What tipped you off?

Published on September 8, 2010

Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic recently had the high honor of interviewing Fidel Castro, tin-pot dictator emeritus of Cuba. He writes:

I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

“The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, “Never mind”?

One of Goldberg’s friends then chimed in to provide either some context or some cover for Fidel’s comment, but it remains surprising nonetheless.

Well, I wonder what finally gave it away. Was it the economy? The low wages? The food rationing? The housing shortage? The collapse of the sugar industry? The dismal capital markets? Michael Moore singing the praises of Cuban health care? The standard of living that by some measures isn’t too much better than in 1959, despite all that sugar, nickel, tobacco, and (apparently) petroleum? Was it the thousands upon thousands of people who risk death every year trying to escape Cuba via inner tubes, rafts, and truckboats?

Perhaps he got the idea from looking off-island. Perhaps it was the realization that the fastest-growing economic sectors in Red China are the ones being privatized. Perhaps it was the gap in per capita incomes between the remaining communist countries and everybody else. Perhaps it was the stark contrast between North and South Korea. Or between Hong Kong and the rest of China. Or maybe he caught a news broadcast from 1989 and he noticed some differences between East and West Germany, or between eastern and western Europe, or that quite a few formerly communist nations just aren’t there anymore, and most of those that are still there gave it up a while back.

Maybe the illness that drove him from office somehow purged just enough of the evil and just enough of the stupidity to allow him to make his minor concession.

…

And just what did Fidel mean by “anymore”? Had communism been working down there at some point and we all just missed it?

…

Does hearing him say “never mind” make up for not killing/deposing/debearding him 50 years ago?

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Five Years!

Published on September 1, 2010

Today is the fifth anniversary of my very first journal entry. When I first started blogging, I dreamt of being that daring, edgy writer whose ideas would grab a tragically dull world by its lapels, punch it in the face and knee it in the groin. I was going to change everything.

In commemoration, here’s “First Post” once again, in its entirety:

Testing. Testing. This is my first attempt at a “web log,” or “blog,” as it were. Blog blog blog. Blog blog.

Those were some gonzo times, man, before I sold out. I miss the anger.

…

Last night’s dream:

I arrive at Mole’s old house on the mountain. I ring the bell. He answers the door. He doesn’t look happy.

I ask what’s wrong.

He says, “It’s bad.”

I ask, “What’s bad?”

He says, “You have to go in.”

He leaves. I go in.

Now I see what was bad. Seated in a semicircle of chairs are “Ingrid,” “Martha,” “Selena,” “Gringita,” “The Lady,” and a few other women I can’t really see in the dim lighting. I’m not sure who they are, but I’ve picked up on the pattern.

I suspect that Mole is playing an elaborate prank on me, and look around for cameras. I see none.

I say hello. They say nothing.

I ask whether this is a joke. They say nothing.

I ask if they’ve met each other, even though it looks like they already have. They say nothing.

I ask if they’ve eaten. They say nothing.

I ask if they have any intention of saying anything. They say nothing.

It is bizarre. It’s as though the whole dream were directed by Lynch in one of his slow moods. After another series of questions and non-responses, they get up one-by-one, hand me slips of paper with their phone numbers–each of which begins with a four-digit area code–and leave.

I walk out onto the front porch and watch a convoy of cars navigate down the gravel driveway and disappear into the woods.

Mole reappears. I tell him that I’m not sure, but I think that was bad.

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“Good Economics.”

Published on August 29, 2010

A few days ago I received an e-mail from a former student who’s gone on to major in economics. Hopefully said student won’t mind that I’ve published my response online. [Parts of the original message have been edited for privacy and dramatic effect.]

Good Evening…

Just this week I finally got into taking some real Econ Classes … (International Trade and Intermediate Microeconomics). While I find these classes to be very enjoyable […o]ver the years, through reading, studying, and discussing, I’ve noticed that Studying Economics isn’t as simple as taking Econ classes. I’ve quickly come to realize there are many schools of thoughts on subjects that I believed to be universally understood.

