Solving the pigeon's code

I don't know if you heard, but recently some pigeon's bones were found. These, though, were not just your average remains of a long dead bird. This bird had, attached to one leg, a small red cylinder, which had a small scroll of paper rolled up in it. On that scroll, are sets of five letters. AOAKN HVPKD and on and on. They make no sense. Just a code from the leg of a bird, which died in a chimney many years ago.

It turns out, that bird was the remains of a D Day carrier pigeon, who never made it his destination. As a note, carrier pigeon's were used because of the radio blackout Churchill had ordered. Anyway, that code was British communication and it appears unsolved. In fact, they say it is not solvable without the code book, but they have released it to the public to have a look.

So many elements of this story speak to me. It has history and an unsolved code. A code, which was lost for decades and now might never be solved. Additionally, we have the code, we can see it, read it, imagine what it might say. Did I mention it is an unsolved and maybe unsolvable code.

Several years ago, I was pretty deep into code cracking. It started very simply. I wanted to design a program which would encode and then decode a message using a Caesar cypher. That is perhaps the easiest of ways to encode a message, it is where you shift the characters a certain number of letters. A's become B's and B's become C's and so on. It was simple and it worked and with a little work, even if you did not know the shift amount, you could figure it out. From there I worked on a process so the computer could predict the shift. It used the letter frequency of each letter in normal English writing and then looked at the encoded message and spun the dial until the finger print was the closest. For all but the shortest messages it worked.

This tool held my interstellar until I started to look at more complex cyphers, such as Playfair and Vigenere. So, I adjusted the tool to do these. It was like breaking apart the code, solving it in several different, but simple ways and putting it back together. It would even tell you the passcode that was used to encrypt the message.

But that was years ago and the tool I developed was on a thumb drive I no longer wear. So, I hear about the message and the bird and I start looking. If I can find my thumb drive, maybe, just maybe, my code cracker can solve the message. For twenty four hours I can't seem to find it. Then, last night, I find it. I find the thumb drive. So, today I sit writing my blog, with the drive around my neck, like I used to years ago, imagining what I will do if I solve the code.

I Hate Dieting

For the last couple months, I've been trying very hard to diet. I've been doing the weight watchers points plus program, which is really good, but it doesn't fix my fundamental problem, which is, I love food. I enjoy food. I take pleasure in food. I've lived much of my life with an attitude that you could add food to anything and make it better. Not just any food either. Salty, sweet, fatty, cheesy, chocolate, bacon wrapped goodness. I like the food that makes your mouth do the happy dance and doesn't care one bit about tomorrow.

The problem is, this put me about 40 pounds above the weight I feel healthy and I've started to feel unhealthy, even convicted about what it is all that food is doing to my body. Also, given where I work and the research I see all the time, I know that being overweight shortens your life and complicates medical issues and even has an impact on acquiring life long diseases. Yet, even with all this truth, I constantly want to give up.

Last night we had dinner at church, which we do every Wednesday. Before the food is served people already have chocolate lemon slices of pie in front of them. I'm one of them. I don't need a piece of pie, I'm probably closer to my goal if I don't eat a piece of pie. I want it though and I'm surrounded by people who also want it, who will enjoy these desserts with me. I hate that I enjoy it so much. 8 points, 25% of my daily total, are swallowed with the pieces of short term satisfaction pie. I make it through dinner with just a few points left, but under my daily allotment.

Service passes and I get my haircut, which means I get home later than usual. The kids go right to bed and I play just a minute of Warcraft before Shelly gets home. There is a problem. Dinner, for what ever reason hasn't stuck. I want something. For brief moment I imagine myself hiding in the garage devouring food where no one can see me, so I can act like it never happened. No log. No witnesses. I hold on initially with a cup of coffee and a couple chocolate covered espresso beans.

We get settled in with Ghost Hunters and my iPad is nearly dead. So, nothing to distract myself with at the slow parts. Nothing to think about, except what goodness might be lurking in the kitchen. "I want something," I say out loud. Shelly points out that upstairs there are chips and cheese. Yum! A frozen box of Thin Mints. I'm dying.

Brenda at work is a Weight Watchers employee, so she asks me nearly everyday how I'm doing. Steve, one of my accountability partners, checks my log and asks me if I logged everything. I prepare the things I will say to them to tell them I am done. I'll tell Brenda I can't do it. I'll tell Steve I need to work on something else, he needs to ask me about work or praying or even working out, but never about dieting again. I think about the bliss of throwing in the towel, reveling in the freedom to eat what I want. That's what I really want, is it?

