Left ’em hanging at the Courthouse

A week ago, I was heading out for a quick lunch in downtown Peoria.  Local restaurants bring carts downtown by the courthouse with various menu items.  Now that I have multiple offices for an assignment I am on, I get the benefit of being able to enjoy a larger variety for lunch.  As I walked past the courthouse I saw an individual of African American descent (is that the proper classification these days?) walk past an individual of Anglo Saxon heritage standing by a retaining wall.  The guy standing must have said something to the guy walking by because he turned back to talk to the guy standing.  As soon as the walking guy recognized him, he put out his right hand for the standard greeting handshake.  He literally stood there with hand out for close to 30 seconds while conversing back and forth.  The standing guy never took his hand out of his pockets nor even changed his expression to acknowledge the extended hand.  Finally the shake initiator raised his elbow up higher to draw further attention to the request for a shake… no response.  In a last desperate attempt he switched hands and tried to get the guy to shake the other hand but that was met with the exact same lack of acknowledgment.  Finally the guy turned back and continued on his way.  I found this very strange.  There was no change in voice tone that I could tell so it was not an issue of being angry, just a complete lack of desire to shake his hand.  I wish I could have actually heard the conversation to be able to determine if the visuals matched what was actually going on.  For all I know the standing guy could have been completely paralyzed in both arms and was unable to remove them from his pocket – of course, Biden would have demanded that he extend his arms anyway – maybe the standing guy saw him spit into both his hands earlier in the day.  He certainly could not have felt threatened in the presence of the universal sign for “I am not carrying a weapon” and he did not even twitch to the opposite direction.

Anyway, I thought it was odd and that is what this site is all about.

The 3P Principle… or Gaming Gas Pricing — Now NOPE

Updated: Oct 31st, 2008 My brother has now provided further clarification of the principle and has given this m0vement the moniker NOPE for Not One PEnny.  Please see his comment below for more discussion and additional tie breaker rules.

I have to credit my brother Ron for the topic of this post.  The catalyst for this entry was that I actually acted upon his theory twice while traveling around Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin this weekend.  So about now, you are wondering what this theory is all about.  Ron and I have had numerous discussions regarding the price of gas.  During one of these discussions, he detailed out a plan to influence market pricing for gas.  It is actually fairly simple in understanding and execution, but the dilemma is that it has to be regionally followed or it will have little impact on the overall pricing.  If collectively executed, I think it may change the way the market looks at demand based pricing.  Ron never gave a clever title to his concept, so I am going to go ahead and label it for him…. he is definitely welcome to change it if he wants.  So here goes.. ready… The 3P Principle or expanded… the Perfect Petro Pricing Principle.  Unlike most economic principles these days, this one doesn’t take a thesis to explain.  In fact, it only takes a sentence.  If there are multiple gas stations in reasonable proximity, ALWAYS go to the station with the lowest displayed price even if it requires an inconvenience to get to the location or wait an additional amount of time waiting for a free pump.  Now that was not that difficult was it?  The heart of the theory is market based pricing.  There is absolutely no way an establishment can continue pricing different than a competitor who has the same customers.  Eventually, depending on his loss longevity, the price will have to come down to at least match the other businesses…. and ideally, from a capitalist point of view, he might re-price down below the competitors to win back some of the lost customers.  That sets up another round of discounts from the rest of the competitors.  There are some quirks to the principle due to some options like the level of octane that is provided, what detergent is included etc.  But apparently the gas stations don’t really think this is important to you or they would actually put it on their sign next to their displayed gas prices so you could decide how much YOU really care about it.  If you are not driving a high end vehicle, I doubt you care if it is 87 or 89 and in the Midwest just assume it has 10% Ethanol in it.  So instead of just complaining about the high prices or bandwagoning on the dependency of foreign oil so we must go green crap, do something about it and start following the 3P Principle (or whatever he decides to call it)

