Getting Healthy

I don't usually get around to eating all the fruits and vegetables I buy before they go bad. So about a month ago, I started making smoothies to try to use them up. I've been on a smoothie kick ever since. I didn't think it would last very long, because my usual philosophy on food is: "If it takes more than 30 seconds to make, that's too much effort." But for now I'm still going at it.

It's not a good idea to use more than about three ingredients in a smoothie, because then the tastes all merge together and you can't really taste anything specific. But today, just for fun, I thought I'd make the ultimate smoothie, with ALL the ingredients. Here's what I included:

• 3 bananas
  
• 10 strawberries
  
• A handful of blueberries
  
• 1/2 cup of chunk pineapple
  
• An apple
  
• 1/2 cup of orange juice
  
• A few baby carrots
  
• A celery stalk
  
• About 2 inches of cucumber
  
• A handful of spinach
  
• 5 ice cubes
  

It actually tasted pretty good, even though you couldn't really make out individual tastes. The color was, well... you decide:



Around the same time I started making smoothies, I also started making "health pizzas". I use whole wheat crust, lots of vegetables, some pineapple, turkey pepperoni (70% less fat!), and sometimes actual turkey as a topping. But the most visible difference is the spinach, which is kind of a separate layer between the sauce and the toppings. The spinach doesn't have too much taste after cooking, but it adds to the nutritional value. (Even though all the good stuff gets killed when you cook vegetables...yeah yeah.)

(The pizza in the pictures below did not have the whole wheat crust.)

Funny Videos by Barats and Bereta

I recently ran across these guys, another so called Internet meme, i.e. phenomenon. I have to admit I find them much funnier than most of the Internet "sensations". I had seen the Mother's Day video on facebook a while ago without knowing who made it or that they had other videos. Then I saw a link to another one recently and realized that I could waste over an hour of my life watching these short videos. WARNING: Some of them are a little on the PG-13 side. View at your own risk.

If you only want to waste 10 or 15 minutes of your life, these are the main ones that I thought were funny:

1. MANtage CLASSIC!
   
2. harty boys
   
3. The Sexy Milk Jump This one is definitely PG-13 rated, but the end kills me. If you don't know about the Numa guy, you can do your homework here. Or you can view the original Numa video. And yes, apparently that is the real Numa guy in their video.
   
4. completely uncalled for
   
5. mother's day
   
6. Douche Off
   
7. so smooth
   
8. double dragon
   

Kid shot after robbing my rental house

I got a call on Wednesday from a tenant who lives in a rental house that I own in Glendale. She had come home from work early to find a burglar in the house! The burglar had broken in by breaking a bedroom window. She said she tried the door but it wouldn't open. When she called I thought she was talking about the front door but thinking about it later, she might have been referring to the door to the bedroom where he had broken in, because he apparently left out the window and fled.

So she called 911, and the cops came. She said they were there within 1 minute! They searched the area and found the burglar! Or at least they found someone suspicious. The suspect pulled a weapon on the officers, and they opened fire. The poor kid died in the hospital from the gunshot wounds.

When I got the call, the news was already on the front page of azcentral, with a video interview of one of the officers. After seeing the news reports I was a little concerned that they weren't revealing what kind of "weapon" the kid had pulled on the officers. Did he just pull out a wrench and get shot for it? Then today an article came out claiming that he had had a semi-automatic handgun. Hopefully they aren't just making that up as an excuse for the shooting.

The articles also made it sound like the tenant "confronted" the burglar, so I'm not really sure what went down in the house. The only thing that's clear is that he broke in through a window and eventually ran away after she came home.

Fun times in landlording! Think twice before you buy a rental in the hood. Actually this house isn't even in the hood, but it kind of borders it.

The window cost me $200, plus I'm going to be installing an alarm system in the house. Not too rough of a deal for me. I just feel bad for the tenant and worse for the kid.

Mountain West 5, PAC-10 ZERO!

