Dreams, Video Games, and Investing

I have long been skeptical of those who place too much value in their dreams.  In my understanding, sleep is when we sort through our short term memories to lay some of them down as long term memories.  (side note:  one of the reasons why managing sleep as a part of studying and learning is so important!).  So, those who think that dreams are a deep reveal, I think, are overemphasizing the messages your subconscious may indeed be telegraphing in its weighting of events and impressions formed throughout your day and throughout your life.  Not trivial, but not profound either...

So, I was quite bemused by a late august dream when I am fully expecting the usual back-to-school dreams.  (Not finding my classroom, forgetting the schedule, forgetting to get dressed, etc.) Instead, what I got was a surrealist, abstract crazy world of video game characters who were walking and talking representations of various brokerage accounts.  Once character was very steadfast and, frankly, kind of boring:  That was the account for the kids' college fund.  Another was off-the-wall, fast talking adventure-type:  The brokerage account I trade options in.  Another was the Roth IRA (risk taking cleric with healing spells in case you are wondering).  Anyway, you get the idea.

When I awoke and I was processing just how weird and original that dream was, I realized that just before the school year I was playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 (so good!) and rebalancing all of our online brokerage accounts on the computer.  So, when my brain was processing whether any of these events were worthy of long term memories, it created that nice little dream for me.  

This is my mashup for the post. 
The art above was AI generated with the prompt: Dreaming of stock and video games...

Mise-en-place, Activation Energy, and Better Living

 Remember activation energy from chemistry?:

Based on the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, organizations are starting to make the 'smarter' or 'better-for-you' decision the default.  Simply allowing new employees to opt out of a retirement plan rather than allowing them to opt in has an amazing effect.

In our household, we use the term mise-en-place liberally (some might say I use all words liberally but I say most people are just using words too conservatively!).  We find its utility far outweighs simply food prep or setting the table.  Dad has a big repair project? Do that mise-en-place of gathering all the tools he may need at the site of the project (sometimes days before the actual project!).  Going on a big trip?  Get those bags and must-go items gathering in a designated location.  Big test coming up?  You get it...

Recently, I needed to lose some weight* so I planned to eat a lot of salad wraps.  Thing is, when you are a hungry, it is easier to heat up some chicken nuggets or something.  So, I cut up and cleaned my lettuce in bulk ahead of time and, voila, the activation energy to eat a salad wrap was almost nil.  

The Take-Away for this post: Lower the activation energy for future you to make good decisions by doing his mis-en-place for him now.

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* being a physicist, I had two choices for this:  lower the strength of gravity or lose some mass.  I chose the latter route for simplicity's sake.

Barbie and...

... Picture Day!

Unsurprisingly, I am not one who stresses or frets over driver license, passport, or work ID pictures, so when faculty were instructed to get their picture taken for new ID badges while the yearbook photographers were on campus, I quietly exchanged my usual earth-toned button down shirt for a recent gift from colleague and friend, JI:

Soon, I will add to this post with a picture of the actual ID badge or, failing that, a picture of myself teaching in the iconic 'Kenough' shirt on some Friday in the near future...

Image courtesy of IR, most favored daughter

Although I am surrounded by those who have, I have yet to see the Barbie movie (I did catch the awesome Oppenheimer in the theaters though in case you were wondering if I was aloof from the entire Barbenheimer summer culture).  I did not own any Barbie paraphernalia when growing up either but I do recall wondering if I was suppose to 'like' Barbie or Barbie-types girls when I was about 8 years old or so.  Maybe all little boys in the 70's had this fleeting thought or maybe it was just those of us named Ken?  

Many have written about and studied the harm those early Barbie dolls have done to little girls over their early years in the self-image department.  But what about us Kens?  Where's our longitudinal study about the harm in our perception of women?  Mattel, best start writing a big ole check address to "Ken Ough"! ;)

=======October update

A bit disappointed by my school ID picture (although an enigmatic "I am ..." statement is not so bad I guess).  Maybe Mom will still want to order some wallet sized ones?

 

Gaining Ten Pounds

Normally, I am filled with regret and self-incrimination after gaining ten pounds (warning for the youth:  easy on and hard to get off is true once you get north of 30 years old!).  However, on the recent trip to Taiwan, I decided from the get-go to just let it all go and eat like there is no tomorrow.  In my youth, I lived under the delusion that everything will always be accessible to me in the future.  But, now, I realize this is probably the last time I will be in Taiwan.  (not that I don't want to travel, but it's just not likely to be to this particular country).  

Anyone who has been to Taiwan or knows Taiwanese people, knows it is all about the food.  I mean, everyone always says that about all cultures.  But, in this case, it is more than true.  Everyone is talking about food, hawking food, asking about food, thinking about food, etc.  Interestingly, the focus is so on-the-food, that western ideas of service and amenities are almost entirely absent.  Want a napkin, grab some of these cheapo thinner-than-tissue "napkins" yourself.   Want a drink, head over to the fridge and help yourself.  Want to clear your table?  Forget it, that old lady at the back of the floor ain't touching your dishes until you leave.  Need to use the bathroom?  Send in one of your kids to scout it out first... is there a door?  Is there an actual toilet?  Is there toilet paper?  I sound kind of prudish but, actually, I wasn't surprised by this (not my first rodeo by any means) - but what stood out to me on this trip was the disparity between the quality of the food (very high) and other trappings of eating out (usually (but not always!) quite low).  I found myself reflecting on how often I have eaten out in the United States and had a very fancy setting and very nice (overly attentive?) service while eating food that was, well, kind of meh.