I don't say anything for a bit. I wrestle with myself, immediate gratification, the desire to be just like it seems everyone else is. Perhaps I could just workout more, I think, but the math doesn't work. A two mile walk and 30 minutes of weights would get me about 7 points, or less that the pie I had earlier. I spend 15 minutes trying to forget about the snacking I want to do.

I tell Shelly I can't or shouldn't eat those things and head upstairs. I open the fridge, looking for an out. Something, anything to help. It won't be what I want, but just something. I settle on a Greek yogurt with orange pieces of cuties in it. It uses just a few of my points and it kills, at least for the moment, the desire to give up all together.

I don't want to do this anymore, but I don't want to fail either.

Shelby

When it come to writing about my kids, I think Shelby often gets the short end of the stick. Sienna is the youngest, which means I can write all the cute things she says, the goofy things she thinks, the funny faces, you know, all the youngest kid stuff. The twins on the other hand, are the oldest, which means there are stories before any other kids were around, and now they are starting to have teenage problems, which are interesting and infuriating. Shelby, though, sometimes is just Shelby. No teenage issues, but too old to think it is funny when she mispronounces something. It is a problem of age and circumstance.

This, though, does not mean there is nothing to write about. In fact, if anything, there is an abundance of personality.

Dinner was excellent. My wife made spaghetti with her doctored sauce and pieces of Italian sausage and garlic bread. It was one of those meals you go back for seconds, even as you are full. Cleaning the table, for the most part, it is hard to tell what has been eaten, that is until you get to seat nearest to the stairs. Shelby's seat. In front of that chair is a plate you don't want to touch. Sauce is pushed not only to the rim, but over and onto the table. When I remove the plate, it leaves a shadow, where it protected the table from the abundance of tomato sauce and breadcrumbs which have fallen through the meal. This eating style has caused her no shortage of problems, as we tell her to use a fork, not to go crazy with the dressing, ask her what she spilled on her shirt or pants.

I wasn't there, but I was told, Shelly walked into the parent teacher conference to meet Shelby's teacher and even before the conference began, the teacher said something along the line of, "Well, there is this." On the desk was a heaping mound of crumpled papers, plastic bags and broken off pencil erasers. Her desk had been packed with trash and she had been asked to take stuff our so Shelly could see it on her visit. My wife responded, she was not surprised. Yet, teacher, nor Shelly, nor I were worried. I remember kids who were so messy other kids would avoid them for fear of getting sticky or their messiness was a sign of stupidity, but there was not even a slightest concern of this.

Leo's Coney Island is not far from where we live and the food is always good, so for a while it was a default place to eat when we couldn't decide where to go. The evening I'm thinking of, is just such an evening, so the six of us walk through the door. Even before we sit down, Shelby is wondering away from us, getting to an angle she can wave to the far corner of the restaurant where someone she knows is. We sit and I ask about it, and it is some girl who was in her class last year. Then, as if on cue, anther family comes in and Shelby is waving again. We have four kids, but it is her, every time, who knows someone in the restaurant. Before we leave, she gets up to go to each of her friends' tables, talk for a few minutes and then it is time to go. She not only remembers all these kids, but they seem to remember and like her.

Last night, when I got home, all of the kids were off doing their own things, except for Shelby, who was still working through her homework. A book report sandwich. The meat is a red page with certain information, the lettuce a green page with other information and so on. Anyway, I ask if it is due tomorrow, expecting it is. She tells me no, it's not due until December 3rd, but she wanted to get it done. Then she tells me about the math work she is doing super well on.

I tell her she is doing good and I walk away thinking to myself. I wonder how she got this collection of traits. At that age, I was a mess, but not getting my stuff done early or so friendly I would know a bunch of people in a restaurant. Then I think about what she will be capable of when she figures out how to get organized. The thought scares me a little bit. It occurs to me, it is a good thing she is a little unorganized, or no one would know how to keep her occupied. One more way I am blessed.

Still here

I've had a couple of you inquire about my blog, specifically noting the sudden decrease in posts. The blog is not dead, or whimpering its way to a quiet death. Instead, there are a couple of things conspiring against it. So, today, I thought I would explain and ask for a little of your help.

