SRA

Went to the Jakson Spires memorial concert yesterday (here in A2 at the Millenium). Southern Rock Allstars are truly a great band. Anybody that heard them said so. And if you were lucky enough to stay for the encore, that was a cool set. 'Play that funky music, White Boy' !

The brain

Having worked too much and fighting another depression attack produced by stress from home and work, I started thinking about the brain and depression.

When you go by what we know about the brain scientifically. There are neurons which are connecting to other neurons through their axons. It is the fact that many neurons connect to one neuron through dendrites that turns this mass of cells into a neural network.

And in the last 20 years, we developed pretty good models for neural networks. But that's not what I want to talk about. What is interesting, in this neural network that our brain is, is that repetition seems to reinforce. Duuh, when you a learning you need to do things over and over, before you get them right (repetition). When you are learning to shoot the perfect 3 pointer or how to hit a baseball, you have to do things over and over. What you are doing there, is configure (or train) your neural network (the brain and the nerves that communicate to the muscle, the nerves at the muscle) to adapt to the physical realities of your body and control that physical apparatus (not a real simple one) to perform the task.

That's all easy to understand. Then it should not be very hard to understand, that you will do the same thing on an emotional and intellectual level. So if you think the same thoughts over and over again, they will leave a reinforcing trace in your brain, and thought often enough, reconfigure your neural network, so that it will function along those lines.

In other words, if you are depressed (as I often am), and you think those depressing thoughts, have that negative outlook, then that will reinforce the depression, and the negative outlook. So, one thing that should help, is trying to adapt a different attitude, think different (positive) thoughts.

Mind you, I am not just saying, ignore reality, everything is rosy. No, I don't want you to go to that river in Egypt. I just want you to consider thinking differently now and then. Realize the importance of changing your thought patterns. Get distracted. Humour really helps here. When you hear a good joke, see a good comedian, or a good movie, it distracts you. It let's that record player in your head jump to a different groove. Just don't play the same thing over and over in your head. It won't help, it will make things harder.

Enough said now. Tell me what you think about this by sending me an e-mail to mightypeo at gmail.com.

The Man ? - The MAN !

Saw B.B. again at the Fox Theatre last Saturday. Compared to that show (with Bobby Blue Bland) the audience in Ann Arbor was cold fish. Excellent !

B. B. is the MAN !

His concert on Wednesday was just incredible. There's a man, 79 years old, and he had the whole house at his mercy. And his band, they are amazing. And he's still touring, just look at his work load. That demands respect. Man, I'd give an eye to be able to play with these guys !

So, that made me listen to some of his older records again (ok, they are CDs) - actually MP3s right now. One of the best is Indianola Mississippi Seed right there with Live in Japan.

So remember "Nobody loves me but my mother, and she might be jivin' too" !

Six Weeks

It took six weeks for my gmail account to get its first spam. That must be some kind of record, since I barely ever give out that address. Don't know what to do with it.

On the domestic front, the war is on again, off again. Not as bad as in Iraq, but emotionally devastating nevertheless. Time to do something about that...

On the better side of things, tonight's B.B. King concert at the Michigan Theatre. Can't wait for that one !

Future City is a blast too. I'm judging some SimCity designs now, got hooked up to that through the IEEE and my daughter's school.

My Sincere Apologies

My sincere apologies to all my friends in Europe. I really don't know what happened in this country. What got into my fellow countrymen. Voting like this - for 4 more years of Bush.

Let's see what will happen....

P.S. My mom is hanging in there, stay tuned

And then you hit a wall

Had to go to Germany on a moments notice. My mom was ill.

She had chemo-therapy, and developed an infection. She went to the hospital on Sunday. All week I called and tried to get something out of the three of them (my mom, my dad and my sister).

Mom: Su - We : I'm fine, I'm ok, nothing to worry about.
Dad: Su - We : She's fine, she's ok, nothing to worry about.
Sis: Su - We : I haven't had time to visit her, she's in the isolation ward, since her white bloodcell count is so low, and the baby and I got a cold.

Mom: Th : I'm tired, I'm too tired to talk.
Dad: Th : ?????
Sis: Th : I haven't had time to visit her, she's in the isolation ward, since her white bloodcell count is so low, and the baby and I got a cold.

Me: Well, could you please find out ? Do I have to come ?
Sis: No, not yet, but I'll find out

Mom: Fri : I'm tired, I'm too tired to talk.
Dad: Fri : ?????
Sis: Fri : - i left a message on her answering machine

Friday, noon, the phone rings here at work. It's sis : 'I'm at the hospital, I talked to the doctors, drop everything and come... It could be the end.'

So I drop everything, go home, call LH at 12:30 get a seat on the 18:05 flight out of DTW to MUC via FRA.

I get there Saturday at 1 pm... my mom's really bad shape....

More later...

Cruisin'

Cruisin along. School year started and things are falling into their place. Today, I slacked in the morning, decided to go in late - refreshing.

I coach a youth soccer team (kindergarten) and yesterday was our 2rd practice. Finally knew all the kids name (not an easy feat for me - with a pea sized brain and bladder - just kidding)

Nothing else to report.... stay tuned

Engage !

Things are getting back to normal. The school year starts. Alyssa is going to middle school now and Vincent starts kindergarten. Not like my old place of education.

Oh, yeah, have you heard, 31st of August got cancelled this year. They are having 2 1sts of September, so that school starts in September (like it used to) and not in August. :-)

Anyway, getting ready to change the rhythm all over because of school. And I'm gonna coach a kindergarten soccer (football for the rest of the world). Gonna be fun.

Still listening to the same old stuff, though I like Amiel's 'Just another .... lovesong' and some strange remix of Britney Spear's Everytime. I'm almost to embarrassed to post that here.

Economics and the drive to work

Back from the continent, where my wife and kids spent a month, and I spent a very enjoyable week. Saw old friends (but no absent lovers) and the weather was great.

Again, on my way to work, things kind of fermented in my brain, and several discussions from the last few days culminated into these thoughts:

a) the utility function of money is an interesting economical concept. The idea that 10 Euros are of different value to different people, based on their current economical situation, is definitely true. And if you got all the bases covered, the next 10 simoleans can be spent on luxury, while if you are struggling to make ends meet, the same next 10 simoleans are of different value to you

b) where the utility function of money fails though, is in this concept: the threshold function of money. Think about it, you spent the same 10 cents differently, based on what you want to buy. If you want to by a can of peas, you might pick a brand, based on it being 10 cents cheaper (you value price/performance) or on it being 10 cents more expensive (you value the value/quality). However, if you buy a car, you might not car about a 10 cent difference, even though mathematically speaking (and economically) 10 cents are 10 cents. So there's a definite difference to the value of the same amount of money based on what you are going to by (or in economical terms, what market you are in). Well enough, that is still covered by the utility function. However, some markets (like the IPO game, or luxury vehicles) have also certain thresholds, that you have to exceed, for you to participate. If you want to become a stock broker (in your own brokerage firm) you will have to have tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, euros or simoleans to play/enter. You might express this as a non-linearity in the utility function, but I think there's more about that.

Anyway, enough about these idle thoughts, back to work.