Jeff Yoak

Lily!

jeff@yoak.com — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:18:37 GMT

Our daughter was born yesterday afternoon. Lily, Kate, Alex and I are all happy and healthy. And most of us are sleeping. :-)

Parents say the oddest things...

jeff@yoak.com — Wed, 28 May 2008 13:31:17 GMT

Parenting opens up a whole world of experiences simply unavailable to the childless. A constant perceptual reminder is hearing yourself and a spouse say things that would simply be unimaginable in other contexts. For instance, today, not as a joke or anything but as a simple statement of fact, I found myself saying, "Fishies don't like salami."

Another great example was Kate yesterday saying with grave solemnity that, "You don't skate with a potty on your head."

Boy this is fun! :-)

Pancakes

jeff@yoak.com — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:40:43 GMT

I've learned to make pancakes all over again. It turns out that Alex's desire to eat pancakes is substantially increased if said pancakes are shaped like elephants, dinosaurs, snakes and kitties. That isn't surprising, I suppose, but somehow I'm surprised to admit that my interest in eating pancakes is increased if they're shaped like elephants, dinosaurs, snakes and kitties.

Of course, in my case I'm sure this is because such artwork leads to thinner pancakes of necessity, thus providing a different consistency and taste. And all that tromping around the table with pancakasaurus is just for his entertainment.

I wish I had taken pictures.

Exercises

jeff@yoak.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:59:33 GMT

Alex came into the kitchen while Kate and I were making dinner and said, "Finished my exercises." Odd. Kate asked if he could show us his exercises. He laid down on his back and lifted his legs up in the air. Over and over again. It was the cutest thing ever.

He dos a lot of the cutest things ever recently. A bit later we were all sitting out in the backyard. Kate reached over and gave him a little tickle. He flapped her away, pointed accusingly and yelled, "Donkey!"

Being a dad can be fun. :-)

Podcasts -- Escape Pod

jeff@yoak.com — Mon, 19 May 2008 05:41:06 GMT

Another of my favorite podcasts is Escape Pod. It's available through your favorite podcatcher or at:

http://escapepod.org/

Escape Pod is a short-story format science fiction podcast.

Given my tastes, I wouldn't have guessed this would have worked out to be one of my favorites. I have extremely eclectic tastes, but tend to be very author-loyal. When I find something I like, I find that I tend to like the author very generally and read everything that they write. In sci-fi, for example, I've read everything Heinlein wrote and very little else. I also tend to prefer long novels to shorter work.

The idea of a short story by new authors each week just wouldn't have intrigued me, but when I started listening to podcasts, I asked my friends for suggestions. ethernight pointed this one out and I gave it a try. I'm glad I did. I find I like about 2/3 of the stories and absolutely love some of them. I've even discovered a few new authors through it.

If you like sci-fi and can spare about 45 minutes a week, give it a try. It doesn't matter whether you start with current episodes or start from the beginning, though it is a particularly good time to pick it up as this week concludes an annual series of running the short stories nominated for a Hugo, and I think in general they were particularly good. One of these, Episode 156, Distant Replay, is one of my favorite Escape Pod stories. Though it is very different from the stories they generally play, it might make a nice introduction.

As the editor of Escape Pod, sfeley might say, "Have fun."

I couldn't help it

jeff@yoak.com — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:34:46 GMT

I generally avoid posting funny images that float around the net, but this one keeps making me smile even when I'm not near my computer to see it. I'm especially sorry to those of you who already saw this in doooook's journal.

Podcasts -- The MathFactor

jeff@yoak.com — Sat, 17 May 2008 17:11:02 GMT

I've decided that I really want to start writing in my LJ again. It's great for staying in touch with friends, meeting people and lots of other things. I also like writing, and wish I had more occasions on which to do it.

Until very recently, my job required my to drive four hours per day to commute. I've long been a fan of audio books, but during my year of so much time to consume audio, I also became a fan of listening to podcasts. Now that my commute is about 20 feet, whether conceived of as from my living room chair or my bedroom to my office, I'm actually a little starved for listening to them. Nonetheless, I thought I would write a series of posts about my favorites. Many of the better podcasts I found were suggestions from friends, several of whom might be reading this, and maybe some of you will be interested enough in some of these descriptions to try one yourselves.

My favorite among the podcasts I've discovered is called The MathFactor. You can find it with your favorite podcatchers or here:

http://mathfactor.uark.edu/

The history of the thing is that a math professor, Chaim Goodman-Strauss, at the University of Arkansas started maintaining a listserv with a weekly math or logic puzzle. A local radio host, Kyle (sorry... can't place his last name) subscribed and thought it would be a wonderful segment on his Sunday radio show, "Ozarks at Large." Later, they started podcasting it. I understand it has become very popular.

