Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

Mark Haddon’s novel, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, features a 15 year old idiot savant math wizard named Christopher John Francis Boone and chronicles his peculiar quest to discover who has ended the life of a neighborhood dog. As the story unwinds, the complicated interactions between Christoper and those around him seem to become ever more entangled.

It is, quite likely, the strangest (and in the end, most melancholic) book I’ve read in some time. Christopher sees the world in a harshly logical, nearly completely emotionless perspective that dizzies the mind and provides ample occasion for reflection. If you’re up for being weirded-out, I recommend it to you.

The novel is choc-full of random offerings, a few of which I’ve included below.

Latin stuff

quod erat demonstrandum, you may know is Latin for “which is the thing that was going to be proved”, or quite simply, “thus it is proved.” It’s used at the end of math proofs in abreviated form to signal that the proof is done. QED.

Occam’s razor
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary, in other words, the simplest solution is most often the correct one.

New words in the book
invigilator — someone who watches examination candidates to prevent cheating
vicar — The priest of a parish in the Church of England
roister — To engage in boisterous merrymaking; revel noisily.
saccades — brief flickers of the eye
tessellate — To form into a mosaic pattern

British words found in the book
snooker (a billiards sport)
plaster (Band Aid)
“lose my rag” (become upset)
torch (flash light)
“end of my tether” (at my wit’s end)
become cross (get angry)
advert (advertisement)
power cut (an electrical power outage)
spanner (wrench)
“single or return” (one way or round-trip ticket)
tube (subway)
scarpering (scampering)
lolly (lollipop)
milkybar (a brand of candy bar)
boot (trunk)

warning: harsh language is used throughout.

Sunday evening I went to Bridal Veil Falls (up Provo canyon) and took a couple of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

I get my cell phone service from Cricket. I know what you’re thinking — because you don’t need a credit card (and you pay month-to-month), Cricket is the first choice of teenagers, the unemployed, and those with little fiscal responsibly. A quick trip to your local Cricket kiosk at the end of the month (just before payment is due) doesn’t exactly expose many in the Forbes top 100.

There are other problems as well. Due to their latest efforts to more efficiently annoy us, it is impossible to ever speak with a human when calling 1-800-cricket. Sure, their voice menu says you can press 0 to be connected to a representative, but that’s entirely untrue, you’ll hear nice hold music for a long time, but never a person. In fact, some believe that the company is entirely staffed by maniacal robots. That’s ok though; robots are cool. What is not cool is how often my calls are dropped (several per day) or how they have essentially NO coverage in Highland or Alpine or American fork. Or how they have extra fees for everything. Very uncool.

So why do I stick with a company that has blatant disregard for its customers or the quality of their service? Minutes. Every other cell phone company has this screwy idea that it’s ok to charge per minute. I’m reminded of the backwardness of Europe where they still charge for landline minutes. STUPID. Entirely stupid. Cell phone conversation is hampered enough by walkie-talkie-like audio quality. When you add urgency to the mix, you transition from “What was that? You broke up” to

“I can’t talk now”
“What?”
“I said I can’t talk now”
“Yeah, I can hear you now”
“NO, I said…”

Horrible. On the other hand, with Cricket, you get one bill regardless of how long you talk. Unlimited minutes, unlimited long distance. Of course, as I mentioned, they have spotty reception that only covers Utah and Salt Lake counties with NO roaming, but that’s beside the point.

And so I take the moral high road and endure such hardships with a smile. Perhaps the $50 I dutifully pump into Cricket’s coffers each month will in some way encourage other cell phone companies to follow Cricket’s unlimited minutes lead. I am a, once again, a champion for unfettered communication.

** A reader named Lunkwill just posted a comment I think merits an echo — the other benefit of Cricket is that they DO NOT REQUIRE A MINIMUM SERVICE CONTRACT. I think forcing subscribers to sign one or two year contracts is ABOMINABLE! It smacks of anti-capitalism and monopolism and hampers new entry and innovations into the market.

I’ve thought of a new slogan for cricket. (Current ad campaign, “stop counting”)

Stop Talking. Who needs a cell phone when you travel? Use the phone in your hotel room.

Stop Talking. Alpine and Highland residents are too wealthy to need our services. When in those areas, flag down a rich person and ask to borrow their phone.

Stop Talking. Don’t you hate when conversations never end? Stop fretting. With Cricket, your conversations’ will never last more than a few minutes before they are dropped.

Stop Talking. Does a loved one call you at inconvenient times? With Cricket, our coverage is so slight, you’ll literally miss hundreds of calls. If you’re lucky, some of those people will leave messages. It’s like having your own administrative assistant 24/7.

Stop Talking. Hundreds of people are injured or killed each year in auto accidents caused by people talking on the cell phone. Don’t be a statistic. You’ll be amazed how quickly your calls are dropped when you’re moving 65 miles an hour — you’ll never talk on your cell phone in a car again! Join with us to save lives.

p.s. thanks RL for the spelling correction!

