Ignorance Is Bliss

Way back in the day when I was a junior in high school, I was taking AP English/Lit my fall semester. We were just wrapping up The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when a fellow student in my class mentioned a one man play that he was part of that revolved around Huck Finn. He asked if he could perform part of the soliloquy for the class. My teacher agreed. So we all hunkered down and anticipated a good performance.
We were NOT disappointed.

"All my life revolved around the stage, and my dream, nay, my destiny was to see my name on Broadway's marquis under the title of Huckleberry Finn. Auditions were coming up in a month, and I rehearsed every day knowing my good work would be rewarded. I would burst out of the tub, saying, "HI! I'm HUCKLEBERRY FINN!" Whenever I would get home from school, I wouldn't just walk through the door, but I would make an entrance, 'HI! I'm HUCKLEBERRY FINN!' But one day I had a huge break. My parents were having a Broadway producer over for supper that night. This was my big chance. I dressed up in filthy coveralls, painted freckles on my face, and I waited until he came in and yelled at the top of my voice and lungs, 'HI! I'm HUCKLEBERRY FINN!' But I knew that success wasn't built on rote memorization of lines, but also improv and dancing! So I began to do a soft shoe number as the producer looked on with a blank face. I began doing a tarantella, and then whirling like a dervish, screaming, 'I'M HUCKLEBERRY FINN! I'M HUCKLEBERRY FINN!' I collapsed, out of breath, drained of emotion poured into that performance, and the producer looked at me and then at my parents and said, 'Gee, I didn't know your son was special.'"

At this point the student paused and looked around at the captive audience in the classroom. No one was laughing. I remember thinking to myself, "Boy, that punchline stinks!" With no response he continued.

"SO! You don't want to laugh. DON'T YOU PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER SOMEONE TELLING A VERY GOOD JOKE! YOU KNOW WHAT, I CAME UP HERE AND POURED MY HEART OUT FOR YOU BASTARDS AND THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS JUST TO APPLAUD OR PERHAPS EVEN SMILE ON YOUR !$#%!@ FACES! I'M HUCKLEBERRY FINN! AND THAT DOESN'T EVEN GET A LAUGH! WELL, YOU KNOW WHAT?! I'M GOING PLACES! WHEN YOU MORONS ARE AT YOUR MISERABLE, SOUL-SUCKING, 9 TO 5 JOBS AND WONDER WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN, YOU'LL OPEN UP THE DAMN PAPERS AND SEE MY FACE UNDER THE WORDS 'BIG STAR.' NOW LAUGH!"

At this point he went around the room and pointed at people, screaming "LAUGH! LAUGH! LAAAAAAUGH!" I was completely enthralled. This was great!
After about 5 more minutes of this, his face went from a puce color to its normal hue, and he ended with his arms wrapped around his chest and stared at the floor, and mumbled to the teacher, "Well, that's about it."
I stood up and applauded along with rest of the class's stuttering clapping. As we shuffled out of the classroom, one of the girls in the class turned to me and whispered, "Oh my god! I can't believe that just happened!" I turned back to her and said, "I know! What an act! That guy is going straight to Broadway!"

It wasn't until much later that I realized he'd figuratively flipped his lid. But during that performance, I was utterly spellbound, utterly ignorant, and utterly happy.

A Small Chest of Drawers

I've been working on a small chest of drawers for my brother-in-law's fly fishing gear so that he could have the majority of it in one place. The case is made out of eastern white pine with the sides dovetailed together. The door is a panel and frame construction with the rails and stiles made out of red oak. The panel is eastern white pine with a raised and fielded panel. For the top, I added a small cyma recta molding along the outside edges away from the door. Unfortunately by the time I got everything assembled, painted, scraped, and looking good, my camera quit working so I wasn't able to get pictures of the door being fitted and how it looked over all. C'est la vie. 

Practice joinery with my bow saw before I start cutting tenons.

Square cuts.

Open mortise and tenon practice joint with a 90 degree fit. Unfortunately on the other side there's a nice gap between the rail and the stile.

Ripping one out. 

Square shoulder.

Tenons waiting to be pared to the line with a chisel.

Ready for glue up.

Molding detail.