The initial conception was the same as the list: Each week they'd offer a puzzle and the answer to the previous week's puzzle. When I discovered this, it was pure joy having years of these to go through. Four or five would be trivial or familiar to me and then I'd get a good couple weeks of skull sweat on one before moving on. This was more than a year of fun.

I would suggest anyone trying it to go in order for the most part. This is for two reasons: First, since the format provides answers from the earlier puzzle in each episode, this just makes sense. Second, after years of doing this, the format is drifting a bit. More recent episodes sometimes just hash over an idea or present an interview. This is still interesting to me, but since the hook here for a new listener is interesting puzzles, the beginning is the way to be sure to get that.

This is a particularly good week for me to blog about The MathFactor, by the way. This week's episode, Episode DX., Dumb Robots, offers a puzzle that I sent to the host. Of course, if you follow my advice and start at the beginning, you won't hear this for a year or so. :-)

What a wonderful date

jeff@yoak.com — Sat, 17 May 2008 05:07:08 GMT

Kate and I have been trying out a babysitter for a couple of weeks. She comes twice a week for the whole morning. We both get to work instead of one of us being focused on Alex and he gets to acclimate to another person. It's been a great success and been a real value.

Today we tried something new. Kate and I scheduled a date for the evening with Hoda staying with Alex for the evening. We thought that there was a reasonable chance that there would be hysterics and we'd never get to leave, or that we'd have to come home early... or at the very least that there would be a meltdown when we got home.

The little guy understand we were leaving and said goodbye. By both his report and Hoda's, he had a great time and was thrilled but not panicked to see us upon our return.

It's so wonderful to see him becoming braver and more independent. I mean, to this extent. I'm not ready for him to go off to college yet or anything. I love him so much.

All that AND Kate and I got to go to the Melting Pot. What a day.

Of poopies, puppies and pappies

jeff@yoak.com — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:45:03 GMT

Being a dad is great. Until 20 minutes ago, I was sitting in the living room of my beautiful house, next to my beautiful wife, watching Jim Cramer's Mad Money while my beautiful baby sat on the floor half playing with his Baby Einstein toys and half watching the show, usually whenever Cramer hit the "SELL! SELL! SELL!" button.

It was then that I noticed a certain mal-odor coming from Alex's direction. Kate noticed too, and started to pull him up when I happened to notice the overflow sitting in a small pool around where the baby was sitting. I yelped for her to hold him out. This wasn't just poopies. This was a five-alarm poopie explosion.

"SELL! SELL! SELL!"

We team carried Alex to the bathroom, him giggling wildly all along because, well, he was partially upside-down. Alex giggles a lot. In his position, I would be quite mortified, but he possesses that magical self-confidence required to blissfully continue trying to make the kitty pop up while being covered in used yogurt.

After the team-carry to the bathroom, we worked efficiently together. I held on to a foot in each hand and repositioned baby while Kate attempted to figure out how to get diaper and clothes off without hazmat gear and without turning the house into a superfund site.

Eventually, we get Alex mostly cleaned off and simultaneously ready for a bath. Kate said, "I'll finish up here. All you have to do is throw the diaper away and clean up the floor in the living room." I agreed, pitched the diaper, grabbed the wipes and headed out to the hardwood floor in the living room.

And a miracle happened.

It was completely clean.

I stood there puzzled a moment. The dog sat down next to me and looked equally puzzled. We stared.

I looked at the dog. The dog looked at me.

The dog licked its lips.

EEWWWWWWWGGGG!!!

So as you can see, my rock-star lifestyle is completely unabated by life as a dad. Can anyone suggest a product optimized for dealing with baby poo doggy halitosis?

Life of Pi

jeff@yoak.com — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 14:17:42 GMT

I listen to audio books during my two hours of daily commuting. I take Great Courses. I read novels. I listen to a lot of non-fiction, from works on astronomy to business books.

But for an accident, I probably never would have found Yann Martel's Life of Pi. The accident is that it was misclassified on one of the audio book rental services that I use. I was browsing the math section and there it was. I didn't read the description... the title made it virtually certain that along with being in that section that I would find it interesting.

It became very quickly clear upon starting the book that it was misclassified, and it gave me the rare pleasure of reading a novel without knowing *anything* about it. I didn't know what you'd know from seeing the cover. I didn't know what you'd know from reading the blurb in the link I provided above.

I enjoyed the book a great deal. It is quite rambling. The author takes the liberty to babble about religion, metaphysics, zoology or just about any other topic for pages on end. Normally this would bother me, but this is one of the rare cases where the author writes in such a way that I'm happy to bask in the babble. This was all the more extreme an experience for having no idea where the author was going.

