about.

Sorry for my absentia, guys. I am incredibly busy at the moment, and will be for the next four weeks or so. I'm taking part of the PROMYS program at Boston University. I'm really enjoying it, save for the fact that my "CPU" is being pegged for eight hours a day, and I'm having trouble turning it off at night and staying asleep. So I'm wickid tie-id.

So it's to be the Bryant Boys, eh? How does Sarah feel about that? How do you feel about that? I always thought that if I wound up having only boys or only girls, I would really feel like I was missing out on something. Of course, it's not as though it's a rare occurrence in general. Other people have dealt, I'm sure I would too.

My mom gave me Dave Ramsey's book a couple of Christmases ago. I've read most of it. Good to know I've got a winner--I wouldn't be able to tell on my own! I also have "Smart Couples Finish Rich" by David Bach, which has helped me a lot, just in terms of catching me up on what the rest of the world already knows.

Of dollars and sense.

Looking back on my childhood, it’s pretty obvious that parts of it were (for lack of a better word) exceptional. I think around the age of 12 or so, my parents gave me a checkbook, a couple hundred bucks allowance a month, and charged me with budgeting all my expenses, sans health insurance and basic (in-house) food. (Such budgeted items included the school tuition, tithing, clothing, shoes, gifts, school supplies, etc...) And this made me an excellent budgeter and money manager. But it didn’t really make me an excellent financial planner. I knew nothing about proper insurance coverage or how to establish a 5 or 10 year fiscal plan. Give me the numbers, and I could budget. Set me loose in the wild, and I was left to “traditional wisdom.” And it’s been my experience that traditional wisdom is generally wrong. Who’s the jack-ass that says that your mortgage should be up to 1/3 of your pre-tax income? Yeah--it could, if one doesn’t want to live life. Yet--I believed it, “bought” this damned albatross around my neck with a 30 year commitment. Dumb, dumb stupid tax. Looking back, I wish we would have picked up a more modest home in the country, with (at the most) a 15 year that was no more than 25% of our take-home. Had we done this, we'd be living life feeling like the Donald. But asi es la vida.

What I’m trying to say is that as I got older (until this past year), I was still captivated by the math of it all. According to my calculations, if we assume *this* and *that*, then *this other* would be a good investment. What I’ve since learned is that: (1) life doesn’t work like a textbook (2) textbooks and conventional wisdom usually felt wrong to me after implemented, and (3) the notion of trying to predict income and expenses based on theory is just goofy. Only after 12 months of actually living into it did I ever really have a clue.

And growing up, I also learned a bit from watching my father and others in my family. I saw people go from investing approach to investing approach, theory to theory, program to program... with no real success. If anything, they lost money; and sometimes, a substantial amount of it. Sure all these approaches worked perfectly in “back testing”, but what I realized while in PhD is that the notion of “back testing” investment strategies totally disregards the variable of time. I tried telling this to others, but no one listened. Now, nobody’s doing these cooky investment schemes--so I’m thinking that whether they know it or not, they now believe me. Point being is that we, the little people, will never get “insider” or “breaking” information. By the time it filters down to us plebeians, it’s old news--and the profit taking has long gone. People in our position are never going to be able to “beat the system”. Any attempt to do so will ultimately result in a fiscal loss; the house always wins. (The film Wall Street seems as true today as it was 20 years ago.) That doesn’t mean that we still can’t make good investments, but our good investments are based on our own personal expertise and common sense. Example: I knew in 1997 that Ebay was going to be huge. I told my father, he didn’t believe me. When I got my Apple G5 Tower (PowerMac?) back at Gallaudet, I knew that Apple was going to explode (in 2003, the price was $10 at the time). I knew that the Vonage IPO was going to tank, and that one could have made money by buying “puts” (i.e., betting that the stock price would fall). And now, I am utterly convinced that (based on the global markets) the US dollar will continue to slide; this is based on common sense. We produce nothing, we’re less and less a free market capitalist society. And my theory is--always bet on the capitalists. South Korea. India. Even Red china is more capitalistic than we are in many ways. This is where the money is. Those of us who keep our money in the US bank are functionally losing buying power. (Yet, I continue to do so--because I don’t know of any other liquid foreign currency options.)

So Scott--I don’t really know the books or investors that you referred to. The CNBC TV guy annoys the heck out of me; I’ve never watched him for more than 10 seconds. Never heard of the other guy. I don’t really follow anyone’s investing advice or strategy. And this is because I’ve never seen anyone’s advice or strategy work for others, so why will it work for me? Any investments that I do is based in the long term (5 years+) and on my own common sense.

