Thinking about numbers, fairness, and justice lately.

Consider nut allergies. Exposure to various sorts of nuts can cause anaphylactic shock. The person (victim? potential survivor?) gasps, unable to breathe. Without help (usually epinephrine), they can die. That’s pretty bad, right?

The question is “To what length should we go, as individuals and as a society, to protect these folks?”

A rational approach to this would probably use some sort of calculus of suffering. How prevalent is the sensitivity? How great is the risk to each person? What potential actions could we take to help? What do those actions cost? Which possible courses of action are incompatible (i.e: Doing this *or* that makes sense – but not both).

It’s hard to stay rational when dealing with these numbers. If your child died, gasping on the floor, or was even at risk of such a fate then you probably – very reasonably – consider the risk to be infinite. A child’s death from a preventable cause is a horrible thing. On the other hand, I know for a fact that if kids were dying in horrible and cheaply preventable ways an hour off the coast of Florida in, say, Haiti – then a majority of Americans would rank that as having “zero” importance. Seriously. On the whole, we’d rather have a latte.

Infinities and zeros make the math a bit tricky.

I believe that the USDA requires food manufacturers to disclose if their foods contain or may contain nuts and / or shellfish. That’s the result of legislation – and legislation is usually derived from a downright nasty set of compromises. It tends to come down to a fight for limited attention between those with personal and those with financial interests in the problem. In this case, any requirement placed on the food producers makes food more expensive for everyone. Even pennies multiplied by “every person in the country,” get big in a hurry. There’s a common strawman argument involved when it’s an essential good like food. “You can’t make us do anything different,” goes the argument, “because then people on a fixed income won’t be able to eat.” It’s a compelling argument, and it is (in modified form) working out nicely for the as a hedge against dealing with global climate change. The risk is huge but hard to measure. The costs, rather specific. We can’t have grandma going cold over Christmas, can we? Especially not when we’re all just sad that Al Gore lost the election.

My father in law made a strong point over the holidays. “Some people have no choice,” he said “but to believe that you have an ulterior motive. They must believe this because their only other choice is to admit that they are cheapskate bastards. If you really were sensible, honest, and painting a comprehensive picture – then they would have to admit that they don’t live up to their stated morals. That they would rather,” in the case we were talking about, “close down the schools instead of paying a penny more in property taxes.”

For these people, caught between making crap up about your motives and admitting their own cheap meanness, “logic is not enough. You must use overwhelming, browbeating logic.”

If you’re asking someone to admit that they value human life at zero – it may take a bit of doing. That’s the cost, for some folks, in changing their mind on topics like climate change.

I post this from the kitchen laptop (yeah, that’s right, old G4 laptops don’t die in my house – they become the kitchen laptop). I feel moved to record a couple of martini recipes.

For all of my martinis, the procedure is very similar:

* Fill a traditional martini glass with ice. If using vermouth, place a splash of vermouth in the ice filled glass. If not using vermouth, use water.
* Fill a shaker with ice.
* Measure the spirits and any other liquid ingredients into the shaker.
* Shake, vigorously enough to break up the ice a bit and to oxygenate and mix the spirits. Dance, if it pleases you.
* Swirl and discard the vermouth / ice from the glass. This leaves the ideal amount of vermouth coating the glass.
* If garnishing with olives, add them to the glass before pouring.
* Strain the contents of the shaker into the glass.
* If garnishing with anything other than olives, add them now. I have no idea why you would garnish with anything except olives

Fancy Martini

This is what I order when people are watching me order a mixed drink. I like it because it brings the highly specific language of Starbucks back where it belongs – the bar. To cause the bartender to make this for you, specify “a Ketel One Martini, extra dirty, extra dry, with olives”

* Three (3) measures Ketel One Vodka
* One spoonful of olive brine (in the shaker) it’s worth noting that if you see the bartender pick up a plastic squeeze bottle of olive brine, you should step in and say “woah, not that dirty,” before they make you a drink best described as ‘the salt lick.’
* At least three olives for garnish
* Vermouth as described above

James Bond Style

This is what I wound up with in Delhi, when my waiter looked at me wide eyed and said “very good sir, the James Bond Style.” I know that this is not as described in the Ian Fleming books.

* Three (3) measures Bombay gin (duh)
* Everything else as described above – vermouth in the glass, no extra brine, and so on.
* Best served above a hubbub of at least four languages – and within sight of a cover band who learned the words to their songs phonetically.

The Seven Olive Martini

Figure it out. I love olives.

My Current Favorite

* Two (2) measures Ketel One vodka
* One (1) measure Bombay gin
* One spoonful of olive brine in the shaker
* One spoonful of vermouth in the shaker, in addition to what’s in the glass
* Three olives as garnish

We have some very normal, very ordinary interactions around the house during the day.

For example, sometime this morning I noticed the basement door was a little bit open, so I shut it.

Sometime this afternoon, I’m freshening my coffee and I hear a muffled “mrow?”

So I crack the door again and Maia comes *shooting* out. Mow? Mrow! Mow! Mow? Mrrrrrow? Mow! Mow.

Then she peed in the litter box, drank some water, and followed me around for about half an hour.

She is now sleeping within 3 feet of me. I move, she moves.

By “we,” I mean Maia and I. Jen lives here on nights and weekends.

Today, I ordered replacements for my trusty boots.

The Asolo FSN 95 GTX boot is the best boot in the entire universe. I wore my first pair from 2001 through 2007, and now the second pair has been beaten to death in a mere 3 years. I am hard on my footwear.

My statement from when I bought the current instance stands:

I think, perhaps, that I will give these boots a warriors funeral. They deserve better than to be tossed in the trash and buried in a landfill.

