Brian's Blog

Just a Pinch of Autisim

2008-08-26T12:49:00.001-05:00

I have this crazy innate ability to be completely oblivious to my surroundings. I can go into the fridge to throw away an empty egg carton, and completely disregard the empty milk jug right beside it. That's just a small example compared to what I did this morning.

I went out this morning for a short jog. It was cool outside, the perfect morning for a run. I felt good and I was moving pretty fast. Just under halfway into my run, I turned onto one of the streets in my subdivision. I was minding my own business while all wrapped up in my own world. It wasn't until I saw the SWAT truck and the 20+ SWAT officers that I realized I had jogged right through a police road block. Yes. Seriously.

I turned to look behind me expecting a few officers and maybe even a K-9 unit to be hot on my heels. There was no-one. I decided to keep going. I ran right past the SWAT van were a number of SWAT guys all decked out in helmets, bullet proof vests, guns, and bigger guns were having a meeting. I threw them a quick "head nod" and continued on.

It wasn't until I got to the opposite end of the blockade that I received any form of reprimanding for what I just did. "Don't run back this way!" the lady police officer standing at the last road block told me.

I managed to get out "I don't plan on it. Sorry." in between breaths and kept on running.

"Run Forest, Run!"

2008-08-21T17:34:00.002-05:00

I go out for jogs here and there. I usually get a wild hair up the butt and run pretty consistently for 3 weeks. Then the laziness sets in and I stop running for about 9 months. This cycle repeats itself and right now I'm on my 4th iteration of it. I've always wanted to be more disciplined and keep myself running on a more consistent basis, so this year I thought I'd do something different.

A friend of mine planted a seed in my brain about an upcoming half marathon she was going to run. She asked if anyone else wanted to join her. I dismissed it quickly, but the idea remained in my head. I started thinking about it obsessively for a week or two. Finally, I got online and registered for the race.

I figure if I'm monetarily committed (it cost me $53 to sign up) I'll be more disciplined and train on a regular basis.

Mistake?

So now I'm 3 weeks into my training. I run three times during the week (Tue, Wed, Thurs). Tuesday and Thursday are short, Wednesday is a little longer. Then I run really far on Saturday. My last Saturday run was 9 miles. I'm doing well, I've been keeping up with it, and yesterday I even ran in the rain. I'm committed... Until today.

The wear and tear was creeping up on me. I could feel my legs hurting more and more as I got deeper into my training. Today, my knee that had an ACL replaced in my high school years (and has never bothered me since), is the size of a grapefruit. Along with that, my calf on that same leg hurts to the touch.

I have 10 miles to run on Saturday, and 3 to run tonight. I think I'll have to skip the 3 tonight and try to make the 10 on Saturday. If I'm still sore Saturday, I may run the 10 on Sunday. Hopefully this all passes, and I'll be able to run my half marathon in September.

Hopefully this isn't the beginning of my 9 months of laziness.

Beer Darts?

2008-07-07T16:30:00.002-05:00

We drove out to my cousins house for the 4th of July weekend. She hosted a nice BarBQ Saturday night. We got to meet a lot of her friends, eat some good food, drink some beers, and chit chat. It was an all round good time.

What made the night even better? Beer Darts.

Beer Darts has to be the most idiotic game ever conceived, but I was hooked from the get go. Imagine two chairs set up about 50 paces apart facing each other; Four chairs if four people are playing, two on each side. You place an unopened beer can next to your chair on the ground and you're handed two darts. Your object is to throw your darts into the players beer can across from you. If you hit the can, they have to drink the beer down to the hole the dart made. The trick is to hit the can at the very bottom.

At the end, empty cans are counted and the person/team with the most empties loses, or wins depending on how you look at it.

I'm pretty sure we single handedly raised Anheuser-Busch's stock because of all the beer consumed that night. It didn't help that I was sitting across from the Beer Darts "ice man". He was popping beers right and left. I must of chugged.... well I don't even want to think about it.