Doing my part this weekend, I had the chance to make this choice twice.  The first time was South of Rockford IL in a small town called Rochelle…. and as I say everytime I pass that city: “Rochelle Rochelle, a young girl’s erotic journey from Milan to Minsk”  If you are a Seinfeld fan, you should be laughing now.  Anyway, we had to fill up for gas and as usual on the interstate, there were three filling stations to choose from.  Two of them were at $2.99/gallon and the other one was at $2.84.  Even though we had to drive 500 feet extra and wait for a light, I made my wife go to the cheaper gas.  Of course, there were some customers at the other stations paying too much, but it will probably take a little while to get the word out on this genius plan.  We filled up and went on our merry way having lost only about 4 minutes extra due to seeking out the cheaper price.

The second time was up in Lake Geneva, but it slightly backfired on us but on reflection, the proximity parameter really wasn’t met.  We drove into Lake Geneva off of Rt 12 on the East side of the lake.  The gas price at that particular spot was $2.95.  We were still okay on the guage, so we completely traversed to the West side via the southern Lake Shore drive.  On that end, there was a gas station displaying $2.85.  Can someone please tell me why the gas is priced differently a mere 20-30 miles away?  We noticed the cheaper gas, but the guage was still in our favor so we started heading back to the East, but this time via the North side.  Unfortunately, I made my wife take a wrong turn which literally brought us back down to the exact same point we saw the $2.85 station.  Yes, I heard about that for at least 20 minutes straight.  At that point I decided it was an omen so I made her stop for gas.  Unfortunately, when we retraced our Northern route, we passed another gas station that had $2.84 displayed…. still better than $2.95 though.  So, we did our part this weekend.  A few more thousand regionally concerned citizens and we should start seeing a true impact.

All credit goes to my brother Ron!  now about that nomogracult thing…

Lake Geneva Gets It

I was able to catch the last presidential debate between Obama and McCain.  To be honest, at one point I was stunned and left just starring at the TV.  Both candidates clearly have their faults and quirks, but the last time I witnessed the statements like – we need to redistribute the gains of the wealthy to others and a patriotic duty to pay your (unfare) share to the government – I was reading about Marxism.  This is completely unbelievable and quite frankly the most disgusting thing I’ve heard so far in this campaign… with exception of course to Biden telling a wheelchair bound individual to stand and Palin purposely leaving off her G’s.  I clearly do not have the assests of the individuals at the top of the wealth lists in the US, but in no way, shape, or form do I think they should be obligated to give it back to those who didn’t take the same chances or make the right decisions.  Last time I checked, America was built on capitalism, not a share the wealth commune. 

I was close to the Wisconsin boarder this weekend at a dog show and happened to have the opportunity to run up to Lake Geneva to find out why Chicago natives flock there every weekend.  It is definitely a pretty nice area and the lake is clearly large enough to have some fun on, but honestly, it didn’t leave me with the unquenchable desire to rush home and book a hotel.  Beyond the lake, there didn’t look like a whole lot to do – other than checking out the georgeous houses out there.  On the other hand, when Lake Delton fills up again, we will be heading up there for more fun on the jet skiis, casino and all the miniature golf you can handle.  Now what did catch my attention at Lake Geneva was the near 15 to 1 ratio of McCain signs to Obama.  Apparently they get it… which isn’t surprising based on some of those dwellings.  Sure, I am a little envious of their opportunities, but glad I live in the land of choice that provides everyone that opportunity should they have some initiative.

Now we just need to figure out how Joe the Plumber is going to pay his back taxes.

