Recommended for you..

Sherlock Holmes. Chris and I went to see it tonight, and he and I both thought it was good. He even said it was "DVD worthy." For my part, I was pleased that the movie wasn't dumbed down, as so many action movies seem to be these days. I never felt like my intelligence was being insulted. So check it out, if you haven't already.

Great success!

I have a rather unusual window in the south wall of my house. It is actually nine windows, each about 26" high and 46" wide set in three rows of three and forming, in effect, one huge window. As I told a contractor giving me an estimate on a modern replacement, it's basically a glass wall.

Unfortunately, it's a single-pane glass wall. To avoid losing huge amounts of heat through it in the winter, I've long made a practice of fitting it with that tape on, shrink with your hair dryer plastic stuff, which works well. Where once I'd have tons of moisture build-up on the glass every morning when I drew the curtains, the panes behind plastic are condensation free.

One little problem is, since I got Max, I couldn't put plastic over the bottom row of panes, since he would no doubt shred such plastic any time a squirrel, other dog, or pedestrian went by. I've known of a solution for a while, but laziness kept me from implementing it. This year, being laid off and looking to save on my heat bills, I finally remedied the problem. I taped on and shrunk the plastic film, then, over the two panes Max would actually have access to (the one behind the couch is safe, I think) I installed 1/8" thick sheets of plexiglass. Those keep Max and his claws at bay, and there is no more morning dew on those panes. I can't really notice a temperature difference, but I'm sure I'm losing less heat, and that means lower bills for me.

Caffeine sensitive?

I think I may have reached a point in my life where I can't tolerate nearly as much caffeine as I used to be able to. I made a pot of coffee late this morning. It was dark roast, and so had less caffeine than a lighter roast like Breakfast Blend. I drank less than half of it, and not all at once. About 1:30/2:00 p.m. this afternoon I warmed up my still half full cup and downed a swig. Within a few minutes I felt twitchy, a touch short of breath, and like my heart was beating faster. These are all symptoms of caffeine overdose. I used to be able to drink as many as two pots a day, though that was a rare occurrence. I seem, though, to have been slowly decreasing my caffeine intake over the last year or so. Maybe I was subconsciously aware that my tolerance was decreasing, and cutting back in response. I know there were nights at work, toward the end, where I wouldn't even finish the thermos of coffee I brought with me every night.

Right now, an hour or so on from the start of my symptoms, they've dissipated. Strange that there is such a thin margin of tolerance.

Winter Wonderland

Today is much nicer than yesterday was, as the photo shows. It's bright and sunny, with little wind (at least in town) and not terribly cold at seven degrees above zero. The only downside is that, just after I snapped the picture, a city plow came by filled in the end of my driveway. Fortunately the snow is dry and fluffy, and it only took me a few minutes to clear it away.

I also won $2.00 in the Hot Lotto! Woot! I'm rich...or at least, less poor. I almost broke even.

Winter is here.

As you can see, winter has decended on north central Iowa with a vengence. Our first real snowfall of the year turned out to be a bona fide blizzard. Fortunately, while the wind gusted as much as fifty miles per hour, it wasn't all that cold. So I spend a half hour this morning trying to start my snowblower, which didn't want to run.

It is an inexpensive (i.e. cheap) Simplicity single stage blower, and pretty anemic even by single stage standards. After many tries and several removals and cleanings of the spark plug, I finally got the thing started, after which it ran fine. Once that was taken care of the driveway and sidewalk went quickly enough.

As I write this, the snow has all but stopped falling. The wind is still blowing fiercely however, and travel isn't recommended. In town is fine, but there are white-outs in the country, or so I'm told. All in all, a good day to stay indoors.

Cookin' up a storm

With so much free time these days, I'm starting to watch more TV. Specifically, the Food Network. As a result, I've started to do more cooking. Not super fancy stuff, but more complex than usual.

For example, I got a receipe for tomato soup off the Food Network website. It involved canned tomatoes, yellow onion, carrot, celery chicken broth, cream, and so forth. Yesterday I whipped it up. It wasn't bad, but it was awfully rich. That was no doubt due to the 3/4 cup of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter the receipe called for, in addition to the cream.