That shouldn’t be any surprise. Keep in mind that economics is not a “hard” science, not even close. Even the law of demand, which is as close to an ironclad rule as you’ll find in economics, may have exceptions (Veblen goods and Giffen goods).

For some perspective, I offer the following cartoon from xkcd.com:

Economists would be to the right of psychologists and far left of biologists.

That said, economists can reach broad (though not unanimous) consensus on occasion. There are some ideas, such as free trade and abolition of subsidies, that are widely accepted by economists.

I guess what I’m getting at is, how do I know that I’m learning “Good Economics”?

If what you learn in your econ classes enables you to make generalizations and predictions that match the ensuing empirical evidence, great. But that’ll always be tough to prove, because we can’t run well-controlled macroeconomic experiments that allow us to isolate factors and variables and precisely, definitively determine what caused what. If we had a handy alternate universe lying around, such experimentation would be more reliable.

Aside from that, I’d say that if you can intelligently discuss marginal analysis in micro, if you think in terms of opportunity costs and “the seen and the unseen,” if you can “speak Keynesian” despite disagreeing with Keynes, and if you can do statistics and econometrics despite your valid concerns about them, you’ve got a pretty good economic education.

Now, if you find yourself saying, “I think the labor theory of value is right,” “mercantilism works,” “communism just hasn’t been done right yet,” or, worst of all, “what I’ve learned is right and there’s no way I could be wrong,” then you are probably not learning “good economics.” You are, however, well on your way to supporting revolutions in underdeveloped countries, working at a coffee shop in some dinky little college town, or pursuing a career in academia.

I myself tend to favor the Austrian/Hayekian view on Economics. (Which I know tends to be looked down upon, but I believe many of the ideas hold merit) But I would not venture to call myself a Libertarian. I believe there are, at the very least, necessities for upholding moral law.

If you’re talking about political laws to uphold moral laws, that would likely upset Hayek but please Adam Smith.

However, I do not agree with the use of Monetary Policies to try and correct a market. And I also find the idea of predicting future markets through the crystal ball of Mathematics to be a highly presumptuous if not prideful idea. How can one possibly assume to know all inputs for a given scenario and come up with a fixed equation for every situation? I find myself quite incapable of predicting the actions of a single individual, much less a market of individuals. That being said, I do understand that every individual makes decisions with the goal of maximizing the satisfaction of desires. But because desire is not always money, how do I make assumptions concerning future outcomes?

Through careful observation and humility about what you know and what you can know. Given your concerns, it sounds like a good thing you’re a Hayek guy. He once wrote: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Maybe he’s right, and maybe your great task in life will be to fix or disprove all those formulas and equations you were complaining about.

Case in point: according to Keynes, the government spending multiplier must be greater than the taxation multiplier. According to actual evidence, that’s far from true. In fact, there’s enough evidence against it that my professors didn’t mind when I couldn’t remember the word “multiplier” during my senior thesis defense. And yet, that model is still being taught as gospel to high schoolers and undergrads, and is taken as gospel by congressional staffers and presidential advisors, regardless of party. Maybe somebody needs to work on getting it updated, or even weaned from the curriculum. Either way, you’ll still have to study it first.

Perhaps my disfavor with mathematics alone for Economics stems from the ambiguity of the science. We’ve always been told, “Numbers don’t lie”, but whoever said this was lying. The same set of numbers can be manipulated by an individual to tell two different stories. The danger is when we accept those numbers when they go against logic. If tomorrow a thousand different statistical studies came out revealing how the Minimum wage actually decreases unemployment, reason should be enough to refute every one of those reports. It doesn’t matter if you have your pretty charts and smooth regression lines, anything that doesn’t follow logic must be deemed illogical.

