What's in a Name?

I'm sure that more than a few people have wondered about the title of my blog. Well, here's a link that explains it all: Baltimore - 'Home of 1,000 Slogans'

Unemployed Douchebag Seeks Personality

Have you ever had that terrible feeling that without your six-figure income you would have a hard time dating girls? How you ever wondered you'd get by without your $700 per month dating budget? I haven't and I honestly would not have believed such people existed until I read this insightful piece from the Washington Post called Market for Romance Goes from Bullish to Sheepish. Apparently, this is a widespread problem among a certain set of jackasses who made way too much money in their mid-20's.

I'm going to pick on one guy in particular. Why? Because he sounds like a douchebag. He was making a lucrative salary at a financial firm until he got laid off last year. Now he laments that unemployment is hurting his relationship with his girlfriend. I doubt it. I think being a whiny momma's boy is hurting his relationship with his girlfriend.

1. Be very overpaid financial guy in Cleveland with girlfriend in NYC. Fly frequently to NYC to visit girlfriend and take her to expensive restaurants.
2. Get laid off.
3. Move in with your parents in Alexandria. Take the Chinatown bus to NYC.
4. Whine about it in the Washington Post.

Why are we supposed to feel bad for this guy? Grow up dude. You're 27. Why didn't you use unemployment as an excuse to move to NYC and job-hunt near your girlfriend? If you cared about someone other than yourself, that's what you'd do. But instead, since you're not the super-awesome rich guy you thought you were, your ego is crushed and you slinked home to mommy.

The article gets even better on the second page, where a number of 22- (since when does 22 count as young professional, you're barely post-college!) to 27-year-old women state that they are only willing to date men who have a lot of money to throw around. Presumably these women have their own careers, but think that thinly-disguised gold-digging to totally normal.

In the end, I think that we learned a lot more about the culturally-shallow, personality-devoid, young professionals that our Washington Post staff writer hangs out with than we did about what it's like to be unemployed in your mid-20's. I was really hoping to hear some interesting stories, I know a few people in that situation and it really sucks. But the people I know have been doing their level best not to let it get in the way of their personal relationships or what they love in life. I suppose that's because they are interesting, fun people.

Honestly though, if these people can't figure out how to make a personal connection without involving a lot of money, perhaps it's best that they aren't able to date - as a society we should do our best to lower the possibility that they will ever be responsible for children.

The fine line between preparedness and fear-mongering

From pamphlet "With Your U.S. Passport, the World is Yours!" (provided to you free with you new passport):

Pandemic Influenza
For information about pandemic influenza and how you can protect yourself if there is an outbreak while you are abroad, please visit the official U.S. Government pandemic influenza website at http://www.pandemicflu.gov.

Most Important Internet Videos Ever

We can all agree that the internet has revolutionized economics. For one this, it's pretty cheap to do almost anything. Things that used to be very expensive (or at least time consuming) are now very cheap, such as publishing your thoughts to the entire world. What has economic revolution enabled? Loads and loads of pointless crap!

It used to be expensive and difficult to create crap; and when you did create it, you had to maintain it. Not so with the magic of the internet.  Create some crap and it essentially lives on, unmaintained, forever. For example, lolcats.  Sure, in 1988 you could take a picture of a cat, right a humorous caption on it, and show it to your friends.  In 2008 you can take a digital picture of a cat and caption it numerous time and share it with tons of people, some of whom might actually enjoy it!

In this spirit, Bravo has, for some unfathomable reason, brought us Green Porno.  It is absolutely, without a doubt, the most unmotivated, unnecessary production I have ever seen.  You just need to go there and watch it.  It's not porn, it's really an in-depth discussion of sexual reproduction in insects and other creatures.

It's fantastic.  I don't even want to know what sort of crazy logic led them to create this series of videos.  I'm mildly curious how they sold this to the business types who work at Bravo.  "Hey, so we want to make some 2 minute long videos where Isabella Rossellini dresses up as various insects and other creatures and pantomimes their sex lives while giving a very factual overview of what's happening.  Then we'll put it up on the internet for free."

This business plan has Underwear Gnomes written all over it.

Seriously, watch one of these episodes.  While you're doing it, think about how many people died  fighting World War II so that we would have the freedom to watch fake insects copulate!  Think about how we have the technology to beam vast amounts of data into people's homes and we use it to watch videos of people in insect costumes humping each other!  While people in Africa are barely able to eke out a living, you're spending time watching two worms go at it!


