Year: 2013

Day 514 of 1000

I have always loved to read the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.  I arrived there today in my current read through the Old Testament.  It is traditionally attributed to King Solomon and it seems like there are a lot of parallels to his life and what is going on in the world today.  Back then, the average man did not have access to as much free time and access to knowledge to pursue whatever whim the think might make them happy.  Since that is now available, it seems like a lot of people are attempting to acheive self-fulfillment in pleasure, fame, accumulation of knowledge, accumulation of wealth, and a lot of other vain pursuits.  Solomon rightly identified all these as vain pursuits.

How does this apply to “doing hard stuff”?  Well, the point I hammered home to the kids that it is not worth going to college unless you are going to do something that is both academically difficult and that will lead to a good job.  I think the reasons for that are self evident and will not go into that now.  I still think that is good advice, but my start into Ecclesiates helped me remember that even this is a vain pursuit if it is not accompanied by the admonition at the end of the book:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

The kids are probably in the hardest semester of their entire college career right now.  They have no time to do anything but study.  It consists of large volumes of work understanding very complex material–Mathematical Statistics, Analysis, Modern Algebra, programming, electrical engineering.  Hard, hard stuff.  It will help them get a good job.  I will probably help them build character and a work ethic.  The problem is that if it develops into pride of self, it is self defeating; it does not conform to the admonition.

Day 512 of 1000

I was pretty sad yesterday that I missed being with Lorena on her birthday.  Thankfully, our wonderful friends, Tom and Sharon, took Lorena, Kelly, and Christian to Dos Taquitos in Raleigh to celebrate.  Tom and Sharon have changed our North Carolina experience in a way we never would have expected two or three years ago.  We owe them a lot.  I talked to everyone on the drive home from the dinner.  I got a big kick out of a great little story Kelly told me so I had her write up and send to me.  Here it is.

So I got an email from my undergrad advisor telling all the stats majors about an afternoon lecture in SAS hall by some corporate statistical bigwig. I have seven hours off on Mondays so I decided to go for it and learn something!

Four o’clock rolled around and I walked up the five stories of SAS and got a great seat for the lecture in the middle of the statistical conference room. I looked around for some of my friends but recognized no one. More and more people entered and sat down but everyone looked 10 years older and unfamiliar. This went over my head. Its not like I know everyone in the department, and new friends in your field of study are always a good thing! But before I could introduce myself to the kids next to me, the speaker walked up to the front and began his lecture. It was about communicating as a statistician in a corporate world and it was super absorbing and fascinating. While he was talking, someone passed me the attendance sheet. I looked, but my name wasn’t on it. This is definitely a warning sign that you’re in the wrong place but the lecture was so good that this ALSO went over my head.  It was only when the speaker began randomly calling people out for questions in class that I began to wonder if maybe I was confused. And then he looked straight at me and asked: “In all your graduate school experience, how many times total would you estimate you’ve had to speak for an audience?”

I SHOULD have said I’m not in graduate school. But when you are a Chapman and three very handsome Ph.D candidates are looking back at you and the president of the ASA is sitting in the audience, you don’t always say what you’re supposed to.

“About 15 times!” I told him.

Turns out you CAN sell anything with confidence!! To my total surprise my adrenalin fueled blind estimate was not only feasible but also praiseworthy for evidence of my obviously prolific graduate level statistical communication. I was SO SMUG you guys. Insufferable. I think I even winked at one of the cute grad students while high on the fumes of smug. Life in the fast lane!

The proverbial fall came too soon!! Five minutes into my glory at getting away with it in a GRAD level lecture I twisted around in my seat for a stretch and spotted last semester’s freshman seminar’s TA who’s getting his masters in stats and knows very very VERY well that I am a lowly first-year. I could’ve melted and died on the spot!!!

Learned my lesson I guess.