Careful—if the evidence doesn’t match the logic, the problem could be in the logic, the evidence, or both. If Congress hikes the minimum wage up to a hundred bucks an hour, and unemployment disappears forever, you’ve got to at least consider the possibility that over 90% of the real-life minimum wage research has been wrong.

Also, keep in mind that economic “science” is ambiguous, but not totally worthless. We can make some reliable predictions about large, multi-variable, chaotic, macro systems. We’ve learned enough that we can reasonably assume that high trade barriers will slow economic growth both inside and outside the protected areas, that well-defined and secure individual property rights lead to greater economic growth than the lack thereof would, that increased use of capital corresponds to greater real wages, etc.

Well, I guess I’m done with my little narrative. Basically I can sum things up as:
1. I love Economics
2. I want to Study Economics
2a. I want to study TRUTHFUL Economics
3. I don’t know if I’m heading in the right direction

If you know enough about your subject that you can express these concerns about it, you’re heading in a right direction. But let the poets and philosophers worry about “truth.” You’re an economist, you should worry about facts.

Maybe you should look for a course about the history of economics (if one is offered). That might give you a sense of how economics is an evolving discipline, and that might give you an idea about what path to pursue.

Also, have a look at these articles by Mankiw, from his “Advice to Students” sidebar:

Advice for Aspiring Economists

Why Aspiring Economists Need Math

I know I’m cribbing from Mankiw a lot in my response, but right now he’s one of the most renowned and esteemed professors of economics on Earth, and he expresses some of the same doubts about the subject as you do.

Hope the school year is going well and congratulations on your opportunity to lecture new teachers. I hope it proves beneficial for you, the teachers, and their future students.

Me too. It’s good to hear from you, and good luck.

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Opportunity.

Published on August 25, 2010

This morning I received an e-mail from my principal. It was short, sweet, and to the point: go see him because he had an “opportunity” for me. I didn’t have a chance to go see him until lunch, which gave me plenty of time to mull over all the horrible, agonizing things I might be asked to do. Transfer schools? Take on a new prep? Go to more N.A.T. meetings? Sponsor the junior class (in which case, prom would be a sock hop in the gym)?

One of my coworkers received the same message, and got to speak to the principal about the matter before I did. I told him not to tell me what the opportunity was because I wanted to be surprised and to react naturally and impulsively. Things usually end up more fun that way.

So I found the boss at lunchtime, and he passed along some flattering news. Actually flattering, not “we needed someone to do this thankless job and thought of you” flattering. Turns out that someone at the district office was looking at our AP United States History pass rates and thought it might be a good idea if we could talk to some of the newer teachers in the district about teaching the course. They want to set up a one-day seminar some time in September where we’d all get together and my coworker and I would spread the wisdom accrued over all our years teaching the course.

I’ll probably say yes, even though (not because) it’ll get me out of the classroom for a day. I don’t normally like attending these seminars myself. Usually I find them useless because they aren’t as relevant as they should be to the courses I’m teaching, and I spend a lot of time jotting down random thoughts that run through my head or sketching wooden warships firing at each other. But now, I’ll have the chance to run a district seminar the way I want to run it, and everybody else will have a chance to take potshots at me, whisper to each other that I have no idea what I’m talking about, and draw their own doodles in the margins of their notes. Exciting times.

Hopefully it’ll go well, and hopefully these first-time teachers will take something useful from it.

…

Tomorrow I’m going to attend a lecture by James Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me. He’s one of the best-known critics of the textbook I use; I figure he warrants a listen.

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The new year…

Published on August 21, 2010

…begins Monday.

The good: Paycheck on Friday. Paperwork’s ready to go, plans are laid out. The new room is bigger than the old one. More windows. More sunlight. It’s as decorated as it’s going to be all year and the flags are back up. The admins probably won’t stop by because I’m now on the far end of campus.