Book Recollection: Song Man

As you may recall, my brother gave me Will Hodgkinson’s previous body of work called Guitar Man which I blogged on back in May.  Well, he also gave me his second book entitled Song Man.  Having successfully learned enough about the Guitar to complete his mission of playing a gig, Will now took on the task of learning how to actually write a song.  The goal of this effort is to learn enough about composing a song to write an original work and record it.  I definitely enjoyed the guitar learning saga and was hoping his second book would be just as entertaining (although I currently do not have a thirst to develop my own songs so I did have a little bit lower expectations compared to the fact I too have been experiencing the torture of learning the six string.)  The gang was all back from Guitar Man so it flowed very nicely from the first book.  Similar to the process in that book, Song Man is constructed around Will’s journey to seek out experts in the field, gain insights into their approach to making great songs and then tried to apply those nuggets of genius into his own songs.  The disappointing aspect of these books is that it doesn’t come with a CD of the created material.  After awhile, you start wondering how the transformations in the various songs actually sound, was the advice he was getting from the experts actually improving the work or was it stifling his creativity.  Something tells me I am going to have to seek out a copy of his pressed songs and take a listen.  The nice thing about it, I will have a complete understanding of how the song came to be which has always interested me more than just hearing the actual song.  This is probably why I like VH1’s Behind the Music and their Unplugged show so much.  In those short sessions, the artist usually gives a glimpse into the creativity process, the catalyst for their particular piece of art.  Of course every once in awhile you get the heart wrenching “it was just luck” or an “accident” when questioned how a particular riff was constructed or a particular beat was established. 

From Song Man’s perspective, he must be commended for setting a goal, formulating a process to achieve that goal and ultimately delivering on his Life List entry.  In comparison to Guitar Man, I thought the first book was a little better read, but I still enjoyed this particular work and now looking forward to what journey he dreams up next.  It actually just occurred to me that I am developing a common theme for some of my favorite types of books to read.  Many of them tend to involve the subject putting himself under some type of challenge followed by a detailed account of the journey to that end.  Both Will and probably my favorite author A.J. Jacobs fit this description to a T.  I would definitely recommend Will’s (and Jacobs’) if you also like this type of theme. 

Follow the link below to read my highlights in Song Man

Continue reading Book Recollection: Song Man

Book Recollection: Gang Leader for a Day

Finally, things should start slowing down a bit around here.  Friday was our annual Halloween Cookout party which is more properly titled Work My Butt Off Trying to Get Ready for a Party.  Now that is behind me, I can focus back on Rock Band 2, oh, I mean the Blog.  My travel book for my recent Vegas vacation was Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh.  I actually found out about this particular body of work from reading Freakonomics.  There was a chapter in that excellent book discussing why drug dealers still live at home.  A lot of the information in that discussion was based on Sudhir’s information gained while befriending one of the gang leaders of the Chicago based Black Kings.   I was actually intrigued enough from that brief introduction to go out and purchase Sudhir’s book to get a little more understanding of what it is like in the gang realm.  Just trying to broaden my horizons a little bit and understand life from a different viewpoint.

The basis of this particular book is an account of Sudhir’s friendship with a gang leader in a poor Chicago housing district.  At the time, Sudhir was a graduate student at the University of Chicago.  As a part of his coursework, he wanted to understand what it was like growing up in a poverty stricken Chicago neighborhood.  With the advice of his professor, he embarked on a survey mission in the Robert Taylor Homes.  I consider this a pretty gutsy move for a son of a South Asia immigrant who grew up in the well off Southern California suburbs.  In this situation, I am not entirely sure a white individual would have had as much success.  During the course of his survey efforts, he came in contact with the gang leader of the locally established Black Kings.  The leader’s name was given as J.T., but upon confession at the end of the book, he did disguise the names for safety (his and the subjects).  T.J. became fixated by the thought of having an autobiography about him and therefore accepted Sudhir into his fold and gave him access to a tremendous amount of information on his gang operated, the organization hierarchies and probably more interesting, the daily social interaction with the residents of the housing project.  It did bother me a little bit while reading this account if there was not a line being crossed – especially when the author had the opportunity to act as the leader for a day in order to understand what it was like to lead a gang.  He did eventually get some legal council to set some boundaries on his engagement, but I would characterize it as a little gray.  I think the most fascinating aspect of the book was the small business ecosystem that was created within the residents.  Beyond the easy revenue streams of prostitution and drug dealing, there were not so obvious aspects of renting out stairwells, ad-hoc car repair services and a clever barter system orchestrated by the tenant housing authority representative (for example, recommending which store their tenants should shop at for free alcohol which is then given to another merchant for coats.  I was also amazed about how much the gang actually contributes to the local housing economy in order to gain their friendship and quite frankly to guarantee they can operate without hassle.

