Item #15 - Go Snowshoeing

Every family I know from the Detroit area falls into 1 of 2 groups when it comes to vacations.

The first are the people that head north. They own cottages on lakes throughout rural Michigan, and if they don't, then they're roughing it by camping.  They drive boats in the summer and drive snowmobiles in the winter, and they drive their vans home from their cottages when they're done.  They're proud members of the NRA. They hunt with guns. They hunt with bows. They fish. They eat what they catch. They love PBR. They make fires without lighter fluid. They're the poor man's Bear Grylls.

Families in group #2 are the ones that head south.  These families are scared of the outdoors. They like ocean views over lake views. They like condos. They like hotels with pools. They like having meals served to them. They like fruity mixed drinks. The only deer they want to see is Bambi at the Magic Kingdom.  Water temperature below 85 is just unacceptable for swimming. If a bug comes within 10 feet of you, it's time to call the front desk and see if you can get some comps.

My family was in group #2. Usually, that meant heading all the way down to Florida, though occasionally for us, it meant Las Vegas (gambling for mom and dad, business cards of hundreds of escorts for my hormonally-charged self and my brother).

 

 Approximate traveling I did before the age of 18

We liked getting pampered on vacation. Woods? Bugs? Smelling like campfire? No thank you. That sounds more like work than vacation. Until this past year, the closest I ever came to "camping" was sleeping in a tent in our fenced-in backyard, or going to Cedar Point with my high school girlfriend's family and having all of us sleep in their camper on the campgrounds (AKA, a gravel parking lot next to the park. Though showering in a wooden building was more than enough "roughing it" for me at the time).Even when we drove down to Florida, we went the "high-class" route, by driving a classic high-top van.  We were able to turn the backseat into a bed for napping and were able to hook up a Nintendo to the TV. I'm pretty sure that same van today wouldn't be allowed within 500 feet of an elementary school.

So my nature survival skills are suspect to say the least.  I've never made a fire. If I caught a fish, I'd probably get tears when trying to take the hook out of its mouth. I mean, they're like . . . slimy.  I've only been camping twice (and it wasn't until this past summer), and I was actually disturbed about not being able to get any signal with my cell. How do I know where I am without my GPS dammit! The sun? What is this, communist Russia? And I certainly had no reason to go gallivanting through a forest in the middle of winter without having a board strapped to me feet. So when Danielle suggested a snowshoeing hike last weekend, pre-blog Alan would have said "eh, there's English Premier League soccer on, and frankly, I've seen trees with snow on them before." However, blogging Alan says, "eh, there's English Premier League soccer on, and frankly, I've seen trees with snow on them before . . . but I DO have a new camera I still want to play with so what the hell." And so we were off. 

Granted it wasn't exactly Mt Washington, but for my virgin experience, Callahan State Park in Framingham would do. And Danielle, Jim, Charlie, Lisa and I had a delightful little time.

 

Charlie and Lisa's dog Sassafrass prepares for the hike by getting high off of . . . life?

 

 Sassafrass shows off his new-found energy

Beware the 2 foot vertical

 Charlie used his snowshoes for the first half, but he graciously lent me his for the back end. They didn't make that much of a difference on the packed snow, but certainly came in handy in the deeper powder.

Brock Landers without Chest Rockwell

 

 A hike well-done

All-in-all, a nice little Sunday morning. I'm not running out to spend $200 on snowshoes, but I'd do it again on a borrowed pair. Though I'm still just a bit off from getting my Bear Grylls on and dropping out of a helicopter into the middle of Siberia. I'm an engineer. Technology exists for a reason dammit.

• Doing the trapeze with Lisa on February 5th at 4:00. I think they still have slots available.
• My friend Meg is starting up her own 52 New adventure. That's phenomenal. Go check her out. We're already talking about combining efforts hitting up US soccer in NYC and possibly a European vacation. Looks kids . . . Big Ben . . . Parliament.

