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Zack was helping me make a batch of sugar cookies (bake sale tonight!) and he kept wanting to stir. I told him I’d stir it a little first, and then he could do it. He was pretty insistent, and repeatedly asked if he could do it now.

“Now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
“Not yet.”

Finally I told him, “Zack, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.”

He looked at me, undoubtably preparing his zippy retort, and then said, “Fine, I’m going to have a banana.”

From a Yahoo News article:

LOS ANGELES – A man was charged with trespassing after he stripped naked, scaled a airport fence, ran across the tarmac and climbed into a plane’s wheel well before firefighters talked him out, officials said.

Airport authorities will look into improving the fence, said Paul Haney, a spokesman for the agency that operates the airport.

Comments:

1) Barbed wire? Naked? Ouch.
2) Flying from L.A. to Australia, unpressurized, at 35,000 feet. Hmm.
3) Good thing they’ll improve the fence. That’ll surely put an end to these kinds of shenanigans.

“When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I’m beginning to believe it.”

— Clarence Darrow

I’ve been pondering an interesting question for a while and can’t come up with a satisfactory answer.

Consider the number pi. Also consider the works of Shakespeare, converted into a string of numbers where each number represents a letter (a=1, b=2, or you could use ASCII codes, or whatever). In fact, we can consider any series of numbers that’s well-defined, but Shakespeare makes it more fun.

The question: is it possible that Shakespeare is encoded within pi somewhere?

In a larger sense, the question is whether an arbitrary sequence of digits can be found within pi. You can even use different bases, if that suits your fancy. The problem doesn’t really change.

At first, I thought the answer was definitely “yes”. After all, pi is infinitely long and has a (seemingly) random ordering of digits. Somewhere in that mess, perhaps septillions of digits down the line, surely you can find Shakespeare.

My hunch wasn’t strong enough proof, so I began to consider how to disprove it. In other words, can I construct an infinitely long irrational number and a sequence of numbers that does not appear anywhere within it? At first I considered a non-repeating sequence of, say, ones and zeros that increases its count on each iteration. To wit:

1.010011000111000011110000011111…

It’s clear that the sequence “123” will never appear in this number. I believe the number is irrational, because it cannot be represented by a fraction– or, more loosely, because it’s infinite and never repeats. Thus, Shakespeare will never be found in here.

But pi is a slightly different animal: it has a fairly even distribution of digits– if I remember right, there is almost exactly a 10% occurrence of each digit zero through nine in the first million digits of pi. However, I don’t believe it’s been proven that the distribution is even (meaning pi is a “normal” number), and thus it’s entirely possible that somewhere down the line it becomes all sixes and sevens or something.

Anyway, I want to believe Shakespeare is in there, but I can’t come up with a strong conclusion.

(Yes, this sort of thing keeps me awake at night.)

The other day Zack was being really fidgety, which is usually a sign that he needs to go to the bathroom, but is too busy playing with toys or whatever. Laralee sat down with him and explained that when he feels fidgety like that, it’s his body telling him that it needs to go pee.

He looked down at his belly and said in a commanding voice, “Stop talking, body!”

What can I say? Today is indeed a dark day for America.

Tonight’s score:

* Political surveys or recorded advertising calls : 3
* Trick-or-treaters : 2

I suppose it doesn’t help that it’s about 35 degrees and pouring rain. But still, to have more of those idiotic recorded messages (“Hi, this is Governor Owens…”) than kids looking for handouts is truly sad.

Last night we all went to a Harry Potter theme Halloween party. Imagine a room full of people dressed mostly in black (since everyone at Hogwarts wears black in some form) with about half a dozen little Harrys running around… what a riot.

Both Kyra and Alex had their names drawn in a contest, and they were rewarded with prizes from a big pile of unbelievable toys. As a parent I could only smile with pride as they both picked… eyeball whoopie cushions.

That’s right, kids, the fun never stops when you have a little farting eyeball to drop on the chairs of unsuspecting guests! The kids thought it was an absolute gas (ha ha) but unfortunately the craftsmanship wasn’t up to the challenge, because as they continued to “test” them by literally jumping on them, each of the poor eyeballs blew a hole.

Too bad, because you never know when you need a farting eyeball…

The other night we had a pumpkin-carving party with our friends the Larsens. Of course we brought The Great Pumpkin over to their place, although it involved a wheelbarrow because it was simply too heavy to carry three blocks.

When I sliced into that puppy I learned that the skin was almost six inches thick in some places. Yikes. Needless to say it was quite a job to carve, but I carried on the tradition of doing a standard set of triangle eyes and nose, with a three-tooth mouth. It may not be exciting, but it’s a “classic”.

After we’d wheeled it back home, where it continues to dominate the front porch, it certainly dwarfs the other “standard” jack-o-lanterns we have.

Did you know that some decent paying jobs in the medical field can be had with as little as three months training?  The medical industry is one of the most stable and rapidly growing businesses in the country.  Check out this opportunity to start a new career!

That was a spam that caught my eye (subject: “You can be a doctor!”). I guess I’m in the wrong field…