My other thing is that investing in stocks really does have a fair amount of risk in it. Where gambling stops and investing begins--I’m not sure. But there’s soooo many variables that can affect any one company’s stock price (made up or legitimate), that it’s a game that I just don’t play anymore. I stopped playing the market in that regard back in 2003. I have a low tolerance for risk, and the risk was just too high. Maybe if I did nothing but invest--but I have a job, and subsequently cannot. (Or choose not to, rather.)

Dave Ramsey has his “7 Baby Steps”, which is what we’re currently doing. We’re currently on step 6. Again--his investing principles appear to be straight from the scripture. He comes off as hyper-conservative--and at first, that turned me off. But after a year of hearing the guy--his points are beginning to make sense. Listen to Dave’s podcast; he has a (free) downloadable hour every day via iTunes. I’m sure he’s on the radio in your market as well.

Funny story--some investment guy analyzed our current assets, and he was quite amazed; said that he hadn’t seen but one other portfolio as strong (per our age) in his life. He then told me that trying to buy off our house early was a bad idea, because we could “do better” in the market. Later in the discussion, he let it be known that he’s leasing a car. Sorry bud, game over. If I’m doing so well, and you’re leasing a car--why the heck should I listen to you? This is what I’m talking about; taking the advice of others (without a fundamental knowledge, understanding, and belief in the approach) seems to have a very high chance of failure.

So I've been doing a bit of investing as of late, and I've read two really good books on the subject. The first was Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich by Jim Cramer (he of Mad Money fame on CNBC) and another by Bill O'Neil entitled How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times or Bad. O'Neil, if your not familiar with the name, is the founder of Investors Business Daily. Both of these guys are really solid, and I highly recommend the books if you have any interest, whatsoever, in the subject.

Hey all,

So we've been a quiet bunch of "hobos" over the past two weeks. Everyone doing okay?

As for Sarah and I, we've had an eventful couple of weeks. Firstly, about a week ago, we found out that our third child (due in November) is going to be another boy! So yes, it will be Sarah and a pack of boys. Barring any unforeseen incidents shall we say, this will do it for us. It'll give us three kids under the age of four, and that sounds like just about the right amount of madness.

Other than that, we've had other stuff going on as well. After several months of doing some pre-marital counseling with a couple, we had to sit and tell them that we think they are making a huge mistake. Actually, from a strictly clinical perspective, this was quite the interesting experience. The guy, in question, was an illegal alien; and had been actively hiding from the government since the age of 16 when his parents informed him of his status. Needless to say, that was quite the shock at the time. The sad thing is, he basically embraced his parents life of deception and even began to attribute his sinful choices to the benevolent hand of God (e.g. he deceptively procures a drivers license and suggests that God was "opening doors" for him.) Meanwhile, the girl was totally okay with him lying. And although she believed he was living in sin, it was apparently not a big enough issue to call him on.

All in all, it was fascinating experience watching two human beings capacity for self-deception and justification. The hard part was, we really liked these two people and there was nothing clinical about our involvement. So it was really hard and you felt like the ogre.

What's going on with you guys? Any fun summer time activities during your off-months?

Just realized that a hook found in the Marine Corp Anthem sounds eerily reminiscent to Mozart's Piano Sonata in C major (K330, Andante Cantabile).

Is anyone else noticing the hypocrisy relative to how the rise bio-fuels are increasing the cost of basic foods? Mexicans can no longer afford their tortillas, the price of beer has gone up (as has cherry-vanilla ice-cream), and now the UN says they can no longer afford to feed the world.

Or maybe it's not hypocrisy after all; I've (on occasion) read nut or two believe that the only way to save the earth is to kill humanity. It's just hard to believe that people actually want to carry this out...

P.S. Original Transformers cartoons can be seen on YouTube. A bit of nostalgia is fun every now and then...

A few experiences that may be of interest...

First--the other day, I found out that one of my (just graduated) graduate students has been crowned Miss Illinois. And I gotta tell y’ah--I’m proud of her. I never really “got” the concept of beauty pageants, and maybe I still don’t. But after being with this one particular student for 2 years, I think there may be some merit to them after all. This student had more poise, maturity and elegance compared to her peers. By far. And if she acquired these characteristics as a product of beauty pageants, then the pageant system may have merit after all. In any event, I’ve only watched one other Miss America--and that was due to the former Miss Illinois.

