So, I should probably talk about my vacation. It was awesome of course. It's a photographer's dream. You can't take a bad picture, no matter how much skill you may actually have. I had a unique opportunity to see both sides of Anchorage. I was able to see the "local" side of Anchorage, and the touristy side of Alaska. I never understood why people are so adverse to going to the touristy sides of places. They're really fun once. Maybe they're kinda lame after you've been there once, but I wouldn't avoid them the first time. They're touristy for a reason. The only thing you have to make sure of, it to not focus on the pictures, the junk, the stuff, but to actually make yourself take time and enjoy and absorb where you're at. I found myself doing that, and stopped, and make sure to turn off the camera for at least 1/2 the time. It was totally worth it. For the local venue: I met a friend of a friend, a big foodie, and was able to drink coffee made by purist coffee people, who were selective about pouring technique, temperature, water to grounds ratio, filter paper, type, pH, etc, etc. I'm not a big coffee person, but it did taste quite nice. Lots of pizza. Moose's tooth is probably the most popular place there, and we ended up going there about 3 times. Once for lunch, once for a concert, and once with a second group of friends. It's good, it's wood fired, and with lots of toppings. There's a reason why it's so highly ranked on trip advisor.
As for Anchorage itself, there's a huge bike path that gives you a great view of the coast, and you might even see Mt. McKinnley (Denali if you're a local, not an "outsider"). The neat thing I found, is that if you start off in the middle of downtown, the bike path includes a scale version of the solar system, so you can bike from the Sun to Pluto. It's about 15 miles I believe. A bit hilly, but nice.
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| I was expecting Pluto to be vandalized, since it's not really a planet. It wasn't. |
We saw a Caribou on the ride, and you bike right underneath the flight path into the airport, so you see some awesome things. I almost lost a lung, caught a cold, drank ALOT of beer, (there's not much else to do in Alaska, but brew). Saw the sun go around the sky rather than from one side and duck under (which makes sleeping weird). People in Alaska do remind me a lot of Saudi. There's a great deal of people who are "ex-pats," everyone's friendly. People are very close to each other, and everyone knows each other, well, because during the cold months, there's nothing to do but either stay home, and get dimensia, or visit your neighbors. And many people do that. I"m not saying which one either :-). We got to go camping. And even in the summer, it's very cold in Alaska. And a little rainy, I'd bring a jacket for sure. The camping was a great way to spend the 4rth of July.
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| Straight Hood(ies) while camping |
We went to the zoo,
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| This is not stereotypical at all |
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| This is. |
ate a lot of Asian food, surprisingly, obviously a bit of sea food, drank more beer,
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| The statement of Midnight Sun is true! |
and went to a marathon. It's pretty nuts actually:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Marathon_Race
It's a 5k. UP A MOUNTAIN. Elevation of the mountain is 3022 ft about sea level. Seward, where the race is held, is by the ocean. Which means it's at sea level. Which for anyone who's asking is 0 feet about sea level. It's an impressive sight, and mad props to those who can do it. I was tired watching them climb up.
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| Those are people! |
My sister went with me to the touristy stuff, and it was quite nice. We planned the day after she left, which apparently is a bad idea. Things tend to be sold out according to the tour guides we called. So, we just looked up where they were going, and booked our own tickets. Take that! It was probably a little more expensive, but we got to see glaciers, moose, bears, Mount McKinnley, took a train,
and checked out the national park. It was awesome, and I would love to go back and camp there. No fishing this time, which was kinda lame, but apparently the fish weren't great this time, mushy fish syndrome.
http://www.adn.com/2012/06/28/2523972/mushy-halibut-syndrome-reported.html
My friend back in DC happened to be there at the same time my sister and I were visiting, so it was nice to see him again. A few fraternity brothers live out there, so it was very nice to see them. We climbed up a peak, which was cold and windy, but totally worth it. Should have brought hiking shoes. And then on to San Francisco!
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| It's the wind that's making look bloated. It ignored my sis though. |
San Francisco is a very nice town, very hilly, one of those places that is just different than anywhere else. The archeitecture is old, and cramped, with a hint of sophistication, and pride in the city. The cable car system is a marvel to see, and to understand that not much has changed is crazy. China town is just like you'd expect out of a stereotypical Chinese area. Pagodas, and tiny tiny shops, with smells that challenge all your senses. Maybe not the way you'd like though haha. A great deal of historical things to see, I got to see a baseball game, it's been a very long time, and it was nice to see people excited to see their team play for once. Poor Astros, poor Rockies.
