mcrib is back

Dad wasn't born until after the Great Depression. However, he did inherit his parents thriftiness. OK, not really, he was just cheap--which was a good thing because he didn't have much money.

This was especially manifested in his attitude toward long distance telephone usage. From the time I left home to go to college until he passed away 17 years later he almost never called me. I don't really think it was because he was cheap, but he sure despised the telephone. He wasn't about to call if he didn't have to.

But he did call one time. It was about a year or two after I got married. I really appreciated his call. With great anticipation and a little trepidation I looked forward to finding out what he'd actually say during this rarest of calls. Could it be that he wanted to have a personal conversation or offer some advice to the young married man; perhaps he'd have related some bad news, maybe even a loss in the family. What he said: "McRib is back."

making coffee, making friends

The office environment is brutal. At least until everyone has had their morning coffee. So be a good co-worker and make the coffee.

* Non-drinkers: Make one pot of coffee each morning. Your co-workers will appreciate it more than they can express because they haven't had their coffee yet.
* Early-birds: Clean out that coffee pot when you get there and get the first one going. Don't be afraid to take that first cup either.
* Crusty caffeine addicts: Keep making it. It just seems like you're the only one making coffee just because you are drinking it all. Also, seek medical help.
* Those of you who bring in several cups of premium coffee-shop java to share with your co-workers: I prefer regular coffee, black, and my cubicle is next to the pool table (yes, I know, our office has a pool table--search for jobs here).
* Everyone: See SVP Chris's blog about coffee.

why the hog blogs

OK, to answer the question of those of you that know me as to why I'm writing a blog and have recently become active on social networking sites. My employer is making me. Well, not just me, but all 300 employees at Barkley should be blogging and facebooking right now--maybe not at the same time. Gotta say I really have enjoyed the experiment and plan to continue blogging after tomorrow's deadline. What a great way to get my thoughts out and to share resources. Of course, I am still the top reader of this blog.

Barkley colleagues: here are some interesting stats I found on another blog regarding the relative success of email marketing as opposed to other online marketing techniques. Perhaps a customer willing to give our clients his or her email addresses is an advocate. Perhaps social network buzz as a marketing tool is overrated.

good idea, lukasiewicz

Once you get hooked on Reverse Polish Notation (RPN), there's no going back. Postfix notation is a little confusing for the first few minutes, but then it becomes like second nature very quickly. OK, so I don't say to my wife "I you love," but I really want to.

If you use hp calculators, you probably are already familiar with RPN. If you don't or aren't I encourage you to check out RPN. I use handheld RPN calculators. Even my calculator accessory on my computer is RPN. A couple of introductions to RPN follow: hp's introduction and the hpmuseum introduction (more about hpmuseum in a later post) are good places to start. But the best thing to do is just try it.

Do you use RPN? exclusively? Do you switch between algebraic notation and RPN?

For reading my post, I you thank.

joel and I are anti-semantic

While authoring surveys is a pretty good way to make a living, hammering down the best wording for a particular question or scaled response with a survey sponsor can be a big ole pain in the neck. That's why former colleague Joel and I decided that we are anti-semantic.

Anti-semanticism, while not widely popular in today's "my way or highway" world--although there are some vestiges remaining in the deep south, is the only way to go. The anti-semantite can get through meetings much more quickly. An anti-semantite rarely loses an argument. Clearly, such poor writing as this blog post must be anti-semantite work.

No matter how you say it, anti-semantic is the only way to be. But, please, please, please respect our semantic friends as well.

the moped, um, chick magnet

Yes, I know, in high school everybody thinks that he or she is the strange one, etc. But some of us really made it easy on everyone else to totally abuse us. It wasn't just that I loved trigonometry and played chess and was president of the parliamentary procedure team. No, I also had my wheels: a sweet ride, really. My moped wasn't just a mode of basic transportation, it was my business on wheels as I delivered newspapers for the local rag. Mine was a big hunk of metal, very heavy and difficult to pedal. It was a Czechoslovakian beauty, a Jawa. Along with my collection of dinosaur bones and my white guy afro, I'm pretty sure I must have been the most popular guy in school.

Stay tuned for later posts about my first car--equally cool.

rice with mustard and jalapeños

The college cafeteria is the most interesting intersection of bad food and good friends. Open-minded and daring students experiment with combinations to overcome the bad food and, perhaps, impress the good friends. The cafeteria salad bar is a wonderful place to find ingredients for these marvelous mixtures.

My favorite college cafeteria concoction was rice with mustard and jalapeño pepper slices. In fact, this particular dish stopped being an experiment and was a staple through my college career at Harding University. My usual table mate--a young coed from California--was not impressed at all. In spite of this, she did agree to marry me a couple of years later. After 18 years of marriage, I'm still experimenting with food combinations. She's still ignoring it. And we adore each other anyway.

Come to think of it, the strangest combination that was created in that cafeteria is still around today.

hp calculators and spaghetti sandwiches

Hello blogoshpere. This is the first post of my first blog. I hope you like it and that it reflects my crazy personality.

Up front: I love my Lord and I love my wife. I love my daughter, my mother, family and friends.

But this is hp calculators and spaghetti sandwiches. This post will focus on my first hp calculator--the 21S Stat/Math calculator. OK, it's really high on that list, but I wouldn't really say I 'love' my 21S. Wait, I do love my 21S. It came into my life at just the perfect time--I was a newlywed half way through grad school in statistics with a serious deficit in handheld computing power. This particular calculator was a blessing from on high (literally) purchased with gift certificates won from a radio station's back to school promotion back in 1989. I used my 21S through the remainder of grad school and three jobs before it began to fail.

Its most useful feature was its four built-in statistical distributions--z, t, F and Chi-squared. Given a test statistic (and the appropriate degrees of freedom, etc.) the calculator returned upper tail probability and vice-versa. Its biggest drawback was its algebraic data entry which was a break from hp's well-developed RPN. This keystroke-programmable was an outstanding calculator for this poor statistics grad student.

Do you or did you use an hp 21S? What do you think was its most useful feature?

Stay tuned. Spaghetti sandwiches and lots of other topics will come in the future.