The Vegetables Are Speaking To Me

So far today, I've knocked out two certification exams, three customer calls, multiple email messages, the debugging and resolution of two customer-related issues, one flight, and a bunch of people watching. I still have to cover three states, 2hrs of flying, a drive home from the airport, probably a cold beer, and then a short sleep before I start the motor again tomorrow morning. Oddly, I don't feel like I've accomplished much today. I blame the 12-hr old airport sandwich I just ate. I thought it strange of the lettuce to be talking to me. The dancing I would expect, but not so much the talking. Hello Ms. Tomato!

Ohio, Wars, Floods, and Happy Babies

I've always liked the Cincinnati airport. It's small, quaint, generally very busy, but also unusually easy to navigate and action packed with people for the watching. People watching is really the thing that I like to do most in airports. Very few other places offer such a variety of emotions. Confusion, aggression, love, disappointment, joy, dismay, and many other can be seen just by sitting in a chair and watching the people walk through the terminal.

Seeing as how my airline seems to have lost our flight crew, we're now delayed over 90 minutes on the last fight to small town Iowa.. Seriously, I'm not making this shit up. (Side note... my emotions after this announcement resulted in partial insanity and possible physical brain damage.) So, I decide to get a little exercise and start slowly walking up and down the rows of people, just for the social fun of it. Here are some of the highlights:

• A slightly older woman, wearing one of those hair pieces that looks like a doiley, was busily knitting a very intricate thin piece of cloth. If I didn't know better, I would think that she was knitting the raw materials to actually make some kind of a shirt. This woman either has an abundant amount of self control and dedication, or she's a business traveler and knits the raw material for clothing compaines in her delay time at airports. Based on my experiences flying over the past several years, I'm banking on the latter, and I'm willing to bet that The Gap is too.
• A young woman, extremely tan with a hair cut that only a beautician would attempt to wear each and every day, was sitting in a chair, eating something. I'm not sure what she was eating, because I was distracted by her low cut brown strapless dress... sans bra from what I can tell. I chose to observe this until I saw fit to move on.
• A young woman, extremely tan with a hair cut that only a beautician would attempt to wear each and every day, was sitting in a chair, eating something. I'm not sure what she was eating, because I was distracted by the nasty glare and scowl she was radiating in my general direction. I saw it fit to move on.
• A young man, obviously in the army based on his garb, was having a deep conversation with a middle-aged gentleman about a recent war-time event he happened to live through. Most of the people around the men were listening in, intently, as he quietly, almost cautiously, attempted to tell the story. It was obviously very disturbing to him, and at one point, he started to cry. When it comes to american men and women and the war(s) our administration continues ramming down the throats of americans, as much as you despise the war, remember that these are real people, just like you and me. Hate the game, don't hate the player.
• A very young woman, looking like someone out of one of those craptacular high school california beach drama television shows, was sitting and reading US Weekly while a small swarm of men eye-balled her. Given her advanced reading level and her seeming peace with the ogglers, I don't think this is anything new to her. Seriously, who attempts air travel in a high heels and a one-piece strapless bar dress? I'm not complaining... I'm merely asking the question.
• A very large woman, holding her daughter while the daughter drinks milk from a bottle. In and of itself, not very strange, but the daughter appeared to be in the 3-4 year range of age. I'm certainly no parenting expert, or even a parent at all (at least not for the next 4-6 weeks), but I think that when your child starts to understand the individual letters on the yellow labels around the formula cans, it's time to star the weaning process. (Bonus side note: weaning is a word that is both funny and used far too infrequently. I award myself 5 extra points for using it correctly.)
• A man sitting near me, entering in page after page of accounting data to his computer one index finger keyboard click at a time. He mentions that he recently lost several weeks of digital records in a flood, along with his wife's business. He was "happy to be doing this" after seeing what others in the area are having to cope with. There is certainly something to be said for the midwestern work ethic and general demeanor. It's always refreshing to see it when traveling, and so often overlooked by those that live along side it each and every day. A trip to the east coast doesn't cure many things..., but this is one of them.
• My personal favorite: a woman, traveling with three children, all under the age of ten, a stroller, diaper bag, and all of the fixins. She is holding her youngest, a young boy, probably around 1yr old. The boy has a cell phone placed to his hear, and he goes back and forth between laughing, listening intently, and speaking baby gibberish, with the occasional phrase resembling "dada". The look on his face is priceless. Technology, as cold and complex as it generally seems, sometime allows wonderful things to happen.