And to make the situation more surreal--today I found out that *another* one of my former students (from 2006) is Miss Tennessee. (Had her as an undergrad for a semester.) So yeah--they’ll be competing against each other. But I gotta be honest; Miss Tennessee (while quite smart) always came across as a bit smarmy. Conversely, Miss Illinois was always professional and graceful; there no doubt who I’ll be routing for.

So get this; I’m here in South Carolina for a family un-vacation... and I wanted to get some bourbon. So I trounce into a local ABC store, and quickly sense that it was owned and operated by 2 gay guys. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) I ask to see their mini-bottles, because I don’t want to buy a 750 mL and I also want to give some new brands a shot. They had none. But after a few short minutes of small talk, they started opening up bottles of bourbon and whiskey and we were having our own little tasting party. I was probably there for about :30 minutes just talking and sampling, and it was actually a good time. These guys didn’t know much about bourbon, and I actually up-sold a few of their customers to a super-premium brand. I ended up getting a whiskey that’s unique due to the fact that its primary grain is wheat (rather than corn, barley or rye). And it’s quite good, and they sold it to me at a discount. Good times; good times....

Yeah, the anti-Bush theme is pretty obvious. And the self-flagalation is pretty much a given. But here's what I was wondering. To me, the song basically sounds like a repudiation of engagement with the world. It sounds like he's saying that he, like Bush, used to care, but seeing how things turned out, he's done with the caring now. I don't know ...

As for being a NIN fan, I would call myself a "hits" man. Love the songs "Head Like a Hole" (a capitalist rant), "Closer" (nasty, nasty piece with a phenomenal hook and a very interesting perspective), "Terrible Lie" (very hard to find in its original form and just an abomination of a message), "Hand that Feeds" (interesting thoughts) and now "Capital G."

I started listening back in Wheaton during my stay in the Black Hills. There was a girl (whose name eludes me) and we actually became pretty good friends. Kim! That was it. Anyway, she was nominally into NIN and introduced me to ... was it "Pretty Hate Machine?" I think so.

Geez Scott--I was never one good at English or linguistics, so of all people don’t ask me.

Captial G refers to Geoge H. W. Bush III. The first verse seems to deal with how Trent may have voted for him, help get him elected, and then subsequently elected himself into a war in Iraq. The second verse may be G-dub’s argument that freeing Iraq is important. Perhaps the second verse also alludes to how our soldiers are dying to gain others’ (i.e., “have-not’s”) independence. The third paragraph (chorus)--not entirely sure. Perhaps he’s talking about the Christian right selling out their values in support for G-dub. The 4th paragraph (third verse) may be mocking G-dub’s “short-sided” disbelief in global warming. The 5th paragraph (bridge?) seems to be sung from G-dub’s perspective. Perhaps Trent is saying that G-dub wasn’t always as “evil”, power-hungry or otherwise “corrupted” as he is now. But his position’s power eventually corrupted him. Later (6th paragraph), perhaps Trent is saying that this ability to corrupt via “absolute power” is in all of us. In any event, it seems to be an anti-Bush song; that much, I feel confident.

Anyway--I don’t know. It’s a catchy song though. Didn’t know that you were a fan.

Hey Greg,

So I'm having some trouble diciphering the meaning of these lyrics. They seem pretty straightforward, but they don't necessarily line up with Trent's history. What do you think?

Hey! I just saw me some robot on robot action; and as Greg said, if you can willingly suspend all sense of belief, you're in for a good time.

Hey Guys--I've been contacted by an MTV producer of their "True Life" series. Apparently, they want to come down and film my prosthetic device on one of their "cast members" (i.e., person who stutters). Seems like a neat opportunity, but the idea of being portrayed in a fashion in which I would have limited input freaks me out. I've met w/ the producer, and he seems like an honest-enough 20-something. But still... Thoughts?

Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma is resigning after sparking outrage with remarks suggesting that the US atomic bombings of Japan were the inevitable way to end World War II.

With the state's weather forecasters not delivering much-needed rain, Gov. Bob Riley on Thursday turned to a higher power. The governor issued a proclamation calling for a week of prayer for rain, beginning Saturday.

Finally, is anyone going to see Transformers? Thinking about hitting the 12:30 today...
Update: OMFGosh. I know the film's received mixed reviews, but if you can suspend huge amounts of disbelief and think like a kid again--you will not be disappointed. Michael Bay did not disappoint.