Month: May 2015

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My biggest regret in life is that I’ve never been able to achieve perfection in anything I do, know or strive for. It’s also my biggest satisfaction in life – to observe that the world is the most wonderful, endlessly creative and constantly evolving place that’s a culprit for impeding that same perfection in the first place.

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You know how Listerine gives you a “deeper clean than brushing alone”? For years I’ve been staring at the bottle twice a day while swishing the bitter liquid. For years…. Until it occurred to me that “brushing alone” can actually mean a couple of things. One meaning, most definitely unintended by Listerine makers, made me imagine a lone man, day after day brushing his teeth all by himself, with a final result far less than what he expected. In another scene, that same man is surrounded by his friends- Listerine bottles, and he’s still brushing but less incessantly, and ends up blinding us with his strikingly white, clean teeth. I thought I was crazy at first, looking for double meanings in an innocent marketing campaign but then found at least one instance of people discussing that same angle of the expression, but taking it even further, suggesting replacing a toothbrush with fiends, or asking if someone could brush their teeth with their friends to get the same effect. And I thought I was crazy …

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We go to this dental office and the hygienist’s name is Ruth. Lovely, older lady. I was joking with my wife that we should start calling her Ruth Canal. She couldn’t stop laughing.

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Our kids go to a daycare where teachers are almost like family. My older son had some stomach problems and missed one day of school, and everybody there was concerned about him. One teacher in particular confided in my wife: “Can’t go, huh? That’s bad. I couldn’t go either. Bananas did it to me.” And after a short break she went on: “I went yesterday”. My wife thought such confession was odd  but I thought it’s great when people can open up like that to strangers. Something tells me they are incapable of evil.

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You know the expression “A picture is worth a thousand words”? It puzzled me to find out who might have come up with this concept. I wondered if it could only belong to someone who’s innately lazy or an ultimate genius. A quick Wikipedia search revealed that it’s partly true on both fronts. The writers (Ivan Turgenev), world leaders (Napoleon Bonaparte) and some advertising guy in the 1920’s all expressed the same idea, albeit in various forms. What puzzled me even further was a Chinese counter-version that, according to John McCarthy, a computer scientist, went something like this: “1001 words is worth more than a picture”. So which one is it, people????!!!???

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I once worked in a company that had a gym and sauna on site. I went to the gym for some time before I tried the sauna out one day. I walked in, took off my clothes and put on the swim trunks. All the while in the privacy of the dressing room. Then walked out into the sauna, climbed the bench and closed my eyes. At that moment a door to the steam room opened and out walked a colleague of mine, as Mother Nature intended, leaving nothing to imagination. It was so sudden that I gulped. And looked away. He realized that he went a little too far at and cupped his stuff. Next he sat next to me and started small talk. So I’m listening to him and can almost hear his brain working at overload capacity, trying to figure out how to get out of the hugely embarrassing situation. I left first, to his relief. Never to return to that sauna. I mean, what if I ran into my boss there, as relaxed as the other guy was?

Want to talk about probabilities?

Well, I do. Before today, I’ve witnessed a number of times when something happened, seemingly out of the blue, and it was related to some other chance event in my life. And since both events were absolutely random, you start believing in absolute randomness, aka chaos … Or some divine force that makes it all happen. Or that all things are indeed somehow connected, unbeknownst to us. So here’s what happened.

I was looking for a journal or note taking iPad app that looks a little more elegant than built-in Notes. I checked out a few and some were a complete overkill, others – not functional enough. I didn’t go to a great length reviewing them all but scrolled down a few rows just to see what else was there. For no obvious reason, Hanx Writer got my attention. I went into details and realized that Mr Castaway himself produced the app. So I downloaded it and played a bit with it. Its whole premise is to replicate an old-fashioned typewriter, with sounds, keys, end of line carriage return. The app is too cluttered, even awkward, in my opinion, but that’s secondary to the story. That was on a Tuesday.

Exactly a week later, also on a Tuesday, I got into my car, at a very odd time, about 4.45pm, I never get in my car at that time, but I worked from home that day and had to pick up a few groceries before picking up my son at the daycare. So anyway, I get into my car and I have NPR on. And I could have had satellite radio on, or played Pandora, or god knows what else. But I had NPR on, and I can hear a dialogue between a man and a woman, the woman being an anchor. And they are talking about old-fashioned typewriters, and carriage returns, and custom sound settings, and how popular this is going to be with kids (or not). And then, like a lightning bolt, this very distinctive laughter and tonality, you know, “I have made fire!” Tonality, strike me with the realization, “Holy crap, this is Tom Hanks, and they are talking about Hanx Writer”!!!

At that point, I’m thinking to myself, “well I’ve been here before, many times actually”, but I was either way too busy, drunk, lazy etc. to document it or simply didn’t see the whole coincidence meet chaos meet divine force angle to it. And then, thankfully, I decided to retain the experience and put it down on paper.

Back to probabilities- here’s how I view the whole thing.

Let’s write it down – iPad has X number of writing or journal taking apps, so the probability of me finding Hanx Writer is 1/X. The actual probability (sort of out of the blue) of me looking for an app like that is even lower but let’s assume that was predefined.

