The Dantom Menace

This is a normal city. Note how straight the streets are. People who grow up here acquire a direction sense.


This is where I grew up. Was the city planner on acid? I feel like a rat trapped in a maze whenever I drive through here. People who grow up here do not acquire a direction sense.

That is all.

My roommate the Cog recently bought a condo in Las Vegas. On Friday we decided to go down there to get out of town for a bit. I figured it would be an opportunity for me to get some work done on my laptop, since his place isn't equipped with a phone or internet or any of the usual distractions. And since I no longer gamble, it should have all worked out just fine. The polite phrase for this is "rationalization". The correct phrase is "being delusional".

To make a long story less long, I ended up losing $200 playing low-limit nofoldem holdem, the game I "retired" from earlier this year. We initially went to one of the casinos to check out the football on the big screen tvs in the sports-betting room (so much for no distractions). This happened to be near the poker room, and, well, one thing led to another and we found ourselves in a game. Initially, the Cog and a few other table "bullies" were betting big to push everyone around. To counter this, I played very patiently, waiting for good cards to get the best odds against the maniacs. But playing like that becomes like a job after a while (and you know how I feel about jobs), and since it wasn't winning me any money either, I ultimately decided to loosen up a bit and play more hands. Recalling my brutal beatdown at the Hawaiian Gardens casino, I also opted to introduce another important element: alcohol. I had a beer and waited for the drunken magic to kick in. Unfortunately, that never happened; I blame this on the fact that I had to drive us back later and therefore couldn't take advantage of the necessary intoxication level to really up the magic. The loss was inevitable.

Oddly, afterwards I wasn't upset in the least, which I believe means I have reached poker nirvana-- accepting (and even enjoying) the pointless nature of the nofoldem games. I still LOL@ the "poker is skill, I swear!" zealots who sit at the table and complain about the bad beats they take time and time again. I know I am better than that. 2 7 flopping a full house, you no longer faze me.

There is a moral to this story. Just as I was convinced that the only people who won in Vegas were lucky bastards, something happened that ... completely confirmed my theory! After I lost my 2nd $100 in holdem (my straight getting beat on the river by a flush, typical), I just wandered around the casino for a while. The Cog was really drunk and of course winning, so I had to kill some time. One of my buddies told me that after getting beaten in holdem the last time, he was so annoyed he decided to just play something that at least didn't pretend to involve skill-- roulette. So I thought I'd try that. Unfortunately, I only had $1 in my wallet and none of the limits were that low. So I decided to play 5-card draw on the slot machines, a game which presumably has among the worst odds in Vegas and practically no skill element at all. Basically it's just a machine that (on the screen) deals you five cards and lets you pick which ones to hold, at which point it redeals the remainder (known as "drawing" cards). After that, the hand is paid off based on how good it is, with a single high pair being the lowest winning hand and a royal flush the highest.

I found a machine that let you make two-cent bets, enough to buy me some fun with my last dollar. After about twenty minutes I was around even and getting bored (same thing that did me in in holdem), so I hit some of the buttons to try to up the betting. I'm not sure exactly what I did but it made it so that instead of playing one hand at a time it dealt five (the same starting cards played, but when you drew cards there were five separate draws, so you had more chances to meet your draw). I also managed to up the bet, as it was now costing me like 40 cents a pop. That meant I only got two tries if I didn't hit anything. The first try won nothing, but on the second I was dealt 10 Q K A of spades! So I held those cards and prayed for the royal flush. I hit the draw button and it showed a 7 of hearts. Darn. But it also showed the results of my four other draws (because I was playing that weird mode) and, I couldn't believe it, one of them hit the J of spades! It paid about $100, by far the most I've ever won in Vegas (I thought I should get more for a royal, but I guess I can't complain since it's not a bad return for a $1 investment).

[here envision picture of winning slot machine that I wish I had taken]

For about ten seconds I considered putting that $100 back into a holdem game, but then I remembered why I was playing slots at 4am in the first place. So sometimes we do get wiser with age.

As a man of such important stature in the community, it is essential that I assist future generations by offering up the useful lessons I have garnered. Rather than harp on the usual misfits-- drunken debauchery, youthful indiscretions, and so forth-- I prefer to focus on a much more practical topic: foolish organizations and the fools who run them. This particular tale comes from my roommate, a former engineer at one of the many pointless corporations here in the OC. I'll refer to him as "the Cog", and his place of employment as "Square Wheel, Inc." Let this story serve as a warning to you future engineers.

In the mid-to-late 90s, with the dot-com boom in full swing, tech companies were getting insane amounts of funding for even the most obviously rubbish scenarios. It was pretty much impossible for a tech company NOT to get funding. In fact, I can only think of a single startup in this era that didn't. Damn. But I digress.