So I went back to the store, got more ingredients, and tried again. This time I cut the olive oil to 1/4 cup, substituted skim milk for the cream, and added tomato sauce to make up for cutting the amount of carrot, celery and onion in half. When I was done it was less rich, but still too rich, to my way of thinking. The texture was disappointing as well. I have an immersion blender, which I used to puree the soup, but I think I need a regular blender to get really good results.

Kitchen inventory...more shelf space!

For something to do today, I inventoried my spices, getting rid of stuff that had passed its expiration date, or in the case of the lemon pepper, solidified in its container. Truth be told, I don't even remember where that lemon pepper came from. All I can say is that I can't think of anything I'd use it for. Well it's gone now, along with redundant chili power (consolidated) and some cayenne pepper so old it was in a metal can.

The lemon pepper wasn't the only oddity either. What on earth is anise for? Or caroway seed? Anyway, my spice shelf is no longer a disorganised mess.

New toothpaste

When I ran out of toothpaste a few days ago, I bought a slightly different variety than normal. Usually I get Crest mint gel paste. This time I picked up a tube of Crest Pro Health clean mint and I have to say, I don't like it. Not one bit. Not only does it have a different texture than I'm used to, it also (and most importantly) has a truly nasty aftertaste. It is so unpleasant that I may not use up the rest of the tube.

Kitchen Patrol

I've been working on my kitchen a bit lately. Today I scrubbed the majority of my cabinets. A little Murphy's Oil Soap, a rag, and some elbow grease, and I was rewarded (an hour or so later) with a bucket of surprisingly dirty water. Of course, this is only the second time since I moved in that such a thing has happened, so maybe it isn't so surprising. Maybe tomorrow (or Monday) I'll finish the scrubbing. Then I'll tackle the pulls.

The pulls are interesting. Not only are there fifty-three of them, more or less darkened with age, but they aren't solid brass. I tried polishing a couple of them, and while they cleaned up fairly well, it was soon apparent that their brass coating was more or less gone. Some of it came off as I was polishing, while the rest had eroded away from years of neglect and/or handling. I'm not sure what they are actually made of. All I can say for sure is that they aren't steel. Maybe aluminum or pewter.

I may be wrong about them not being solid brass. I went and looked again, and now I wonder if they weren't coated in varnish or something.

I think I'm going to try and polish all of them. I'll need to remove them to do a thorough job. Maybe Chris still has his Dremel laying around. That might do the trick. The only other matter is one of aesthetics: the pulls aren't always lined up as well as they might be. Part of that is due to the layout of the cabinets themselves, but part of it is the fault of whoever installed them. See the picture below for what I mean.

As you can see, the pulls on the doors of the lower cabinets aren't lined up with the drawers immediately above them. I'm wondering if I should put any effort into correcting that. They aren't very nice cabinets, and I'm not sure they're worth the effort.

Ye Olde Water Softener

Once again, my water softener is failing to fulfil its function in life. I took the venturi assembly apart again, and discovered that the gasket therein (the whole assembly having nine seperate parts) was disintegrating. Little pieces of it were caught in various screens and other places, basically gumming up the whole works.

I drove all the way to the other end of town, to the Sears store, only to learn that they carried no spares in the store. I was basically told to go home and order what I needed on-line. So I did.

The gasket couldn't be purchased individually. I had to but a kit that contains at least one other part of some kind. Total cost: $16.95, not including shipping and tax. The lowest shipping will take a week and was $8.99. Add on $1 in tax and the total bill came to $26.71. Oh well, it's still cheaper than calling the repairman.

2012

So there's this movie coming out next week, an end-of-the-world disaster flick based on the fact that the Mayan (or Aztec, maybe: I can't remember which and I'm too lazy to check) calendar ends in 2012. As a movie premise I suppose it's all right, and I can understand other people jumping on the bandwagon to make some bucks, but even that presupposes that there are people out there who take this whole "the world will end in 2012" crap seriously.

Sadly, that presupposition appears to be spot on. That baffles me. Or rather, it reaffirms my belief that most people are idiots. The fact that the Mayan calendar system ends in 2012 is an interesting tidbit, and is a reflection of Mayan religous beliefs, but that's all it is. And it makes sense for the Mayan calendar to end when it does, because it ends when the Mayans believed the world would end (no point in having it run any further if no one would be around to use it, right?) The Mayans no doubt sincere in their belief, but that doesn't mean they were right. After all, they also believed that cutting out someones heart and burning it nourished their gods.