As a summary, I thought it was a pretty entertaining read.  Sudhir’s style is candid with a good amount of introspection and analysis.  I still disapprove, but clearly have a better understanding as to what motivates individuals in this situation and the context of which their decisions are made in.  My hat is off to Sudhir who actually pulled this off without getting killed.

My summary points can be found after the jump.

Mathematically Eliminated.. or Yeah for the Goat!

Let’s start this quick post by saying I am a St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball fan.  This was not so much selected as opposed to handed down from my father.  As a result of this affiliation, I am also an anti-Cub fan.  No surprise there since it also goes along with my distaste for the Beatles probably based entirely on being a fan of the Rolling Stones.  I wonder just how much of our likes and dislikes are really based on contrasting scenarios?  I like the Illini, I dislike Michigan – I like Physics, I dislike Chemistry…. sounds like a future post topic, but the point of this one is to pick at the wound we like to call “Cub’s Post Season Dysfunction”

So I had the opportunity to go up to Wrigley field for a game in the final series of the season between the Cards and the Cubs.  So I grabbed my Cards hat and headed up with my Cub friends (and another Cardinal fan that was apparently too worried to actually wear the RED).  It ended up being a fairly pleasant day, probably due to the fact we hit their star pitcher out of the park for an early exit and rode a nice 12 run outing to the win.  Only twice that day did I hear the taunt of Mathematically Eliminated tossed my way in light of the Redbirds inability to make the playoffs this year.   Then on the way back to the car and SUV drives by with a similar disparaging remark on my team.  Yes, they got us this year, but noted to myself to see just how far they make it in their Cinderella year.   Last night I got the answer to that question… EXACTLY 3 GAMES.  Nice going Cubbies – a stellar year full of highly paid players who choke when it matters.  So… we concede we didn’t make it to the playoffs, and we admit your season was longer than ours…  a whopping 1.9% more.

Here’s your broom… see ya next year!

A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

You already know I have a life list and I was able to check an entry off earlier in the year.  Well, I was able to check another one off today.  I always wanted to purchase a piece of fine art.  The closest I have ever come to this is some wolf paintings I bought a long time ago at the Eagle Days in the Quad Cities.  I really don’t count this because it was not really an art show as much as a craft display.  The artist was there and signed them, but again, not what I had intended when I put the entry on the list.  A number of stars aligned today that I decided I had to take advantage of.

Peoria Fine Arts Fair Ticket

The Peoria Riverfront was hosting their annual Fine Art Fair.  I was always intrigued by it since it actually carried a description indicating it was not a pretentious affair.  Yesterday, I was sent an email by a coworker indicating her husband’s band was performing at 10:00AM at the same event.  Ah, the extra nudge to get me to wake up early on a Saturday and trek the 30 minutes down to the Illinois River.  I decided I needed some guiding principles to keep in mind while trying to acquire my fine art piece.