The bad: I’m now on the far end of campus. The walk to my room gets longer and longer with each room change. No closet, no shelves, no storage areas that haven’t been chewed up by rats and neglected by occupants past. Parts of the room haven’t been cleaned in years. The only secure storage space is in the next room over. Light switches are outside the room. Half the ceiling lights are out. Have to leave the building to find a water fountain or restroom. The northeast corner of the room seems to be slipping into a sinkhole, and God help whoever gets assigned to sit there because they’ll be the first ones to fall in. Grade recovery is available to any D or F student who wants it, regardless of attendance, performance, or behavior, and we now have a federally mandated lunchtime tutoring and intervention program.

Here goes!

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Questionnaire 5.

Published on August 15, 2010

Here’s to the end of my worst summer ever, even though it really wasn’t that bad. I’ve spent large chunks of the last few days getting ready for the new school year, and almost forgot to prepare a post for this week. Therefore I shall once again lean on my favorite crutch, the questionnaire. Here goes:

1. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR CLOSET DOORS OPEN OR CLOSED? Either. Doesn’t matter.

2. DO YOU TAKE THE SHAMPOOS AND CONDITIONER BOTTLES FROM THE HOTEL? When I realize I’ve forgotten to pack shampoo.

3. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR SHEETS TUCKED IN OR OUT? How would I know? I’m asleep when it happens.

4. HAVE YOU EVER STOLEN A STREET SIGN? No.

5. DO YOU LIKE TO USE POST-IT NOTES? Yes, but you sound like you’re asking if it’s a hobby of mine. It isn’t.

6. DO YOU CUT OUT COUPONS BUT THEN NEVER USE THEM? No.

7. WOULD YOU RATHER BE ATTACKED BY A BIG BEAR OR A SWARM OF BEES? I’ve been attacked by bees before, so I’ll fight the bear for variety’s sake.

8. DO YOU HAVE FRECKLES? No.

9. DO YOU ALWAYS SMILE FOR PICTURES? No.

10. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE? Right now it’s the sound of the siding being replaced on my building.

11. DO YOU EVER COUNT YOUR STEPS WHEN YOU WALK? When I’m bored, I suppose I do.

12. FIRST THING YOU WASH IN THE SHOWER? Eyeballs.

13. DO YOU PLAN OUTFITS? How far ahead of time are we talking? If we’re talking seconds, yes. Minutes, no.

14. DO YOU EVER DANCE EVEN IF THERE’S NO MUSIC PLAYING? In my head.

15. DO YOU CHEW YOUR PENS AND PENCILS? No.

16. WHAT’S THE CLOSEST THING TO YOU THAT’S RED? The writing on a box of electronics.

17. WHAT SIZE IS YOUR BED? I don’t know. I think it’s a full.

18. WHAT IS YOUR SONG OF THE WEEK? What is a song of the week?

19. IS IT OKAY FOR GUYS TO WEAR PINK? I suppose so. I had to play an entire soccer season wearing pink. It wasn’t that demeaning.

20. DO YOU STILL WATCH CARTOONS? On occasion.

21. WHAT’S YOUR LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE? Right now, it’s The Other Guys. Started off promising, until it turned into Generic Will Ferrell Movie. The last thirty minutes, I don’t think I heard a single person in the theater laugh. I heard a lot of frustrated sighs as people realized they’d overpaid.

22. WHERE WOULD YOU BURY HIDDEN TREASURE IF YOU HAD SOME? Nice try.

23. WHAT DO YOU DRINK WITH DINNER? All kinds of things. Water. Tea. Wine. Rum and coke. It depends.

24. WHAT DO YOU DIP A CHICKEN NUGGET IN? Sweet and sour–oops, excuse me, I meant Polynesian sauce. When did Chick-fil-A go and get all high-falutin’?

25. HAVE YOU EVER GIVEN MONEY TO A BUM? Yes.

26. WHAT MOVIES COULD YOU WATCH OVER AND OVER AND STILL LOVE? Good ones?

27. HOW LONG WAS YOUR LONGEST DRIVE IN A CAR? I drove to Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2003. Great trip.