I met up with Danny, one of my buddies who lives about 1.5 hours north of San Francisco, so I got to drive the Golden Gate Bridge! I chose not to take too many pictures while driving. Not too safe I bet. He lives in wine country, which is a very tiny town. It's interesting to see a town that small. Beautiful in its own little way, but limited in others. No Walmart! That small. I've never been a big wino, but can appreciate a tasty wine, and it's always amazing to see how well groomed those areas are.
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| I don't remember how well groomed they are, but... |
Walked around the redwoods, which are just like the books and the TV shows state. Freaking HUGE!
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| Insert joke about two guys and big wood here. |
I got to spend a lot of good time with some very good people, and soon to be very good parents. The smug hippy episodes of South Park do however ring true for both where he was, and in San Francisco. I was pretty happy with one of their offers. We don't clean your room, and you get a 5 dollar Starbucks card. Done! I went to the museum of modern art. Still don't get it. Alien S&M on glass. Weird. Video of a dog being washed, confusing. An entire canvas that is one solid color, but used to have something underneath. Lame. Models rolling around in blue paint and then on a canvas. Nice. I wouldn't have even know, had it not been for listening in on a art guide for a class.
I got to eat at a grilled cheese restaurant which brought me back to the day of making candied bacon at work. Overall San Francisco was gorgeous, and I'd definitely go back. Probably would bring a friend with me though. It's a bit different going solo. There was a speakeasy that was mentioned in one of the books. The layout was great, and it had one of the best drinks I'd ever had. However, it lost the appeal, when the door was open due to heat. You don't need a password to get in, if the door's open apparently. One of the best drinks I've ever had though. Overall, I'm glad I went to San Francisco, but feel like I've only scratched its surface. I feel like I will need to go back.
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| San Fran, I hardly touched thee. |
Anchorage, I feel like I've seen what it has to offer. Alaska, heck no, I don't think I've even scratched, but now that I know the layout, I can plan much better. Since I have all this technology at my disposal, I can make logical decisions rather than gut feelings about going to Alaska. I can't wait till my next trip, and with work actually getting busy now, I bet the trip comes up quicker than I would have expected.
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| Snow Angels in July |
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So at some point, I guess I need to make a decision as to whether this blog is more focused on my thoughts, feelings, and perspectives, or a report of things that I do. Being a male engineer, you would think that the decision would be made. The blogs would be updated each week, and would be very brief. There would be no opinions, and if there were opinions, they would be backed up by facts. It would be a honing stone to help me get better at communication, and allow be to backtrack what I did a few weeks, months, years, etc...
The thing is probably lazy. And like most people my age, with the attention span problem, it's always a hurry up and wait type of scenario. I've mentioned before that you're either super busy, or not. And I write my blog when I'm not. But am I truly busy? Probably not. I could make this a priority, rather than watching "Breaking Bad," or watching my emotional food porn shows, aka Hell's Kitchen, and Masterchef.
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| Something like that |
It reminded me of one of my favorite topics, economics, opportunity costs, substitutions, and whether people truly act as logically as we would hope. Do people do good deeds truly to be good, or is the opportunity cost, aka feeling bad instead higher than than the cost of the deed? I believe people work quite differently when they don't have time, or choose not to think about their decisions. Many people make decisions based on their gut. As our guts get bigger and bigger, our decisions do not get better and better. Gut decisions lead to drugs, pregnancy, drink and drive, cheat, lie, steal, and I think most of the time, they don't sit down, write a plus/delta column, assign points, and do it.
For almost anything I can think of, the amount of fun decreases over time, for a given activity. Think about it, eating bacon is awesome. If I was locked in a fun room, and given nothing else but 2 strips of crunchy awesome smokey bacon, and said I had 24 hours to eat it, I could eat it in two different ways. I could eat it all, and maximize my hunger in one fell swoop, and eat it in 5 minutes. It would be a glorious 5 minutes. I could also nibble it every hour for 24 hours. It would probably get cold, greasy, and I would think to myself, man why did I agree to this, when I could have just flown to Bahrain, and eating as much bacon as I wanted, for as long as I wanted, rather than being in the isolation bacon chamber.
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| If you had left Tony Stark in the Isolation Bacon Chamber |
The amount of fun I will have with this bacon, I would argue is fixed, but there is a diminshing return to the fun over time. There is no compound interest, or incentive for me to wait. Here's a few more examples: Sex. There's a reason why people are "players." If all you're trying to do is score, get laid, or prove to your "bros" that you can get anyone to find you charming, then you're going to do whatever it is that you do, as quickly as you can. On the other side, if you're looking for meeting the person of your dreams, you're trying to find someone that understands you, and connects with you. If you could be guaranteed that person "A" will connect with you, and person "B" will connect with you, but it'll take 5 years before you two click, well, I think most people would pick "A."