  • I decided $200 was my limit for my first piece (need to ease into this whole artsy thing)
  • The artist must be present at the booth – part of the thrill should be actually engaging with the artist to learn a little bit about the concept and creativity involved
  • The piece cannot be something I could actually create myself with less than a year’s concentrated effort (at least get close visually without the scrutiny of an artist’s eye).  This automatically eliminates the yard utensil art and any tile mosaic pieces (the latter since I can already do that now).
  • I should not be able to purchase a similar piece at a local (non-art retail) store
  • I will not purchase from a vendor that fits the “snobby artist” profile – you know, “The I’m better that you and you are not qualified to look at my wonderful creations much less explain them to you”
  • I will not be pressured by the vendor into purchasing a particular item.  I can’t stand people pushing product on me including the product vendors at work and the food sample ladies prowling the local convenience stores
  • I will take the time to look at every booth (if even just in passing) before I make my decision
  • The piece has to impress me or be unique enough to really capture my attention
  • I cannot acquire something I would be embarrassed by other people seeing it in my house (think naked lady statues)
  • I have to be able to get it home

I thought this was a pretty good list, but gave myself the option to augment If I had to.  Remember, I have never been to an art fair before so I really did not know what to expect.  Thanks to a late night of Rock Band 2 (crested 1.2Million fans last night and probably ranked in the 2,000s now) I was a little groggy this morning, but the anticipation of checking the list item overcame that as I headed to the event.  Confusing at first, there were actually a lot of parking lot spaces available in a lot right by the fair.  Once I arrived at the ticket area, I realized the show did not start until 10:00AM (actually Art Guild Members were able to enter an hour earlier).  I took a walk and enjoyed the riverfront for a little bit and returned when the show opened.  I heard the band warming up and figures I would check out the various booths first and then decide which pieces stood out while taking in a few songs.  That would be a good indication of something that impressed me.  Some booths I was able to pass fairly quickly through – jewelry items, pottery and photographs really was not on the radar.  Besides, I already have a really nice piece of pottery of friend of ours hand made for us last Christmas.  Unfortunately, my first rule ended up filtering out a lot of opportunities.   It was not uncommon to see $8K and $10K pieces causing my heart to stop a couple of times merely due to fear I was going to knock them over if I got too close – assuming the you broke it, you own it principle applied here.  Pleasantly, there really was not any vendors that were in the “push” mode.  Almost all of them simply manned their booth, had cheerful words to say as you passed and let you browse at will.  Note, due to my unfamiliarity with the whole scene, I was being careful not to touch anything.

After looking at every booth, I decided to go see the band play.  As I neared the stage, I was caught a little off guard by the type of music being played since it sounded more like gospel which was not what I was expecting at all.  A quick scan of the stage confirmed my confusion and decided that someone had given me bogus information – Oh well, more time to devote to finding the perfect art piece.  After reviewing all of the booths in my head I decided there was 4 booths worth going back to for further scrutiny.  Two of these were specializing in very distinctive wooden vases/containers with unique woods.  After going back to each of these I discovered a very similar piece at both booths.  This concerned me a little bit since it didn’t seem that distinctive if two artists could create an eerily similar piece of art.  That left me two other booths to go check out – hit the continue link to see what I ended up buying.

Continue reading A Fine Art Day for a List Check off

One Computer + One Capture Card = 35+ Hours Found

Quick one today folks mainly because it actually hurts to type.  I mainly wanted to relay a revelation I had today.  First a confession, I am a Chicago Bears fan.  Before jumping to conclusions, I am NOT a fan of the Chicago Cubs and yes, I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in Wrigley Friday afternoon seeing my Cardinals put a spanking on.  Unfortunately, being a football fan means I am potentially subject to about 3 hours in front of the TV once a week.  Unfortunately, I had to split firewood today and really did not have the time to waste.  Remembering that I had acquired a TV capture card from a friend (who I am sure will comment on the Cubs clinching the playoff spot) so I ran up and set the recorder in hopes of catching the game later tonight.  For the next 6 hours I worked on the woodpile until my fingers were too sore to pick up another piece of wood.  When things settled down a bit I decided to go watch the game being careful not to see any highlights or score tickers as I was heading to the viewing area.