It's actually kind of depressing that any modern person would fail to immediately dismiss the Mayan prediction as the superstious nonsense that it is. It's too bad my conscience won't let me become a con man. I could start an end times cult and get rich. One guy did it for decades, moving the 'end time' back every so often so it stayed in the near future. And his followers bought it!

Fluffy white stuff...

It was snowing this morning when I woke up. Yay, snow! It isn't sticking yet, and will probably change to rain later today, if the forecast is to be believed, but it's still the first snow of the season. We may have a white Halloween yet.

As a bonus, check out this weiner dog I found on my couch.

Some football statistics

I'm not a huge football fan. Sure, I enjoy watching the game on TV, but I'm not one of those people who know everything there is to know about their favorite teams and players. I will admit though that the situation with the Minnesota Vikings and Brett Favre has increased my interest slightly for the upcoming season. I guess I'm just a fan of novel and unusual happenings.

Anyway, I was looking at the Viking's final roster, which provides, amongst other things, the number of years each player has been in the NFL. While looking at it, I noticed something interesting. Of the fifty-five players, only five have more than ten years of experience, with a grand total of sixty-seven years between them.

In contrast, the thirty least experienced players (four years or less) have sixty-six years between them.

The thirty break down thusly:

Six rookies with: 0 years
Four with: 1 year
Seven with: 2 years
Four with: 3 years
Nine with: 4 years

If I were more interested I'd look at other teams to see if this distribution of experience is typical. Without looking I'll go out on a limb and say it is, since most NFL players don't have long careers.

Max the Feeble

Max is feeble. Of course, he is twelve years old (or thereabouts), only weighs sixteen pounds, and has short weiner-dog legs. He never was a powerhouse. But two nights in a row now, when I put him out on my getting home from work, Max has gotten his rope caught on, get this... a tuft of grass, and was unable to pull himself free.

(five minute pause while Max licks me in the face. face licks from a weiner-dog will cure whatever ails you. what germs could survive stinky weiner-dog breath?)

In the past Max has gotten his rope stuck under the tires of my car and/or truck, caught it on chunks of ice in the winter, and even (with the help of the knot he somehow manages to tie in it) the stones of my planter. This grass tuft thing is completely new, though.

Fun with Microsoft

Yesterday (or maybe the day before) the little yellow shield icon that means updates are available for my computer popped up, asking if I wanted to install them now. Figuring it could hurt to take a look, I clicked the icon. Up popped a window saying that Internet Explorer 8.0 was available for installation, and asking if I would like to upgrade. Figuring that I'd have to eventually, I said, "Sure, why not?" Silly me.

The program commenced to download itself, then ran a scan for malicious software, and a second scan for something else (don't remember what) and then installed itself. Only after all of this was done did it bother to mention that, "Oh, hey. This one add-on that you installed to IE 7 is incompatible with IE 8 and may cause it to crash." Oh great!

It did, however, offer me two options: run IE 8 with the add-on (not recommended), and run IE 8 without the add-on (less not recommended, but not by much). I picked 'run without the add-on'. IE 8 started...and promptly crashed. I wrestled with the problem until I had to go to work, and then some more after I got home, to no avail. It seems that when IE 8 was installed, so was something else called a 'data execution prevention' program designed to protect my computer from suspicious programs and other code. This was what was preventing IE 8 from running. apparently Microsoft's own programs don't recognise or trust one another. How ironic is that?

Since I'm posting this, you can tell I solved the problem. I uninstalled IE 8 and my system reverted back to IE 7. Now everything works fine. That pesky DEP program is still lurking about, but if it tries to block a program, I just tell it to allow it, and things are fine from then on. Odd thing is, no matter how many times I told DEP to allow IE 8, it wouldn't. More irony for ya.

Rather odd...

I recieved two checks in the mail today. They are for identical amounts ($27.68), and are from the claims administration center for an FTC lawsuit against some company I've never heard of, for bogus billing of credit and debit cards for website visits that never took place. Thing is, the case was settled almost nine years ago, according to the FTC website. Maybe it has been under appeal until now. Who knows? I have no recollection of being asked to become a party to this lawsuit, or to file a claim against the defendants. I also have no idea how the FTC determined that I was one of the people who was robbed. I'm actually a little leery of cashing the checks, even though everything seems to be legitimate.

