View 1 from inside the limo

View from the inside of the limo

Facebook

A few long lost-ish kinda friends have shown up on Facebook recently, so I went ahead and joined, although I really don't want or need yet another 'social network' kinda thingamajiggy to waste my time on. I have not been keeping up with my web site, and low and behold my domain has expired - so if I don't pay up my site will not be found. Sigh. I suppose I will cough up. Anyhow, I am a few draws behind the Mega Millions, going over to the Beer Store here in a minute to get a couple tickets and a beer or two. Got a new full time job gig, it has been interesting so far but I think it might get 'old' really quickly as I have so been around this 'horn' before and the pay is a little lower than what I am used to - although it could be that if I work my 'ass off' I could get into another aspect of the business that I would like better. It's a long commute for as much dough as it is - sigh - can't complain I guess since I was going broke. Anyway, off to the beer store!

Beck Cafe & Stage

The Beck Cafe stage and outdoor seating area! Fun!!

Mega Squillions

MEGA MILLIONS:
Only a single winner of the match-all-5-non-mega ball prize from last nights Mega Millions drawing...some lucky soul in Maryland. That's one happy quarter million dollar winner!! Usually there are a whole bunch of those 5 ball match winners, must not have been that many tickets sold.

PROBABILITY:
Probability, as you 'probably' know, is expressed as a number between 0 (zero) and 1 (one) with a probability of 0 (zero) being HIGHLY IMPROBABLE (impossible) and a probability of 1 (one) being a CERTAINTY. Pick up and book on probability for a more complete explanation...if you want one (it all gets pretty damn complicated)! Anyhow, the probability of matching all 5 non-mega balls in the Mega Millions game is pretty small, really small at only .000000256 (expressed as a decimal) or 0.0000256% (expressed as a percentage) chance of matching them all in a single drawing.

LAST NIGHTS MEGA MILLIONS:
In last nights MM drawing I took three sets of numbers, two non-mega ball sets I picked myself with AP (Auto Pick) Mega Ball and one set of AP (Auto Pick) for both the NMB (Non Mega Ball) side and the MB side of the Pick Grid. I matched one non-mega ball, number 53. And the one AP I played on both sides of the Pick Grid matched a single non-mega ball, number 45.

MATCHING A SINGLE NON-MEGA BALL IN MEGA MILLIONS:
The probability of matching a single non-mega ball is pretty good anyway, at 31.99% for a single drawing, not a big deal since there is no prize for matching only a single non-mega ball.

MATCHING THE MEGA BALL ONLY:
The smallest prize is the two dollar winner for matching the MB (Mega Ball) alone and the probability of matching the MB all by itself is 1/75 or about 1.33%

READING:
Anyhow, I have been chewing away on this Russel Targ book "Do you see what I see" and it is really interesting as I am smitten with the idea of retrocausality. Not to mention remote viewing, I know, it sounds kinda spooky and weird ... of course it is still considered spooky and weird!!!!! ESP and PK and PSI are considered fringe science, and of course people have been burned at the stake for claiming to be able to 'see into the future' so there is good reason to think of ESP as 'out there' or even worse (magic) but nonetheless there is a TONS of scientific evidence supporting ESP, PK and PSI and Russel Targ has been swimming in the deep end of the ESP pool for most of his life, having been the recipient of a long term government grant to study Remote Viewing.

More Global Warming and Weirding

Hmmmm I have noticed that I actually have a couple of blog readers! Wow!! I suppose if one wants to get noticed then one needs to put one's self OUT THERE. I am trying to put myself out there a bit then, and thanks for stopping in to read my blog.