These second iteration of the boots have been to India, Honduras, Canada, Haiti, and tons of places in between. As before, they are well suited for slogging to and from the T in snow – and also for flat out sprinting (for whatever reason).

I have only a few brand loyalties – and they are all based on functionality. I am more loyal to my Asolo boots than to the Apple computers that I use every day. Make of that what you will.

Here’s the list as I see it now:

1) Don’t get so run down. I looked at pictures from 2009, and I could see both Jen and I wearing down from travel, work, and the set of unfinished projects with which we both burdened ourselves.

2) Related to 1: Fight the ADHD harder. Key point: I don’t think that I have ADHD or any other mental illness. Like my mother before me, I’m a functionalist when it comes to such things. If you’re a high functioning and basically happy person – you don’t have mental illness. I do, however, have certain properties of my brain. Some (sharp memory) make it simpler to get stuff done. Others (tendency to context switch near continually) hold me back. Thus, I now have a little stopwatch on my desk. When I embark on tasks that will take more than 5 minutes or so – I intend to set the timer for some reasonable interval: 15 minutes? Half an hour? During that time, I intend to stay on task. Yes, facebook, I’m talking to you. Double for you, twitter. Conversely, facebook and twitter are allowed – but they have their own time limits.

3) I intend to train up for at least one judo competition season this year. Don’t know when it will be, but I plan to do my month of clean living again prior to that.

4) I also intend to take two months and train up for a belt test at the karate school in Providence. I’ve been in a holding pattern there for two years. Less than one lesson a week is insufficient for advancement. I would like to earn my third degree – but it’ll probably take a couple months of two to three classes per week – plus training on the off days as well. I can’t do that all year – but I can commit to a couple of months.

5) Related to 2: Eliminate the passive accumulation of stuff that I don’t feel like doing. I let a few projects get the best of me in 2009. They lingered until I would wake up stressed about them – but not do anything about it. This year, I intend to either do, or do not. INBOX zero, every day. Desk zero too – dammit. Yes, I’m talking to you, pile of papers from the house in Detroit.

6) Be a better friend: I had a few, very deep friendships in 2009. I got much closer with and capital_l. Also with my sister. On the other hand, many friends have slipped off the radar. I would like to take time to re-connect with you. This does not mean that I can say ‘yes’ to every party invite … but I would like to not look at my contacts list and go ‘poo – I’m a terrible friend.’

7) Work for myself, at least an hour, most days. I took great joy from starting my iPhone app last week. I think that if I’m disciplined about the above (2 and 5 in particular), I should be able to set a timer and work for myself. I will, naturally, need to be a bit focused about what I work on – but starting with the iphone app and proceeding to other things might work nicely.

8) Indulge my other hobbies, at least once per week. Painting, brewing, food preservation. In particular that last one – I would like to get back to having a well stocked, home preserved pantry by the fall of 2010.

9) Knock the business out of the park. I think that this is the year for a massive home run at my company. We’re strong, rested, and have potential oozing out our ears. There is no reason not to make this the greatest year ever.

Tonight has been a righteous party.

We began with sorting stuff. I went up in the spider riddled attic – source of various sorts of nightmare. I found something that has eluded us for years: My grandfather brought back a katana from his time in the occupation of Hiroshima after world war 2. Found it. Also found great grandmother’s hair. Seriously.

We proceeded to the chili. Righteous chili. There was a small pot of ground beef on the side if anyone wanted to add it to their chili.

There was two man gears of war.

We proceeded to the fire, where we ritually burned the detritus from 2009. Pants that would never fit again, and a short medical-student white coat were thrown on the fire. A bottle of peppermint schnapps was passed around. Then a bottle of sake from Japan, and finally a cheap Shiraz. There’s something about passing the bottle of hooch around the circle, standing around the fire. There’s really something there.

Then, of course, we went in the hot tub. Woo.

And, as active adult on duty, I didn’t *have* to, but I cleaned up the lions share of the bottles – allowing the “kids” to scurry back to their bunks.

Good times.

In which correctness is dispensed, and nonsense dispensed with.

Specifically:

The 201st Decade, known as "The Aughts", ended last night.

* The “Twentieth Century” ran from Jan 1901 through Dec 2000.
* The “Nineteen Hundreds” ran from Jan 1900 through Dec 1999.
* The “Nineties” ran from Jan 1990 through Dec 1999.
* The first “decade” only contained nine years, making it an “enneade”.

Some people say that the current decade should be called "The Teens". I think we should only call it that if we pronounce the first few years as "Twenty Teen", "Twenty Oneteen", and "Twenty Twoteen".

Welcome to the future, again.

I have, per usual plan, stayed up much too late. I have hung out with my sister, my dad, and assorted of their friends. I have enjoyed the pink “champagne,” and disliked the “good stuff.”

I have missed Jen’s company. She had to work and couldn’t make it to Virginia this time around.

Happy new year to all, and to all a good night.

Yesterday was not as robustly successful as Monday. It started off with a phone call from – on her phone. Which was sitting next to the beeper. While she was at work. So up I hove and rolled in to the hospital to deliver these necessary tools of her trade.

I returned, and was just settling into a stretch of coding when I remembered that I needed to pick up the fish. So I rolled in to J.P., got the cod, returned home, filleted it, and froze the fillets.

Ah, continuing to code – but then it was lunchtime.

So, back to it – but one thing led to another and I wound up in Providence for a very pleasant workout and dinner with old friends.

Gah. Maybe this is why I sometimes feel like I get nothing done. Because – well – some days you just get nothing done.

Today will be superior. Onward!