Anyway... a random gustative photo travelogue:

Fish head soup

Duck Eggs in the back

Just when you think they can't fit another dish on the table... they manage to somehow.

Whole fish came out at the end of almost every meal

Shrimp dish with almost every meal.  Always slightly different!

Being the designated chicken fiend, I was anointed to tear the roasted chicken (roasted with head and claws on!) apart with the provided gloves.  Apparently a roadside stand tradition now in a restaurant setting. 

Japanese restaurants are very popular.

This is my face after one of our drivers convinced me to chew on some of his Betel nut.  At the end of our ride, he offered me more.  I declined.  Not a gustative highlight.

And, for dessert...

Shaved Ice!

Remembering Sinéad

1966-2023

Dear Sinéad,

You never knew me, but we spent some quality time together back in the day.  I still can recall with great clarity my intensity of emotion listening to your first album.  I was lying in my bunk bed in my dorm room at Purdue in 1988, listening on headphones (probably to a cassette borrowed from roommate JZ).  Lying there in the dark listening to "Mandinka", "I want your (hands on me)", "Just like U Said it Would B", and (especially) "Troy"was intense.  Discovering this new sound you had brought me.  Singing straight from some incredible, inner strength.  You delivered me a musical knock-out punch.

I loved some of your work after that too and I enjoyed it when I caught a performance on television, but, honestly, I kind of lost track of you through the years.  Not one to confuse the artist for the art, I tend not to follow the personal lives of artists I like.  But, now, I kinda wish I had with you.  I didn't know we were so close in age (you were only three years older than I when you died).  I didn't know Peter Gabriel broke your heart (embarrassingly, I am only now grokking this one posthumously, what a song and what a performance at 53 years old).  I didn't know you had pulled a Cat Stevens and converted to Islam.  I didn't know your son had committed suicide.  And now the internet speculates that you probably did the same.   This last point was struck me surprisingly hard.  How can that same person who spoke to me through her music with such passion and strength have decided to end it?  Maybe it will turn out not to be true but of course plenty of people do make that final choice so you've got me thinking about that now, too.

And so, I leave you with your own duet and the words of Peter Gabriel:

-A Fan

Tree vs. House

The Banyan is an interesting tree.  It makes new trunks from roots that hang downward from its branches.  After several of these 'take root', eventually the tree appears to be walking across the landscape.  Interesting to me as I always associate the branches of the trees with things deep and philosophical.  But if you can grown new roots off of new branches of life, that's pretty deep too, huh?

These trees are ubiquitous in Taiwan and we snapped several pictures of interesting looking ones as we toured the island:

This last picture was of a place called "Tree House".  Since mistranslation and mysterious use of English words in rampant in Taiwan (if I had a nickel for every random T-shirt with english words (as in, made for Taiwan; not simply imported from an english speaking country) I saw Taiwanese people wearing...), I didn't really imagine it would be anything to do with a  literal House+Tree.  (I was thinking maybe a Teahouse or an old Chinese place that was called something that was a homonym with Tree... I thought lots of wrong things).  

The entire old abandoned warehouse (for salt!) was taken over by some of these trees (maybe one originally?) and now is a tourist attraction. 

Tree vs. House.  Tree wins, every time.

Scene of the crime

As a teenager, I didn't like hats.  The ubiquitous, branded ball cap was (still is!) everywhere and it just seemed like an affectation to me.  I mean, if you are going to be out in the sun all day, sure wear a hat - that made sense to me.  I pretty much only wore a hat on a boat in those days.

Then, the bald spot came in.  I remember clearly one summer day in my early 30's spending just a few hours out in direct sunlight and the getting my first sunburn on my bald spot.  Oh, the indignity of it.  Like a double whammy - "Not only do you have a bald spot, it's gonna burn and remind you of its existence for the next couple of days! Ha ha ha..."

Needless to say, hats became part of my outdoor routine after that.  I didn't have one that I loved until I got a goofy looking one in Corsica. 

This is not The Hat, but close enough

My kids knew this as Daddy's go-to hat when we were on summer vacations. Then, one day, I wore it cavalierly into the waves on the beach in North Carolina.  A large wave knocked me under and when I came to, no hat.  My kids were more upset than I was.  

Shortly after that, a student gifted me with this awesome hat:

Again, not The hat, but close enough

This NASA hat's been my go-to for many years now.  A few weeks ago, we were visiting the Eternal Spring Shrine in Taroko Gorge, Taiwan:

As I passed over the source of the 'eternal' spring, I found the sound and sight of the emergent waterfall so compelling that I took a little video:

Calling up to Seb, I asked him to take my picture so I could post it opposite the video as I am doing now.  In a fit of vanity, I removed my NASA hat and the draft from the waterfall snatched it right out of my hand and, in less than a second, it was whisked out of sight.  Here is the sans-hat picture that Seb took after he got over his shock of witnessing my loss:

Well, the obvious thing to do was to pick up a new favorite hat.

(actual hat)

Wonder what body of water will claim this guy?  Hopefully I get a couple of years use before then...