Mark Bowden’s book, Black Hawk Down, (made into a motion picture), is a nail-biting minute-by-minute account of the battle of Mogadishu, Somalia. Maybe you didn’t know we fought the battle of Mog back in October 1993. Before reading the book, I knew little of the affair, save only a general idea of feuding warlords and that after the downing of a helicopter (a Black Hawk), the Somalians dragged the bodies of the dead soldiers through the streets. That made me mad.

Turns out my assessment was not that inaccurate. The exact happenings, however, were much worse. Four Black Hawks were shot by RPGs and the fight was on a much larger scale. But I’m getting ahead of myself — in summary, the goal of the operation was to extract some key members of warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid’s militia in an attempt to end the ceaseless fighting (and enable the UN to distribute needed food to the famine ravaged people.) A force of 75 Army Rangers and 40 Delta Force troops in 17 helicopters went in. The operation was supposed to take about an hour. True to schedule, 24 people were captured by the US forces in short time. Then the first of the US helicopters was shot down, signaling the decaying of the situation. Trying to leave the city, the hundred or so US troops were pinned down by intense gunfire from a seemingly innumerable and growing force of thousands of clan militia and Aidid sympathizers. 18 US soldiers were killed and dozens injured. A much larger, international force (consisting of 4 Pakistani tanks, 28 Malaysian armored personnel carriers, 150 regular US soldiers (10th’s Alpha Company), a platoon of Ranger volunteers and some Delta Force troops) was marshaled to extract the embattled soldiers. The soldiers were rescued, but not without incredible resistance from the militia. An estimated 500 Somalians were killed and an equal number were badly wounded. One US soldier was taken captive and a few of the slain soldiers were dragged through the streets by angry crowds.

When news of the disaster reached America, President Clinton ordered an immediate ceasefire. The captive US soldier was eventually released as were the remains of the killed soldiers. America left the region, not to return since. Aidid died 1996 and to this day Somalia is still a bloody war ground of fighting rival clans.

Caution: the book contains abundant, harsh language and a few adult topics.

Read more here

The Byrd Family decided to change things up this year and go and visit Chris and Jenn and Josh down in Houston. Here are some photos of the adventure:
Click on each image for a larger version.

Some of the Byrd Family and friend Amy in Texas	Me at the blistery Texas beach of Galveston
My nephew Josh.	A pagoda in Houston
The entertaining natural history museum in downtown Houston	What in the world is a kolache?
A bird at that same beach. Chillin’	Ryan Byrd in that pagota
Oh, that’s what a kolache is.

Dave just sent me a link to an amusing little site — Life’s Little Annoyances

Here are some highlights:

• Does poor parking etiquette bother you (someone taking up two parking spaces, blocking you in, parking too closely, etc.)? Here’s a clever solution (thanks to Chris Myers): Whenever someone parks in a space reserved for the disabled, [I leave] a note on the windshield that says, “I’m so sorry I hit your car. It doesn’t look like the damage was severe.” Then [I sign] a name but [I make] it just messy enough to be illegible.
• Do telemarketers annoy you? Here is a fun way to deal with them:
  
  When one calls, what ever they are selling, act sincerely interested (”Wow! is it ever nice you called, my wife and I were just talking about having our furnace ducts cleaned!…: etc)

  Just then, interrupt the caller and say, “Just a second, I have a pot boiling over…” (or some other “urgent” excuse) and leave the phone for 5 minutes or so..
  [rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat…]

And it looks like the site’s content is available in book format (written by New York Times reporter Ian Urbina):

My brother Chris kept telling us that a certain restaurant had some good eatin’. To protect the not-so-innocent, let’s call it Belma’s Tarbeque

We went to try the fare. We arrived a touch after noon waited our way through the line to order and then sat at our table for our number, 80, to be called. Something strange begin to happen. For the next hour, our number was never called, but those who came after us (and who order the same items as we did) had their orders filled. Did I mention we were the ONLY Caucasian people in the restaurant? Finally Chris went to complain and was told to wait some more. Eventually our meals did come out — but half the order was incorrect. Sensibly, I figured that if we persisted in our complaints, we’d likely get more spit in our food than we likely already received, so we hung our heads low and ate the food; which was largely mediocre (with the exception of the beef briscot.) The Food Network has reviewed the establishment and they gave it high reviews, and from the looks of it, many African American people were enjoying their experience. Just so I am clear, 150 plus years of oppression and discrimination is horrible and unspeakable, but reversing that injustice upon people now doesn’t help with the cause. Thelma — shame on you.

The food gets three stars, but the service gets ZERO STARS.

Those five words under a few duck silhouettes appeared in vinyl on the back window of a pickup truck here in Texas. I am hoping the driver of the vehicle was simply a bird hunter with a poor way of expressing his enthusiasm and not an Islamic terrorist with a penchant for RPGs.

But back to speaking of motor vehicles, Texas has two types, and both are big — trucks and SUVs. I guess if you live among oil derricks, fuel economy is not high on your list. For the record, though, gas was ten to thirty cents more expensive here in Texas than in Utah. Go figure.