Eh, I'll probably cash them anyway.

Dryer vents...

I redid the vent for my dryer last weekend. My dryer hadn't been working very well of late, so I figured the vent must have had a lot of lint in it. Also, part of the vent duct work was a length of wire reinforced flexible plastic: not really acceptable in such an application, but one that I had been too lazy to do anything about.

The job turned out to be more work than I expected, since the layout of the laundry room is such that the dryer is set against an interior wall, rather than an exterior wall. As a result, the vent pipe must make an immediate 90 degree turn. It then rises at an angle for two or three feet, passes through the wall of the house into the garage, make another 90 degree turn, and passes through the front wall of the garage into open air. On top of that whoever installed the vent originally cut their holes in the house and garage walls off center from each other, cut through a wall stud, and put the vent pipe right next to the gas line coming into the house. In fact the original holes overlapped the gas pipe by a quarter inch or so, hence the plastic duct: metal wouldn't have fit.

Naturally, the vent was plugged with lint where it passed through the wall, and I had to resize the holes to get my new, metal ductwork to fit through. So basically, what I thought would be a fifteen minute job, took about two hours.

That's a big dog..not!

I was walikng Max this morning when we approached a house a block south of me that had a new fence around its yard. That's not unusual: people put fences up all the time, for whatever reason. This was a chain-link fence, again not unusual, except that this one is about five feet high, rather than the usual three.

As we got closer, I caught a glimpse of a fair sized critter through the links, and thought, "That's a big dog." But I was wrong. it wasn't a big dog, it was a small horse! A pony, to be exact. It was just standing in the yard, nibbling the grass. I was a bit surprised, and wondered if keeping a pony in town was legal. But it must be, else the people who own it wouldn't have spent all that money. I know keeping 'livestock' in town is illegal, but ponies probably don't fall under that catagory. I might have to look into this, as my curiousity is piqued.

Did I really see that?

Sunday, 3 may, 2009. It is 10:40 a.m., and I am driving west on 12th St. NE, on my way to pick Chris up for Sunday dinner at the 'rents. 12th St. NE is crossed by a viaduct carrying a long abandoned railroad. How long abandoned? Twenty or thirty years, judging by the trees growing on the right-of-way. The bridge itself is largely free of vegetation, except for grass and a few small trees. It was there that I saw a man walking south along the railroad.

That in and of itself isn't strange: I've seen a lot of people on that bridge over the years, and even been there myself. What made this weird was, the dude was carrying a canoe. Yeah, I said canoe. Not a full sized one, mind: this one looked to be about half the normal size. But the shape was unmistakable. It was a freaking canoe.

Drugs ain't cheap...

They say the cost of prescription drugs is spiralling out of control, and after today I have to agree. I just bought Max nine, count 'em nine, combination flea and heartworm pills, for which I paid the low price of $104.16. That's $11.57 apiece. And I thought my allergy pills were pricy at $2.50 each.

The funny thing is, when I commented that I remembered this particular brand costing much less in the past, she claimed it had always been expensive. Maybe compared to other meds, but I'm sure that a decade ago I paid less than $50 (and possibly $40) for the same number of pills.

Perhaps I should organize a march on Washington...

Surprised?

I suppose it shouldn't have come as a surprise to me, but expoxy-resin doesn't keep indefinitely. I learned this today when I went to repair my recycling bin, which has a large crack in one corner that runs almost all the way from the top to the bottom. I dug a who knows how many years old epoxy-resin kit out of my junk drawer, and while one of the two components was still liquidy enough to dispense, the other was solid as could be. So I shall have to make a trip to the hardware store and get some more. If things hold true, I'll use it once before it solidifies too.

Random Observations

Spring: make up your mind already, would ya? Seriously, one day it's nice, the next is cold and dreary. I've had enough of cold and dreary for the time being. Bring on the steady pleasant weather.

Dr. Pepper: Is the world ready for cherry flavored Dr. Pepper? Does the world even need cherry flavored Dr. Pepper? The people who make Dr. Pepper seem to think so, if the signs in Hy-Vee touting its roll-out are to be believed. Now, I have never been a big Dr. Pepper fan. I can't remember the last time I had so much as a sip, if ever, but my impression is that it tasted moderately aweful. I doubt adding cherry flavor will change that.