Item #14 - Buy Stock

I love sports. I love gambling. I love being a nerd. Which leads to this simple equation:

Sports + Gambling + Nerdiness = Fantasy Sports

I get to use my supposed smarts to bet my hard earned money on sports I love to watch. It's really the best of all 3 worlds.  But, certain fantasy sports require differing levels or nerdiness. And if your scared of probabilities and/or Excel spreadsheets, look away now. Instead, here's a blog about puppies. But those brave enough to stomach a little math, I'll explain.

First, for those that have never played fantasy sports, its pretty simple. Pick a bunch of players to make a team for yourself. When they do good, when they score points, then you score points. Score more points than the person/people you're playing, you win. Hooray.

Fantasy football is your entry-level fantasy sport. Your team only consists of about 9 players. You only play about 15 games. And there's a frustrating amount of luck that goes into it. Guys get hurt. Often. No name guys do awesome. Often. People who's team sucked for 13 weeks end up winning the last 2 to claim the top prize. It's the scratch-off ticket of fantasy sports. Minimal effort, minimal research and minimal smarts are required.

Fantasy baseball is the more elitist of the 2 main fantasy sports.  20+ players, playing an entire 162 game season.  But the greatest difference between fantasy football and baseball may be that all the football leagues basically just count "points." A player scores a touchdown? You get 6 points. A player runs for 10 yards? You get 1 point. Your player nearly gets suspended for sending picture messages of his dong to a former team employee? Then you're an idiot for drafting him. But, the point is that there's a single currency to go around.

With fantasy baseball, it's usually not that easy. Each of your hitters can get you points in 5 different ways, and each of your pitchers can get you points in 5 other ways. At the end of the season, you get ranked in each of those 10 categories.

Fellow fantasy nerds. Yes, I know there's hundreds of variations you can apply to each of these fantasy sports, but I'm just trying to keep it simple so I don't lose 60% of my readership (aka, 6 people). 

And all these stats can be evaluated in different manners, with different people putting different valuations on different stats. Is 1 homerun equal to more or less than 1 steal for your team?  Maybe your team . . . . aaaaaaand I'm probably losing you by now. So, let's cut to the chase. Fantasy baseball usually requires an upper level of nerdiness to succeed, and am am certainly willing to accept that level. Case in point - my pre-draft spreadsheet.

Every fantasy season starts with a draft of players, and before the draft, everyone has their own set of player rankings, usually just stolen from someplace like Yahoo or ESPN or whatever website is actually hosting the league. The rankings will predict out the various players' stats for the season, and there will usually be 10 columns of stats - 5 for the pitchers and 5 for the hitters. Me? I've come up with my own algorithm for player rankings, where my spreadsheet has something like 22 columns for both hitters and pitchers (a cool 44 or so total). The equations are now based on 5 years' worth of fantasy baseball I've accumulated.  They contain Alan-original stats, like FVOAP (Fantasy Value Over Average Player . . . obviously). There's tabs upon tabs of data. So much so, that each year when I break out the spreadsheet to repopulate the cells with the new year's predictions, I usually need 20 minutes to figure out what the hell my own equations mean.

And when I draft, I like to have 2 laptops going. Why? Because chicks dig it. That's why.

So, how have my deft drafting skills fared, based on my absurdly large pre-draft spreadsheet and accompanying equations that can even make my own head spin?

Since I've been doing my nerd sheet, I've had an average finish of better than 4th out of 10. In a single year? Nothing special. But over the long haul? Not too shabby. And when your putting your money on the line, over and over again, that's really what you're hoping for. Be better than average, and you'll end up winning money more often than losing it.

So every March now, I go through the same routine of repopulating my spreadsheet, tweaking the algorithms, and preparing for draft. This past March, I was going through my routine at home. My friend Matt was over and was looking in on my draft war room and came up with a fairly logical revelation.

How much time do you spend on this crap?


I don't know. A fair amount of hours.


And how much money is this for?


I'm in 4 different leagues, and I end up putting up about $130 for all 4 leagues


Why don't you do that kind of research for something that might actually make you some money? Like stocks


Ummm, I don't know.  It scares me and it doesn't excite me in the same way that evaluating the worth of Jacoby Ellsbury's 70 steals versus Mariano Rivera's 40 saves does?