28. WERE YOU EVER A BOY/GIRL SCOUT? I was a Cub Scout. I was going to be a Boy Scout but soccer prevailed.

29. WOULD YOU EVER STRIP OR POSE NUDE IN A MAGAZINE? They’d have to throw ungodly amounts of money at me.

30. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE SOMEONE A LETTER ON PAPER? Two months ago.

31. CAN YOU CHANGE THE OIL ON A CAR? I suppose I could if I read the instructions.

32. EVER GOTTEN A SPEEDING TICKET? Just one. I’ve been pulled over four times: one ticket, one warning, once because the officer didn’t see the license plate, one warning for a bad tag light.

33. EVER RUN OUT OF GAS? Yes.

34. WOULD YOU DO CRYSTAL METH IF IT WERE LEGALIZED? Um, no.

35. BEST THING TO EAT FOR BREAKFAST? I rarely eat breakfast, but corn flakes, sliced banana, milk.

36. WHAT IS YOUR USUAL BEDTIME? Midnight.

37. ARE YOU LAZY? y

38. WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU DRESS UP AS FOR HALLOWEEN? I can only specifically remember three costumes: Civil War soldier, knight in shining armor, and nun.

39. WHAT IS YOUR CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN? Hold on, let me look it up… I was born in a Year of the Dragon. Awesome.

40. HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN YOU SPEAK? Fluently? One.

41. DO YOU HAVE ANY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS? No.

42. WHICH ARE BETTER, LEGOS OR LINCOLN LOGS? Legos.

43. ARE YOU STUBBORN? About some things, yes.

44. WHO IS BETTER, LENO OR LETTERMAN? Neither. They are both tragically unfunny.

45. EVER WATCH SOAP OPERAS? No, but I know who Stefano is.

46. AFRAID OF HEIGHTS? It depends on how stable the situation is. Top of the Sears Tower, not afraid. Airplane, wasn’t afraid of the heights. Take a ladder to the top of the house, not afraid. Climb a ladder on top of a machine to make sure everything’s working right with a couple of slack-jawed, probably stoned morons not watching out at all for my safety? Sweating bullets.

47. SING IN THE CAR? Yep.

48. DANCE IN THE SHOWER? Only when appropriate.

49. DANCE IN THE CAR? Never when driving.

50. EVER USED A GUN? Yes.

51. LAST TIME YOU GOT A PORTRAIT TAKEN BY A PHOTOGRAPHER? Formally? No idea.

52. DO YOU THINK MUSICALS ARE CHEESY? The cheesy ones are.

53. IS CHRISTMAS STRESSFUL? Only if you let it be.

54. EVER EAT A PIEROGI? Yep.

55. FAVORITE TYPE OF FRUIT PIE? Cherry.

56. WHAT COMES TO MIND WHEN I SAY CABBAGE? Your head on a pike. Cabbage is disgusting.

57. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS? No.

58. EVER EXPERIENCE DÉJÀ VU? Yes.

59. TAKE A VITAMIN DAILY? No, but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.

60. WEAR SLIPPERS? No.

61. WEAR A BATH ROBE? Rarely.

62. WOULD YOU GO SKY DIVING? If I had to be on the plane in the first place and the plane were going to crash and I didn’t know how to fix the plane and there weren’t a helicopter or space shuttle piggybacking the plane that I could pilot away to safety, then yeah… I could see myself skydiving.

63. FIRST CONCERT? I choose not to remember.

64. WAL-MART, TARGET OR KMART? Target.

65. NIKE OR ADIDAS? Usually adidas, but I’m using Nike cleats right now. Usually they don’t fit right, but this pair does.