If this sounds interesting here are some "official" rules. http://www.beerdarts.net/

Euler Project

2008-07-04T07:22:00.003-05:00

Lets say you wanted to calculate the sum of every even number in the Fibonacci sequence under 4 million. I believe this bit of code (c#) would do that. Why would you want to? I don't know.


double gr = (1 + Math.Sqrt(5))/2;
double sum = 0;
double fib = 0;
double c = 0;

while (fib < 4000000)
{
   sum += fib;
   c+=3;
   fib = Math.Round((((Math.Pow(gr,c))/Math.Sqrt(5)) + (1/2)), 0);
}
Console.WriteLine("Sum = {0}", sum);

Dusting Off the 'Ole Blog

2008-07-02T23:07:00.003-05:00

I've got this crazy idea to revive this stupid blog. I'm not sure why... I know all of you reading this were on the edge of your seats for over a year just waiting for the next post. Well, now you can finally relax.

Since my last update, a lot has happened. This post will be a cliff notes version of my past year.

My roomate/girlfriend went from Fiancee to Wife.
My wife got a new job as a nanny.
I got a new job as a geek.
We bought a house.

Now you're up to speed. If you'd like to send me a late wedding gift, leave a comment and I'll help you work out the details.

Sunday Drive

2007-03-19T09:19:00.000-05:00

We were driving out to a local paint store to possibly find matches for the colors that are already on our walls, and or, find some new colors for our office. We were about one block from our destination when, BLAM!, we slammed into a lady who decided to run a red light.

The accident happened in this intersection. We were driving west on Gravois, and the lady who ran the red light was coming out of the Shnucks parking lot heading north on Valcour. We were in the left lane, and there was a van just behind us in the right lane.

All of the witnesses said the lady first stopped at her red, then proceeded to drive through it into traffic. The lady seemed to be "not all there". She wouldn't respond to questions, and just seemed weird. Of course this was after she just got t-boned in the middle of an intersection.

So our light was green. It was green for a while, we were in fact driving up to the green light. Then we notice this car in the middle of the intersection, right in front of us. My Fiancé was driving, and she immediately slammed on the brakes. It wasn't enough though, and we still hit the rear left quarter panel of her car and sent her a little sideways in the process. We immediately stopped during the collision. Since we were already slowing down, our impact wasn't that great.

Her car kept going. She wasn't on the brake at all and continued thought the intersection at almost full speed. This is when the van that was behind us and to the right of us slammed into her at full speed. The van hit the front left quarter panel of her car. At the time, van was in the process of passing us so was probably going twice as fast as we were. The forward momentum of the van carried the ladies car into the traffic light pole and pinned her there.

[Caution, this story is about to get gross.] I looked around after the collision and saw a big chunk of hair on the lady's passenger side window. It looked as if someone's head had hit the window and part of their scalp was stuck to it. I like to watch gory movies, but when I saw the chunk of hair, I almost vomited. The only thing I could think of was call 911. Before I even knew it, I had dialed 911 and was on the phone with a dispatcher. After I got off the phone, I went out to check on her.

It turns out that chuck of hair wasn't a piece of scalp. The impact had knocked the poor ladies wig off. It was the wig that was stuck to the window.

In the next minute there were fire trucks and an ambulance. In the next 5 minutes, a tow truck. In the next 5 minutes, everything was cleaned up.

The van was driven by an older couple in their 60's, and they had an even older lady in their back seat. She was taken to the hospital, but everyone else was OK. We escaped with the least amount of damages, but the other two cars are defiantly totaled.

BTW: The paint store was closed.

Tales from the Cubicle

2007-02-21T09:44:00.000-06:00

As I sit here in my cubicle, figuring out the ways in which I will slack off today, I'm interrupted by the gib-gabbers on the other side of the cube wall. Apparently one of the ditsier administrative assistants wore in her dog's leash the other day. What?! Yep, she forgot she had it around her neck after walking her dog that morning. Everyone thinks its hysterical and laugher is at an all time high. Me, I'm not so amused. I laughed the first time I heard it, two days ago. This will be the seventh iteration I've been privy to and its not getting any funnier.

Science vs. Faith

2007-02-17T23:24:00.000-06:00

Science vs. Faith rolled up into one brutally honest and easy to understand flow diagram.

Interesting SPAM

2007-02-16T09:03:00.000-06:00

I just got this email (read: spam) today. I posted the good parts below, but here is the basic message. Nadejda, some 26 year old Russian mail order bride, wants me to "mail order" her. Apparently Justin, her previous "mail orderer", stood her up, now she has this visa application and no one in the US to marry. Bummer.