The Beginning

The setting is three weeks after the merger happened. The comptroller and financial analysts and operations analyst are sitting on crates around a fire in a barrel. A tin can with a string through the end of it is within arm's reach for the comptroller. The comptroller is wearing a suit with food stains and holes poked through it, along with a toboggan on top of his head. He appears not to have shaved for several weeks. All the other analysts look similarly shabby.

Comptroller: Alright, dadgummit, let's get this meeting started. Alright, we're here as a follow up to our meeting last week when we settled on securing investors and raising capital for the purpose of starting a limited liability corporation to try and regain some sort of financial stability and to wreak havoc on those sons of guns who dirty dogged us. So, let's just start off with an update of how everyone is doing with their investors and capital. Aaaand I'll start over on my left.
Financial Analyst 1: [sniffs and wipes nose on her sleeve] Whatever. Doesn't matter. Siegel was right. I should've just taken the severance package.
Comptroller: Uh, ok. I'll take that as a negative reply for raising capital. Any investors?
Financial Analyst 1: Any investors? We're in the middle of downtown! All my friends work down here and they shift their eyes away when they see me! But I still yell that it could happen to them too! Nobody wants to touch me! I have the financial plague!
Comptroller: [throws hands in the air] Ok! Ok! Look, dadgummit, I was blindsided by this too, but you know what? Whenever I see one of my associates who has their mouth drop to the floor at my appearance and then asks me if I got run over by a garbage truck, do you think I just give up and quit? NO! I walk over there and give them a big hug until they give me money to get away from them...partially because of the smell, and partially because they feel sorry for me. But I have seen their fear! Their fear is a powerful thing! They know that what happened to us can happen to them! And yet they do not voice it, but deep down they are rooting for us, with the knowledge that if transgressions against us are committed, we still have the solid know-how and tenacity to overcome terminations and absolutely no equity to build another LLC that will wipe that stupid other corporation who railroaded us right off the financial map!
Siegel: [through tin can] Oh my god. Dan. That was beautiful! You need to come over where I am and teach these hobos a thing or two about that sort of eloquence.
Comptroller: Why? What's the matter?
Siegel: Well, you know how I've got a bunch of hobos working as independent contractors for raising cash? Most of them can handle doing the signs up correctly but when they're asked what sort of business we are, most of them just talk about our goals being to get rid of all the aliens that have infiltrated our government and to develop a new psychic mind control program to enslave the aliens living in the Titticaca Galaxy.
Comptroller: Oh, that's really...odd. How has that worked out for you?
Siegel: So far, so good. They've raised lots of donations so far, but I think the donors aren't getting it. I explained to this one guy yesterday in a Geo that right now we're primarily concerned with getting some sort of equity in a heavy industrial manufacturing plant.
Comptroller: Does this story have an end? Sorry, sorry. What did he say?
Siegel: Well, to cut it short, he thought I was an alien and attempted to reverse probe me to authenticate my terrestrial existence.
[There is a pregnant pause on the line and an awkward silence with confused and disgusted looks shared amongst the analysts and comptroller]
Siegel: I didn't let him. I hoofed it out of there. But I need people who can just explain it like you did on what our business goal is. I feel like we'd be raising more cash that way, and possibly finding a potential seller for equity.
Comptroller: Ok, but how much cash have you raised?
Siegel: Well, we've got about $98.57 but it's mostly in pennies and nickels. And they're all kind of sticky.
Comptroller: Ok, well keep doing what you're doing. It's obviously working, I mean, reverse probing aside. Stay out of that line of work.
Siegel: Yes sir. Do you want me to remain dialed in for the remainder?
Comptroller: Yeah, that'd be best. I want you to remain in the loop. Alright, McJames, I know you were tracking down a couple of leads for investors and you had a meeting with one of them, is that correct? [McJames nods his head] Yeah? Ok, so how did that one go?