I fired up the components and sat back to enjoy the game. I think I’ll hold off on explaining the components involved in playing the game back due to some required modifications on one of the items I stream the feed through.  Although I was upset at the final score, I was pleasantly surprised when I stood up and noticed only 35 minutes had passed since starting the feed.  I had basically crunched a 3 hour game into a very satisfying 35 or so minutes by skipping all commercials, injury timeouts, team line changes, game timeouts (team and TV), the half time show and all reviewed plays – all with a simple click of a predefined duration skip button on the remote.  Not only did I not miss a play, I didn’t have to listen to ex-NFL players ramble as if I actually cared about their analysis or opinion of a given play (especially Dierdorff).  Clearly this is the best way to watch a game if you are already maxing the available hours in a week.  There are some disadvantages of course, one having to be cautious you don’t ruin the element of surprise by seeing the score ahead of time and you have to do a little bit of planning to get the capture setup…. but this seems a small price to pay for the convenience this affords.  Now with the assumptions there are 14 or so weeks in the football year, quick math gives me about 35 new hours in the year.

Note, I’ve always done this for my weekly shows since a 30 minute sitcom really only has about 16-20 minutes of real content.  And for those brainwashed commercial zealots out there complaining about loss of revenue and stealing the shows funded by commercials… spare me the drama, I’m paying a subscription fee and if that isn’t enough to cover it… then consider raising my fee (of course, I’ll just cancel it and then we all lose … actually not me since I will have even more time to spend doing more constructive things.

Now Mr. Smith … what are you going to do about those stupid penalties?

Can You Spare a Lesson

Wow, I was called out by a loyal reader on my lack of posts as of late.  There are really two reasons for my slacking.  One, I was in Vegas all last week and 2) Rock Band 2 came out this week and unfortunately, I have one addiction (and absolutely my only one) and that is playing the fake drums.  But I can’t disregard my readers so I decided to crank one out tonight foregoing badly needed sleep even with a long trip ahead of me to see the Cubs and Cards play in Chicago tomorrow.

Tonight’s quick topic actually covers a whole year time span.  The last time I went to Vegas was about this time last year.  One of the observations that always caught my attention was the individuals begging for money on the overpasses between the hotels.  Typically the approach has been “I’m a war vet and fell on hard times…” or “some wording followed by God Bless You”.  I am not going to get into a debate on the authenticity of these individuals, but from a marketing perspective, those are pretty good approaches if you want to elicit the emotional side of individuals.  I’ll confess that I never give any money mainly because I don’t think encouragement is the right thing to do in this situation – I also give a tremendous amount of money to other forms of assistance which I know each and every one of them have the opportunity to benefit from.  With that said, I was actually totally caught off guard last year when I was crossing the overpass to Bally’s.  As I reached the top of the stairs I passed an individual sitting on the ground.  I don’t know if it is a byproduct of spending so much time observing people or not, but I have a tendency to take mental snapshots that I ponder on as I walk – this gives me the ability to assess the situation without having to resort to staring.  The downside of this is I sometimes catch stuff a few seconds later while scanning the mental picture.  As I traversed down the mental image to the individual, I was able to read his cardboard sign “Ninjas killed my parents I need money to take karate lessons so I can have my revenge”.  I thought it was fantastic and actually considered turning back and donating to the cause.  Unfortunately, as I turned back, I realized I had actually walked completely to the other side of the overpass and didn’t really want to double back that far.  Regardless if the cause was fake (no, not the ninjas, the individual actually needing to beg) I thought he demonstrated ingenuity and distinguished himself from the rest of the begging community.  Surely there is some marketing organization out there that could harness this creativity and take a person off the street at the same time…. or he is already in the marketing industry and just gaming the system for extra cash.

Comparing that to last week’s Vegas trip, there are still people begging at all of the overpasses.  Unfortunately, almost every one of them was going with the “Why Lie I need a Beer” sign.  Although honesty is an admirable trait, in this setting it doesn’t really hit the marketing sweet spot.  I know the odds that a given donation is going to be diverted to non-sustaining or non-healthy decision are pretty high (we’re in VEGAS), but providing a donation under the pretense that he needs an alcoholic drink doesn’t generally make the giver feel that good about himself.  To be brutally honest, I believe this self benefit is at the root of giving.  I would be willing to debate this further, but I just don’t see someone giving away some money and chastising himself for doing it as opposed to taking a few lighter steps while “patting himself on the back”.  I wonder if you could measure the internal pleasure that comes from an act of kindness – maybe an internal heat change or chemical change?