And for the longest time, that seemed like the logical adult next step, despite my fear of it. Both fantasy investing and stock investing require large amounts of research. Both require you to examine charts and graphs and oodles of numbers. Both require lots of patience to watch your investments properly play out, while also requiring you to perfect the timing of your trades.  Both require you to place your own valuations on the potential investments. And both require you to have some balls with your money. Though with stock investing, I don't expect anyone to start trash talking via email.

So, it's time to get my Gordon Gecko on, bow to the altar of the almighty American greed, and buy some stocks. (I've never actually seen Wallstreet. I assume that reference actually makes sense). I've read my basic research. I've registered for Scottrade. And as of tonight, I've popped my investment cherry. And yes, it did hurt a little the first time . . . ya know, parting with my money.

I've had a 401K at my job for the last 5 years, but that doesn't count as doing something new and investing. That investment is basically going to to flow the way the market flows. Give John Hancock my money and watch it hopefully accrue 7% or more over the next 35 years. No balls required. It's like looking for a gambling rush, flying to Vegas, and playing nothing but penny slots. 

So I've put in my first order for stock. We're starting a little on the safe side and buying 10 shares of Berkshire Hathaway. I may be an investing novice, but I do know it's a pretty sure bet to just do whatever the hell Warren Buffet is doing.  He's worth $2.6 billion. I think I can trust him. And I can only assume that in 40 years, I'll be worth the same.

 Artist's rendition of my life at 70 years old

Item #13 - Make Homemade Cookies

A few years back, for my ex-girlfriend's birthday (Angela), I decided to make a 3 course meal for her. The appetizer was an ever-so-healthy plate of homemade fries, drenched in blue cheese crumbles. They were fantastic if I do say so myself. The main course was . . . ummm, actually I have no idea. I'm drawing a blank. Though I'm sure it was delicious. I may not have the most well-rounded cooking skills, but what I do make, I make fairly well.

For dessert, I planned on molten lava cakes.  It was my very first foray into the world of baking (unless you count Toll House out-of-a-bag cookies. I don't). Anyway, the recipe was probably nothing out of the ordinary. Some flour. Some sugar. Some other stuff. Some eggs. And being the virgin baker, and being someone who doesn't actually eat eggs, when i saw "add 2 eggs", I had to actually go and ask Angela whether that meant the yellow part, the non-yellow part, or all of it. Alas, I am an idiot. Though I guess I knew enough to at least not add the shells. That's something, right? . . . .Right?

Well, the lava cakes came out and . . . well, they came out. I guess the word would be "adequate"? But they were edible, and they didn't make anyone throw from uncooked batter, so I'm calling it a win.

Round 2 took place this past weekend, as I attempted to make homemade cookies for the first time. And this time, I at least knew to put the whole damn shell-less egg into mix.

Being the nerdy engineer I am, I couldn't just make 1 batch of cookies. No, I decided to go the design-of-experiment route, and make 3 different batches in the hopes of actually learning something about what makes a good cookie.

If you'd like to see the actual recipe, you can find it here. It's your basic chocolate chip cookie. Nothing fancy, but that's what I probably needed based on the previous baking endeavor. Though the one key factor in this recipe was that it didn't need a mixer. Instead, my guns got a workout.

And now, some exciting pictures of the baking process.

Ingredients. Probably the 3rd time in my life I've actually bought eggs. Remember, I'm the freak eater. I don't eat eggs.

My "whisk"

The cookie dough, post-arm workout

The point at which I actually though this might work

 

The 3 design-of-experiment varieties

So you can probably see there's a difference between the 3 cookies. Cookie A is the original recipe, done with a 14 minute bake time.  Cookie B is the same recipe, done at 12 minutes.  And this being America, Cookie C is the original recipe, baked at 12 minutes, but with double the vanilla and 50% more butter. U-S-A! U-S-A! Seriously, how could more butter NOT be better. 