Who falls for these scams?

How are you? My name is Nadejda. I am 26 years old. I live in Russia, city Yoshkar-Ola. I am cheerful woman, and like to do many things as sport, camping, go to the cinema, theatre etc. In a word I like to do all what like all people...

...I wish tell to you history which have pushed me write to you. 8 months ago I have got acquainted with the man from other country by name Justin. During this time we had good relations. We have understood that our relations become serious and we have decided to meet in his country. I wrote the application for reception the visa. I waited reception of the visa approximately half of year....

...I have gone to Moscow to receive the visa. I informed good news to Justin, but he has answered, that does not want our meeting. He played with me....

...I do not know your ideas about my letter, but it would be fine if we could meet and have some weeks or months together. On my trip I want to receive rest from my work and a life in Russia. Also the basic purpose for the future it is search good men for serious attitudes which go to a marriage. I have no children, but I want to have children in the future...

Just in case any of you are interested, here's her email address (zolnadja@bk.ru).

Yes!

2007-02-15T09:49:00.000-06:00

Well, its official. I'm no longer living with my girlfriend... I'm living with my fiancee Yep, I'm "engaged".

I had everything planned out, what I was going to say and how I was going to do it. In the morning I practiced in front of the mirror. I was suave, sophisticated, and clam. When it was game time, I was a stuttering, stammering mess. I barely got the words out. Not that it mattered much because the girlfriend was already balling and probably didn't comprehend any of it. Through the tears of joy, I could hear something resembling a "yes". And then it was done. A huge weight was lifted and I was actually able to relax somewhat for the rest of the night.

It was a long time coming, but its finally done and I couldn't be happier. Now if the girlfriend, er, fiancee has her way... we will be married and have two children within the next month. It should be a fun ride from here on out.

Bread & Milk

2007-02-13T10:29:00.001-06:00

It's just my luck that our weekly grocery shopping day happened to be the day before the big predicted "snow storm". I put that in quotes because it's nothing close to the kind of weather the rest of the country is getting, but some how everyone thinks we're worse off. Anyway, every time the weather guys predict a "snow storm" the stores fill up with the usual crowd of people looking to buy bread and milk just in case they will be confined to thier homes by the two inches of snow and ice we receive. I normally avoid this mess, but this time I totally forgot about the bread/milk people and did our weekly shopping anyway. What a god damn mess. I have no patience for people in a check out lane in the first place. Now, with the weather, everyone seems to be even crazier... Do you really need 4 loves of bread and 3 gallons of milk? If you're going to buy a snow shovel should you be in the self checkout lane whacking everyone else in the head with it as you try and maneuver it over the bar code scanner? Come one people. Get out of my way!

P.S. If your the 33.33333...% of my readers that live in Florida, you can ignore this post since you probably have no idea what I'm talking about... A-Hole!

Can You Say "Vista Bug"?

2007-02-02T13:23:00.000-06:00

I can't wait for the day I can sneak up behind a co-worker and say "delete *.*".

No... Those won't get you any beads. Really, put 'em away now. Please.

2007-01-29T01:11:00.000-06:00

As we prepare for our annual Mardi-Grass parade, I'm forced to reflect on the whole nature of the "parade" itself. Each year there is a parade specifically designed for drunk people, and those who like to spectate drunk people. Each year we are a part of this parade. We ride on a float, which is only a float in the sense that its being pulled by a truck in a parade. It's really nothing more than a flatbed 18 wheeler with make-shift railings to keep every one from falling off and on to the moving pavement below. This "float" is equipped with all the amenities necessary for a successful Mardi-Grass parade. I've taken the time to list those amenities below.

Multiple kegs of beer.
A Johnny-On-The-Spot. (The beer has to go somewhere)

To top it all off, the "float" is "decorated" to match whatever the theme is for that year. Albeit, the decorations are usually "bolted" on the float by drunks the morning of the parade.

At the beginning of the parade each "float" is allotted a couple crates of beads to be distributed to the masses along the parade route. The beads are like crack to the crowds of spectators watching the parade. They can't get enough. They want the beads. They need the beads. We then, provide the beads. A sort of drug dealer parade for the crowd of jonesing addicts.