KFC: I tried their new grilled chicken, and I wasn't impressed. It wasn't bad, but it was nothing special, either. Mostly it didn't taste like the eleven herbs and spices. I know that is because there isn't nearly as much fat present to act as a flavor carrier, but you can't tell me that KFC's research kitchen couldn't have done better than this.

Takin' out the trash: I cleaned a bit on Friday, after work. This morning I lugged a contractor sized bag of junk out to the curb, along with a recycling bin heaped to overflowing. Chris came over in the afternoon and reacted thusly: "Holy @#$%, it's almost clean!" I still have a lot of work to do, but I intend to put my house in proper order this spring.

One last thing: does anyone know if it is possible to recycle a comforter made entirely of synthetic materials? Mine is falling apart, and I'd like to dispose of it properly, rather than have it take up space in the landfill.

March Weather

March in Iowa, ya gotta love it. Sunday it sleeted in the morning, rained before noon, and was snowing by 2 p.m. Today we're due for more of the same, then temperatures plummeting to below freezing for a couple of days before creeping back up at the end of the week. Nice.

Who knew?

I thought the drive-up window at every bank in the universe opened at 8:30 a.m., even on Saturdays when the lobby is closed. I learned differently today. Because of a quirk arising from the shifting of my paydays relative to when bills come due, I didn't have enough money in my checking account to make the payment on my home equity credit line (which, along with my mortgage, is with a different bank than my normal one) until yesterday (27 Feb). Normally I pay my bills on-line, but even though the transactions are electronic, it can take up to three business days for them to go through.

Since my credit line payment is due on the 1st of every month, I couldn't pay it electronically. So I wrote a check friday morning, intending to swing by that other bank and make both a cash deposit into my checking account there, and make my credit line payment. I went and got the cash at my regular bank, went to the other bank and made the deposit and went home. yep, that's right. Not only did I forget to make the credit line payment, I discovered friday night before leaving for work that I hadn't even taken it with me! Hence me going to the bank again this morning, and discovering that the drive up doesn't open until 9:00 a.m. on Saturdays.

Mail between countries

I just received a package from the UK. It is stamped with the symbol of the Royal Mail, which makes me wonder what the employees of of our own Post Office thought when they saw it. It also brings to mind the time I mailed a donation to a man in Christchurch, New Zealand. I had to take the letter to the Post Office, and hand it to a Postal Worker, who proceded to mark it 'Par Avion' which I guess is French for 'Air Mail'. I also paid 90 cents for the privilege, at a time when 1st class stamps were 23 cents. Global post. It makes you think.

Sausage Soup

I've been making a lot of soup lately, to eat at work since it is cheaper and healthier than anything I might buy out of the vend-o-mat. For protein I've used beef (chunks and ground), pork (again, chunks and ground) and chicken (chunks). I've even tried beans, which didn't work so well from a taste stand point. This time I picked up two pounds of Hy-Vee bulk sausage.

As usual, I browned it, then added water. When the water was boiling I added a package of frozen Pepper Stir-fry Vegetables (green, red, and yellow peppers, and onions), half a bag of egg noodles, and about a 1/4 cup of rice. When I first tasted it, I wasn't sure sausage was a good ingredient, but over the last two days I've decided I like it.

Not often seen

A few days ago I saw something that I don't usually see in my neighborhood. I have no idea what it was doing, but there it was, big as life.

A little surprising

I'm surprised (but not entirely). The reaction to my notion of taking a voluntary layoff has been uniformly negative, even from the Democrat flavored members of my family. All have counselled me to 'look out for number one'. I've always looked out for Number One. My favorite saying is "It's all about me, baby!" For which attitude I have recieved much chastisement from the Democrat flavored members of my family. So, craving their indulgence, let me say that I find it deliciously ironic that, when push came to shove, the chips fell where they did.

That said, my reasons for contemplating a voluntary layoff were not entirely charitable. It was, in truth, mostly about me. I don't enjoy my current position anymore. I've mastered it, so there is no challenge any more. In a word, it's boring. Also, despite the fact that Frank has been with us for almost a year, people still come to me with requests that it is Frank's job to handle. And it doesn't seem to make any impression on them how surly I am when I say, "How many times do I have to tell you, I don't have the key to the supply room any more?" or "Ask Frank, he's the boss, not me." An other factor is that the whining and carping is getting worse. I understand that people are worried about getting laid off, but do they have to talk about it constantly? They obsess about their seniority dates and whether their paychecks are accurate to the penny. I'm just tired of it all.