Flipping the Mathematical Bird

I believe that when it comes to problem solving, the following can be said:

• There are many incorrect ways to solve a problem, even if the outcome is correct
• There are very few correct ways to solve a problem, often only one

That being said, I pose the following 5th grade math "word problem." The important thing to note about this particular problem is that there are at least two obvious ways to figure out the solution. One is the right method, the other, although technically correct, isn't nearly as eloquent. I'll make the numbers easy, and if no one figures out the right method to solve the problem, I'll make it known in a future post. Here we go...

Two trains are heading straight toward each other on the same set of tracks. They are currently 100 miles apart and each is traveling at 5 miles per hour. There is a bird that continually flies back and forth between the trains as they approach each other. The bird flies at 20 miles per hour. How far will the bird have flown when the trains meet each other?

Notes:

• Don't worry about the physical/logistical details... you're missing the point
• Don't cheat by reading other people's posts (at least not until after you have come up with your solution)... you're missing the point
  
• Don't Google it... you're missing the point
• If this takes you more than a few minutes, you're not using the right method to solve the problem
• If you start writing down lots of calculations on a piece of paper, you're not using the right method to solve the problem
• This can easily be calculated in your head
• Mathematically inclined people tend to choose the wrong method to get the solutions

The moral of this is that being smart, intelligent, or some kind of a genius in a given area doesn't necessarily mean that you know the best way of solving a problem. Often, simply a different view of a problem, even if naive, can still yield the right methodology. The real problem is getting smart, intelligent, and/or genius-types to accept that their method is not the best.

Random Questions From The Recent Past

Just some random questions/concerns I need to voice:

• Why do people constantly refer to themselves in the 3rd person online? Facebook status messages, IM away messages, out of the office messages? Is the goal to trick others into thinking that the system somehow posted the message on your behalf, and that you, the author and object of the message, somehow are unaware of your current status? This sounds like a serious mental condition to me.
• Why do people constantly goof the tense of the verb "forget?" I hear this all the time: "What is your name again? I forget your name." Shouldn't it be "I forgot your name" instead? Are you actively forgetting the other person's name as you are speaking, or did you more likely forget their name at some previous point and are now simply making this known to another person, thus requiring the past tense of the verb. At least use a modifier to make it correct: "I always forget your name" or "I always forget things." Again, the lack of differentiation between past and present is either a serious mental condition, or a remnant of far too much time travel. You be the judge.
• Why do people tap on soda cans before opening them?
• Why do people still insist of generating paper documents and mailing them through the post office, requiring paper, time, and fuel to deliver? Email seems to work pretty well.
• Along those same lines, why is it secure and good practice to fax a document, sign it, and return it via fax, when emailing a document, printing/signing it, and then scanning/emailing it back is not secure? Last I checked, most fax machines don't have biometric security mechanisms.
  
• Why do most retail stores, banks, airports, etc., have a well defined area of space between the current person being waited on at the counter and the rest of the line that is not to be occupied by any person other than in passing? What could possibly be going on that requires a 10ft front-to-back safe zone, while still quite happily allowing another person to stand two feet to the left/right so they too can go about their business? Last I checked, sound has a way of progressing in all directions, not much backwards. Is this a fundamental misunderstanding of basic physics, or something more?

Talk amongst yourselves. ;-)