My friend the Cog started working at one such company in '98. It was a new business, but after one month and one idea, it had already amassed a staff of over sixty employees. The Cog, being a cog and all, was not privvy to said idea. In telling the story to me, he did use the term "vaporware" a lot. Basically, the company made its money by selling a non-existent product to a bunch of eager clients. [On an unrelated note for potential investors: the "soon to be released" version of BYOND boosts your cpu speed by over 1000%. Send $$$ for details!]

Around this time, the CEO of Square Wheel, Inc. decided to hold a big team-retreat to encourage the workers to use teamwork to meet all of his unfulfilled and unreasonable demands. All sixty employees were carted off to a fancy hotel for a day of snacks and inspiring team-building exercises. The main activity was this:

• The employees sectioned off into groups of six.
  
• Each group selected two "visionaries", two "analysts", and two "developers". Nothing was said of what these terms meant. My friend got to be a developer.
  
• Every group was given a standard, 100-piece box of legos.
  
• The visionaries were called to the front to look over plans for a lego structure, presumably the instructions included with the box.
  
• The analysts met with the visionaries, who would describe the plan to them.
  
• The analysts went back to relay the instructions to the developers, who were responsible for building the structure.
  
• The team had one hour to complete the lego assembly.
  
  So basically what we had here was a lego-building contest among people whose one-day salaries probably totalled over $20K. Money was plentiful in the late 90s. In principle, this exercise was supposed to encapsulate the checks and balances of the various positions within a company. It was supposed to show how teamwork influences accomplishment. In retrospect, that's exactly what it did.
  
  While the analysts were meeting with the visionaries to understand the plan, the Cog and his developer buddy did what any engineers would do with a box of legos in front of them. They opened it and started building.
  
  "Look at these wings and this hull. This is obviously a watercraft."
  
  "Yep. Look, there's a partial picture on the side of the box."
  
  And so they began. By the time the analysts showed up with the initial instructions, they only had a dozen pieces left.
  
  Analyst #1, we'll call her Debbie Downer, was quite dismayed.
  
  "What do you think you are doing?"
  
  "Building the plane. Looks pretty good, eh?" said the Cog.
  
  Debbie was quite grumpy. "Look, you guys are messing this up. You have to take the long thin piece and hook it up to the wing..."
  
  "We already did that. What next?"
  
  "Um. I'll have to go talk to the visionaries for the next instructions."
  
  The analysts left. This was pleasing to the developers, who proceeded to finish the watercraft. And with a half hour to spare.
  
  "Excellent. We used all of the pieces!" High fives all around.
  
  Ten minutes later, the analysts returned. Upon seeing the completed structure, Debbie became agitated.
  
  "You are doing this all wrong. Take it apart!"
  
  "Fine," said the Cog, breaking the structure up. "We've only got twenty minutes left. What do you want us to do?"
  
  Debbie tried to recall the instructions from the visionaries. "Ok, first off, attach the thin pieces to the four wings."
  
  "Well, we had already done that... but whatever." The developers grabbed at the pieces. "Hey, there are only three wings here."
  
  "What?" Debbie looked puzzled. "We'd better go talk to the visionaries. Don't move!"
  
  Now the developers were grumpy, but knowing the scolding they'd get for working on the craft, they sat tight for ten more minutes. At that point, the analysts came back with a message.
  
  "Screw it. We'll have to make due with three wings. Just attach them like this..."
  
  They relayed a few instructions. The developers complied.
  
  "It looks like a disabled bird."
  
  "We've got over fifty pieces left."
  
  "We're never gonna make it."
  
  "Shut up."
  
  "You shut up."
  
  Time ran out. The team looked at the pathetic lego structure in front of them. It no longer resembled the picture on the box.
  
  The CEO walked to the podium. "Nice work, everyone. Do you see how teamwork improves productivity? Let's see how you did."
  
  He walked to each team's table and looked at the structure. The Cog intercepted him before he could comment on their assembly.
  
  "Just so you know, it looked a lot better before the analysts tore it apart."
  
  "We were just doing as we were told." responded Debbie.
  
  Rather than be upset, the CEO smiled.
  
  "I see the wing situation threw you off!"
  
  "Huh?"
  
  "Yeah, when you weren't looking, I took one of your wings."
  
  "Why would you do that?"
  
  "In business, you have to get used to adversity."
  
  He walked back to the front.
  
  "Well, I'm sorry to see that not all of the teams succeeded. But I hope you learned the importance of teamwork."
  
  Indeed, as they marched out of the auditorium, the employee comments revealed that the day's lesson had truly been informative.
  
  "We had it working until the analysts started buggging us."
  
  "Did the visionaries even do anything?"
  
  "Why didn't they just hand the developers the instructions? Most of us can read."
  
  "So basically, the lesson is that the visionaries hoard the plans, the analysts get in the way, the engineers do all of the work, and the CEO screws everything up?"
  