The fact that this parade is children friendly, there are kids of all ages along the parade route, doesn't detour the overly addicted "bead-whores" from offering up an extra "payment" to secure themselves a larger quantity of beads. These "bead-whores" often let certain body parts go unclothed in an effort to acquire extra beads. Often this happens with young children standing right next to them, or in direct view of said body parts.

Now, this wouldn't be all that bad if the aforementioned "bead-whores" were in fact somewhat attractive, or even had teeth for that matter. The fact that they are ugly and standing next to young impressionable minds is just too much to handle.

So my message to you: If you're older than 25, missing teeth, and have a "boyfriend" who is either in jail or on probation... keep 'em tucked away. Better yet, stay your ass in the trailer. The future leaders of this country don't need to see that, and quite frankly, neither do I. On the other hand, if you're a somewhat attractive pre-twenty-five-year-old (post-eighteen-year-old) I'm willing to make an exception.

Turn Around!

2007-01-25T15:00:00.000-06:00

I was halfway to work the other morning when I realized I had left my ipod on the kitchen counter. More than 10 miles into my 19 mile drive, I turned around and went back and got it without even flinching. This got me thinking... Would I have done the same if I had forgotten... say.. my wallet, ID, cell phone, or pants? The answer, hell no. Especially not after being more than 10 miles into my trip. Why then for my ipod? Well... I have my priorities.

It could have something to do with the fact I work in a cubicle surrounded by loud and obnoxious morons and my ipod is the only thing that can provide me with a proper amount of "peace and quiet". Or maybe its just the large collection of Beyonce and Fergie I have loaded on it. I'll let you decide...

"How come every time you come around my London London bridge wanna go down?"

Type...Type...Type

2007-01-22T17:01:00.000-06:00

I was just marveling at the speed of which I can type the following line of code:


Set cn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

I can literally just lay my hands on the keyboard that line of text will appear on the screen. Being that I'm a classic ASP web developer, I must have typed that line of code at least 20 times a day for the last 5+ years. Remarkably I've never woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat screaming those lines of code. However, give me another 6 years of this and maybe that will change.

That reminds me... When I was a system admin, it was this little jewel that got typed at least 100 times a day (or some variant of it):


ipconfig /all

Yep, it still rolls off the fingertips with the same blazing speed and accuracy as it did 5+ years ago.

The Kids Today

2006-11-09T12:42:00.000-06:00

Back in the day I used "borrow" software like crazy. My collection at any one time was well in to the hundreds of GB and this was when 1GB hard drives were considered huge.

The other day when my VCR (yes, I said VCR) failed to record one of my TV shows, I set off to find its digital replacement. Today with all the p2p software available, I found the show I was looking for in less than a minute, had it downloaded in less than an hour, and watched it in just another hour. The turnover from search to viewing all occurred in a single night. Remarkable.

Let me shed some light on how long that would have taken just 10 years ago.

First off, there were no p2p programs. We had FTP. Anytime someone wanted to "share" something they had to find a publicly accessible FTP server and upload it for others to download. Groups of users would dedicate themselves just to the task of finding public FTP servers (pub scanners). They would scan ranges of IP addresses for open FTP ports. From that list the would try logging in and see if public write access was allowed (either purposely or accidentally). Once they had their lists compiled, they would share these lists with another group of users, the distributors.

The distributors would browse the list of ftp servers and find the one with the most bandwidth. They would then start uploading "content". Once the content was uploaded, they would post the path to the FTP server on their own forum. The distributors weren't responsible for creating the "content", that was yet another group, the release group.

The release group was responsible for creating the copy of the original content. A lot of times this meant breaking any copy protections, or "ripping" the original to reduce the size for easier download.

Finding the content to download was much more difficult. Leechers (people who only download) were considered scum. If you wanted to download, you had to participate in some way. Once your participation was noticed, you would be granted access to the forum that contained the locations of all the uploaded "content".

If you wanted something specific, you had to monitor the forums for new FTP servers with fresh content, log on to the FTP server, and manually search through the uploaded content. This could become very tedious as it could be days before what you were looking for showed up anywhere. Once it did, it would normally disappear in minutes.

The lifespan of a public FTP server with fresh "content" was very short. It didn't take long for even an incompetent system admin to notice the increased bandwidth to their server and quickly find out why, shutting the whole thing down. Finding what you wanted meant staying on top of the game 24x7. Downloading everything then trading later was the way acquire specific "content".

