Just random thoughts

So it’s December 28th, and the year is coming to an end. You all know what that means? Dave Barry writes his annual "Year in Review" article! Woohoo! Thankfully for me and for you who feel an obligation to read this due to family ties, friendship ties, or possible blackmail I will not be review my life in the past year, but I will at least try to catch you up on something that seems interesting.

Christmas time is always exciting. Except for the fact that it wasn’t really all that exciting… I was still in a final exam induced coma by the time Christmas rolled around and missed out on all the anticipation for it this year. Luckily the Christmas break has served as an effective remedy to my coma. As it is I have taken a very anticipated break from school and read a couple of books, an online comic, caught up on some sleep, visited with family (haven’t quite gotten to the friends part yet, that’s on this week’s to do list), sang in a Christmas cantata, watched half of season 1 of 24, and slept some more.
Emily and I have discovered Google video chat. I remember trying to get into the video chat world years ago but it was too slow and the voice chat was even worse. Now it is much faster. I am anticipating the end of the week when my girlfriend ends up down here in Henderson. As well as the middle of the week when Melanie, Mathis and Aubrey stop by on their way down to San Diego. Who knows what other exciting events lay in wait for me this week!

At the beginning of December I bought a pair of scissors. I found it mildly amusing that I needed a pair of scissors in order to order and use these pair of scissors. I have discovered that this effect only increases. My mom got a pack of 5 kitchen style scissors for Christmas. It took some pretty heavy duty scissors to make that extraction.

We went to Arizona for a few days before Christmas. I stayed pretty busy up there too. The first Grandpa, Dad, and I played golf and then we headed over to the rec center and played racquetball. My dad and I found ourselves locked in an epic duel of something epic. Last year Dad smoked Chris and me. I have since taken a class and Dad and I are at pretty much the same level. So I took an early lead in the game and was looking good but I have a knack for being a choke artist (In pool as well, ask Uncle Ken or Alex). That and my dad figured out his backhand swing. So He made a run and took the lead at which point I started to score again and it was head to head until my dad finally squeaked away with a 16-14 win. We didn’t play another game to say the least. Apparently we are both getting out of shape.

Freakonomics at work

I have been taking a class called Econometrics this semester. We learn how to do statistical analysis on any data that has numbers or can have numbers put to it. Most of the book “Freakonomics” uses econometrics, at least in part, to arrive at the conclusions they have. I’m working on a project that is somewhat akin to that. Basically what I’m doing using data on the price of baseball cards and testing to see if there is racial bias in the price for a baseball card. The price of a baseball card is the result of the demand for that certain card. The demand for a card is usually based on how successful that player was. So using the career statistics for every baseball player in a card set I’m testing to see if there are black baseball players that have high career stats but a low priced baseball card. It should be interesting to see what the final results are. Perhaps I won’t find anything. Perhaps I will. Who knows.

On a related note, I had a professor last year who was involved in a project with Justin Wolfers to test for racial bias in foul calls by referees in the NBA. They used box score data from the 1993-94 season all the way to the 2003-04 season to test for any racial bias in foul calls. The media went up in arms, the NBA criticized it and individual basketball players took their own shots. When you look through the comments from the media and then actually read the study you realize how oblivious some people really are. The comments from NBA players were amusing. But none of them read the study, just heard about it. Charles Barkley was my favorite. He said that of course black players receive more fouls than white players; there are more of them in the NBA. Then he said "The thing that bothered me most is these guys didn't even go to the game. They looked at box scores." I don’t think that in order to crunch numbers, you have to go to every single game for 10 years just to get the “feel” for it.

I think I found something that people who report on studies get wrong often. When you read statistical studies you will find the words “significant” and “not significant” attached to the numbers reported. Real world significance and statistical significance are to different things. Significance in statistics means that the data is consistent enough to confidently say that there is an effect. Let’s say we find that the average price of a specific bag at a normal store is $30. Now the average price of the same bag at stores by the beach is $50. So we can say that beach stores sell bags for $20 more. Now what if the price from each store looked like this: Store 1: $10, Store 2: $70, Store 3:$20, Store 4: $30, Store 5: $90, Store 6: $80. The average is still $50, but the prices vary so much that it isn’t very significant. In the case of the NBA study a player receives 0.18 fewer fouls from referees of his own race than another race. This is during 48 minutes played. The results are “significant” meaning that the variation is small enough to not just pass it off as random variation. However, to a basketball player that means that assuming he plays 48 minutes in every game and that all 3 referees were a different race for all those games, he would get about 1 foul call race every 5 games. Who is going to notice that? No wonder the basketball players haven’t noticed any bias. For all practical purposes, there isn’t much. The study shines more of a light on the fact that on split second decisions, the subconscious part of our brain can have an effect.