The first reason behind the sudden lack if posts has to do with my work schedule. For most of the year my work schedule is pretty controlled. I don't need to take anything home. I can get everything done I need to get done in 40 hours. It is a good job, which allows me to balance my work and family time. November, though, is a different animal. In November all of our annual goals have just ended and all reviews need to be written so they can be reviewed before December. So, for the first couple weeks everyone has to write a self assessment, then for people with reports they need to be reviewed and then joined to an annual review. To give you an idea of the size of this, my self assessment written in word before it was uploaded, was seven pages long. It needs to have dates and times and statistical and rationale. If not done to the satisfaction of by boss, it will be returned. The last two years I have taken some of this work home. Then, once that is completes I need to do a similar, but sometimes more detailed process n each of my employees. So, my lunches and every spare moments at work has been taken to write these reviews. So far I haven't taken any home, but they have for the moment swallowed this blog.

The second issue I'm having is coming up with events to write about. I often spend more time contemplating what to write about than I actually do writing. So, I think about my past, then shoot it down because I've written it before, or something similar, or it might be embarrassing to someone who's permission I don't have, or just because I think it might be boring. So, I think again and again and again, until something sticks. At one point I had a list of stories to write, but that well has run dry. This, though, is where you can help me. Suggest ideas for me to write about, things you would be interested in or stories you know, but I haven't written here. For right now, I need your assistance, your ideas.

Tomorrow is the last day to get my reviews done, so starting Wednesday I'll be back at it full time. I look forward to using your suggestions then.

A real con

Ok. After my last article my Dad, who I reads most of these, pointed out that putting on a con could have a very different connotation. After publishing it, it struck me a little odd too, but I thought it might just be the way my mind works. I'd like to believe that there is no way anyone could think I was tricking anyone, of course they would know it was about a convention, but that might not be fair. See, when I was younger, much younger, I did put on that other kind of con.

Fifth grade was a great year. I liked my teacher, I knew what I was going to do for the rest of my life, write stories, and most importantly I got to be a safety. To this day this is a treasured position, I know because nearly everyday I find myself asking Shelby why she running around the house in her neon green safety belt. You know, the kind with the shoulder strap which crosses in front of you, or hangs behind your butt if you wear it like she does.

On nearly day one it started. The clip board with the list would go around the room, passing from anxious hand to anxious hand. The kids in front of me had taken the street jobs and the classroom jobs and even the cafeteria jobs. For the first safety job, I took hall monitor. You know, make sure kids aren't hanging out in the hall when they are supposed to be on recess.

It was fun, I brought candy for the younger kids, never had any trouble, and no con either. The con wasn't until my second safety job. I sold cookies in the cafeteria.

On the first day, I learned where I would pick up the cash tray and cookies. I saw the desk I was to sit at and learned the cookies were sold for 25 cents apiece. My trainer and I sat at the desk selling cookies and it went without a hitch. The next day the trainer was gone, but again it went without any problems. Lots of kids bought cookies. Many seemed to not know how much they cost. In fact, the price for these cookies wasn't posted anywhere.

This caused my mind to start working. Overworking. If kids didn't know the price, I could charge anything. The school only expected a quarter a cookie, which means any money above that amount would come to me. Victimless, I thought at the time, perfect. I look back now, with the eye of a father who has kids in elementary school, kids that could be so taken advantage that I want to punch former me, but that is not who I was then.

Fifty cents I would say and they would smile and hand it over. Half would go in the till and half would go in my pocket. Fifty cents I would say and they would frown and say, oh I thought is was a quarter. I'll help you out I would say and sell them the "half price" cookie. On and on it went, I would buy a cookie with ill gotten money every day and walk home with jingling pockets.

Unbelievably, I was never caught or questioned about this. I didn't learn any lesson at the hands of the father of some kids I had taken advantage of, but I wouldn't say I got away with it either. See, everything I see one of my kids take advantage of their cousin, or their cousin take advantage of them, I get mad not just at them, but at myself. They are acting just the way I did and because I never was caught then, I too deserve some trouble.

Putting on a Con

The discussion takes on new life. James and I, who at that time were in kind of rough footing, had been toying around with the idea of putting together a gathering for our friends. It shifted the focus from the areas we disagree to something we could work on together, to this conversation, where James stopped in at RIW and found out we could have one of their rooms for free for the weekend and she would give our guests discounts for things they bought in the store.

His excitement carried over the phone and I was buzzing with possibilities. We agreed that we had a bunch of work to do. We needed to plan events, food, snacks, how we would communicate to the attendees, who we would invite, travel arrangements and those things overlapped with the number we thought would attend and if they had any restrictions, how much free time and on we went.