PS - A note for those of you that dislike The Hater, I have to say that without Amelie Gillete I would never have learned of this awesome waste of time.  Also, surprisingly, I don't think she hated this.  She did claim that this makes Isabella Rossellini our de facto hero.

Metal Spinning?

I feel that one of the primary missions of anyone with a blog is to answer questions. So it is time, once again, for me to answer a question that you did not even know you wanted to ask. Ready? So your question is:

"How do they form nearly perfect spheres (and hemispheres) out of aluminum or other metals? Shouldn't that be pretty difficult?"

The answer is metal spinning. It doesn't sound amazing, but it looks amazing when you watch metal spinning on video. That's when you realize it's totally awesome.

(Video is from Century Metal Spinning of Besenville, IL)

YouTube has an example from a metal spinning company that is making a vase:


I feel like that NBC public service program, The More You Know. Except they deal with smoking, violence prevention, HIV/AIDS, and other public health / public policy priorities, while I deal with machining metal. Actually, perhaps I should post more about machining metal to tight tolerances - it's an important subject that just does not receive much attention in our society. Children in our country really have no idea how hard it is to hold a .002" profile tolerance. Hell, given the general state of knowledge about engineering in this country, almost no one has any idea why tolerance analysis is important. No one discusses advanced manufacturing or design, I mean, did you know such a thing as water-jet machining existed?

Public Service Announcement

Tonight my roommate and I set out on a quest, a quest to determine "What are the two cities in America that are the hardest to fly between?" This question came up after I found that if I wanted to travel from Baltimore, MD to Liberal, KS (don't ask why I'd want to do this) I could do it in 3 stops (Detroit, Kansas City, and Great Bend) for only $316 one-way.

So then we tossed out city pairs that we thought would be difficult to travel between. I suggested Worland, WY to Bangor, ME (you can do it in 3 stops, Laramie, Denver, and Cincinnati). My roommate suggested Salisbury, MD to Nome, AK (you can do that in 3 stops, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Anchorage). Now, Kayak.com lets you sort by number of stops, and you can certainly find stupid, stupid itineraries (for example, 5 stops from Worland to Bangor and Salisbury to Maine).

So the real question is, can you find a city pair with 4 as the minimum number of stops? To do this we actually consulted the Alaska Airlines route map. It can be very difficult to get to Wrangell, AK, but I felt like that was kind of cheating. We only picked Wrangell because it looks hard to get to on the Alaska Airlines route map. Who cares if they are one of the oldest non-native settlements in Alaska? I've never heard of them before today.

We tried a lot of other Salisbury, MD combinations. Salisbury, MD to Vladivostok, Russia (3 stops - Philadelphia, Toronto, Moscow). Salisbury, MD to Hobart, Tasmania, Australia (3 stops - Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Sidney).

Finally, we struck gold by going back to Alaska. Salisbury, MD to Barrow, AK will take you a minimum of 4 stops and 17h, 46m. The 4 stops are Philadelphia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. That's the best you can do.

The worst you can do from Salisbury to Barrow is 6 stops and 32h, 50m (Philadelphia, Denver, Seattle, Anchorage, Fairbanks, Prudhoe Bay). Can you imagine stopping three times in Alaska before you reached your final destination?

So now I think the challenge is to find the city pair (extra credit if it involves Salisbury, MD) that takes 4 stops minimum AND is located in the lower 48. Worland, WY to Salisbury, MD won't do it (3 stops). Dodge City, KS to Salisbury, MD won't work either (Kansas City, Indianapolis, Charlotte). Bozeman, MT to Salisbury, MD in 2 stops! (Seatle and Philadelphia). As you can see, this is quite a challenge.

Another fun question is "If there are city pairs in the lower 48 that requires 4 stops to fly between, which city pair has the minimum distance between them?"

So you might wonder why I titled this post "Public Service Announcement." It's because this is a public service, people need to know the answers to these questions. We've just answered the question of whether or not you can find two cities that take a minimum of 4 stops to fly between. Trust me, you would have asked that question eventually.


PS - In case you're curious, on the other end of the spectrum, it's impossible to find an itinerary from Baltimore to Chicago with more than 1 stop. (A partial answer to "What is the easiest city to travel to from Baltimore?")