66. CHEETOS OR FRITOS? Neitheros.

67. PEANUTS OR SUNFLOWER SEEDS? Peanuts. Schulz was so much deeper than anyone gave him credit for.

68. DO YOU RENT MOVIES OFTEN? I use Netflix, so I think it would be more appropriate to say I rent them “continuously” rather than “often.”

69. EVER TAKE DANCE LESSONS? Does square-dancing in 8th grade gym count?

70. IS THERE A PROFESSION YOU PICTURE YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE DOING? Whatever makes her happy and me rich.

71. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE? Can I.

72. EVER WON A SPELLING BEE? I think I finished second in a few. I won county-wide math competitions, though.

73. HAVE YOU EVER CRIED BECAUSE YOU WERE SO HAPPY? Yes.

74. OWN ANY RECORD ALBUMS? No.

75. OWN A RECORD PLAYER? No.

76. REGULARLY BURN INCENSE? No.

77. EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yes.

78. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN CONCERT? The original Blues Brothers.

79. DO YOU OWN A GUN? Break into my house in the middle of the night so you can find out the hard way.

80. HOT TEA OR ICED TEA? Depends on the season. Right now, iced tea.

81. TEA OR COFFEE? Tea.

82. SUGAR OR SNICKERDOODLES? What the hell is a snickerdoodle?

83. CAN YOU SWIM WELL? Well enough to save my own rear end.

84. CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH WITHOUT HOLDING YOUR NOSE? Yes.

85. ARE YOU PATIENT? When I need to be, and about the things I need to be.

86. DJ OR BAND AT A WEDDING? Tough call. I’d prefer a band, but would defer to my better half’s judgement.

87. EVER WON A CONTEST? Yes.

88. ARE YOU TOO FORGIVING? Forgiving people has not yet come back to haunt me.

89. WHICH ARE BETTER, BLACK OR GREEN OLIVES? Black olives.

90. CAN YOU KNIT OR CROCHET? These questions are getting kind of personal. Back off.

91. BEST ROOM FOR A FIREPLACE? Um… the den? Doesn’t the presence of a fireplace in a room usually make that room the den? I know they can go in other rooms, but the den seems the default.

92. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED? Yep.

93. LAST TIME YOU CRIED? When they changed George Washington’s portrait on the obverse of the quarter.

94. WHO WAS YOUR HS CRUSH? I had a few. All of their last names started with “R.” Weird.

95. DO YOU CRY AND THROW A FIT UNTIL YOU GET YOUR OWN WAY? No.

96. DO YOU HAVE ANY TATTOOS? Every inch of my skin is covered with rainbow and unicorn tattoos only visible under ultraviolet light.

97. ARE YOU SARCASTIC? You should’ve asked this question before the last one.

98. IS YOUR HAIR CURLY? When it gets long enough, but it’ll never get that long again.

99. DO YOU MISS ANYONE RIGHT NOW? Of course.

100. IF YOU WERE PAID ONE MILLION DOLLARS TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN A SUPPOSED HAUNTED HOUSE, WOULD YOU DO IT? Yes.

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Miscellany as the school year looms.

Published on August 8, 2010

Today I’m going to play in a soccer game for the first time since visiting the ER. It’s the beginning of a new season, the team is back in a more appropriate division for our skill level (i.e., the lower division), and I feel a hell of a lot better than I did two months ago. Hopefully all will go according to plan, which would mean burying the bad guys under an avalanche of spectacular, rapture-inducing goals, but if not, I’ll settle for playing well and not feeling like my heart’s going to explode at the end of the game.

…

This morning I weighed 191 pounds, down from a high of 220 this year. That means I’m roughly 13.2% smarter on a pound-for-pound basis. It also means I’m within striking distance of several weight-related resolutions I’ve made over the last few years, and making progress on my latest project, which is to never have to go back to the ER again.

Speaking of resolutions, 2010 Resolution #11 just got blown up spectacularly. Smoke, fire, bodies and blood everywhere. Happily, I think there’s enough time left in the year to replace it.