Those who have heard of the book or have merely clicked on the link above know that it is a story of a survivor of a shipwreck. (Since you won't even manage to buy the book without knowing that much, I don't worry about that much of a spoiler. Only my unique path enabled me to be surprised by this. The lifeboat is on the cover.) That said, for the first third of the book, we follow young Pi's life in India before his trans-Pacific voyage begins. After chapter upon chapter of talk of religion and animals, and a brief description of the voyage itself, the author's simple "We sank." is a typically jarring and fun transition.

Our hero ends up alone on a lifeboat save for a 450-pound bengal tiger. This tiger is no Disney-like tiger that becomes his friend. This is a plausibly hostile tiger that is the greatest danger to our hero but that he becomes psychologically dependent on as time drags on. The story is an inspiring one of courage and perseverance that never ceases to be fun.

I'd recommend this novel to any of you. If any of you have already read it, I'd love to know what you think.

Minneapolis / St. Paul

jeff@yoak.com — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:05:57 GMT

Many of you know that I didn't fly for years after 9/11. The security measures were so intrusive that I preferred driving, and my lifestyle was compatible with taking the time to drive around when I wanted to be elsewhere.

Work now requires more travel than I'm used to and doesn't allow the time to drive everywhere. The security nonsense is less offensive than it was initially, but it seems that I have the worst luck of my life on general travel problems. Recently I spent 12 hours hanging out in a Detroit airport. Today I tried to fly to Louisville, KY and ended up missing my connection from Minneapolis / St. Pual by minutes. So now I'm in a crappy Days Inn waiting on a flight in the morning. They took three hours to find one of my two bags for me. The other is missing, potentially permanently. If it doesn't just appear on my connection in the morning it is probably lost.

Suck. If anyone reading is near this airport and wants to meet up for breakfast, holler at 626-705-6996 .

Busted!

jeff@yoak.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:21:05 GMT

athena_51 has been taking pictures and putting them on the net.

Frost

jeff@yoak.com — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:46:37 GMT

Yesterday there was frost on my car. Frost! I'm afraid to go outside today.

Lovely weekend

jeff@yoak.com — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 17:42:28 GMT

This is shaping up to be a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Yesterday, we had an doooook and athena_51 over for an abortive BBQ. It was abortive because Kate recently purchased us a new grill, but didn't refill the propane. There was some left, but unfortunately just enough to heat up one side of some burgers. We migrated inside and finished the burgers in skillets and they were still yummy.

The afternoon was spent with many beers, much good conversation and the two of them reeming pandashrugged and I at Turbo Cranium. A good time was had by all.

Last night, we trekked up to West Hollywood for Kate's Uncle Boris's 70th birthday. This was what I've come to think of as a traditional Russian birthday celebration complete with about 40 people, lots of singing and dancing and Russian food that we don't normally get to have. We only stayed for about three hours because of needing to get Alex home and in bed, but the time that we were there was a lot of fun.

Today I expect to be very relaxing. I got up early in the morning because if I don't, I make the start of the week harder. (I get up most days at 4:30 now!) But aside from early rising, I plan to keep my vices to a minimum today, just lounging. After I finish typing this, I'll probably spend an hour in a bath reading. After that, I'll walk slowly out to lunch. After that, maybe a little diddling on computers.

Good weekend!

apples and iphones

jeff@yoak.com — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:57:17 GMT

I have a small portfolio that I trade very aggressively. Most of the trading is based upon technical analysis, but occasionally I take some position based on something fundamental. Yesterday closed out one of the larger of those positions.

I knew that Macworld was going on. I knew the iPhone was going to be announced yesterday. I knew that analysyts were talking about how they expected Apple to sell 2-3 million of the things in the first year, and how Apple had produced 12 million units. I knew that the stock had been languishing for weeks off of a high. It seemed like a good time to be holding Apple calls. :-)

It turned out that I didn't know about the announcement of the deal with Google, and I didn't know about iTV actually being shown or for sale as soon as it turns out that it will be. (Good time to own Tivo puts? :-) ) Anyway... things went really well.

Relatedly... those iPhones look extremely awesome. Apple ususally does a pretty good job. I happen to be a cingular customer, so I should be able to get it when it comes out mid-summer for cheap / free by extending my contract. I suspect my phone is going to run OSX!

Pass the KY?

jeff@yoak.com — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:04:37 GMT

I'm going to be visiting Louisville, KY this week. Do any of ya'll hail from nearby?

We do the large majority of our printing from that location. I've never had the opportunity to visit there and thought that it would be a good time as it coincides with some the completion of some improvements to the bindery process that we're bringing online. It should be fun. I've met some of the KY management when they've visited California, but it'll be nice to meet everyone else. I've been here over four months and there are people in my reporting tree that I still haven't met. This trip will introduce me to most of them.

Gone shootin

jeff@yoak.com — Sun, 07 Jan 2007 13:46:58 GMT

I can't believe I'm up at regular time on Sunday. Well, a little later than regular. When did I become such a morning person.