Day 510 of 1000

This is a post inspired by comments made by Jon from Chile about a post I made yesterday.  You can read the post here and the comments here.  First things first.  After Sunday morning meeting and a quick trip to Del Taco, I went to the Prescott Valley Public Library because I enjoyed it so much yesterday.  It was closed.  I was thinking of running to the Barnes and Noble because I need broadband wireless, but that is usually pretty crowded with limited seating, so I Googled the Prescott Public Library, found out it is open on Sundays from 1-5 and decided to give it a try.  The library is in a more traditional looking building not to far from the center of Prescott with a lot of the buildings that formed the first Capitol of Arizona.

It seemed very nice, but nothing overly special until I went to the little coffee stand on the main floor.  I was a little disappointed because it is a cash only coffee shop, so I told the lady behind the counter, “I only have plastic.”

She said, “That’s OK, what do you want?”

I said, “I can’t pay.”

She said, “That’s OK, you can pay me for two next time.”

I said, “Well, I am not from here.”

She said, “That’s OK, what do you want.”

I said, “A small black cup of coffee”

There it is on the picture above and it is a great cup of coffee.  I am not sure it tastes so good because it really is good or because it was such a gracious thing to do.

Now on to the second item.  I read the History section of the Wikipedia page on Prescott College.  The hard left-wing Ford Foundation provided the funding for the college in 1966.  It took them only eight years to go bankrupt in 1974.  That cannot be much more than a few years before Jon studied Spanish there.  I looked around a little, but could not find much about his teacher.  Could this be her?  Probably not–I could find nothing about Spanish associated with that person.

Lorena promises me she will put some in the freezer to save for me when I get home!

Day 508 of 1000

It got close to 70° F yesterday in Raleigh.  When I got to the car this morning here in Prescott, there was a light dusting of very dry snow.  The marvellous little rental car I am driving (It is a Ford Focus and I am surprised I like it so much) showed the outside temperature to be 19° F.  Brisk.  As a further aside, that little car has been a joy to drive.  It has all the stuff I need–cruise control, a USB plugging for charging my cell phone, great gas mileage, and it is fun to drive.  The weather in Prescott really reminds me of the weather in Klamath Falls, although I suppose Klamath is probably a little colder.  I think maybe it is more like Bend than Klamath Falls in appearance, but that is not exactly true either because the topology here seems to be a little more rugged while their are way fewer trees.  I guess every place has its own feel.

I ran into two verses in my bible read I looked for awhile back and could not find.  It is in Proverbs 26:3-4 where two verses seem to contradict themselves.  I love those verses.

4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

It is not just the subject of the verses that I like, but the wisdom that is required to apply them in any given situation.  It confirms to me that people were aware of the need to be led by the spirit, even in Solomon’s day.  Solomon’s reign was roughly 500 years before the time when Confucius and Buddha.  It appears that Hezekiah wrote down at least some of Solomons proverbs a couple of hundred years before Confucious and Buddha.

Earlier today, Kelly IM’ed me the following message.  It kind of speaks for itself.  The thing that is not captured in her message is that Mathematical Statistics I and II, what Kelly calls ST 421 and 422, are profoundly difficult classes.  I LOVE this.

Tomorrow I dont have class so im planning on finishing my ST 422 problem sheet, getting at least 2 microec problem sets finished, and hopefully knocking out all or most of my first java project. Then on Saturday I want to review this weeka material and read ahead for all of my classes and finish up whatever java or microec I have left. No sas or ag assignments yet.

SAS was great. My experience in R as well as my ST 305 SAS work really payed off. After that I read my stat notes and microec notes for two hours. Marketing was fun, ST 421 was difficult and I didn’t understand fully but I took great notes and am going to do the hw tomorrow where everything will become more clear. He is a great prof. He set up an optional one hour lab/problem session once a week that I am going to go to. Econ was soooo slow. It is math based and hyperdetailed which is really difficult to go into in late afternoon after.3 straight hours of lectures in other hard classes. However he did rail on the health care system (!!!) and my background in microec and calculus is such that understanding the material is not very difficult and whatever I didn’t pick up I wrote down to review tomorrow when im doing the homework. It was really hard to concentrate though. And I sit in the front.

ST 422 is really fantastic though. Im sitting by 10 people that I know and we all help each other and the material is interesting and important enough that I dont want to fall asleep in class. Also our professor is the most adorable socially awkward nerd imagineable. If he were professing he would be a worker, honestly, that’s how he talks.