Well this is getting long and it’s probably extremely boring to everyone except me. And maybe my Uncle Ken… and Craig… and perhaps Danielle… Sorry to everyone else!

Priorities and more!

Well August passed away with one lonely blog post and September looks like it is trying to get away scotch free. But I shall not be conquered by the likes of laziness. (That statement is going to come back and bite me I know it!) So it’s been a good month or so. School has started up and I’m doing my best to prioritize my life with good priority orders. Of course once I started doing that everything shot up to the first 2 or three priority categories. There’s only so much room up there. :) I wish I had like 10 first priority spots! So here’s how things are going. School is definitely a high priority. Even higher this semester than it was in past semesters. I would like to show school who is boss! Of course there is Frisbee. That is so big I even have to split that up into different priorities: the BYU Team, then Orem Ultimate, then BYU Intramural Frisbee, and lastly casual pick-up games. As it stands right now the last two don’t make it onto my list and consequently are non-existent in my life. So then you can add most musical activities into a priority which, while important is not too high up there this semester. Church is of course quite a high priority. I’m the Family Home Evening Coordinator for my group here. I just got called to it today. Again. Even though I already had that calling and never got released from it. I hope that doesn’t mean that I’m the dad and the mom. That would be silly.

BYU football is quite the excitement of the semester. We are four games into the season, and it’s been a doozy! We have won all four of them so far and our winning streak keeps getting larger. Shutting out UCLA and Wyoming was a treat. Even though some people don’t like shutouts because they get boring, I’m a die-hard. So that’s all peachy for the moment.

And one last slightly unexpected but highly welcomed incident. I have a wonderful girlfriend now. We started dating two weeks ago. We have known each other for about two years now and pretty much accidentally started dating each other. Since most of you who read this have probably already heard the story I’ll not put it on here. But you can always ask me if you want to know. I’ll tell you the real story of how it went. She won’t tell the whole truth, but I knew what was really going on! :)

Frisbay! Trio! Olympics!

Frisbay!

So if you haven’t seen this already then you need to now.

http://vimeo.com/358109

That said, I had a Frisbee tournament in Park City last Saturday. It went well. We actually only went 2-4. We lost 2 games by 1 point and another one by 2 points. They were all really close. What we didn’t expect when we first arrived was to play 6 games in a row. After the first game our team captain came over and said that we had 6 games in a row and no bye times. So what does that translate to? Well, it’s about 9 hours in all. So 9 hours, 10 miles, 100+ jumps, and 30+ dives later we all hobbled off the playing fields feeling…. great! Some would say that we have some mental problem. I don’t think any of us would disagree with you.

I visited home this weekend which meant a couple of things. I got to follow the Olympics more closely. I went to a couple of wedding receptions. And I hung out with the Trio! The Trio is slightly altered since I last left it back in January. Both of them have girlfriends now. So that meant that while we were in all our awesomeness Dallin and Brock had girls in their arms. Luckily these girls don’t put a hamper on anything. And luckily Eliza was there to relieve me of my status as a 5th wheel.

To the Olympics. I saw two historic things happen this weekend. Both were impressive, but one was tainted. We’ll start with the perfect one and then I’ll step on to my soap box. Michael Phelps as we all know won 8 gold medals. That is a feat. Pure and simple. The crazy thing is that in 7 of those races he set a world record, and in all 8 he got a personal best. That means that every race he raced in the finals was the best race of his life. Talk about pushing yourself. I spent my whole senior year trying to best my personal record in the mile and only managed to break it once. By one second. And that was it. This guy did it 8 times in one week! Wow. I need to get some of whatever he ate in the morning.

The other amazing thing that happened was that the world record in the 100 meter sprint was broken. Usain Bolt broke his own world record bringing it from 9.72 to 9.69. This was a stacked race as well. 6 of the 8 runners ran under 10 seconds. Now, here is my problem with the race. Bolt started out a bit slow. He was the 7th man out of the blocks. Then his long legs kicked in and he blew past everyone and with 20 meter to go he had a good 10 foot lead on everyone. So what does he do? He spreads his arms out, looks around, pounds his chest and starts gloating as he cruises in to a 9.69 finish ahead of everyone else. That’s just bad sportsmanship. And think, what if he had run all the way through. He may have been able to run in the 9.5’s. He could have eclipsed the world record. But it was more important to him to gloat and receive praise and glory. So as he danced around the track, millions of kids watched and started idolizing and taking mental notes about how one should act towards other people. So here are the rules that have been taught: Rule one: Make sure everyone knows that you are better than them. Rule 2: When you have established that you are better than everyone else, make sure that your conduct afterwards brings all the focus to you and at the same time rubs it in the face of everyone else.