…

New pet peeve: choice architecture has found its way onto the bills at my favorite local restaurant. Choice architecture is the study of how to present a choice in order to affect that choice. The term gained greater fame (and notoriety) when Cass Sunstein, one of Obama’s advisors from the University of Chicago, wrote a book called Nudge about how to use choice architecture in public policy to influence people into freely making “better” or “more desirable” decisions.

For instance, when you apply for a driver’s license, the DMV asks whether you’d like to be an organ donor. The default answer is “no.” Sunstein suggests changing the default option, so that the DMV would instead ask if you’d like to not be an organ donor. He believes that the extra effort necessary to remove your name from the donor list would lead the lazier among us to become organ donors by default. Add these folks to those who truly wanted to be organ donors, and you get more organ donors than if the default choice was non-donation. So you get a more socially optimal result, and you exercised free will by choosing to remain a donor, even though you did what the choice architect intended. Got it?

Back to my complaint: I bought a sandwich and a drink, and they brought me the bill with the 15% tip included. I wasn’t in a large-enough party that the tip would be mandatory (a practice that is perfectly understandable because you’re paying for the inconvenience of a large party). They just printed the tip on the bill for my convenience. How thoughtful. If I wanted to tip more, there was a line for “additional tip.” But if I wanted to tip less, or tip in cash, I had to ask to speak to the manager. I’d have to go out of my way, meaning it was (in theory) more likely I’d just pay the automatic 15%. The size of the gratutity isn’t the point; the idea that I’d have to go out of my way to alter the “default tip” aggravated me. I’ll tip plenty, but I don’t want to be led or defaulted into it.

Therefore I propose that if you ever get a bill with the default tip added in (again, assuming your party’s not too large), harass the manager. I don’t care how big a tip you leave, just find some way to harass the manager mercilessly about the difference between 12% and 15%, or 20% and 25%, or a cash tip versus adding it to a credit card. After all, if you have to talk to them about changing the tip, you may as well make it memorable. Given enough complaints, the manager will see that the wiser choice is reprogramming the cash registers and printers.

…

9:32 PM: Still breathing and functioning normally. The game was scoreless at halftime, then we fell behind 3-0 on flukey goals, one of which was entirely my fault. I switched up to forward the last ten minutes or so. Seven minutes left, BAM, left-footed shot into the top of the net. Three minutes left, BAM, right-footed shot underneath the goalie. One minute left, a ball is served into their penalty area, I run after it between two of their defenders with a third defender on me the whole time, and with the bad guy quite literally collapsing on me, I shot a left-footed side volley as I hit the deck. I looked up, saw it had gone in the net, and punched the ground with great exuberance. There may have been some loud, joyful swearing during the ensuing celebration, which featured fireworks, a military fly-over, and Brazilian supermodels wearing sequined bikinis and tossing rose petals.

So, the “avalanche of spectacular, rapture-inducing goals” did occur despite my not-playing-well-at-times. Unfortunately it didn’t begin early enough for us to pull ahead of the bad guys, but given the circumstances I’ll take the hat trick and the tie.

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Treadmill.

Published on August 5, 2010

Today I have an all-kinds-of-fun-sounding stress test. As far as I know, it’s the simple version where they’ll hook up a bunch of sensors and have me walk and run on a treadmill for half an hour. If everything goes as expected (and hoped), this’ll be the final, once-and-for-all, yeah-we-know-everything’s-probably-fine-but-we-still-wanted-to-do-this-last-test confirmation that my ticker’s OK. More later.

…

11:36 AM: All hooked up to the monitor, ready to go, aaaand… the doctor gets called away to the emergency room.

…

2:14 PM: I sat half-nekkid with ten sensors attached to me for nearly an hour before the doctor showed up, with just one old issue of SI and the EKG to entertain me. Stupid emergencies.