Day 507 of 1000

Lorena and I had the following IM discussion abour her Western Civilization class this morning:

For those who don’t read Spanish, the gist of the conversation is that Lorena’s Community College professor asked the class what the word “the end” meant to them, personally.

The class was silent, so Lorena said, “When every thing ends.”

The professor said, “What do you mean by that?”

Lorena said, “Everything.”

The professor said, “What do you mean by that?  Material things? What?”

Lorena said, “Everything.”

The other kids started piping in.

“Thought.” 

“Time.”

Only in college could a conversation like that be a semi-regular event.  The funny deal is that I miss those kinds of conversation.  As a Christian, I think of what “the end” means.  I suppose that one meaning for “the end” is when the earth is destroyed and time is no more, but really, that is just another beginning, because the ig stuff is eternal.

Day 506 of 1000

Work is going well here in Arizona, but, as always, there are challenges in learning how to work together as a team.  Supposedly, I am in one of the most conservative areas of the country. Maybe the bulk of the people in my new company come from other places. Really they are very nice people. Still, it is pretty annoying to listen to pompous pontifications about the wonders of Eastern religion based on popular but transparently false Western myths. I will get over it.

Day 505 of 1000

I am sitting here in my hotel room in Prescott.  I had a very interesting day today.  The early days of a new job are always very interesting.  While I sat and programmed during the day, Kelly and Christian IM’d with reports about their first day(s) of class.  I say “day(s)” because both of them have either Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday sequences.  Well, in the case of Kelly, her MWF classes are really only MW classes as she has all day off on Friday every week.  How much better does it get than that.  Lorena’s classes are MWF classes.  So, really, both Monday and Tuesday were first day of class day.

Everyone is pretty fired up, but I think probably pretty tired.  That is true for me in this new job.  I am really getting into the meat of things now and there are, as always, competing technical interests and competing egos.  The first day of class is always such a high energy thing that, even though it is exhilarating, it can wipe you out.  It has been fun today because of the intensity of the classes the kids are taking.

Kelly has two professors, one in Statistics and one in Agribusiness Marketing, who come from Texas A&M.  It is truly a small world.  She likes both of those professors a lot, but she is particularly inspired by the professor in her ugliest of all Statistics courses, Mathematical Statistics II.  She has two programming classes, Java and SAS, both with good instructors.  This will be, by far, her toughest semester so far, but if she stays on task, she will do great.  I really have never seen her this focused.  Probably the most interesting and exciting even of the day was here Intermediate Microeconomics lecture where  the aging, renowned professor told the class he was an unabashed free-market capitalist and if the did not like that, it was too bad.  After several housekeeping items, he spent the bulk of the class railing on communism and socialism.

Christian is very inspired with his classes, too.  His Electrical Engineering Circuits class is being taught by the head of the department.  His ugly, ugly Analysis class is taught by a professor famed for clear and even brilliant teaching, but insanely difficult exams.  He IM’ed me a note today that, with the exception of the final couple of weeks, they will only learn procedural programming techniques in his Java class.  He has been doing Object Oriented Programming for several years now, so that is somewhat of a disappointment.  Christian gave very high praise to his Modern Algebra teacher.  He said the professor was like his Western Civilization professor at Wake Tech both in enthusiasm and knowledge.  Being compared to Mr. Bagliani is high praise indeed.  Ben Mathias gave Christan good advice to take him as a History professor.  He also has a survey of Applied Mathematics class that is taught by four different professors.  He thinks it might not be as rigorously difficult as some of his other classes, but will be incredibly interesting because the whole point of the class is to get up and coming mathematicians excited about different, leading edge areas of mathematical practice.

Lorena’s classes sound very interesting, too.  Here Western Civ class is huge and very impersonal, but should be very interesting.  I loved that class.  It was the first one I ever took when I was a Senior in high school.  Her other class, though, is Biology and it looks like it is going to be excellent.  Both the students and the teachers sound excellent.  Lorena is a little skeptical,  but she tends to be that way at the beginning of the semester.  Last semester she had one very good professor and one really bad professor that made the entire semester very sketchy.  I am hoping this semester will be a really good one one to make up for last semester.