  "I don't care, I got paid. Salary, baby!"
  
  And that, my young friends, is how it works in the real world. FYI, Square Wheel, Inc. still exists to this day, but as far as I know they continue to have no product. If I understood how that worked, I'd be a visionary, not a lowly developer!

This evening, I drove to the bank to deposit the latest BYOND Membership checks. The last two weeks had produced a grand total of five $15 deposits, a fairly paltry sum barely worth the drive, but I wasn't doing anything better.

As I was sitting in the parking lot contemplating how we would spend today's massive bounty, a well-groomed guy in his 20s or 30s approached me. He gave me this sob story about how he had lost his wallet and was stranded in my lovely city. His wife/girlfriend was standing next to him so I asked about her, and she apparantly didn't have any money either. It was all pretty shady-- my dominant cynical side suspected he just needed a few bucks to score more fine OC marijuana-- but I respected this desperate plea in front of his woman (who seemed embarrassed). So I asked him how much he needed and he said $14 "for gas" (unusually specific amount, no?) I gave him $15 and told him that, whether his story was true or not, he couldn't be in a good place having to ask a stranger for money, so I just hoped he would return the favor should the tables be turned one day. He and his wife/girlfriend thanked me profusely and I drove on my merry way.

It didn't occur to me until later that the $15 was the exact price of a membership. If I were writing a contrived M. Night Shyamalan script, the plot twist would be that the stranger was really just begging for $15 so that he could go home and subscribe to his favorite gaming system! That would be unusual in the face of destitution and gaslessness, but everyone has their own priorities in this life. And damnit, BYOND being #1 never hurt anyone.

As I was driving home, I thought about how my hero, game-theorist Johnny Von Neumann, would have handled the situation. Let's play another round of WWVND ("What Would Von Neumann Do?" duh!)

VN: How much money do you need, my son?
Stranger: I need...
VN: Wait!
Stranger: ?
VN: I shall write a dollar figure on this piece of paper. If you guess this amount or less, I shall give you however much you guessed. If you guess over, you get nothing!
Stranger: But I really need this money...
VN: Quiet! Guess!

I don't know if Von Neumann was really that belligerent, but I do think he could appreciate this situation, as it is a classic game-theory issue. Suppose you really need, say, $14, but think the generous fellow in front of you is willing to give $1000, or $10000? How do you measure risk vs. reward, when the reward is an unknown?

Speaking of game-theory, if you're a fan of this kind of problem you'll undoubtedly enjoy Gughunter's classic game, "Conflict". I give it "thumbs up". You'll also initially like the brutal casino game of Texas Hold'em, which on the surface appears to have the game-theory elements of pot odds, risk vs. reward, and so forth, but ultimately is really just luck and smack talk. That gets a "thumbs down, waaaaay down" from me. I still curse you, drunken master!

Last month, I rode my bicycle from Canada to Mexico. I was accompanied by a friend who had been on a number of similar tours and knew a thing or two about bikes. This turned out to be useful when my chain snapped in half in the middle of a thunderstorm in WhereTheHeckAreWe, OR. Without his expert repair skills, I would have been forced to camp out in the rainy backwoods somewhere, where I likely would have been eaten alive by a beaver. How embarrassing!

Canada	Mexico (sort of)

We took the Pacific Coast route, which is basically HW 101 (later HW 1) from Vancouver, BC to San Ysidro, CA. Note that San Ysidro is not actually IN Mexico, which ended up becoming a sore subject between my traveling buddy and me. Seeing as we had biked 1800 miles to get to this border, I figured we should do 1801 to actually cross it. He didn't want to go through the hassle of customs. So we ended the journey in a McDonalds at the border. They didn't even have any McTacos I could use to pretend we made it.

Rather than present a full account of the trip, I will provide some observations and minutiae. If you want the excrutiating details, I recommend undertaking the venture for yourself. You'll get some exercise, see lots of beautiful scenery, and get away from the computer for a month. Your boss will understand!

• 
  
• Bike shorts: not just a fashion statement
  Before this trip, I never understood the fascination bikers had with their attire. Take the bike out in California on a Saturday afternoon and you are bound to see a number of riders dressed like they are in the Tour de France, with skintight jerseys and those oh-so-annoying "nuthugger" shorts. It just seems like overkill for a casual rider. I've always ridden with the standard t-shirt and (regular) shorts, and fortunately my friend is the same way. So when we prepared for this trip, he just told me to buy some stuff that was lightweight and would dry quickly-- not to bother with any expensive bicycle clothing technology.
  
  

  This must be an early pic. Note the single-ply shorts!