The treadmill test itself took maybe 15 or 20 minutes. You start walking, and every three minutes they speed it up and increase the incline to try and get you up to your target rate. Loads of fun. It was fine, aside from incinerating my calves and that lingering sensation of moving forward. Lying down and feeling like you’re still moving for another minute or so is bizarre.

The results looked fine, and the cardiologist is going to write me a letter saying that whatever the problem was, it wasn’t my heart. “That’s a good thing;” the techie said, “we like it when we can’t figure out what caused your symptoms.” I must’ve had a look on my face, because she continued, “I mean when we can’t figure it out because we know it’s not your heart.” Thanks. I’ll sleep plenty fine tonight.

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I have a niece!

Published on July 30, 2010

Congratulations to my little brother and his wife on the birth of their daughter “Jensniece”! She escaped the womb at 9:24 last night, July 29th, and left no evidence of a vanishing twin, which is less rare in my family than you’d normally expect. This means two things:

1. I am a real live uncle!

2. I have an exception to the no-gifting policy (although a niece is not technically a “descendant,” but whatever)!

I hereby jubilate.

…

No, that’s not her real name.

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My trip to Chicagoland, Part Two.

Published on July 27, 2010

This trip up north was occasioned by a Zaccardi family reunion. The family’s story deserves at least a quick recap:

Tommaso and Maria Zaccardi were my dad’s mom’s blood-parents. They came to America, got married, and over the course of eleven years had four sons and four daughters. All four daughters were named “Maria Something” or “Something Maria.” There were no repeated names among the boys, a freakishly rare occurrence among Italian families of the day. Maria, the mother, died three weeks after giving birth to #8. Tommaso died two years later. That left the eight Zaccardi children, ranging in age from three weeks to thirteen years, orphans.

Looooong story short (which I’ll have to have some of my older relatives write down if they haven’t already): a few tumultuous years later, all eight of them were adopted by Tommaso’s brother Vincenzo, whose wife was, of course, named Maria. Vincenzo and Maria raised their nieces and nephews as if they were their own biological children, of which they had none. As years passed, Vincenzo and Maria would receive accolades from friends, family, and civic leaders for having adopted all eight Zaccardini. A newspaper article that was framed and displayed in my grandparents’ house featured this picture:

At the 50th Wedding Anniversary of Vincenzo and Maria Zaccardi.

Irony: First Maria died at 38, and Tommaso died at 41. Their children lived to an average age of 86, with five getting into their nineties.

My dad’s generation would distinguish between the birth parents and the step parents by calling Tommaso and Maria “Grandma and Grampa, I mean my mom’s and her brothers’ and sisters’ real parents, you know, the ones who gave birth to them” and Vincenzo and Maria “Grandma and Grampa, I mean my mom’s and her brothers’ and sisters’ real parents, you know, mom’s aunt and uncle who raised them, the ones I knew.”

Anyhoo, fast forward to mid-July of this year: I attended a Zaccardi Fest for the first time. I missed the first two or three and didn’t grow up in Chicago, so I’d only previously met maybe 15 of the hundred or so relatives who showed up. Others I’d seen in pictures, or heard stories about, or seen on the family tree. Some folks so strongly resembled people I’d seen in decades-old pictures that they were recognizable as this one’s son or that one’s granddaughter. It was fun to catch up with some and meet others, though a large portion of the time was spent figuring out who was related to whom. It’s especially difficult when the given names are recycled as often as they are.

Of the eight brothers and sisters, only the youngest daughter survives. Sadly, she couldn’t make the reunion because it was too far from home. I don’t know whether there’ll be other reunions in the future, because Tommaso’s and Maria’s family may have reached a critical mass whereupon it breaks up, and their grandchildren–the children of the eight Zaccardi orphans–may become the focal points of their own huge families. Even if that happens, hopefully the story of Tommaso’s and Maria’s and Vincenzo’s and Maria’s children will be passed on.

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More later.

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