Day 502 of 1000

Here is a neat post on the project we are supporting at NCSU.

Day 501 of 1000

Today is my last official day of work at Cimtec.  I have a couple of more days vacation with them next week.  My good friend John Stranzl with whom I worked for three years at Centice has taken my position at Cimtec and will do an excellent job there.  My short term relationship has not ended as I will help with uncompleted projects and consult on new opportunities for which I have unique expertise.  Long term, I expect and hope to work for Cimtec again.  They are a great company with super people.  I am only sorry my first stint there was so short (1 year) due to our changing family situation, mostly due to my aging parents.

Day 500 of 1000

We are exactly half way through with our 1000 day countdown to graduation today.  What started out to be a sad and slow Christmas vacation with no family and nothing happening turned into one of our best Christmases ever.  Let me count the ways:

• A family trip to Charlotte where we just hung out together and had a great time.
• The game night for the kids with their Russian, Venezuelan, and NCSU friends at our house was a rousing success.  Lorena and I even got to go out on a date that night.
• The new cellphones–enough said.
• Some marvelous artwork by Kelly.
• A dive into Android programming in C++ for Christian.
• Entirely too much food.

Now, it is time to go to work.  It certainly appears that Spring semester of 2013 will be the hardest semester of their entire undergraduate career.  Kelly has her second semester of Mathematical Statistics.  Christian has Modern Algebra, Analysis, and research.

Kelly is working on a fabulous new painting that she want so try to do in the style of Norman Rockwell as much as possible.  It is looking really good so far.  It is amazing how much the original scene looks like a Rockwell illustration.  Kelly is going to start posting her stuff on her website, KellyJeanChapman.com.  Right now that site points to an old server we have running in the house, but in the next couple of days we will move it two its own location with our ISP.  She would like to start putting some of her art up there and also start back into cartooning as she has time.  I said I would help her.

Day 499 of 1000

The kids will head back to school next week so they are blasting away hard on fun projects while they have time.  Next semester will probably be the most difficult semester of both of their undergraduate careers.  I will talk a little about that later.  In the meantime, Kelly is drawing like crazy.  She has switched (for awhile) from pencil to watercolor and having a great time with it.  Here is her latest effort

For his part, Christian is setting up his computer to write applications for his Samsung Galaxy Note II.  I accidentally called it a Samsung Note by mistake and got in big trouble for that.  It is a very cool project.  He is going to write in C++ using QT and QT Creator in Linux.  I am excited to see what he does.  I am not sure if I have described here his last big project to browse the web from a regular (non-smart) phone.  It was very cool, but he has moved on now.

I already mentioned that I finally broke down and got everyone cell phones.  Christian got a Samsung Galaxy Note II.  He informed me that it would make him much more productive at school and I believed him.  He has had the phone for about a week so far.  This is what he has been able to produce:

Day 498 of 1000

When I was very young, New Year’s Day was a great day that I used to make plans to do better–better in school, work, sports, health, and anything else I though might need some improvement.  Then, I went through a fairly long period of cynicism.  I thought New Year’s resolutions were just another cliché to be disparaged.  The older I get, though, the more I realize that anything that helps focus on improvement is a good thing.  I plan to use today as a day to work harder on humility, weight loss, and keeping track.  Why only three things?  Well, really those two things include a lot.  Humility, in my case, has to do with talking less, helping more, giving my credit to God, managing my emotions to the benefit of others and those sort of things.  Weight loss has to do with eating better and exercising more.  Those first two things will keep me busy, hopefully for the whole year.

The third, keeping track, is aimed at blogging consistently with higher quality.  It really is an indulgence to myself, but I want to do it.  Since we finished homeschool, this blog has had no coherent purpose other than to talk about my own personal projects and some family chronicling.  Kelly and I are in the planning stages of doing something new and interesting.  Christian will start on his first serious research project.  I will try to talk about those things here.