Today you can configure your free bit torrent client to read rss feeds and automatically download whatever you want. I swear, these kids today have it easy.

Want Some Netflix?

2006-09-21T16:25:00.000-05:00

Help yourself to a free scoop of Netflix. Go on, you know you want to!

Take me out to the ball game…

2006-09-08T09:51:00.000-05:00

On Monday, my girlfriend, her parents and I left town headed for Kansas City. Her dad had acquired tickets to two games of the Royals vs. Yankees series. Her dad works in the Cardinals club house, so he knows all of the ball players. A couple months ago, the Royals were in town, and with them Mark Grudzielanek, a former Cardinal. Her dad expressed interest in seeing the Yankees series in KC, and so Mark hooked him up.

So there we were in KC for the baseball games. The day after our first game, we were eating lunch at George Brett’s restaurant in the plaza. It was a nice day, and we were just hanging out enjoying our meal. Out of nowhere, my girlfriends mom gets this “oh my gosh” look on her face and freezes. Then blurts out, “Oh my gosh, its Mark!” With that, her dad gets up and bolts out the door of the restaurant to catch him. The only thing was, the restaurant had a weird “art deco” design, and the front door was a little nondescript. He missed the door completely and started to frantically pace the bar area looking for the exit. A quick “deer in headlights” glance back at us, whom by the way were laughing uncontrollably, got him pointed in the right direction. Out the door he went to thank Mark for the tickets. Luckily the lunch rush was over, and there weren’t many people in the restaurant. I can only imagine Mark’s reaction to an old man chasing him down the street with a mushroom swiss burger hanging out of his mouth.

All in all, we had a nice trip. The weather was nice, the seats were very nice, and the Yankees and Royals split the two games we were at. What else can you ask for?

Fw: Fw: Fw: I Don't Care!

2006-09-01T08:45:00.000-05:00

I have an email offender in my address book. Everyday I can count on getting at least two or three useless "joke" emails. Fortunately, Gmail allows me to create some pretty sophisticated filters to channel these emails automatically into a junk folder. I rarely have any make it into my inbox anymore, but when they do, it's just that much more annoying.

My dilemma is this. How do I politely tell the offender to cut it out, with out looking like an anti-social snob?

I Hate Walmart

2006-07-27T22:47:00.000-05:00

I hate Walmart. I hate the people that shop there. I hate the people that work there. I hate the people that slowly walk down the center of the parking lot lanes totally oblivious the the traffic pile-up behind them.... I could go on and on but that's not really my point.

Even with my obvious dislike of Walmart, I still buy stuff there. You really have no choice; they have the lowest prices, especially when it comes to tires. When shopping for the best deal on tires, you will always end up at Walmart. This brings me to my point. Walmart tire service sucks butt.

Now I realize Walmart isn't an oasis of mechanical genius, but for the price I was willing to take a chance. I ordered my tires on-line and had them shipped to my local Walmart. I got the phone call when they came in, and promptly ventured out to "my" Walmart to get them installed.

I didn't stick around to watch the tires get installed. I was at Walmart, I may as well spend $100. God knows, no matter what, you always exit that place minus a c-note at least. So after I had everything checked off the shopping list I dropped back to check the status of my car.

I saw that my car was still on the rack. As I got closer I noticed they had put "ford focus sized tires" on my Explorer. As I was banging on the window to get their attention, they were lowering my car. My Explorer now had a mere 4" of ground clearance.

I started talking to the tech that put the matchbox tires on my car. He said those tires were a valid alternative for my Explorer, and they were the ones I ordered. After arguing he dug through the trash to find the shipping label that came with the tires. Sure enough, they belonged to some other poor schmuck.

After 30 minutes they finally found my tires and in another 45 minutes they installed them. I didn't notice they installed three of them backwards until I got home. I guess its unusual for light truck tires to have a directional tread, so they weren't used to looking for the huge bold text that said "MOUNT THIS SIDE OUT" on the tire's sidewall. They closed for the night, so I had to stop in the next morning to get that fixed.

After two trips to Walmart and a combined total of 3:45 of waiting I finally have new tires, and I've learned a valuable yet glaringly obvious lesson. If you decide to purchase tires from Walmart realize one thing: The techs that will be installing them are as dumb as the tires you are about to have installed improperly.