So much for the BCS conferences dominating the mid majors! The Mountain West is 5-0 against the PAC-10, capped off by BYU's complete destruction of UCLA, 59-0!

2008 Results So Far: BYU 59 UCLA 0 UNLV 23 ASU 20 TCU 31 Stanford 14 New Mexico 36 Arizona 28 BYU 28 Washington 27

Since when was your conference so pathetic?

Yet another example of why the monopolistic nazi "good ol' boy" BCS system is lame and there should be an equal opportunity playoff at the end of the year!

Game Show Host problem

In the movie 21, Kevin Spacey brings up a math/logic/probability problem called the Game Show Host Problem.

In the movie the problem was described something like this: You are a contestant on a game show and you have to choose between three doors, one of which has a new car behind it. The other two doors have goats behind them. The game show host tells you to pick a door. You do so, at which point the game show host opens up one of the other two doors to show you a goat. The host then asks you if you would like to switch your choice to the other closed door. The question then is: Should you switch your choice, or should you stick with your original choice?

The answer in the movie was that you should switch, because you have a 2/3 chance of winning if you switch, and a 1/3 chance if you stick with your original choice. Mathematically that is correct (you can see an explanation here). But they left out an important assumption, which is that the game show host always asks you if you would like to switch doors. If the game show host's behavior is unpredictable, then the probability is unpredictable, but if we know that the host always asks if you want to switch doors, then you do have a 2/3 chance of winning by switching.

The simplest explanation I can come up with is that when you make your initial choice, you clearly have a 1/3 chance of being correct. Then, even after the game show host opens one of the doors, your initial choice still had a 1/3 chance of being correct, so the other door must have a 2/3 chance of being correct, since it's the only one left.

I was discussing the problem with my roommate after watching the movie. It's kind of a hard thing to grasp, because it seems like it should be a 50% probability either way. But it's not.

So, to "prove" the results, and also to prove how nerdy I am, I wrote a quick Perl program to simulate the results. I'm pretty rusty since I haven't done any programming to speak of in the last couple of years, so it took 150 lines when a good programmer could probably have done it in 15.

But sure enough, when running the program, you win approximately 2/3 of the time if you switch doors, and approximately 1/3 of the time if you don't switch. Check it out:

% ./goat_problem.pl --switch=true --iterations=10000000
Switching... Won 6667355 out of 10000000 Times!

% ./goat_problem.pl --switch=false --iterations=10000000
NOT Switching... Won 3333678 out of 10000000 Times!

Top 10 (Mostly Phone Related) Annoyances

I'm sitting on hold, waiting for someone to take my call. Some lady keeps interrupting my musical experience... "Thank you for your patience! Your call is very important! Please remain on the line... blah blah blah". How annoying! Just play the music and let me work on something else until a real person picks up!

Not a very positive mindset, I know, but this led me to start thinking about other things that annoy me. While I'm waiting, I might as well make a top 10 list of things that annoy me, starting with the current issue:

10) When I'm on hold and the hold music is constantly interrupted by a voice saying "Thank you for holding, your call is very important, please remain on the line..." Just play the darn music and leave me alone!

9) Boxes of paper clips that are labeled "Staples" (Yes I'm just looking around on my desk for things that annoy me. It's harder than you think to come up with 10 annoyances!)

8) Online video players that hang in the middle of a clip even though the clip is already sufficiently downloaded to your computer (such as the Microsoft Starlight player or whatever it's called used by the NBC Olympics website)

7) Asterisks that don't lead anywhere (except for the one in the LunchClub.com logo)

6) When an automated phone menu asks you to enter your account number or social security number, and then when you reach the attendent they ask for the same info

5) Automated phone menus that claim "Our menu options have changed" (YOUR OPTIONS HAVE NOT CHANGED! STOP INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE!!)

4) Ridiculous made up fees on bank accounts, such as the "Inactivity Fee" (Yes, I'm talking to you, Chase Bank.)