  
  Well, that was fine for about two days of riding. Then something unexpected happened-- my ass got sore! My solution: double up the shorts. So on day three, I wore two pairs of my finest. No luck! On day four, I wore all three pairs, but my behind still complained. On day five I found a sporting goods store and bought two pairs of "support" underwear and a big bottle of Gold Bond powder. My attire for the following day was then:
  1 t-shirt
  2 underwears (laced with Gold Bond)
  3 shorts
  It looked pretty silly, but surely it would do the trick, no? No. At this point I had to ride with my ass askew on the seat, which made for some challenging situations. I accepted this for a couple of days until we found a bike shop. There I swallowed my pride and purchased two pairs of lycra nuthugger shorts. And damn if they didn't do the trick.
  
  So funny-dressed bicycle-guy, I salute you!
  
  
• It really does rain in Washington
  I've always been enamored with the Pacific Northwest, but everytime I've mentioned relocating to Seattle or Portland friends and family have responded with, "but doesn't it rain 300 days a year there?" And, indeed, talking with people from that area has confirmed this: "Nah, you don't want to move here .. it rains too much!" However, every time I've visited those areas the weather has been quite pleasant. I was in Seattle for a week in February one year and I think it only rained once. I was in Portland on three occassions and it never rained. So I began to suspect a conspiracy meant to keep Californians like myself out of these fine areas. "It's all propoganda!" I claimed. Survey says? ...
  
  Bzzzt! As fate would have it, it rained EVERY DAY we were in Washington and Oregon. I know this because I was on a bike, which offers very little protection against the elements (on a side note, I'd also like to write a strongly-worded letter to Adidas regarding the effectiveness of their "waterproof" jacket). On most days, the rain was accompanied by strong headwinds which converted the droplets into daggers of pain aimed at our faces. But that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? I should be fricken' Superman then.
  
  

  Son of a...!

  
  
• Tsunami!
  I suppose I ought to mention something about the trip itself. Some of you may recall that there was an earthquake off the coast of Eureka in the middle of June. It so happens that we were on the coast of Eureka on that day, actually in Crescent City, which is maybe 50 miles north, just south of the OR/CA border. Two tired bikers versus one natural disaster makes for a rather amusing story.
  
  We arrived in Crescent City after a long day of biking, around 75 miles through rainy Oregon. We had eaten almost nothing the whole day and were looking forward to a decent meal in one of the local restaurants. Ever since the first week, my friend had been searching for a place where he could get a large piece of fresh halibut. We found a seafood diner that looked like it might appease him. The prices were reasonable and the waitress witty. When my friend asked how big the halibut was, the watress responded with "oh, 'bout 18 ounces". His eyes lit up! I ordered the crab . Oh yeah, we were living the good life.
  
  Just then, a short, portly, middle-aged guy burst into the restaurant. "Tsunami!" he screamed. Then, noticing that we were the only patrons in the place, he approached us. "That means tidal wave."
  
  My friend and I just looked at each other. Would this affect our food situation? I asked the guy, "What do we do?"
  
  "Get out!" he responded emphatically. "Drive to high ground!"
  
  "Uh, we don't have cars" I said. The prospect of biking to high ground at this hour didn't appeal to me. Actually biking to high ground at any hour kind of sucked.
  
  "Then come with me!" He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the seat. My friend was reluctant. It was clear he would rather risk death than give up his elusive halibut meal, but apparantly that wasn't even an option.
  
  The chubby guy (whose name was Jack) rushed us into his pickup truck, which seemed to be on fire and in the wrong gear. Talking a mile a minute, he informed us that the earthquake was causing a tidal wave that was due to hit the coast in ten minutes. The last time this happened was in 1964-- it wiped out half the city. Jack was there for that too.
  
  Before we could get to high ground, though, he had to rush around town to tell everyone he could find. That was his sworn duty as the head of the harbor security patrol. "But we should have a few minutes to get out of here." Encouraging!
  
  So for the next eight minutes or so, I had the unique experience of yelling "Tsunami!" at the top of my lungs to all of the passerbys. Meanwhile, Jack drove like a maniac and my friend lamented his lost fish. Once he was confident that all was well, Jack gunned the engine and led us on a scenic tour through the redwood forest ("the best place we can be"). There we waited for an hour.
  
  Predictably, the tsunami never actually occurred. When all was cleared by the coast guard, Jack drove us back to town. We were staying in a dumpy motel right on the harbor. Should any aftershocks spark a real wave, we'd be the first to feel it! Worse, we were still hungry! So we dined on beef jerky and soda pop from the vending machine. And, despite hunger and fear, we both slept soundly that night. Biking all day is tiring!
  

In the interest of keeping this blog entry from turning into a novella (and if you've gotten this far, kudos to you!), I'll end my tale here. What I haven't conveyed is the sense of exhiliration that a trip like this provides. One could describe with words or pictures the feeling of riding along the coast in the early morning sun, but the experience of it is needed to do it justice.

Describing with pictures the feeling of riding along the coast in the early morning sun

Now, the experience of riding through the wind and rain with a sore ass, THAT I could do without.