Further, there are numerous options for what I could’ve been listening to in my car. Let’s give weights to a few major options: Shoutcast, Pandora I’d say 1/10, satellite- 3/10, NPR- 4/10, some other radio or not listening to anything at all – 2/10. So with 40% chance I could’ve been listening to NPR. Not bad odds on its own but …

Now to the timing, probably the hardest to define. I drive every day so the day of the week itself is not important. The fact that I worked from home could’ve been caused by a million different events but lets say for simplicity that it was either me being sick or something else, like flat tire this time. So let’s say it has a 5/260 chance (average days I work from home over 260 work days a year). Now, the odd hour that I left home would arguably have the lowest probability but let’s assume we measure that whole time frame in 15 min increments- being the length of the show- over the span of 2 hours. In that case, the odds of me leaving at 4.45pm are 1/8.

From my statistics course I remember that to calculate the combined probability of multiple events, that is, the probability that they all happened is to simply multiply individual probabilities. So here it goes:

1/x iPad apps x
4/10 listening to NPR x
5/260 working from home x
1/8 leaving at 4.45pm

And that gives us 0.096% / x iPad apps for writing. I don’t know what that x is but my guess is that it’s in the hundreds, if not thousands. So let’s say a round thousand – and then the final probability comes to 0.000096%. In practical terms, this means that the odds are 1 out of a million for the events I just described to happen. I’m not much of a gambler but I’d say the odds aren’t great.

I have no reasonable explanation why these things happen. With the odds as they are, they shouldn’t but they have happened to me and far more than once. I’m positive I haven’t uncovered a conspiracy but I almost sense that there has to be some kind of connection between us that exists outside of our immediate senses. Too bad it’s unlikely that I’ll know what it is in my lifetime.

I’m sure you’ve been to a car wash. And if you haven’t, you should.

Car wash is a majestic place. Suspension starts building up from the moment you punch in a code. The preparation is a process in itself, almost a ritual. There is an attendant waving you in, making sure you don’t scratch your tires or rims. You keep driving up until he orders you stop, and mimes to you the steps you need to follow. Windows up, car in neutral, don’t touch the steering… I never know how to interact with the attendant at that point- do I mime thank you in response? Or do I nod? Or should I actually roll down the window, verbally acknowledge the fella and quickly roll it back up? At this point the rail picks up the car, and you feel like you completely lost control, almost a sense of zero gravity. And the real action begins.

All mechanical parts, moving in perfect harmony, their movements so precise that no harm should ever befall on your precious vehicle. Here’s a symmetrical set of side brushes, their not so friendly but firm advancements towards you and your passenger, only to stop inches away from your faces, so that they could attend to the sanitary needs of your doors. And then there is a center brush, ominously approaching the car, and it’s as if it knows exactly when to start inching up and rolling over the hood until finally disappearing somewhere over your head. You can hear the soft, cozy sounds of bristles against the body and suddenly the whole experience isn’t so scary. The sprinklers add to the joy with their multi-color expressions, and the foam engulfs you completely into the sense of serenity – you and your car are safe in capable mechanical, programmable hands.

And at that moment, when you are finally relaxed and happily observing the fresh water come over your entire body and wash away the suds, when you can make out a street light ahead of you, still red but ready as you are to turn green any minute now, and the dryers have deployed their lungs, you look to your left and through the water streaming down and vapor you see some guy standing there, absentmindedly, not even looking at you or your car but more like looking around, and the thought crosses your mind: “What the hell is this guy doing there???” It’s always so sudden that you involuntarily shudder. The vapor adds to the mystery in that the guy looks distorted, hard to make out his features or gestures. Your paranoid mind starts likening him to Freddy Kruger who wasn’t a stranger to vapor himself. And you realize that all this was just a show, mechanical precision, pretty colors and cozy foam. “It’s a trap”, your mind quickly registers, and at that point the rail actually slows down. Freddy the attendant continues standing there, and all your claustrophobic neurons jump into action. And just as soon as you reach the mixed state of “can it be” and “come on, be a man”, the dryers give way to open doors and you see the daylight again.

Whew. Adios Freddy and mechanical monsters, I’ve escaped your grip once again!

I was in a meeting the other day. A couple of consultants presented some mumbomjumbo that the rest of us pretended to appreciate. Both of them, man and woman, looked identically tanned, same height, same fake laugh and quite possibly same bed while away on a business trip. He was her boss, anyway.

On our side there was this guy, new to the company and the team, that reminded me of Chris Cooper character in the movie American Beauty, colonel Frank Fitts. I mean, the guy looked like he had just gotten back from the gun range. I asked a rather innocent question and he gave me this look, unmistakably sharp look of a sharp shooter. Did I say the meeting was boring? I had a vivid image of this fella on a Saturday night, in his black vintage boxers and a wife beater, lovingly cleaning his Uzi. He drank and cursed all these damn immigrants that had invaded America and glanced at his white outfit in the corner every few minutes.

The meeting was over in no time. I’m glad Colonel and I work in different departments.

P. S. There was a follow up call and the colonel was on it. At some point he quoted “the greatest Donald Trump” and that was the break point for me. You win, Colonel.