So much for sportsmanship. Track and Field just barely got out of the cross fire from doping scandals and now when people start looking at it again as a respectable sport we have this. Well congrats to Usain Bolt, it was an amazing race regardless. So much for class though.

New Car

So I finally did it and got a car. It’s a classic college car. You know… 10 years old, fairly high mileage. But the sucker is a trusty one. It’s an Acura Integra. So it’s made well and reliable for another 100,000 miles or so. Anyways when I tell people that I got a new car they always ask what color it is first, then what kind of a car it is and then say something like “Welp, you’ll be married in no time now.” Funny sort of. One of my good friends is engaged to be married next month and he had the same reaction. I told him that everyone says that and he said, “Well I struggled with girls for a long time and then I got a cell phone and a car and now I’m married.” Are all girls materialistic like that? No I don’t think so. But there is a slight looked down upon-ness there. Whether it’s an unconscious thing in the back of you mind or something else, it’s definitely there. It seems like you can just tell. Which is kind of lame. But I guess all of Bugs Bunny’s foes had a way of dealing with that. It’s the old classic saying “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” Is that what I’m doing? Well I guess I am. Yet part of me still wants to be stubborn. Really stubborn. And I would be it if I had any idea how to be stubborn in this situation. But alas, I haven’t the faintest idea of what to do or refrain from doing to be stubborn. I guess I could refuse to use my car on dates. Maybe that would do it. That seems, bitter… and not very flattering to anyone though. Or at best silly. No sense in doing any of that. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get some pictures up of the car. I’m not a very good picture taker so I usually don’t have pictures on hand to just throw on a blog.

Last Comic Standing

The other day I was flipping through the channels on the good ol’ tube and I came across the Last Comic Standing program. I thought, well hey this could be good. I was also watching about three other things at the same time, so I would only flip back to it periodically. But I was able to watch a couple of comics. What I found interesting was the reaction of the judges. I don’t really know who the judges were, but they seemed like they were important and that they knew something about comedy. I’m going to start with the second comedian I saw. He was a high energy guy and his routine was basically a re-enactment of a plane fight during world war two. He wasn’t the funniest guy ever, but I think it was more the fact that his material was poor than him being a bad comedian. Even though his material was somewhat lame he still pulled some funny stuff out of it by being a good comedian. During the routine he impersonated a Japanese fighter pilot and he would put on these outrageous looking glasses that played up the Japanese stereo-type. They did look pretty funny. When he did this it showed the judges reaction. They looked at each other with a look of “Oh, this is lame.” At the end of his routine they told him that Japanese jokes are a thing of the 50’s, people did that thing already, it was time to get some new stuff. The crowed booed what they said, apparently they liked the routine.

Now, back to the first routine I saw. This guy was pretty funny, but it didn’t look like the judges were taking to him much either. They had that look on their faces of, “yeah yeah I’ve seen this all before.” So I think he pulled out his trump card. He started to crack jokes making fun of President Bush. At that the judges started rolling, like it was the funniest thing you’ve ever heard. Yeah, the jokes were funny, but it wasn’t as funny as his earlier routine. But these guys loved it. I don’t really know why, they railed on the other guy for using “old material.” Well I have only seen one modern comedian that hasn’t made fun of President Bush in his routine. That’s Brian Regan. Every other comedian that I’ve seen in the past 8 years has always railed on Bush. It’s like comedians don’t know any other way to be funny. I don’t really care what your political stance is or how much you love or hate Bush, but come on, you would think that you could think of something else to make people laugh. But apparently the “Elite” have ordered that only making fun of Bush is funny. If you don’t make fun of him you don’t get to jump into the elite club and you won’t be recognized as an “acclaimed comedian.” So I guess these judges are really pushing their own agenda. It’s OK to make fun of the President, but don’t make fun of the Japanese because then you are a racist and a menace to our Brave New World Society.

Moving

So I just moved from West Cambridge #8 on Condo Row to the infamous Monticello White brick apartments by the duck pond. So I was actually feeling quite down about moving. And then I checked the apartment out and realized I had forgotten how small it was and things started to fall down on me. I started to really want to go back to my old place where I knew everyone and life was predictable. Then I walked into the bathroom and saw that we have a spiderman shower curtain. So there I thought, “I think it’s going to be alright.” I met my new roommate as well. (Really tall guy!) I saw his shoes before I ever saw him and it was obvious that he is a big guy. He’s pretty chill. Slightly introverted, but quite nice. We get along quite nicely, which was a good thing for a worried mind. In any case, the move went nicely and I’m settled in. The place is smaller, but there are more drawers and closet space than the old apartment. It makes me live a bit more compactly and organized. I just barely got my piano in. It took me a few days to figure out a good spot to put the piano. It is now in my room sitting majestically to my left. Her name is McKenzy. I like that name.