The Newest Member!

All two of you following this blog have probably noticed I have settle upon a name. I'm pretty excited about this. 

With all this excitement, concerns naturally arise. Right now I dictate the contents of this blog. If I ever get married, there is an outside chance that she will have already started an idiotic blog as well. What will we do? How do we solve the problem of merging two low profile blogs together? 

I am now a proud member of the Utah chapter of The American Statistical Association (ASA). Yes, there is such a thing. Nothing can stop me now! Anyone reading this can join if they want, but I got in first.

Godel and the Incompleteness Theorem

I couldn't think of a good title for this entry. I don't have a specific aim, so this could go on for quite awhile.

First, the interested reader should check out some info on the incompleteness theorem. It is pretty rad. Lately I've been pretty into stuff on the history of math. The great thing about the history of math is that I don't have to do anything. I don't have to sit there and try to work out this really difficult problem; rather, I can just sit and watch documentaries on other people going crazy while trying to solve really difficult problems.

I did have a triumph today. I passed the SAS base certification exam. The pass rate on this exam isn't good. I've contributed to both possible outcomes. I failed this same exam in November. Just call me the little engine that could.

If anyone is reading this, please tell me if there is a way for me to upload files to this thing. I don't really care to put pictures up or anything. I just want to put some files on here.

Oh yeah, I should get back to some of the stuff that happened today. After the exam, I was pretty pumped. I decided I deserved a little reward, so I stopped at Wal-Mart and got the biggest box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch I could find. And why shouldn't I? I'm worth it.

To preface my next part, I should point out that I have a pretty quiet roommate. We'll call his name Jim to protect his identity. He's an extremely nice guy. He just doesn't like to talk much. I can't think of a time when he's ever greeted me as I entered the apartment. When I got home tonight, I saw my roommate in the kitchen and said, "Jim, in case you were wondering, I am in an excellent mood." I half expected him to ask, "Oh, what happened? Why are you in such a good mood?" Against all odds, Jim replied, "Okay." By the time I left the apartment, I still had no idea why I expected anything else.

Something for the ladies

I finally figured out something I can write about. I have a story from this past summer.

As some of you know, I spent this past summer in Paris, France. I was there on an internship with Mercer, an actuarial consulting firm. I will include some unnecessary details in my story for posterity sake. 

One day after work, I was getting on the metro at La Defense, route 1. This is the beginning of route 1, so no one is ever on the metro when it pulls up to the stop. This is important since it means I was focused in on being in the right spot when the doors opened to let passengers in. I always made sure I jumped in there and got a seat real quick because not getting a seat at that stop is a guarantee that you won't get a seat for the whole trip. I always brought a book to read on the metro so I would have something to do. Thus, it was really important for me to get a seat.

While I had all these things on my mind, a lady about 5 meters (in France, we use meters) away from me was shouting to get my attention. I figured out she was shouting at me. I noticed she had a terrified look on her face and was pointing behind me. 

You can imagine I was shot into a Friday the 13th movie. I was sure there was an axe murderer behind me. Panicked, I spun around and saw a man coming at me who didn't have any eyes. He had the eye balls, but there wasn't the colored part you would expect. (I'm not a physiology person and don't care to look up what that is called.) Because of everything that had gone on, I was sure this was the axe murderer, so I shouted. I guess that's what you'd call it. For those who care, you can ask me to replicate the noise I made that day. I remember it well. It sounded like "Uhhhhh," but it was loud and showed how freaked out I was. While I yelled, I ran away toward the lady who had gotten my attention in the first place.

I failed the sensitivity test that day. I felt like a big jerk. It turned out this lady was trying to get my attention so I could help this man not fall onto the tracks and get run over. She was just worried. As I was jumping out of the way like a little girl, two other people grabbed ahold of him to make sure he would be okay.

Since I'm on a roll, I will add another story that makes me look bad. Remember how I was talking about how important it is to get on the metro at La Defense real fast and get a seat. This next story will demonstrate how seriously I took this task. 

Again, I was lined up and ready to go in my spot. When the doors flew open, I rushed on there. Now, you should know it is customary to take a seat on the same side you get on. I wish I could make a diagram of the seating arrangement on one of these things, but I probably wouldn't think it worth the time anyhow. 

As I was rushing around the corner, there was a lady coming in from the next door who was rushing around the corner as well. Being the courteous guy I am, I decided to let her file into her seat before I did. In fact, I just went to plop my butt down on the seat next to the isle while she filed in, but she jumped into that seat while I was doing so. I didn't think this was a great sin, so I just stood up and went around her to the window seat. As I did that, she shifted into the middle of the two seats, preventing me from sitting in that seat too. This seemed awful weird, but I just took the seat across from those two seats. 

It turned out that her boyfriend/husband/whatever was with her and she was trying to secure a seat for him too. The whole thing was kind of annoying, but I just opened my book and got down to business. Things got even more annoying when I noticed she was enjoying herself way too much over keeping me out of either of those two seats. 

I can say I am glad I didn't punch her in the face. I regret not plowing her over when she came around the corner to get her seat. Baby steps.

What is a blog?

A missionary friend and I were just reminiscing the other day about a training we heard on our mission. It started "What is the area book?" Unfortunately, that was the high point. I feel like that is good justification for my title.

I've been trying to figure out what to put on (or is it in?) this blog thing. A friend gave me a funny look when I mentioned wanting to put math stuff on here. I suppose something like this is out of the question.

One of these days I'll figure this thing out and then people will have gobs of junk to read when they are supposed to have something more important, and probably more interesting, to do. Until then, we will be dealing with blurbs like this sorry excuse for a blog entry.