Financial Analyst 2: I met with Smelton and Barney, LLP and explained that we wanted to leverage some sort of deal for equity in a target company.
Comptroller: Well, really the goal is to either create a company or take over an existing company with its own customer and manufacturing base. Right now we absolutely need the equity for loans and to get our feet on solid ground.
Financial Analyst 2: Well...if we took over a company, how would that be righting a wrong? I mean, wouldn't we just be screwing some poor schmucks over just like how we got screwed over?
Comptroller:....That's not the point. Finish what happened.
Financial Analyst 2: Anyway, they said that it was a bad idea for right now with everyone being nervous about the upcoming fiscal year. No one wants to sell their stock if it's doing relatively well or if they're expecting growth, and no one wants to acquire equity in a failing company, so we're sort of at an impasse for investors. Oh, plus they said the way we handled the merger kinda got us blacklisted among venture capitalists.
Comptroller: [grinding teeth] Dad....Dad...DADGUMMIT!
Siegel: I see junk bonds in the near future.
Comptroller: They're not junk bonds! They are high yield bonds!
Operations Analyst: Can we hurry this along? My shift at Burger King starts in 30 minutes and I'd like to check up on my portfolio before I start.
Comptroller: Yes, yes. Alright, you're next I believe. Siegel, this is our operations analyst, in case you wondering.
Siegel: I know who he is, sir. [whispers] Nimrod.
Comptroller: I heard that. Don't make me shout into this can and blow your eardrums out. Anyway, what do you have for us?
Operations Analyst: I've looked into the potential market and it's going to be obsolete in about 5 to 7 years. Microchips and sensors will be the way to go. Electronics vice mechanical. I think we were acquired through a lack of foresight on their part, or they possibly expected that switch to happen at a much slower pace. It's picked up quite a bit since we were terminated, mostly due to falling prices on electronics and sensors. But microchips, solenoids, sensors and control software...that's where the future is headed. It makes sense, too, after an initial capital investment, you'll be able to control your machinery through software with a minimum of people and a team of mechanics instead of having hundreds of operators at each piece working a PLC.
Comptroller: Hm. Ok. What we bring to the table, is that transmutable to any other industry?
Operations Analyst: Nah, everyone is making the switch, it's not just our industry. I mean, you can track packages not just at distribution centers, but through GPS transceiver units affixed to the packages. It's just a new world forming out there. And heck, I remember when I was lucky to receive a package in under four weeks.
Comptroller: Dang. Who here knows anything about gadgetry and gee-whiz stuff?
[Silence]
Siegel: Look, Dan, sir, I-WILL YOU GET OFF ME YOU SMELLY, STINKY MAN, I DON'T NEED ANOTHER-[Silence]
Comptroller: I hope he's not getting a reverted probe or whatever it was.
Siegel: Sorry, they get agitated sometimes...Look, we know we're good at creative thinking and coming up with uncommon solutions due to our uncommon minds. Why don't we start manufacturing or producing some sort of helmet or something to drown out alien mind control? I know there's a large market for it in my region, and I think they'd be willing to pay for whatever price we're asking. Plus the hobos could sell them with their contacts and be able to demonstrated its effectiveness at the same time.
Comptroller: [Looks around] That's a thought. I like it. There's only one problem and that is that there are no DADGUM ALIENS.
Operation Analyst: Hold on, we could just market it as a novelty item. I think it could work. We know there's a market there if Siegel's been able to raise that much cash. It could work and I don't think that market's been tapped. We'd have no competitors.
Comptroller: [Sighs] Well...Alright, we'll do it. But I don't want a word of this getting out to anyone, colleagues or otherwise. Dadgummit, we'll be the best manufacturers of the alien helmet probers this side of the galaxy! Ok, meeting adjourned, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedules to stop by my office and joining in the teleconference. That last one was for you, Siegel.
Siegel: I know that [whispers] dummy.
Comptroller: I HEARD THAT!
Siegel: Well, gotta go!