3) When I'm trying to leave a voice mail and I have to sit through a long obnoxious automated message, such as "The caller you are attempting to reach is not available. At the tone I will take your message, or press 5 to page this person. Press 6 to leave a call back number. When you are finished with your message, if you are satisfied with your message, press pound, or hang up to deliver the mesage, or press star for more options. [PAUSE...] [PAUSE...] [CALLER COMMITTING SUICIDE...] BEEEEEP!"

2) When my Internet connection is slow

And finally, the biggest annoyance of them all...

1) The term "pet peeve"

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I saw a movie recently called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's about a French guy named Jean-Dominique Bauby who had a stroke at age 43 and became completely paralyzed, after which he was only able to communicate by blinking his left eye.

His speech therapist developed a system for communication which consisted of her repeating over and over a modified alphabet, which was ordered by the frequency of use of each letter. When she got to the right letter, he had to blink once. Then she would being again repeating the alphabet for the next letter.

After coming to terms with his situation, Bauby ended up dictating an entire book using that alphabet blinking system!

While the computer scientist in me was appalled that they didn't come up with a more efficient dictation system, I felt compelled to read his book. I figured that if this guy could have the incredible tenacity to crank out a complete book one letter at a time, that I had to at least check out what he had to say. So I ordered the book on Amazon.

It's an interesting read. Bauby was a journalist, actually the editor-in-chief of French Elle, so he's an eloquent and poetic writer. Reading it of course made me think about the human condition, the fragility of our day to day lives, and the need to savor the moments and appreciate the little things. But the most moving thing to me was just the fact that he wrote it at all, using that incredibly tedious system. Pretty amazing.

If you're wondering about the title, as I was, a Diving Bell is a "cable-suspended airtight chamber, open at the bottom, that is lowered underwater...to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers." Bauby describes his condition as being trapped in a giant invisible diving bell. And he uses butterflies as a metaphor for his ability to escape the diving bell through journeys of the imagination.

Helen DeSantis Tanner

My Italian grandmother (my dad's mom) passed away on Tuesday, June 17. I went up to Utah for the funeral.

Helen DeSantis Tanner Helen DeSantis Tanner, age 91 of Springville, passed away Tuesday, June 17, 2008. She was born February 19, 1917 in Frontier, Wyoming to Henry DeSantis and Elvira Vennarucci. She married John Tanner on May 16, 1941 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Helen was raised and attended schools in Wyoming, moving to Utah in 1942 and has lived in Springville since 1946. She loved square and ballroom dancing. She also enjoyed playing bridge. Helen was an excellent cook. She is survived by her husband of Springville, two sons: Paul (Mel) Tanner of Duchesne, Roy (Joann) Tanner of Kirksville, Missouri; 13 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. Graveside services will be held Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 11 a.m. in the Springville Evergreen Cemetery. Friends may call at Wheeler Mortuary, 211 East 200 South in Springville on Saturday from 9:30 to 10:30 prior to the services. Condolences may be sent at www.wheelermortuary.com Published in the Daily Herald on 6/19/2008.

It was definitely her time. She's been suffering for a while, and she's in a better place now. The last time my dad spoke to her, she said something like "I don't know where we go from here." I believe she meant that she didn't see any possible road to recovery. That's a tough spot to be in, and we were glad for the suffering to be over.

But it will take a little getting used to the idea. Ever since I've been alive, my dad's parents have been in that same house in Springville that my grandpa built himself, probably more than 60 years ago. Ever since I can remember, whenever we went for a visit we've always played cards with them, usually progressive rummy. We always sat at that same table with the chairs that swing in and out that they've always had. We always had homemade cookies and ice cream. We would talk to Grandpa about sports and to Grandma about bridge. Grandma would usually yell at Grandpa for something or other.

Some things seem like they've always been the same, and they'll always be the same. When those things change, it's like a wake up call, it's like you're waking up from a dream, and you realize that reality isn't what you thought it was a moment ago. And then you have to ask, "Where do we go from here?" And hopefully you have a good answer.

