this week i

identified the original mrs. butterworth.

configured an excel program to show the percent of income that individuals at different poverty levels would pay, complete with a scroll bar that changed with a person's age. the final result looked a lot like a google motion chart, but their inputs demanded the scroll bar be a date. excel 2003: the most valuable piece of software in the history of mankind.

have never been to spain stuck in my head.

want to see michelle more. how about civil liberties? cherie blair did it.

helped repair my father's antique dining room table.


found an articulate explanation of why the public option shouldn't be a distraction.

don't understand why they even bother making the non-orange tic-tacs.

was inspired by that immaculate santa barbara avocado..

and hosted a sushi dinner on my roof, scheduling thanks to doodle.
we had planned to make it more iron chef-like, but got too hungry.
also, nine perfect avocados mean everyone's a winner.

didn't waste the leftovers. better with honey.

don't know if the new 'competitive sushi chef' bullet point really belongs on my resume. also: don't care.

7/2/09

this week i

worked all day saturday, the most productive day to be in the office. we're preparing a brief on which industries and workers would be most affected if the final health reform bill allows insurance premiums to vary based on characteristics like smoking or obesity.

like this article on problem solving-based higher education, believe schools of public health are a good start.

found our work on health care spending as a proportion of total budget quoted in this metlife brochure. cool, i guess.

wonder how the world will react to climate change refugees. also love that geographical swine flu data is available for download.

picnicked, then diana krall. thank you wolftrap. see you next month at joe cocker.

found jazz in the sculpture garden more crowded and with more kids than ever.

felt bad about laughing at this bear on a trampoline. also conflicted about these.
took in artomatic's peep show..


duck duck goose, chicken & egg, etc.

..and the inevitable prisoner-clothing wine spill.

brunched at madras palace. at oberlin, we used to spend sunday mornings stuffing ourselves with naan. may have found the dc metro area replacement.

sat in backyard sofas, watched the hunt for red october projected..
..onto a bedsheet hung against the side of a beautiful crummy old house. fantastic.

read jack london's call of the wild. to build a fire is better.

6/25/09

this week i

was disappointed they chose royal jordanian airlines instead of air jordan.

visited curtis in santa barbara.

earning a phd in physics, i think he's decided on his dissertation topic.


learned about kepler's law. apparently, a high-velocity pitching machine could launch a baseball a few feet above the surface of the moon that would orbit at that height forever like a satellite does around earth; our atmosphere's air resistance prevents low-altitude orbit from occurring here. nasa: this idea beats go-karting and golf, think about it.

made $2.74 playing music on the corner. also recorded the bossa nova, a major swing, and a minor something.

climbed trees, picked avocados.
played one-on-one full court basketball.

drove the royal road connecting the old spanish missions.

tasted wine with garlic-stuffed olives.

indulged in dutch country.

surveyed cactus damage from the fires.

toured xanadu, with...
neptune's pool

pharoh's cats
and neptune's indoor pool.


sampled ethnic cuisines, including daily breakfast burritos.
invented spock's live long and prosper emoticon: \\//~

don't think there's a market for vending machine wine.
previewed the allosphere, ucsb's interactive sound and visualization studio. here's a trip through brain mri data.

saw enough pelicans to lift a giant peach.

...as the governor says, "i'll be back."

considered changing my name to hormigahony.

wrapped up our kind by marvin harris...

'when electrodes implanted in their brain are connected to switches that the animals themselves can operate, they compulsively stimulate themselves for hours on end. given a choice between pressing the button for a pleasure center or a button for food and water, the animals continue to stimulate themselves until they die of starvation.'

'prevention of incest is essential, not because of the danger of having physically impaired offspring, but because groups risk extinction if they do not establish peaceful and cooperative relations with their neighbors.'

'infanticide was so prevalent in premodern japan that it became the custom not to congratulate a family on the birth of a child until it was learned whether or not the child was to be raised.'

'in rural bangladesh, male children begin to produce more than they consume by age twelve.'

'warfare leads to higher rates of direct and indirect female infanticide...boys outnumbered girls 127 to 100 before warfare was repressed by colonial powers. after war was repressed, the sex ratio fell to 104 to 100.'

'reciprocity is a small society's bank'

'in conspicuous consumption our kind culturally reinvented the brightly colored feathers, loud roars, gyrating dances, flashing teeth, and ponderous antlers...it pays to advertise your strength to your rivals, otherwise you will waste much in the process of affirming it.'

'the followers of the new faiths turned out to be a cut above the average soldiers, for they went into battle convinced that their souls would be rewarded if they died in combat.'

6/18/09

this week i

published this brief on (lack of) insurance coverage among low-income, non-elderly adults.

welcomed the release of r's peer-reviewed journal. best article: modeling expert opinion in the absence of data.

examined the population of medicare beneficiaries admitted to long-term care facilities every year. annualized expenditure data makes it difficult to tell this story when individuals enter at different points during the year, die, or simply rotate out of the survey's panel. presentations coming.

saw emma! just back from her stint with imc in baghdad, we analyzed some iraqi tuberculosis data, then..




..and star trek on imax.

attended the smithsonian sackler gallery's asia after dark, armed with dragon tattoos.
..this photographer asked which neighborhood we lived in. i said 'dupont circle', emma said 'baghdad'. apparently baghdad wasn't an acceptable response..

watched


tried for ourselves


fun housed


constructed origami card holders


and found another pose-for-a-picture videorecord victim.


..she starts at nyu nursing in the fall. hell yeah.

uglified my camera.

found it curious that utah provides half of the american colleges participating in opencourseware, i'll stick with my mit & jhsph feeds.

caught dc's fish market.

bought these:

..then feasted at hains point.


laughed to hear the swedes elected a pirate.

started reading our kind by marvin harris...

"erectus had a brain that is 33 percent larger than that of habilis, but i can see nothing in its toolkit whose manufacture or use would require a 33 percent larger brain...by having extra brain cells, the brain of erectus was less likely to break down while experiencing heat stress during long-distance running...humans have far more eccrine sweat glands than any other mammal...evaporative cooling limits the hair covering that can grow...hence the peculiar 'nakedness' of the human body."

"lungs evolved from air sacs that fish used not for breathing but for flotation...it would not be without precedent if the brain we use to think evolved out of the brain erectus used for long-distance running"

"seals, porpoises, and dolphins' oversized brains confront oxygen depletion during prolonged underwater swimming. like long-distance runners on land, they benefit from having fail-safe networks of duplicate brain cells and circuits."

snuck munchkins into the hangover. popcorn, your days are numbered.

6/11/09