After I watched all 5 seasons of “The Office“, I embarked on a “Man vs Wild” marathon. It’s somewhat of a realistic count of the adventures of Bear Grylls, who was once the youngest guy to scale Mt. Everest. For most of the episodes, he shows the viewers survival tactics in some of the world’s most remote areas. While there are some rumors that on some episodes, he spends part of his time off the camera in luxury hotels rather than in the wild as portrayed, the majority of his adventures are impressive. Aside from being able to eat anything raw (Yak eyes, puff adders, spiders) and able to build rafts from fig vines, Bear Grylls is well-versed–these abilities have enabled him to produce five seasons of adventures.

Aside from the instinctual thrill of watching this survivorman dive into waterfalls, I enjoy analyzing the science behind all of his tactics. On one episode, he explains the Dakota fire pit as a means to sustain a fire in a windy environment and mask your tracks. While I may never actually build one of those myself, it’s interesting to learn about fundamental skills. Bear Grylls also comments much on the nutritional value of the insects, creatures, and animals he manages to stuff in his mouth. Yes, snails have high protein content. So do snakes.  From a scientific standpoint, this point is fundamental since the aforementioned animals are highly muscular. And muscle is built from amino acids (roughly). Nonetheless, I find it amusing to hear these correct statements from someone who didn’t go through years of college. I’ve finished three seasons so far…two more to go.

misc life

I think the local hospital was built on what used to be a pond or reservoir. There are many fowl hanging around the parking lot and the manmade pond in front of the hospital. I took this photo with my phone when I was leaving around midnight. Poor ducks. It’s actually sad to be part of the problem displacing nature from its original habitat.

misc humor

My previous entry reinvigorated my thoughts on the trite debate on whether genius stems from nature or nurture. Neurology is fascinating in that so much of it remains a black box. Highly functional people have been found on incidental imaging to have absent lobes of the brain, likely stemming from in utero infarctions. Given the plasticity of the brain, is it possible to nuture a genius? Such topics make great (lame) discussions on a Friday night around the campfire.

In pursuing the nurture argument, I’ve created a thought experiment that involves my experience compared with that of a “genius”. Consider this an experiment with N of 1 (Usually, a study with N=1 is not generalizable). All of the following statements are true to the extent of my knowledge.

There is a non-fiction text written several years ago entitled “Countdown” that documents the lives of a few teenagers/people who are extremely gifted in mathematics. For the sake of argument, these people are “geniuses”. While I haven’t read the book, I believe that I am familiar enough with the characters to make relatively accurate assumptions to compare one of them to me. The “genius” will be referred to as Genius.

As follows, in reverse chronological order:

1. As a freshman in college, Genius took graduate-level courses, doing well in all of them and mastering the material with more fluency than many graduate students.
   1. As a freshman in college, I struggled with freshman Chemistry. I almost considered dropping out when I discovered that elements in the periodic table could have quantifiable charges instead of simply “positive”, “neutral”, or “negative”. Apparently my pre-college education was lacking.
2. As a high school student in California, Genius participated in numerous academic scholarly activities, and was well-rounded in athletics. He won many medals and awards.
   1. As a high school student in rural Appalachia, I almost got electrocuted in my house-building class when my partner thought it to be funny to connect live power (220v) to the wall outlet I was building for a laundry dryer. The course was entitled “house-building” because it taught us not only how to wire switches on walls but also how to construct a frame for a house.
3. In grade school in Mississippi, Genius was considered to be too talented for his teachers, and they had trouble keeping him intellectually challenged. His teachers would struggle to create tasks for him.
   1. In grade school in rural Appalachia, I was not challenged by the school curriculum. My teachers thought I was a nuisance to ask questions, so they put me in the back of the room cutting paper ornaments for Christmas decorations.
4. (From an excerpt of Countdown) During grade school,  Genius was invited to a summer math camp. He was excited.
   1. During that summer, Genius had a roommate who was there for similar merit. He also lost a game a chess to his roommate. Guess who his roommate was?

I think nuture deserves a point for this case. In fairness, the statements above are not intended to offend anyone, nor should they be construed to be snide comparisons. They are simply meant to stimulate debate. And if you are this aforemented Genius, please contact me. I’d like to see how you’re doing. You’ve been a great inspiration for me to bootstrap out of a failing American educational system.

misc life

I try to use generic-branded items as much as possible, for cost reasons. Most of the time the difference in quality is imperceptible; I certainly can’t identify a difference between Price Chopper and Morton salt. In some cases, the generic and the branded items come from the same manufacturing facility, like Jif and Great Value (Wal-Mart) peanut butter–they both came from the same facility in Georgia that was infested with Salmonella.

There is, however, a surprising difference in other products. I purchased a roll of “Ranch Wagon” clear plastic wrap on discount for $1. Saran wrap costs close to $4 for 100-ft, so I figured that it would be a huge savings. Wrong.  The trade-off comes in the form of pain and frustration every time I use it. You’d think all clear wrap were made to be equal, but this is not true. “Ranch Wagon” plastic wrap has amazing clingy properties only to itself–the moment it touches itself you will never be able to untangle the mess. It does not cling to anything else (bowls, silverware…etc), which makes it utterly useless for its intended purpose.

Saran wrap is constructed from low density polyethylene, usually laced with a lighter polymer to add some extra cling. I suppose the generic stuff doesn’t have the additional touch.  Lesson learned: never again will I buy generic plastic wrap.  I wonder if generic aluminum foil is comparable to Reynolds aluminum foil wrap…stay tuned.

misc food

I admit that I’m ignorant about business and economics. I’ve been a student for the majority of my life so far, and it seems like the only “economic success” I’ve had is racking up a shocking amount of student loan debt throughout the years. Recently, I’ve been playing catch-up with economic terminology so that once I actually have a positive cash balance, I’ll know what to do.

I’ve read a bunch of guides on cutting spending and minimizing expenses for the average-Joe, but many of the suggestions don’t necessarily apply to me or seem a little bit too fundamental.  Nonetheless, I’ve decided to add on to the list of online guides, and offer some of my thoughts on saving money. Perhaps they will be of use to some people.

1. Credits cards. I am considered a “transactional user”, which simply means that I pay off my credit card balance at every billing cycle. While it’s commonplace for me to tell you not to carry a balance since I don’t myself, I’d imagine this is where you rack up excess consumer debt. Credit card companies charge hefty interest rates up to the 20-30% range for balances. If you carry a monthly balance, then it’s time to crunch the numbers to see where you’re bleeding cash. When you do use a credit card, get some cash return with one that pays cash back on your purchases, like the Chase Freedomcard. I get 3% back on my top 5 categories of expenses, and 1% back on everything else. It adds up, albeit slowly. Read more…

misc economy