Diminishing returns of bacon is only one part of the thought process. The other opportunity cost is the possibility of NO BACON. NOOOOO!
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| Loss of Kevin Bacon would also kinda be sad. |
There are many things in which if you don't act now, you'll lose it forever. I think there's an entire channel dedicated to people who think that this is true. Oh, home shopping network. I'll never see that crappy piece of jewelry again, at such an absurd price EVER AGAIN. I like South Park's take on it. "Kill yourself," your manipulation of people is poor at best, and your prey on people that are easy to predict and want immediate rewards. You don't see that type of stuff on the internet, why? Well, because I can call your bluff, on such a crazy amazing deal, by googling, and seeing what other websites are charging for the same thing. In probably 10-15 seconds. Sometimes you're right, and I'll buy, but most of the time, I see that it's a ploy to pull on my emotions, and the fear of no bacon.
This isn't true for everything however. Somethings take longer time to research than others. The longer it takes to research, the bigger the incentive to act now, rather than later. If I had real time data available to me regarding where all the speed traps are, and what cops could possibly end up on the highway, I think I would driver much faster, and more like an ass. I think many people would do the same. So what do we see happen? People slow down, and then once they're out of sight, they speed up, once to "make up for time," and 2, because they KNOW the possibility of a second speed trap is minimal. Put two speed traps about 2 miles apart, and see what happens. I bet it'll be quite a few number of tickets. You have to make sure that people "know" that they didn't get caught on the first trap though. Otherwise, they'll think that if I slow down for the next mile, the cop will forget about me, or something. I always thought that's funny. Those are the people driving super slow, who swerve over to the far lane, and continually look behind them.
So here we are. We're in a society where we have more information available to us, and more quickly than ever. However, if we don't have that information in front of us in a timely manner, we'll do whatever we think will get us the most fun, in the shortest amount of time. We blame it on chemical imbalances, and give it names like ADD, ADHD. It's a product of us trying to maximize out fun, and technology's battle between providing more information versus the same information more efficiently. That's what google goggles are for.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/08/02/sight_a_short_film_on_augmented_reality_contacts_by_daniel_lazo_and_eran_may_raz_video_.html
I forget my original point. I think I was trying to justify why I don't update my blog enough, or something like that.
This is how I feel when I start writing my blog
I had a really good discussion with a co-worker the other day regarding the gold standard, and the question of whether Keynesian economics, and government backed monetary policy is truly the right way to go. In a nutshell, is the concept of credit and leverage, when it comes to banks the right way to go. Should banks be allowed to loan out money that should technically be available to people within a short amount of time? CD's, and long term investments, where you're basically signing an agreement that you will not ask for this money immediately, or take a severe penalty, make sense to be lent out. The banks believes that the return they can get from lending your money. And then they use that money to lend more and more out. That's called leverage. It's all good when it's good. But what happens when everyone wants their money back? It's been lent out so many times, that no one can pay everyone else back quickly enough. That's why FDIC is for. But wait, where are they getting their money from? Uh... printing it? Uh oh. That's how inflation happens. They could also put out bonds for high high interest rates. Wait, that won't work, people need liquid cash. So the thought is that government stayed out of monetary policy, and only held enough cash based on a physical asset, such as gold, then businesses would level out, and make more sound capital investments, inflation would not occur, as the monetary supply is fixed. Costs of goods and services are strictly based on supply and demand. There would be no boom/bust cycle. People can't over leverage.
It's a nice thought. The Keynesian argument allows for much faster expansion in a short amount of time. There's an incentive to push the multiplier effect i.e. companies borrowing money for expanding, which brings in more jobs, which hires more people, who in turn buy more goods, which fuel the companies, etc... Politically, that's a much easier thing to sell. You just hope that if the bubble bursts, you're not the one there. Government role, then is to cushion the fall, and as we see, there's only so much cushioning monetary policy can do. Also, we would still need a central bank that would divey up the worlds' gold supply properly. Otherwise, the country with the most gold wins. Countries with it, obviously wouldn't sell it, and the ones with all the gold mines win. Good luck with that one. I feel like it's one of the things where if people were truly all the same, and willing to work with each other it would work. But if it doesn't, then the world ends. Like socialism. It's all well and good that you worked really really hard. But if you suck at it, I'm still not going to pay you for a crappy product.
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| Something like that. |