That night we talked to Steve, not only an potential attendee, but one of the core people in our group, who we thought might want to run something. Steve had three or four games he thought he could run, we talked him back to just two. We wanted him to spend most of his time just enjoying, but we knew we needed a little more content. James had an idea of a Savage Worlds games and a Warhammer demonstration. I thought I would run a D&D game, maybe a first edition throw back and a play test Orks n the Boardroom.

We started to flesh out the schedule, putting up a google document to share what was happening when, who we had confirmation, look at the logistics. James locked down Warhammer into two event, a painting demonstration and game. I settled on making my D&D adventure and Gary Gygax tribute, something he ran, something which had a little legacy to it. This would be three hours long on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, which caused James to scrap Savage Worlds and replace it with a Magic draft. We had card games and board games, roleplaying games and miniatures. We had, a room and a hotel locked down for us, now we just needed to communicate it.

I took a crack at writing up a flier, all the details, trying as best as I could to cover my amateur commercial art skills. James reviewed and edited it, adjusting some wording and cleaning it up. We sent it to our nine or so invitees letting them know to invite others they thought would enjoy this kind of thing.

Then came food, we could have pizza every night. So we talked about the places in the area would could get food from, discussed what would make good and bad gamer food and considered how often we thought we should get out of the game room. A couple meals out, one as a kind of celebration dinner at the end. We didn't need to worry about breakfast, because of the hotel, but we needed lunches and dinners we could go get for the rest of the meals. Then, we realized we would need snacks and pop available for people to enjoy. Variety, again, was the key. We didn't want fast food all the time, not sandwiches for every meal. We worked this list a few times to get it right. Salsa and chips, to go with the green Chili we had learned Kevin was brining, Swiss Cake Rolls for nostalgia reasons, Buddy's pizza and Buffalo Wold Wings. It looked to be a good list.

Prizes... Oh the discussions on prizes. I can't stress this enough, we wanted everyone to have one of the best experience of the year. So, when it came to prizes we wanted a way to get them into the hands of many people and make sure even those who didn't win anything would have a little something to go home with. So, we considered prizes for each event, then door prizes, then just welcome bags. We literally, until the last week had several ideas n the air on this. The one, or should I say two, we settled on were a raffle for a few bigger prizes, such as Warhammer figures and them a gift bag for everyone, which would have all the things they should need for the weekend and a little bit more. Dice and paintbrushes, magic cards and a miniature. We would give away the raffle tickets for good play or winning a game. No one, we thought, would walk away empty handed.

As the days closed, my nervousness and excitement grew. I only hoped it would be as good as we had planned it. Toward the end, I even made a detailed behind the scenes schedule that included times to hand out menus and who would need to pick up what and when. It was approaching the ridiculous, but I needed to know that I knew what needed to be done. I needed to ease that part of my mine that keeps saying, what about this and what about that.

Then, I was on my way to the airport to pick up our first guests, the planning ended and the magic began.

Race

On our brisk walk, Reuben and I talked today about a topic, which would have been very uncomfortable to have some one walk into. It wasn't religion, or politics, or money. We talked about race and racism. Why you might ask, would it be uncomfortable if third person walked in on the conversation? Because he is black and I am white and we talked about our own encounters with racism, how it, has impacted us and what has happened to America as a whole over time with race relations.

He asked if I would write on this today, and I instantly thought, that's a good idea and then oh man, how am I going write about race and not stick my foot in my mouth. How do I not become the guy who says I'm not a racist, I have a black friend. This question drove me right into the problem, as I see it today, people are going to misread, get offended and be jerks because the topic is tough. In the end, I don't think I should worry about it, but I'm not sure I can help it.

There are conversations about race going on, but they are largely the wrong conversations with the wrong people. It is the conversations the racist parts of my family has giving blacks coded names and blaming envy thing they don't like on the fact they are black. It is the family who came to Reuben and told home they would disown him if he ever married a white woman. It is the group of all white leaders who talk about diversity in terms of how they are perceived, rather than gaining strength. It is the group of employees that talk about how the white manager talked longer than the black manager because the director is a racist. It is these conversations which don't cross the race barrier, that you can only have with people like you, and they are serious or poisonous. It is an inbreeding of ideas, which produces the twin retards of racism and phantom discrimination.

Yes, I wrote retards, it seems disingenuous to call them anything else.