READING:
Been reading lots of books, not every single word cover to cover speed reading..no I am a reader who likes the words, actually, most of the time it's a narrator in my head who is reading the words, as if to an audience. So reading for me is slow and pleasurable....I don't stress out over getting my reading done, however, since most of my books come from the library they do have to go back eventually. And so in regards to getting as much as I can from a book as quickly and pleasurably as possible: STYLE An author's style of writing falls into three broad categories for me: engaging - neutral - dry/boring and I will read more chapters/words from an engaging author, that narrows down the sheer bulk of the writing to plow through. You know, if it's dry I just don't get as much out of it and probably won't spend as much time with the book. ORGANIZATION Some of the books I read, mainly science writing recently, are organized into chapters that are easy to 'grab' as individual entities. The books I like best are not necessarily organized as 'stories' (although some of the really good science writers put a good story together) they are more like magazines without the ads and pictures and glossy pages. If I am not digging into a story then the more granular the writing the better, the more chapters there are and the easier they are to 'grab' makes a book a piece of cake, just take any piece you like!!! I think between those two basic headings lay a ton more ways to rate a books read-ability --- I just go through them one after another and some of them I will spend more time with, others I will wing through them. Tada!!!

RECENTLY:

Julian Havil: "Impossible? Surprising solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums"
I got this one for the problems/solutions in regards to binary probability - specifically, the probabilities associated with getting a certain number of consecutive 1's or a 0's (heads or tails) in a certain number of random trials (coin tosses). Interesting, Julian writes (quoting Fred Mosteller):

'If you toss a coin repeatedly in a college class and after each toss ask the class if there is anything suspicious going on, 'hands suddenly go up all over the room' after the fifth consecutive head or tail in a row. There happens to be only 1 chance in 16 (0.0625) - not far from 0.05 or 5 chances in 100 - that 5 heads or tails in a row will show up in five tosses 'so there is some empirical evidence that the rarity of events in the neighborhood of 0.05 begins to set people's teeth on edge'

Eeeegads the math is pretty thick but the basic idea here is kinda flabergasting in that our brains are tuned up to be extra suspicious of non-random looking patterns in what are supposed to be random strings of numbers? I suppose that's part of what makes us good at pattern recognition. Anyhoooo - non-random looking strings of numbers happen all the time in the MegaMillions Lottery game, I wonder when we will see 3,4,5,6,7 come up and I am trying to figure out if 3,4,5,6,7 is any MORE or LESS probable than any other combination of the 56 non-mega balls. So far I have NOT been able to determine an answer to that question and this particular book is not helping at all - not one bit - not so far.


Russel Targ: "Do you see what I see? Lasers and Love, ESP and the CIA, and the meaning of life"

Great book so far, lots of biographical background and stories about/from the author who is a genius physicist, ESP researcher, remote viewer (remote viewing is always an interesting subject especially when a respected scientist writes about it) and self professed blind (legally) motor biker. I have read a few chapters ahead, I am not just reading this book page after page. The author, Targ, also writes about his inability to recognize faces!!! He cannot recognize faces of those he has knows for his whole life!!! It has a fancy name, hmm ,lookitup, better yet read this book! I am just getting started on this one and will probably chew away on it for several more weeks.

Mark Lynas: "Six Degrees: Our future on a hotter planet"
Good book, I recommend you check this one out - the organization is wonderful. The various sections are grouped into 1 degree of warming, two degrees or warming, etc and so forth. So it's really easy to skip around this one ... but it has gripped my attention and it looks like I might get some millage out of this book ... I like the way the 'chapters' are further sectioned into interesting headings as well, so a reader can thumb through, looks for a heading, and read until the next heading. Good bathroom reading.

Whew, anyway maybe you will want to look at a couple of these books. More later, goodnight!

What I have been reading....

I like to read. I read tons of books, although I don't make it all the way from front to back, every single page, all of them. No, most of them I read either in chunks or until I get bored or stuffed full of the subject matter and need to move my ADD fueled 2009 mind along. The books you see listed on the right there are ones I have been looking at recently - and of them FLOTSAMETRICS is a stand out. Some funny stories, the writing is fluid and not typical dry science writing, and some of it made me laugh out loud.

New Haircut Guy (me)

The Haircut Rocks!!!