I brought the cookies to my friend Jim's for some NFL playoff action, because nothing says manly football night like an afternoon baking in the kitchen. Damn the Mad Men and their gender stereotypes. If I want to drink beer, change my oil and ovulate at the same time, I will (when science first figures out how to make that happen). And I let the masses, aka, the 7 or so friends there, rank the cookies, judging them by both taste and texture.

The loser  . . . Cookie A. Not that A was a bad cookie. I mean, for me, it was like having to choose between my favorite illegitimate children. I love them all in their own special ways. But the masses and I were in agreement - just a little too firm on the bottom (that's what he said?)

2nd place went to Cookie C, which surprised the hell out of me. Again . . . 50% more butter! But, apparently that made the cookie just a little more "cake-y" than Cookie B, which turned out to be a bad thing (except for Jim, who was happy to take care of them). 

The winner was cookie B. Lower cook time. Less butter, and apparently, thus more dense. So if you want a quality chocolate chip cookie recipe, I'll let you steal it from me . . . since I stole it from another blogger . . . . who took it from Alton Brown's cookbook.

• If you're interested in wine tasting, the trapeze or rock-climbing, let me know. I'd had a few people already say they'd be up for some.

Volunteers

I've had a fair amount of people say they'd be interested in joining up in activities, and while some of the items are better off being done on a whim when i have a chance (this weekend I baked homemade cookies for the first time. post to come), some of the things I'd like to do would definitely be more fun as a group. So, here's some chances. With the weather cold as balls during the Boston winter, I think I'd like to hit up some of these indoor activities in the near future. If you want to join in, you can either send me an email, send me a Facebook message, or just post a comment, and we'll figure out dates/times/locations.

• Wine tasting - I can taste the difference between red and white. That's about the extent of my wine knowledge.
• Trapeze - For some reason, this is located at Jordan's furniture in Reading, MA.
• Rock Climbing

Let me know.

Item #12 - Go to Foxwoods . . . and win

On Thanksgiving day, I landed at Detroit Metro at 8am. My dad picked me up and we headed downtown because we'd eventually be going to the traditional Lions Thanksgiving football game.  The tradition being that for last 10 years or so, you get to watch the Lions make you sick to your stomach even before the Thanksgiving meal. Since the game didn't start until 12:30, we had some time to kill, and so we made the pilgrims and indians proud by heading straight for the casino (though sadly, not an indian casino) for some early morning drinking and gambling. I was more interested in the drinking, dad was more interested in the gambling.

So dad immediately went for the slot machines, letting me know that he "had the feeling" today. I laughed. "Silly old man. There's no such thing as "getting lucky" and "having the feeling." I'm an engineer. Let me teach you about probabilities and about how slot machines have to pay out 98% or so and . . . . holy crap you just won $150." And the day was off to a lovely start.

However, my disdain for "the feeling" continued. If my dad just won $150, it's because that particular slot machine hadn't paid out sufficiently lately and odds are it won't pay out much again in the near future. "It's simple probability, you crazy old man. You're an engineer, why don't you get this? And if you keep playing for the next 2 hours, he's bound to lose that $150 back, and then some."

I get all my logical thinking from my dad, but unlike me, he's often able to suspend his engineering mind for a particular subject. Case in point - aliens. Logically, sure, with a billion planets across the universe, there's bound to be some kind of life, intelligent or not, on some planet, somewhere. But he's more of the abduct-a-redneck alien believer, and thinks the only LOGICAL explanation for the pyramids and Stonehenge is alien technology. Supposedly there's no history of Alzheimers in the family, but I have my doubts .

But none-the-less, we grabbed more drinks, went back to the slots, and each put in $20 into separate machines, agreeing to split whatever we won (or likely loss). And . . . the "feeling" struck again for dad. This time, his machine hit for another $150. What .. . the . . . hell. And we're not playing $1 or $5 slots, where winning $150 isn't that much of a stretch. We're playing quarter slots like the middle class folk we are, hitting on a 300-to-1 shot on a 2 quarter bet.  I don't think I've ever won anything over $10 at a casino, and now dad's "feeling" has just bought us a free lunch and Lions tickets? Not a believer yet, but I guess I'm rolling with it now, as it brought us a nice little Thanskgiving treat.

