Woman's Intuition

I'm always floored by the capabilities of Tricia's intuition. It's not magic. Just an amazing ability to use a vast amount of information to -- subconsciously -- arrive at a conclusion.

Case in point: Yesterday morning she noticed that our double stroller/bike trailer was missing off our front porch (Already she's way ahead of me; I wouldn't have noticed that until the next time I went to use it). The situation was similar to what happened to our friends about a month earlier. Luckily, a neighbourhood character (I'll call him "Freddy") located the stolen stroller and returned it to the family. He was awarded $20 for his efforts.

Our missing stroller was bugging Tricia all day yesterday. She filed a police report, and posted a blog entry. After dinner, we were outside with the kids, and she was pacing around. She told me she wanted to go see Freddy. I must admit, the idea seemed irrational to me. I asked her "What do you hope to accomplish?" Her answer, "I don't know." Having witnessed the genius of her intuition in the past, I agreed that she should pay Freddy a visit. She walked down our block, and disappeared around the corner.

Fifteen minutes later, I saw her coming back down the street, this time pushing a double-stroller and accompanied by Freddy. I was dumbfounded. Freddy explained how he found the stroller abandoned in the bushes in a nearby playground. He's been known to find bikes and take them to the police station (so he tells us), so he took the stroller to his house. We gave him his $20 finder's fee, and listened to a few more of his heroic tales about taking bikes to the police station, and how the guy that stole the last stroller just finished a 2-week stint in jail.

After he left, Tricia said, "I don't buy it one bit." I, too, was slightly skeptical, but hearing Tricia's side of the story really tipped the scales for me.

She walked to Freddy's house, and into his backyard. He refurbishes and sells used bikes, so the gate to his backyard is more like the storefront to a junkyard. And there was our stroller, sitting in the middle of his yard. Tricia said, "That's my stroller!" I'm not sure what happened then, but it seems to me that Freddy told about how he found our stroller, and our friend's stroller, and how they gave him $20 for finding it. Tricia didn't have any money with her, so Freddy accompanied her for the walk back to our house. As they left Freddy's house, he yelled across the street to a woman, "Sorry, the stroller's already gone." Was he about to SELL our stroller? Wait a minute. Is this the guy who finds bikes and takes them to the police station? And he's preparing to turn over our stroller less than 12 hours after it was noticed missing?!?

Very fishy. Anyway, that's how Tricia managed to locate our stroller.

I could chalk it up to luck... simply being in the right place at the right time. Such coincidences are bound to happen from time to time. Perhaps a better explanation is that Tricia, without knowing it, integrated a collection of subtle leads to infer that the best place to start looking was at Freddy's. She was right, and I am in awe of her astounding intuitive intelligence.

As an epilogue, let me make it perfectly clear that I do NOT equate intuition with ESP, clairvoyance, divine intervention, or any other paranormal phenomena. The vast majority of what goes on inside our brains is below our conscious awareness. Information processing happens on many levels, and our consciousness is really only one layer on top of all that. Everyone has intuition, but some seem to be better than others. Moreover, some are more willing to listen to their intuition.

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intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Asking "Why?" in biology

I was talking to a colleague this morning about genetics and the genetic code. I asked him why it used only 20 of the amino acids, when there are many, many more that could be used. His response was interesting... he said,

"Why"-questions don't usually have satisfactory answers in biology.

As it turns out, it's the why-questions that interest me the most. I remember taking genetics back during my undergrad days, and being floored by how the cell does what it does. All those membranes, substances and molecules moving to the right place at the right time. The prof and textbook frequently used personification to describe the cell, as if it had its own intelligence and will. But it's just a machine! Bridging THAT gap is what interests me.

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intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

While the family's away, daddy works his butt off

Trish and the kids are at a friend's cottage for a few days. So I'm bachen' it. What that really means is that I have a list of handyman around-the-house jobs that are too noisy to do while the kids are in bed.

Today I finished putting a shelf into the cabinet of our bathroom vanity. To be fair, the piece of wood for the shelf came with the vanity. All I had to do was install it. Sounds simple, but I had to use my jigsaw to cut out a slot for the sink drainpipe, as well as little notches in the back for the hot and cold water hoses. The cut-out was about 3/4 the way through the shelf, so I had to screw a few 2x2s into the back wall to support the back of the shelf. Here is a picture.



A larger project was the linen closet. Years ago, we removed a pantry from our kitchen, but kept the tongue-in-groove cedar panelling that lined the pantry. We decided to use it to line the shelves in the linen closet. It wasn't easy, but it also wasn't that hard. I also re-used the nice wooden shelves and shelf supports from the pantry. It looks pretty nice, though it'll look much better once we paint the rest of the closet.



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intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Camping panorama

Being an image-processing nerd, I made sure I took a high-resolution set of pictures of our campsite so that I could make a high-quality panorama. I took about 35 photos in total, at 3 different levels (horizontal, looking upward, and looking downward). Then I used a piece of software from a professor at UBC named David Lowe to create the panorama. The program is called AutoStitch, and runs on Microsoft Windows (luckily I keep a Windows machine around for just such an occasion).

Below is a small version of the panorama, but you can see a larger version here.

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intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

It's official -- Associate Professor with tenure

Today, I found this letter in my mailbox from David Johnston, the president of the University of Waterloo. It reads,

This letter is to confirm that your appointment as an Associate Professor with tenure will take effect on July 1, 2009.

I congratulate you on what you have accomplished. I also express warm thanks for the important contribution you are making to the life and reputation of our University and to higher education and research more generally. I wish you continued success and satisfaction here.

It's quite a different sentiment from this tenure denial letter dated Feb. 26, 2009.

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intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Family Camping

For the second year in a row, 7 families camped for a week at a group campsite in Pinery Provincial Park. Here are some highlights (and lowlights).

We saw very little sun throughout the week. It rained quite hard at times. The tarps over our kitchen area created a semi-dry area.
Here we see one of the leaks, and the basin to catch the water.

Yes, we walk on water.
We let the kids watch about an hour of Dora/Backyardigans/Blue's Clues. We set them up like in a cinema and gave them popcorn. You can see the laptop in the foreground.
We did manage to make it to the beach on a number of occasions. Unfortunately, one of my daughters (Addie) turned into a mermaid, and the other (Heather) turned into an octopus.

Each family had one of those Coleman stoves. They are great. Though, each has its own personality that shows itself when you try to light it. This one was in a particularly bad mood.
I love the irony of the charred WARNING label.
I believe it was Connell who suggested that portaging on foot was too easy, and that it would be faster on a bike. Greg, recognizing the rare occasion that all the required gear was easily at hand, decided to give it a go. Here is the video. In short, it was going well until the tip of the canoe happened to hit a 4x4-inch post.

All-told, we had a good time despite the weather. Actually, I find intense sun difficult to handle, so the clouds were welcome. I even like the sound of rain at night. All the families are proud that we stuck it out in the face of warnings of "incessant rain" reported by our BlackBerries and iPhones (this is how you distinguish normal campers from yuppie campers).

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intelligent-falling.blogspot.com

Twitter, here I come!

OK, I caved. I've created a twitter account, jorchard4. Feel free to stalk me.

intelligent-falling.blogspot.com