A Zen State of Mind

Sometimes the only thing standing in the way of a problem and its solution is a good night's sleep. I've often had trouble understanding certain concepts or problems and have woken up the next day to readily understand and solve them. Nothing has changed except perhaps your brain is more engaged or you've digested all the different views, but you feel sharp and focused and everything falls into place.

Woodworking is a lot like that, especially working with hand tools. Combining your focused mind with your hands allows you to enter into a zen state of mind.
Since I don't have any woodworking projects in progress, I've been practicing joinery. But earlier this week, I was practicing cutting tenons by hand in a spare hour before work with horrible results. To be fair, a 700mm length bowsaw with 9 tpi web is quite a bit larger and coarser than all but the absolute largest tenon saws. My saw drifted left and right and back and forward and produced tenons that looked like they'd been cut with a woodchipper. I was convinced the problem wasn't with me, but it was with the saw that had to have been dull.

Today I sharpened most of my saws and was putting off sharpening my bowsaw with the joinery web in it. I paused for a moment and figured that I would try cutting another tenon to see just how dull the saw was. But I cut a perfect tenon with no problem.
The only thing that changed is that I was focused on cutting the tenon instead of getting ready for work
I often experienced this problem with guitar playing when I was beginning. But once I actually started setting time aside in my day to practice, I was able to focus and get better. All the little things that I would have to obsess over became second nature so that I could focus on what the song was supposed to sound like.
The same thing's happening with woodworking; nothing's changing, I'm just entering into a zen state of mind.

How the Conquistadors Inflated Their Economy

One day I realized I had absolutely no idea how businesses, banks, or the financial world work. That annoys me. So I read an Idiot's guide to economics from the library. The book was pretty dry, but it was a down and dirty quick guide to most of the concepts of economics. Then I started reading a macroeconomics textbook, and now I truly know the meaning of dry. One of the concepts discussed in both books was fiscal and monetary policy. An IS-LM curve (Investment-Savings; Liquidity Preference [money demand]-Money Supply) was introduced which shows how equilibrium exists between the commodity market and the money market with interest rates and income plotted out on the y and x axes respectively. But another idea was introduced which is still an odd concept to me.

And that is the velocity of money.

Simply stated, velocity is equal to the nominal GDP and divided by the money supply, or V=PQ/M. 

And MV=PQ is another way of stating the formula.

So is M=PQ/V.

I remember reading about how the Spanish discovered the Americas and brought back so much silver and gold that it caused rampant inflation for their economy. But being historians, the authors never discussed why that happened. I think the simplest definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods which leads to an increase in the price based off of a supply and demand curve. 

But the equation actually shows why inflation happened. Instead of Q increasing, prices increased. Although you would get a higher nominal GDP based off of higher prices, your real GDP would deflate.

So why wouldn't velocity increase with an increased money supply? Velocity is the amount of times money changes hands in the year per unit of currency. So a huge increase in money supply wouldn't necessarily correlate with an increase in velocity.

So, if that's the case, why wouldn't Q increase instead of prices with the GDP being equal to the change of the money supply and velocity of money?

I'm not totally sure, but I think if a large amount of money were flooded into an economy it would take several years of investing in order to actually raise production of goods. If the Spanish explorers were to start buying boats and farms after coming back from the Americas it might take several years before they could start growing wheat or catching a bunch of fish with a fleet. While the money supply exceeds the demand though, prices increase with inflation as a result.

Out of all of this, the takeaway is that by controlling the money supply you can attempt to control prices to prevent a rapid inflation or deflation. 

Now my head hurts.

The Best Christmas Songs You've Probably Never Heard

For all the bad Christmas songs we have clogging up the airwaves, there's lots of great Christmas songs out there. Only thing is you have to know where to look for them because they aren't played on the radio for God knows what reason. Some of them are irreverent, more winter-themed than Christmas-themed, or just too slow to be deemed a playable Christmas song by corporate America.
1. "I Love the Winter Weather" by Squirrel Nut Zippers.
2. "Santa Claus is Smoking Reefer" by Squirrel Nut Zippers. This was actually a secret track hidden on one of their Christmas albums.
3. "This Time of Year (When Christmas is Near)" by Etta James.
4. "The Holly and the Ivy" by George Winston.
5. "In the Bleak Midwinter"
6. "The Wexford Carol"
7. "Walking in the Air" by Nightwish.
8. "Star Carol" by John Rutter.
9. "Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella"
10. "Shepherd's Pipe Carol" by John Rutter.
11. "Overture" by Duke Ellington.
12. "Arabesque Cookie" by Duke Ellington.
13. "Dance of the Floreadores" by Duke Ellington.
14. "Toyland" by Perry Como. 