The Bose Experience

2006-07-12T09:49:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I was "down at the lake". Whenever you're "down at the lake" with a woman, shopping at some point will occur. The number of outlet malls, strip malls, and just plain old malls is too high to count. It’s like liquid crack for the female types. You dangle this many shopping opportunities in front of a woman and they can't resist.

During one of these outings, I came across "The Bose Store". Being an electronics junkie, I couldn't resist. As soon as I entered the store I immediately saw the noise canceling headphones display. I've always wanted a pair for work, and keep reading that Bose has the best ones available. I was dying to try them out.

As soon as I'm about to start the demo, the sales guy walks over to me and asks if I need any help. I just told him I was really interested in the headphones, and he quickly pointed me to another "much better" demo to try out. Ok. I walked over to it, put the head phones on and pressed the "start" button.

Immediately all the background noises of the store disappeared and all I could hear was a Dave Mathews Band concert. I was amazed. A few minutes into the concert I noticed my girlfriend, and the rest of the people in the store, looking at me as if my hair was on fire. What's going on, I wondered. Then the demo told me to lift the head phones off one ear. I did, and was instantly aware of the reason everyone was staring at me. The demo was simulating airplane noise in the store. There was a very loud rumbling going on. Very loud. With the headphones on, there was zero rumbling. With the headphones off, it sounded as if a jet was landing in the parking lot outside.

Being someone who likes to keep a "low profile", this kind of attention is unwanted. I quickly put the headphones down and started looking for the stop button. There wasn't one. I was forced to walk away. The demo continued on for the next 10 minutes, rumbling and all.

If only I had $350, I would have walked out of that store with a pair of those headphones.

New Feed

2006-05-16T15:04:00.000-05:00

I've just signed up to use feedburner. So if any of you are subscribing to my blog, please unsubscribe, then resubscribe with this link.

Thanks!

Butts...

2006-05-16T07:30:00.000-05:00

My neighbors directly above us are very nice people. We talk a lot and generally get along well. Their friends however, are smokers. Which is fine, I couldn't care less. The problem, however, is the fact that they seem uninhibited when it comes to discarding their cigarette butts over the railing of our upstairs neighbor’s balcony. The butts often end up on our patio. The fact they fall on our patio isn't that much of a bother. I sweep it regularly since leaves and other debris continually pile up when the wind blows. The problem is that the butts keep collecting in the grass around our patio.

One or two butts in the grass is fine, but they pile up quick. I could go outside and count 100 butts easy. There must be thousands. They never get picked up by the grounds crew because they are so small. They also seem to avoid destruction from the lawn mowers. Unless someone was to go out on their hands and knees and pick up each individual butt, they will be there to stay and continually multiply.

Why is it so easy for a smoker to toss a cigarette but and not care about what happens to it when it leaves their tobacco stenched fingers? Why are cigarettes butts not considered litter? The next time you’re at a stop light look out your window and notice the pile of butts at the base of the curb your next too. Its ridiculous and it needs to stop.

A Sucker is Born Every Minute

2006-05-03T20:41:00.000-05:00

A while ago, probably close to nine or ten months ago, I was sitting in the office of a former co-worker. We would bs a lot, almost 30% of the day was spent bs'ing. Anyway, during one of those bs sessions, I threw out the comment that I could land in the pond if I jumped off the roof of the building. Immediately that comment was shot down as being completely and utterly ridiculous. "Your out of your mind", they said.

Right outside my coworkers office was somewhat of a spectacular view. He had trees, a pond, geese, egrets, some sort of mutant fish, squirrels, rabbits and ducks. It's one of those views you don't take for granted, knowing you will never score an office similar at another company. The pond is about 15 feet from the side of the building, and the building is three stories tall. I said by running at full steam and leaping off the side of the building, your body would carry far enough to hit the pond. It looked very possible to me, and I was surprised by the disbelief. I made myself a note to try and mathematically solve this problem one day and post the answer. We'll I've got some free time, and guess what... I've also got the answer.

There are a couple critical pieces of data you need to solve a problem like this. Knowing these key pieces should be enough to solve our problem.

1. How tall is the building?
2. How far away is the pond?
3. How fast will the person be running off the top of the building?

