Word games May 22, 2007
Besides my love of all things math, the thing that most makes me a dork is my interest in word games.  I thoroughly believe the myth that says crossword puzzles help prevent Alzheimer's*.  Whenever I travel, I spend all my downtime playing crossword puzzles because they're freely and readily available in newspapers and airline magazines.  USA Today even has them online.  My newest word game interest is Super Text Twist (direct link - click link, click mouse in address bar, press enter), which asks you to come up with as many different 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-letter words as possible, given a set of 6 letters.  I'm not usually the kind of person who plays "learning" games in the first place, so I don't quite understand this fad.  Either way, I'm so not getting Alzheimer's. 

*While trying to think of this word, I had to stop everything and stare blankly into space.  This is bad. #entertainment
Big bills May 22, 2007
In February of 2007, 1300 residents of Weatherford, Texas received electric bills saying they owed billions of dollars. 

In April of 2006, a Malaysian man received a $218 trillion phone bill after he canceled his deceased father's phone line. #money
Bike to work (1) May 22, 2007
I'm thinking about riding a bike to and from work instead of driving.  I can think of at least 7 reasons why this would be a good idea: 
  1. It would lower my cholesterol, which has been slightly high in the past.
  2. It would give me a healthy heart and a strong body.
  3. It would reduce my fossil fuel consumption, which would have some sort of effect on the environment, though small.
  4. It would drastically cut down on the money I pay for gas.
  5. It would reduce the amount of wear and tear I put on my car, thus reducing maintenance costs.
  6. It would eliminate my time in traffic, though I don't spend much time in traffic in the first place.  Still, zero is better than some.
  7. It would give me a big ego, as I tell people, "That's right, I ride my bike to work, and it's not because I lost my license."
I can think of at least 4 things that would prevent or deter me from doing it: 
  1. Riding a bike on Route 15 may cause injury or death, but it's only about 2000 feet.
  2. It'll add about 30 minutes to each leg of my commute.
  3. I don't know if I can ride a bike for 10 miles at a time, only to do it again 9 hours later.
  4. I might have a problem finding a shower at work that isn't another 2 miles from my building.
I think I just need to try it out to see if it's possible.  And maybe I wouldn't do it everyday; maybe only 2-3 times per week, weather dependent.  I should probably ride a bike around my neighborhood first to see if I can make it up hills.  We'll see. #psychology
Eyesight (1) May 22, 2007
I have frighteningly poor eyesight.  I'm nearsighted, meaning I can't see things that are far away.  I have no trouble reading or staring at a computer screen all day, I just can't see words on street signs and the faces of people down the hall.  I often wonder if I continually make enemies with people I work with because I can't recognize their faces.  When I look down the mile-long hallway at work (seriously, my building is phenomenally long and straight), I sometimes see people in the middle or at the other end.  Or at least I think they're people.  They're basically just people-shaped blobs with no colors or distinguishing features.  When I see people that far away, I usually look down or look away so I won't feel obligated to attempt to identify them.  To a person halfway down the hall, that could definitely look like a "hey I know you but I don't want to acknowledge your existence" kind of look.  If I get beat up one day on the playground after work, I'll know why. 

I used to cheat on eyesight tests in high school.  I knew I had horrible vision, but I wasn't willing to acknowledge the fact that I needed glasses.  I functioned perfectly fine without them (minus the road signs and distant facial recognition thing) in most areas of life, so there was really no need to carry around a fragile, expensive object that would either make me look smart or gain me nicknames (I'd lean towards the latter).  So whenever I got my vision checked, I would wait until the test administrator (usually the nurse) turned to look at the chart, and I would remove the eye cover and look at the chart with both eyes (my left eye is pretty much useless).  This got me through at least 2 or 3 years of regular physicals. 

Sometime in college, I finally admitted that glasses might help.  I couldn't see road signs when I was driving at night, so I would get hopelessly lost and be late to things.  I couldn't see the chalkboard in class, but thankfully this didn't affect me since no learning takes place in a college classroom.  I got my eyes checked and got glasses, and now I can see.  The only problem is that I leave them in the car so I can use them while driving at night, so all other times when glasses might be useful happen without eyesight.  This is especially bad when two good eyes are a requirement, such as 3D or IMAX movies. #health