However, I did notice the emergence of a new approach.  At a number of the overpasses, there were individuals carting around coolers selling cold water for a dollar.  In fact, I even saw this at the Bellagio Water Show and down on Fremont Street.  This might be another good example of marketing.  Assuming the bottle water can be obtained cheaply enough (yes, I’m dismissing the bathtub bottle filling for now) , the seller can actually make some change on each bottle sold providing a win-win situation for himself and they purchaser.  It was 105 degrees out so clearly fluids is a demand item and the price seems pretty good compared to the rest of the drink prices in the area…. and NO, the free drinks while gaming isn’t really FREE if you are actually playing the game.  I think it also brings some dignity to the seller since it requires effort as opposed to resting on the pavement.

Anyway, it’s late and time to get some shut eye

Those Are Some Tiny Feet

Thought I would go ahead and post one last entry before boarding the plane to Vegas.  This way I will not take a chance on partaking in toooo much fun and end up forgetting another observation taken from the Agility Dog Show at the fairgrounds in Springfield.  I was sitting with my wife back with the dog tents (yep, my dogs are treated like true members of the family and get their own special tent to lounge in between their runs) and simply watching the other competitors take their various turns.  At one point during the day, two individuals showed up, unfolded their collapsible chairs and made themselves comfortable.   The particular spot they chose was actually right in front of us, but I really didn’t mind that much since I tend to move away from our spot when it is my dogs’ turn because they have a tendency to see me and get distracted.   What did catch my attention was the fact they chose a spot right in front the ring fencing that had a full page sign on it:

Agility Show Sign

My apologies for the poor picture, but all I had at the time was my camera phone.  I added in some text so you could see one of the main purposes for the sign.   The ironic part of all of this is clearly they had to look right past the sign to see any of the dogs run.  I began to wonder just what was causing the communication breakdown and taking notice of the fact that the signmaker apparently wasted his/her time creating and hanging the request – guessing the is the classic Led Zeppelin communication breakdown.  I decided there were some possible causes:

  1. They can’t read – I dismissed this pretty quickly since the individual on the left is at least giving indications they are reading another pamphlet.
  2. They believe the sign was meant for everyone else and not them – a pretty elitist view of the world, but since they were not concerned about blocking my view this could be a distinct possibility
  3. They are visually impaired – their heads were tracking the dogs out in the ring so I am going to dismiss this possibility and I would suggest that if this is true they would likely not have been correctly facing toward the ring 8^)
  4. They are confused and think the single tick mark means inches and therefore believe they are within tolerance – This thought had me sidetracked for about 15 minutes as I tried to remember when I learned that a single tick meant feet and a double tick (quote) meant inches.  For the life of me, I couldn’t remember when this might have been…. and who was the first to do that in the first place?  obviously I have some homework to do in order to track that sidebar down – I’ll let you know what I find
  5. Lastly, they have tiny little feet so when they marked off the distance they came up very short.  This has to be it.  In the goodness of their hearts they were really trying to obey the rules of the event, but a variance was introduced which prevented them from actually carrying out that mission.  I am going with this reason from a positive viewpoint – it gives them the benefit of the doubt and eliminates the evil thought in my head that they were just stupid.

I probably should have just asked them if they were aware of the 10 FOOT rule and validate their response with the options listed above.  I ultimately decided to just take a picture and use it as blog fodder when I had the chance.   Anyway, I was still basking in the display of kindness from the Caterpillar tattoo guy to let this dampen my day.

All aboard to Sin City… type ya’ (not a measurement symbol) soon!