I know the building is three stories tall. I'm not about to climb to the roof and drop a tape measure to get an exact measurement, so I'll guess. Being that I work in the building, I'm very familiar with it. By guessing, I'll say the ceilings are about 10' tall. Taking into account the space between the ceiling and the floor above, I'll say each floor is about 12'. Thus, 12 x 3 = 36. For my equations I will assume the building is 36' tall.

Using the un-biased guesses of others, the pond is about 12-15 feet from the side of the building. I'll avoid any doubt and say its 15 feet.

8mph is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of my maximum sprint. It's probably not the fastest I can run, but given the limited space on the roof, probably the most I can squeeze out before going airborne. So we'll set the speed at 8mph.

Ok, we have our numbers, now we need the math. I am by no means fluent in math or physics, and right now my education on the subjects is deeply rooted in google. As such, I will not be calculating for drag, so lets pretend I will be jumping in a vacuum.

The first thing we need to do is figure how long it will take me to hit the ground. This value is required to calculate how far my body will travel. The equation below does just that. Note the table denoting what each variable represents.

y = v * t + 0.5 * a * t2

y = Vertical displacement. Basically, how far is the object falling. This will be the inverse of the height of the building (-36ft or -10.97m).
v = initial vertical velocity. Being that I am jumping off the roof, my initial vertical velocity will be 0m/s.
t = Time, or the duration of my flight. This is what we will solve for.
a = Vertical acceleration. On earth, not taking into account drag, everything that falls accelerates at a rate of 9.8m/s/s. Which means for every second of decent in a fall, you will accelerate 9.8 meters per second.

By plugging in our values we get the following.

-10.97m = 0 * t + 0.5 * 9.8m/s/s * t^2
-10.97m = 0.5 * 9.8m/s/s * t^2
-10.97m = 4.9m/s/s * t^2
2.24s^2 = t^2
t = 1.5s

This means I will free fall for 1.5 seconds when jumping off the roof of the building. Thats just enough time for me to crap my pants.

Now that we know the duration of my flight, we can calculate how far I will travel. To do that I'll use the equation below.

x = v * t + 0.5 * ax * t2

x = The distance traveled. This is the value we will solve for.
v = Initial horizontal velocity. Since I will be running 8mph when leaving the roof, this value will be 3.58m/s.
t = Time. We just solved for that. This value equals 1.5s.
a = Horizontal acceleration. I will be running at a constant speed of 8mph, so I will have 0 horizontal acceleration. This value will be 0m/s/s.

Lets plug in the values and solve for x.

x = 3.58m/s * 1.5 + 0.5 * 0m/s/s * 1.5^2
x = 3.58m/s * 1.5
x = 5.37m

According to the math my horizontal displacement will be 5.37 meters, or 17.62 feet. Since we've estimated the pond being 15 feet away, this will put me well into the water upon impact.

I know drag was not taken into account, and if it was it probably would have a considerable effect on the numbers. However, I could also run faster than 8mph, and I could also jump at the end which would add an upward angle to my horizontal velocity carrying me even farther. The bottom line is this: I believe a $500 bet was made stating that I could not make it to the water. I've just proved I can... Pay up!

"...sprung into action..."

2006-04-12T16:26:00.000-05:00

There is nothing like having someone break into your apartment at 7:30 AM to wake you up and get you ready for work.

This morning as I was brushing my teeth, naked, after my shower, I hear what appeared to be someone trying to climb in through our bedroom window. Immediately my heart started pounding and I almost passed out. "Holy #$%@!" I thought to myself. I quickly looked around to find a suitable weapon. The shower curtain rod; too big and flimsy. The bottle of cleanser; probably ineffective. The towel rod; damn it wont come off the wall. Ooo.. Ooo.. the lid to the toilet tank; perfect!

I grabbed it and quickly sprung into action. I rounded the corner like a member of the local swat team with my toilet lid ready to bash someone’s head in. I quickly surveyed the room. No one was in sight. I checked out the window. Everything looked ok. What the hell made that sound?

I walked to the window, still naked, toilet lid in hand. I moved the blinds to see a huge bird laying in the grass. My only guess was the bird passed out when it saw me round the corner, naked, with a toilet lid in hand. Either that, or it hit the window and knocked it self out whilst making the loud noise I heard. I'll go with the former.