The Worst Christmas Songs

We're in that time of the year where you can't escape Christmas music. Whenever you drive in the car, it comes on the radio. Whenever you turn off the radio, there's music playing in the store. Whenever you leave the store and go back home, there are holiday jingles playing on the television. Whenever you turn off the television, you have the horrible songs still bouncing around your head. I've experienced quite a bit in my life, but there are certain things that make me want to claw at my face whenever I hear them.
And just to clarify, I claw at my face every single time I hear these songs.
1. "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"
    Every little girl's dream is to have a wild, dangerous African animal for Christmas which is notorious for being extremely aggressive and flinging its feces everywhere to mark its territory. Oh? It's not? Well apparently it is for this horribly misinformed little girl. I don't understand how people think this song is cute. What the hell kind of a Christmas would they expect if this actually played out? What the hell kind of sicko parents or Santa would allow this to happen? I have a horrible image of a house with gaping holes in it, people flattened like pancakes, and feces absolutely everywhere. Street hardened policemen would poke their heads in to get a glimpse of the carnage, and immediately turn away to start puking and yell "OH THE HUMANITY!" Plus, what's with the creepy girl's voice? I know it's a child singer, but it still freaks me out. I'm pretty sure I know the reason why. After studio executives spent a day and a half of being told "that's a stupid idea for a song" by 8 year-olds, they clearly went with plan "B" and got an adult female to sing the song with a mask of helium hooked up.
2. "Dominick the Italian Christmas Donkey"
   As if to differentiate that the song is NOT about a reindeer, the singer drove the message home with all the subtlety of a Mel Brooks' comedy. "HEEEEEE-YONK! HEEEE-YONK" is peppered throughout the song along with "JIGGITY JIG!" which isn't preceded by the old standard, "Home again, home again!" And then the singer can't remember the first words to each verse, so he just randomly fills empty air by yelling "LA LA LA LA LA LAAAAAA!" which apparently are sounds that only Italian Christmas donkeys make as opposed to those other jackasses. To be fair, Italy's Santa Claus legend does have him riding a donkey.  But if the Italian Santa had to ride a donkey named Dominick that sounded like an animal version of Ned Flanders ("Hidely ho! HEEYONK JIGGITY LA LA JIG!"), he would've traded him in for a Ferrari. Or a Fiat.
3. "Santa Baby" by Madonna.
   Madonna had a string of hits in the 80's and then 90's, but she's successfully transformed herself from an 80's sex icon to a real-life walking mummy these days. This song was recorded in the 80's by her, and she naturally wanted to try something different than her usual sultry approach. So she sung like a person who's just come out of a wisdom tooth extraction and still fully feeling the effects of the anesthetic. It really is different as a Christmas song, but you only listen to it halfway before you find yourself wishing that you could tell her, "Madonna, look, an 'A' for effort, but maybe you could just try singing it normally?"
4. "The Christmas Shoes"
    There's just something about this song that makes me want to crawl into bed and stay there for a week. I can't quite put my finger on it. It could be the street urchin protagonist in the song attempting to buy some sort of nice shoes, (he doesn't say what kind, but I always picture Air Jordan's or whatever Kobe Bryant's hawking these days) for his terminally ill mother, while his father is so overcome with grief that he's oblivious to everything and allowing his Oliver Twist of-a-son to roam around the city. It could be that the protagonist doesn't have enough money to buy the shoes and has to resort to begging instead of picking up aluminum cans and taking them to a recycling center. It could also be that the song sounds suspiciously like Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?"
5. "Happy Xmas (War is Over)"
    I understand what peace is fully. It's the absence of war. And I understand what Yoko Ono is. It's the absence of singing ability. Japanese and Chinese music sound atonal to me but that's because their musical scales are different from the western twelve note scale. And yes, the women singing do sound a tad like cats singing. But it works with their music. What doesn't work in this song is Yoko in the background warbling "WAAAAAR EEEEES OOOOOVAAAAH! EEEEEF YOUUUUUU WAAAAAAN IT! WAAAAR EEEES OOOOOVAH! NAAAAAAAAAAOOOOAAAAA!" I see it in my mind right now. John's hunched over at the console of his recording studio and the sound engineer is listening to the playback and says, "I don't understand, John! We've recorded this fifteen times and every single time once it gets to the chorus, I hear a high pitched whine in the background! It's not the equipment...but what is it?!"
6. "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"
    Don't get me wrong. My issue with the song isn't the lyrics but with Brenda Lee's vocal cords which seem to be suffering the same debilitating disease as the little girl who sings "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas." I mean, the Hall and Oates cover of this song was fine. Except for the video where John Oates gets all gussied up in a dress for the holidays. And the long, personal gaze that was shared between Darryl and John. That just makes me feel voyeuristic. And then I hear their cover and I start thinking about John in the dress and the stares that they gave each other. Actually, you know what, my beef is with the whole song in general, past to present and future.