Now, on a completely unrelated note, I have a gadget called a tele-zapper. I've had it for years and years. It 'zaps' computer dialed calls, and was intended for use against tele-marketers. Today, this morning, its power supply shorted out. I discovered this when my answering machine went dead. Then I noticed that the microwave was dead, too. So was the 'fridge, and the light over the sink. I happened to be on the phone with Pops at the time, and he enjoyed helping me puzzle out the answer. A check of the fuze box revealed a blown fuze on that circuit. A replacement was inserted, and blew instantly. The obvious culpret was a short circuit, and it almost had to be one of the appliances plugged into that circuit. I unplugged everything and put a new fuze it. It didn't blow. I plugged the appliances in in turn. Only the tele-zapper failed to work. Interestingly, by itself it didn't fry the fuze, so it must have only been a partial short, just enough to overload the fuze with everything else plugged in.

Razors and other odd things

I was getting my hair cut this morning, the first item on my list of errands to run. In the course of conversing with the stylist, I mentioned that one of the things I missed from the old days of hair care was that barbers would shave the back of your neck with a razor. Well, it turns out stylists have razors too. Not a plain old fashioned straight razor, but something very near to one. The only major difference is a guard that makes it much harder (if not impossible) to cut someone accidentally.

I also learned that shaving someone with straight razor is considered surgical hair removal in the state of Iowa, and that Cost Cutters insurance carrier won't let them do such things. Me, I don't see much difference between a straight razor and a safety razor, or why using or not using shaving cream matters (my stylist didn't use any on me).

I can't help but wonder how such a fine legal distinction came about. It also serves to remind us how the legal system intrudes into every aspect of our lives.

Random Observation of the Day

Getting your oil changed is expensive. Today I paid almost $60.00 for the privilege. What happened? I remember getting oil changes for around $20.00, and that can't have been that long ago. I mean sure, the price has gone up over the years, but it seems like it has jumped quite a bit in the last year. Looking at my invoice, there is no filter/used oil dispoasal fee. I did rather rashly allow the place to top off my anti-freeze, which cost me $10.00, but that only drops the bill down to $50.00.

On the plus side, though, the place I went (and where I always go: Jiffy Lube) was a lot less annoying than they usually are. They used to be called the Grease Spot ('til they got bought out some years ago). Back then you could drive your own car into the bay, and they didn't clobber you with a long, pointless spiel about 'signature service'. Then some suit at Jiffy Lube Corporate must have decided a spiel would, I don't know, make the typical customer feel better about the place or something. From the word go I pegged it as useless sloganeering (a practice I abhor).

Today, there was no spiel. The guy who met me didn't ask if I wanted the 'Signature Service' just if I wanted an oil change. Also, he hardly tried to up-sell on me at all. If they hadn't been out of coffee it would have been a perfect visit.

The value of money, then and now

I was following links on Wikipedia and ended up reading about the Alaska Purchase. This led me to the Louisiana Purchase, and a claim by the author (or editor(s)) of the article that the $15 million purchase price paid by the United States to France was the equivalent of $278 million in 2007. That struck me as rather low, to whit: in 1863 a private soldier in the Union Army was paid $13 a month (room, board and clothing were provided). In 1985 a U.S. private soldier (yours truly) was paid $750 a month (room, board and clothing still provided). That is an increase of 57 times in number of dollars paid, versus just 18.5 times for the supposed value of the Louisiana Purchase.

As with most Wikipedia articles, there were links to the references used. In this case, http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ which is a facinating site on its own. It is certain the author of the Louisiana article used the Consumer Price Index comparison. But if you plug in my Civil War to 1985 numbers, the unskilled wage comparison is a better fit. In fact, if the numbers are accurate, Union soldiers were better paid than their 1985 counterparts! The comparison we need to look at in my mind, though, is the the 'relative share of GDP' one. If we plug the Louisiana Purchase numbers in and look at that, we get a modern value of $430 billion!

I guess the whole point of this is, when someone compares historic prices to current prices, you need to ask, "What is your frame of reference?" Because depending on how you look at the problem, you may get a misleading answer.