PARASKAVEDEKATRIAPHOBIA

Just in case you wanted to be able to name your fear this coming Friday...


par·a·ska·ve·dek·a·tri·a·pho·bi·a
    -noun
    the fear of Friday the 13th

Annie's Song

At my sister's wedding, my brothers and I failed to give a toast or say anything at the dinner, so we came up with a little song at the brunch the following morning.



Here's the direct link. And here's a link to the original in case you've never heard it.

We'll be making millions on iTunes in no time. (And then we'll be sued by John Denver's estate...)

Lyrics to the last verse:

You fill up Thomas's senses
Like a night in the French Quarter
Like the Thousand Hills of Kirksville
Like the Journal Printing Building
Like the Depot in La Plata
Like a storm in the Sunken Garden
Like that one place in Paris
Where Thomas proposed

The Explanation:

Like a night in the French Quarter
They're going to New Orleans for the honeymoon.

Like the Thousand Hills of Kirksville
There's a state park near Kirksville called Thousand Hills State Park.

Like the Journal Printing Building
The wedding was held at a banquet hall that was previously a print shop called the Journal Printing Building.

Like the Depot in La Plata
The hotel they stayed at the night of the wedding was called The Depot Inn, in a nearby town called La Plata.

Like a storm in the Sunken Garden
The wedding was supposed to be held at the Sunken Garden at the university, but due to inclement weather it was moved to the banquet hall which was previously scheduled for only the reception.

Like that one place in Paris where Thomas proposed
Fairly self explanatory.

The Heat is On!

The desert winter seemed to last much longer than usual this year. We were into mid-May and the nights were still cool. But this past Saturday the heat arrived all of a sudden and we jumped into the triple digits. This is the fun time of year when the electric bills double and people try to remember why they moved to the desert in the first place.

Go Away

I sent out an email to a bunch of realtors about an open house this weekend. In the footer, instead of putting, "Click here to unsubscribe" or something like that, I put "You are in my list of realtor contacts. If you prefer to not receive any additional emails from me, just reply with the words 'Go Away' in the subject line."

For some reason I found that funny. But I found it even more funny when the removal requests started coming back. I got one that said "'Go Away' is so harsh... how about 'Please Remove'", another that said "Please Remove (I couldn't bring myself to say GO AWAY!)", and a couple that said "Go away please". But most of them seemed to revel in the nastiness of saying "Go Away!"

Here's a screenshot:

Happy Mother's Day

Question for Annie

Which of the following was most closely associated with the presidency of James K. Polk?

A) Manifest Destiny
B) The Abolitionist Movement
C) Economic Development
D) The Whig Party

I Won't Cheat

Amy pointed out that Dale Murphy, one of my childhood heroes, has a foundation called I Won't Cheat, that helps kids develop some ethics in sports and life.

I thought their video was classic:

Heterochromia

Some people call us mutants, or X-men, but apparently I have a condition called heterochromia. I always knew I had the condition, but I never considered the fact that it might have a name, until a nurse friend of mine filled me in recently. Heterochromia is where you have different colored eyes, or a different color in part of one eye. In my case it's called partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia, because my eyes are blue but a part of one of my eyes is brown.

My Eyes

Kate Bosworth's Eyes

iTunes in the car

I need a stereo with built in iTunes. I've gotta have it.

I'm sick of having to use an FM transmitter to use my iPod in the car. I don't want a cassette adapter. What I want is to be able to sync all the music from my iPod onto my car stereo, and then leave the iPod AT HOME!

Here's an article from more than 2 years ago promoting the same thing. Is it out there yet? Surely someone has come up with this product! I will pay hundreds of dollars for it, as, I'm sure, will millions of other people. Apple, where are you??

Fixer Upper

Here are some before and after pics from a house that I fixed up and sold recently in the hood.

BEFORE

See more BEFORE pics...







See more BEFORE pics...

---

AFTER

See more AFTER pics...







See more AFTER pics...