New Recording: "Grady The Caver"

My buddy Gary Nelson wrote a song a month or so ago for the NSS
(National Speleological Society) which is, like, the really BIG caving society. Gary writes a song for these guys every year, to enter into the Cave Ballad Contest - and every year he hopes to win the GRAND prize. So far the quest for the GRAND prize has eluded him...but maybe not THIS year! He and I worked hard to get a good recorded version of his song "Grady The Caver" and by golly I think we really hit the nail on the head with this one :) However, we were pressed for time and, like it or not, the mix that went into NSS for the contest might not be considered the ULTIMATE mix.....there is a mix on my website (Steve2.Net: Recording Projects) that I worked on after the NSS submission that I like a little better. Check it out and let me know what you think!!!!!!!

CDL Road Test: Passed

My mates and I have passed the Ohio CDL road test today!

CDL Test Site: Rainy Day

Through the rainy windshield of the Bluebird...CDL test site, Canton, Ohio.

CDL test site: A little Blue Egg in a nice nest :)

Look! A little nest with a tiny blue egg inside :)

CDL: 2nd attempt at road test

The Bluebird Bus (in the rearview mirror) at the CDL testing facility in Canton OH - my 2nd time here!

Fishy Fish

The fish at Beck Cafe at the Beck Center in Lakewood OH
--> Steve2.Net

CDL TEST: 1st Attempt

Passed the Pre-Trip inspection and Skill Pad test! Failed the road test (got my trailer tandem's up onto a curb in a turn). Ooops!

CDL Test Site Today!

I am at the CDL test site today with my 2 classmates...this is it, the "Final Exam"!! I might be turning pro today. (Here is a foto of the site)
--> Steve2.Net

Mashed Cone Rescue Attempt

Awwww, poor cone got a bad mashy!
--> Steve2.Net

Cone's? What f_____n cones???

Gotta go with the cone flow, knowhatimean? No, prolly not.
--> Steve2.Net

RR Nature Center

At the Rocky River Nature center yet again! Nice day for bike ride :)
--> Steve2.Net

Truck Driving 101

Got to stay between the cones :)

Jj rules!

Jj cute huh!

Alright then, last formal day

Alright then, last formal day of CDL school on Friday, then 10 days without much action until the test. agh. so much down time!! sigh..

I am camera fone blogging again! It's a happy feeling. This is the window at Bella Dubby on Madison Ave. which, unlike Detroit Ave. is NOT a truck route. However, it is a wide street...Two lanes in each direction. Seems quieter than Detroit. The bands that were scheduled to play at the Beck cafe were outside tonite but the police asked them to quiet down. Bummer.

Detroit Theatre

The CDL School Student Driver Blues

OK, so, all this past week was spent in the Big Red Truck (which I should have a picture of posted here but don't) doing maneuvers on the skills pad (a really big parking lot type space) and it was all going pretty well, not painless by any stretch of the imagination (my clutching leg and knee...oooh), the first few moves being STRAIGHT LINE BACKING not as easy as it sounds in a combination vehicle over 54 feet long, but after MANY repetitions - back and forth back and forth - I finally got the hang of using the big West Coast Mirror on either side of the tractor to 'see the picture' of what the trailer is doing...and at first it just didn't make any sense, wow, especially in a very wide turn...with the instructor barking at me over and over again "Right! Hard left!! Hard right!! C'mon, turn the wheel!!! Get OFF the clutch!!! Let the CLUTCH OUT!!!! Let the CLUUUUTCH OUUUUTTTTT!!!" I like to ride the clutch because it makes the truck move so slowly but of course the instructors HATE IT when I ride the clutch. Anyway, after a that move we went on to the lane change move, very tough move, many attempts before I got it going on, and it is possible to get into a funk during the learning of these moves. Finally on WED. we started parallel parking...and it was not to hard to get the hang of it, I thought I was doing fine, my mood was high...then the dreadful ALLEY DOCK move came in to play late WED. and aaaaaaallllllllll daaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy Thursday, man, what a tough move to get the hang of. Sigh. By the end of the day on THURS. I had attempted it, like, 15 times and STILL was only getting close to getting it going on. Well, I was beat last nite. I have today off, next week we start OTR training.