And so a couple weeks later, I headed down with a carpool of friends to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut, mainly to see comedian Lisa Lampinelli, but hoping to also see if "the feeling" is going to carry on.

Yeah, I've been to a casino before. I've been to Vegas. But Foxwoods is more like a New England institution list item. 7 years out here and I had yet to go to there or Mohegan Sun, the other giant indian casino out here. Iconic enough that when I mentioned going there for the first time to someone at work, it was worthy of a "you've NEVER been to Foxwoods?" response. 

At first, we hunted down the available poker tournaments. That WAS an actual item that had been suggested - to compete in a real non-home-game tournament, against real live strangers. However, the only option available was for the mathematically challenged. 10 players. $60 entry. $300 for 1st place and $150 for 2nd. And for those aforementioned mathematically challenged, that means the casino's keeping 25% of the total entry fees, when the average casino will only keep 5 or 10% of the total. Simple gambling lesson to live by - if it pays worse than keno, you really shouldn't be playing.

Next, we tried to gamble on jai alai, a sport in which my entire knowledge consists of the episode of Jack-Ass where Johnny Knoxville and Steve-O get pelted in the ass with oranges.We expected to just bet on Team A or Team B, but in reality, the betting card was more like a tax form than a lotto ticket. Strike 2.

So it was onto blackjack. Good ole blackjack. Good ole "lose every single time I play despite the fact that the odds are close enough to even that I should have won at least ONE time by now son of a bitch why does this keep happening" blackjack. And as luck would have it, the cheapest tables available were $10 tables, despite me never having played more than $5 tables. Thus, I threw down $100, fully expecting to lose it all (again), and just hoping it would last long enough for a couple free drinks.

Detroit casinos? No freed drinks. Foxwoods? Vegas-style freebies. We steal their land, they give us free booze . . . what a country!  And for some reason, we ordered drinks like we were sporting fedoras at a 1940's horse race. We started with a round of Tom Collins, another first for me. Then, we progressed to a round of sloe gin fizzes, again, a first. You stay classy, Foxwoods.

And as the booze kept coming, so did the cards.  For the first time in my life, my stack at a blackjack table actually grew . . . and so did "the feeling."  So after an hour or so, when the pit boss upped the tables from $10 to $15, like game show contestants without a Whammy, we pressed our luck, and I finally got a little taste of what my dad had suggested before. The additional $5 per bet brought no fear. I was, as they say, on a roll.  And it's a hell of a feeling to have the dealer start asking if you'd like to start changing your $5 chips in for $25 chips. "Do I want to look like a middle-class bad-ass, with green chips in my stack? Yes sir. Yes I do."

When all was said in done, after two hours of play and free drinks, I walked away up $230. Maybe it was the illogical "feeling", or maybe it was just the simple probability that I couldn't go 0 for 10 (or whatever it was up to that point) at a blackjack table in my life. In either case . . . damn, it felt good. After an hour or so of slots, and a post-Lampinelli round of backjack, the net result was +$210, a fine day's work at Foxwoods. Just like Thanksgiving, "the feeling" paid for the day's events, and my faith in the gaming establishment was restored.

Related "feeling"notes, as it seemed to carry over into my football gambling:

• Shortly after Foxwoods, I came in 1st and 3rd in 2 of my 3 fantasy leagues.And fantasy football requires some skill, but a whole lot of luck.
• That same week, I won both of the pickem pools I'm in (and for the sports gambling challenged, these pools are 98% luck)
• I took the Chicago Bears at 11-1 to win the NFC back in April. I immediately regretted it, but now they're a #2 seed. 
• I also had taken the perpetually shitty Detroit Lions to win more than 5.5 games. A month ago, they were 2-10. They just now finished the season 6-10, after winning 4 straight for the first time since, I don't know, WWII was going on?

The morale of this story? I am basically guaranteed now to turn into the 2015 version of Biff Tanen. Get on board while you can folks.