Crumpled Thoughts

It’s Sunday night and we’re back in Boise. McCall was really nice, even though it was a bit chilly at times. Paula & Kairi went up to McCall with Paula’s parents last Monday… and I joined them Wednesday afternoon. I took three days of vacation from work and it felt really nice. My boss insisted that I leave my cell phone and laptop in Boise to make sure I had a true vacation. Last year at this time I kept my laptop on a constant VPN connection to the office to monitor email and stay in touch. This year I cheated once and checked my email Thursday night.

It’s funny… I need an internet connection to stay sane. If I’m without internet access it feels like being without electricity. I use the internet for everything. I haven’t opened a phone book in probably 4 years, when my cable internet access was down and I needed the number to call the cable company. I order pizza online, bank online, shop online, pay bills online, get movies, books, and software online. For better or worse I need internet access, and it has to be fast.

I saw a job posting for an IT position at the Tamarack Resort in Donnelly Idaho and just about sent a resume over. Then I thought about how internet access in Donnelly would probably be. I’m thinking slow, with frequent outages. I couldn’t handle that. It would kill me.

So, we’re back in Boise. As much as I’m not looking forward to going in to the office in the morning, it was great to get home to my cable modem. Downloaded a movie to watch tonight… transferred a full DVD in 4 hours. If you haven’t seen Failure to Launch, I recommend it. It wasn’t the typical Matthew McConaughey chick flick. It got terrible reviews, but I really enjoyed it.

Anyhow… I guess I’m rambling at this point, better go unpack

Yesterday we took out the bikes and ATV to Bear Basin to hit the trails. We had a really good time. Kairi got to ride on the ATV with Grandpa (very slowly).

We’ve been spending this week relaxing in McCall. Today we went to Zims hot springs in New Meadows, and afterward went and checked out the ‘Last Chance’ campground off of Highway 55, between New Meadows and McCall. I took this picture of Kairi smiling.

The Family and I went over to my parents house last weekend to visit. My mom took these two great pictures.

Haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been really busy. This weekend Kairi fell asleep in my arms when she would normally take her afternoon nap. I didn’t have the heart to disturb her, and she slept like this for a couple hours. Paula took the picture. She’s such a sweetie.

The Powerball jackpot is huge. I used my trusty PHP Powerball Picker to generate 5 picks for tonights drawing for $310 million dollars. Shortly after 9:00 MST I went to the Powerball web site to check the results. in one of my picks I got 2 of the 5 main numbers, but not the Powerball. I went to the “Prizes and Odds” page to see if that was worth anything. I found this chart:

I don’t have a math degree… but this just doesn’t look right. The easiest one to spot is at the bottom of the chart. The odds of getting just the powerball number correct. The value of the Powerball will always be an integer of 1–42. They show the Odds of that prize as 1:69. I don’t get it. It seems wrong. I can guarantee you that I can win that prize if I spend $42. So how do the odds end up as 1 in 69? I found this page which shows the odds more specifically as 1:68.96. I still think it’s wrong. If I am assured to win that prize playing 42 times I think the odds should be 1:42… of course this ignores the 5 white balls, but hey— I’m after my $3.

By the way, in one of my 5 picks I got 2 of the 5 white balls. My shitty math figures that is a 1:148.5 chance of matching 2, but I’m sure that’s not how the Multi-State Lottery Association would calculate it.

Went up to McCall, ID last weekend for the McCall Winter Carnival. Came home with these great pictures.

I generally have terrible luck with the lottery. I only seem to play it after the jackpot goes over $200 million. That’s when my demented psyche deems it to be worth $1 to play.

I typically buy a 1-5 dollar Quick Pick… and I’ve never won. In all 20 or so times I’ve played. Obviously the Quick Pick is intentionally giving me bad numbers. To test my theory I created my own system to pick numbers. No longer will the lottery machine choose my numbers for me. Now I’m sure to win.

You can use it too if you like: Chris Hillman’s Powerball Picker™.

If you’d like to see the source… steal it, molest it, claim it is yours… you can get it here. I give up all rights to this code. Use at your own risk. No warranty expressed or implied. Of course if it picks winning numbers for you I know you’ll do the right thing and send me a fat check.

Here it is. Blog 2.0. Needed a place to post random thoughts, rants, and nuggets of sage wisdom.

This is going to be a real “grab bag” of stuff. Nice to have my soapbox back— Let’s see how it goes

I’m really struggling with the design of this site. On one hand I really appreciate clean, lightweight web designs. I also like enjoy some eye-candy for visual interest. The photo at the top of this page (at time of publishing) is a picture I took of the submarine I was stationed on in the Navy. It was an early morning and we had stopped in Alaska after doing sound trials in the Puget Sound. I can’t remember why we were running the diesel generator. The billowing white smoke is the exhaust from the diesel. So much for nuclear submarines not contributing to greenhouse gasses.

Anyhow— That image takes up a bunch of screen real estate. Hopefully it’s worth it. Let me know your thoughts on it. I’ve modified the Falling Dreams Wordpress theme for use here. I dig the concrete background. Oliver Russell uses a very similar background on their web site. Since I generally think that Oliver Russell does some of the best design work around, I’ll stick with it. Immitation is the most sincere form of flattery after all.

-Chris