Today I'm running off to somewhere in Palm Desert to shoot with a bunch of co-workers. The CEO is bringing his gun collection. What could possibly go wrong? Should be fun.

I've created a monster...

jeff@yoak.com — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:33:50 GMT

As pandashrugged was sitting over pepper steak tonight, her nose buried in a book instead of eating, she proudly announced, "Alex is sitting at a nine-month level!" with such joy and pride. She's cute.

Economics and sleep

jeff@yoak.com — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 18:56:17 GMT

I've been having tremendous fun rereading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. I read this book once before way back in college and had forgotten how powerful it is in its arguments and manner of communication. If you have even a passing interest in economics and haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

More practical and almost as much fun is reading Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems by Richard Ferber. Several of the books I've read on children have been helpful in providing some information that I didn't have, but most tend to be written in a style and from a perspective with which I find it hard to sympathize. For a change I feel like I'm reading something written by a scientist. I realize this author is extremely controversial, so let me add that I'm fairly close to the beginning of the book and so far most of material is laying groundwork for what is to come. So I'm not advocating things that he may advocate later in the book... but I am enjoying the process. Alex has a hard time sleeping, and I'm hopeful that this book will yield useful insights in making his life better as well as making the process easier for me and Kate.

Happy New Year!

jeff@yoak.com — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:16:59 GMT

This weekend Kate, Alex and I spent time together and generally relaxed. About the most strenuous thing that I did was spend some time doing some goal-setting for 2007. This is what passes for resolution-making for me. Somehow describing it that way keeps a more positive focus. One thing I hope to do more of in 2007 is keeping up with all of you through LJ, so you'll probably be seeing more me often.

One interesting New Year event was noticing that the Free State Project reached their goal for the First 1000 pledge at the exciting last minute before the deadline. It'll be interesting to see what happens. While this pilot program being successful doesn't ensure that the program will be successful, its failing probably sinks the project. My long-held belief is that the FSP is full of people who have not fully emotionally realized that New Hampshire is much more full of snow and cows than of technology jobs. If even this small, most-committed group has a substantial number of those who made the pledge bail out, we have to assume that the participation in the main drive will be minimal. I'm suspect this will happen, though I hope that it doesn't.

Another interesting thing I noticed was the success of a similarly ambitious project that I've written about here before: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/ . I don't get the snowglobe thing, but I'm glad he made it. This project became media- and attention-seeking in a way that made it less fun to follow it than it might have been otherwise, but the initial idea was just downright brilliant, and I'm glad it worked out for that reason if for no other.

Happy New Year!

Itsa (gonnabea) boy!

jeff@yoak.com — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 02:58:38 GMT

We got our ultrasound and have a picture of a bouncing, baby penis. :-)

I had no preference between boy or girl, though Kate was itching for a boy. I'm glad it worked out. We're half way there. I can't wait!

jeff@yoak.com — Sat, 07 Jan 2006 01:29:07 GMT

I think I am married to the most wonderful woman in the world. I cannot imagine how in a million years I could be so lucky! Really, I should do something special to show her how much I love her. Does anyone have any ideas?

A sad farewell...

jeff@yoak.com — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 23:11:51 GMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/wtae/20051227/lo_wtae/3146107

Part of my childhood is gone. :-( This is bloody ironic as it has been less than a month since I was reading the proposal for opening O franchises.

Anyone need a snowmobile?

jeff@yoak.com — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 20:37:28 GMT

This rules. Kyle MacDonald started in Canada with one red paperclip with the goal of trading it for a house. He's willing to take several steps, of course. So far he has "traded up" for something better six times and now has a snowmobile! There are so far dozens of offers for the snowmobile including several cars and various other cool items.

I imagine this is going to get a lot harder the closer he gets to his goal. His story is really cool and people would be inclined to participate with small-value items just to be part of it. Trading a fish pen for his paperclip is cool enough to do even if you happen to value a fish pen more highly than a paperclip. People will be less inclined to casually trade down to a snowmobile just for kicks.

Also, in general, the more valuable the items become the more fixed the market value is likely to become. Fish pens and even neon Budweiser signs gain a lot of their value from presence in a particular place and tickling widely variant fancies. Snowmobiles likely have a fairly liquid market in Canada and thus people are likely to know exactly what they are worth. It'll be fascinating to see if he can overcome this. Granted the snowmobile in question was previously owned by a minorly famous person, which could help.

I think that the only way he will make it is by sticking to things that have a wide distribution of valuations in the market. A painting might be a better choice than an ounce of gold because trading up might be possible by finding someone placing an extremely high value on the painting. Of course, people who are good at exploiting such markets are typically in the business of doing so. It's hard.

I wish Kyle the best of luck. I wish I needed a snowmobile. :-)

Two pink lines.

jeff@yoak.com — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 22:37:33 GMT

Kate and I are going to have a baby!