CDL School: Day 2

Monday I started CDL classes with Tri-C (Cuyahoga Community College), the real name of the school is the RTI or Regional Transportation Institute, sounds fancy don't it? It is sorta fancy: Big red trucks, instructors with 3 millions road miles, big screen LCD monitors, LOTS of videos - heh. My primary instructor used to drive the double Decker buses in London...and he drove HazMat Tank here in the USA. Today the class 'next to mine' (they are a couple few weeks ahead of us) went to test for CDL today and ... whadayya know .. they ALL failed!!!! Yep, they all failed. And in fact, two of the three of them didn't even make it off the skill's pad for the OTR section of the test. Sigh. I have heard my instructor say they are hoping that MY class will be the first to have all the students pass the CDL tests the FIRST time we try, ok, whatever. I have never even been IN a truck before...ever. But I am feeling confident.....my first few days in the Big Red Truck (with a ten speed manual transmission) will be telling. More later...oh, my site is back up, steve2.net..ok bye.

"Paul's Boutique" - Beastie Boys 1988-89

Wow, I guess I am a little slow, I took me all these years to really tune into this album. Only recently have I had an understanding of what it means to use samples in the making of an acoustic artwork. Anyhow I am listening to it now, over and over again, in an effort to really get at the artistry of this fine piece of werk.

Here is a lyrical analysis with sample notes:
http://beastieboysannotated.com/paul.htm#HighPlainsDrifter

Here is the Wicki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul%27s_Boutique

The Job: Funny!

More Cleveland Bands for Consideration

I am listening to Cleveland Bands this morning while I work to Organize My Life Into More Managable Piles. (Pssst: I am adding links to music over there =>) I like The Very Knees, hmmmmm, and I went there from the Dreadful Yawns, and then over to Hobo Monk. The Yawns are mellow groovy, the Afternoon Naps sound cutesy. Maybe I need to go out and hear more Cleveland bands? LIke, in an effort to join one as bass player?? After all, I HAVE a bass and I can PLAY IT too - so there it is then.

Very Cool Music: William Orbit

I have been looking at the 'it' list over at Wimpyplayer just diggin' round there for what I think of as the coolest music webs and they have this link to William Orbit - here is the wiki link for more - really a great little site, tight and fast, informative and to the point, great photos, with really kickin free tunes (this guy produced Madonna and Pink among others).

My Cellphone Camera is Broken!! BooHoo!!!

All of the photos I have posted in this blog and in my website have been taken with my 2mega pixel cell phone camera and I really don't think anything can be done with a malfunctioning camera cell phone, I had it explained to me once that a cellphone will slowly 'cook' its Operating System with it's own emission of microwaves - sounds plausible. So, does that mean my cell phone is slowly cooking my brain? Will my brain eventually break down due to microwave exposure?? Scary.

Tarp money? What TARP money??

The gov gave (or loaned I am not clear on that detail) 45 BILLION dollars in taxpayers TARP money to CitiGroup (C) not to awfully long ago and, look, today the stock is below 5 bucks a share and dropping as the bank appears to be on the verge of breaking up. Hmmmm, so is that what the 700 BILLION bucks in TARP money is supposed to do, disappear into the deep dark recesses of failing banks, maybe never to be seen again?? I understood it was meant to loosen up the lending/credit markets....so when does that part of the deal kick in?? What's really going on here, did the taxpaying public just let 45 BILLION bucks disappear into a toilet? Damn.

Oh my it's Jessica Lea Mayfield .... all around

Jessica Lea Mayfield continues her efforts at World Domination in category Acoustic Guitar Slinger Songwriter .... and she may yet succeed beyond anyones wildest imagination, who knows. Here she is in a very keen video taken somewhere nice in Amersterdam gee, neato. And check out the sound of that guitar pickup, good huh, I like her sparkly eye makeup. Sigh :)

popcorn

The Detroit Theatre in Lakewood Ohio is now a First Run movie house, maybe you didn't know that. Thankfully, Yes Man is leaving by this Friday to be replaced by something for girlies. Hmmmm, more later.