Food Court Musical

My favorite improv troupe was at it again, this time staging a musical in a food court at a Los Angeles mall, seemingly out of nowhere. The video is great, I thought the expressions of the onlookers were amazingly hilarious. The guy at the very end of the musical who says "Here's a napkin" is "Agent" Todd, the creator of Improv Everywhere.

Still Number One Team (SNOT)

I play ultimate in a local rec league. My team for the spring league was the undisputed, undefeated heavyweight league champion of the world! Maybe it was a shortened season with only 6 games, but we still won! Our team name was SNOT... and we were hot!

Don't talk back to Darth Vader

I thought this video was pretty awesome.

Beloved Prophet Continues Work on the Other Side

I was at a fireside about the Dead Sea Scrolls when a friend whispered to me that President Hinckley had passed away. I went to cnn.com on my phone but they didn't have anything about it. I checked wikipedia and it showed his life as June 23, 1910 – January 27, 2008, which confirmed it. I tried to get onto deseretnews.com and ksl.com, but they were slammed. I eventually was able to get a page to load enough to at least see the headline.

What a great man and great leader he was! I will miss his tireless efforts, his eternal optimism, and his jokes in the priesthood sessions of General Conference.

We will miss you President Hinckley, but your work lives on!

Google Betrayal

I have always been a huge fan of Google and their services. Until now.

I had an account on google's picasaweb where I posted the pictures of my real estate projects. All of a sudden I went there today and it says "This content has been removed because it violates our Terms of Service". All the pictures are gone. Hundreds of them. Many hours of work that I'll have to redo.

I combed through the terms of service, and there is nothing in there that I'm violating. All the pictures were taken by me, so there are no copyright issues. And there was no obscenity, unless you consider houses without sheet rock to be pornographic.

I will never love again.

In Layman's Terms

BYU was kind enough to send me an email called "My BYU News", letting me know (among other things), what the Chemistry Department is up to. Apparently they are "dedicated to the investigation of the supersonic expansion into the first vacuum stage of an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer..."

Isn't that what the scarecrow said when he got his brain?

Sonhos

Caetano Veloso has amazingly poetic and beautiful lyrics... in Portuguese. I tried translating some to English but it didn't quite have the same feel.

Sonhos (Dreams)

Tudo era apenas uma brincadeira
Everything used to be just a joke

E foi crescendo, crescendo, me absorvendo
But it started growing, growing, absorbing me

E de repente eu me vi assim completamente seu
And all of a sudden I realized that I was completely yours

Vi a minha força amarrada no seu passo
I saw my strength tied to your step

Vi que sem você não há caminho, eu não me acho
I saw that without you there is no way to find myself

Vi um grande amor gritar dentro de mim como eu sonhei um dia
I saw a great love yell inside me as I dreamed one day

Quando o meu mundo era mais mundo
When my world was greater (??)

E todo mundo admitia
And everyone admitted

Uma mudança muito estranha
A very strange change

Mais pureza, mais carinho, mais calma, mais alegria
More purity, more caring, more calm, More joy

No meu jeito de me dar
In my way of being

Quando a canção se fez mais clara e mais sentida
When the song became more clear and more intense

Quando a poesia realmente fez folia em minha vida
When poetry really caused a wild party in my life

Você veio me falar dessa paixão inesperada por outra pessoa
You came to talk to me about this unexpected passion for someone else

Mas não tem revolta não
But don't be bothered

Eu só quero que você se encontre
I only want you to find yourself

Saudade até que é bom
Nostalgia can actually be good

É melhor que caminhar vazio
It is better than being empty

A esperança é um dom
Hope is a gift

Que eu tenho em mim
that I have in me

Eu tenho sim
Yes I do

Não tem desespero não
Do not lose hope

Você me ensinou milhões de coisas
You taught me millions of things

Tenho um sonho em minhas mãos
I have a dream in my hands

Amanhã será um novo dia
Tomorrow will be a new day

Certamente eu vou ser mais feliz
I will definitely be happier