There is a conversation, though, we should be having. It is a conversation which is interested in race and how it plays and doesn't play isn't the formation of a person. It crosses race lines. If I want to know why black people don't swim I probably am not served to ask my brother. Also, I should live in fear of asking such silly questions. It may be completely wrong, but that's better than this mock color blindness, which has us asking the wrong people the wrong things.

In addition to having the conversation with people of different races, we need to stop taking everything about race so seriously. Learn to laugh when one of your youth group tells you that Koreans are the only real Asians and she can measure you Asianess by the size of your head. It's funny. Don't assume every slight is discrimination, it may not have even been a slight. When you make a bad assumption about race, such as all Pentecostals are black (one of my own from my past), own it. If you want to have these real conversations, talk about your own bad assumptions, open the door on what you have thought and do think.

I walked into a big luncheon the other day and, as often happens at work, the people of different races had divided into different tables, I stand in the door and I can clearly see the white table and the black table. How odd I think, but then I realize the situation I'm in, the situation the last few people who walked through the same door were in. If I sit with the white people, I am just like them, I have shown racial preferential treatment. I don't like that. On the other hand, if I sit at the black table, It's like I'm trying to prove a point, going out of my way. Making a decision based on race. I hate this moment because suddenly I am hyper aware of how I will be perceived. I sit at the black table. Not because I have more or less friends there, although Reuben is there, but because I don't want to be one of "those" people. Those racist who will only sit with their own. Then I look at myself, who was just looking at them and think, your still not there yet.

Am I a Hipster?

A few days ago I was joking with friends about hipster products. For about five minutes I got to be a hipster, as curiosity of my phone. As it turns out that dumb phones are the iPhone for hipsters. It used to be that iPhone was the cell phone for hipsters, but now it's what to popular, too commercial for that. In, what might be called life creating irony, Blackberry might be the cell phone for hipsters soon.

For those of you that don't get the joke, let me do, what you should never do with a joke, and explain it. A hipster, as I understand, wants to do what is not popular and if it happens what ever they are doing becomes popular, they feel compelled to leave. In this way, they hop to new gadgets, but will only stick if a minority of people are also using said gadget. Sometimes, they will hop to anachronistic gadget, especially if it was once popular, but only when a minority of people are left. This leads to them to open coffee houses where snapping is the only way you can show appreciation or decide to eat everything, including M&Ms, with chopsticks.

There is something about the ridiculousness of this drive to be different it makes for easy prey when it comes to humor, but for me it comes with some introspection as well. When I was declared a hipster for having a dumb phone, part of me laughed with my friends, but the other half was proud. Not ashamed because I was a sucker, but proud because all of them were suckers. I have no legitimate reason to feel this way, but my inner hipster is alive and well.

Just recently I was introduced to Warhammer 40,000 which a gritty Sci-fi miniatures table top game. Some of you might be thinking, that's hipster enough, I've never heard of that you description has me uninterested, at least as u interested as going to a interpretive dance competition. Well, thank you, but not yet. In a hobby shop, or with this group of friends, just playing this game is not hipster enough for me. So, I choose Orks as an army, and started my research. Yes, I was researching models and army lists and paint techniques, but more importantly, I thought, I needed to now what clan these Orks would be from.

The questions I typed into google: "What is the least popular Ork clan to play?"

I could have just as easily typed what clan of Orks would a hipster play. As a result, I'm playing Snakebites/Goff, for two differently, albeit hipsterish, reasons.

My bid for the Oval Office

I don't think I will ever be in a position to run for President of the United States, but it days such as these I think it is natural to think what that would be like and what you platform would be. In such a fit, I was walking with Reuben and our conversation shifted from the two major candidates to what I would like to see happen, to my imaginary and not completely thought out platform. Since I can't seem to focus on much anything else to write on today, I apologize, but that is what you are getting. You have been warned.

Let me start, with what might be a hot topic issue for some people, gay marriage. I am religious individual, who has a very literal interpretation if the Bible and as such, I don't personally think there is any such thing as gay marriage. I believe this, though, not because of the government, but because of my personal beliefs and interpretations of the Bible. As such, I can't expect people with different beliefs and interpretations to believe the same way or even understand why I might believe that way. One of the problems I think the government has made has been making marriage a government contract, rather than a religious institution. As such, I don't think marriage should play into government law or protections at all. Remove marriage and the crazy bureaucracies which surround it from Washington all together.

This might lead people to a logic question, then, of what to do about taxes and joint tax forms, do those go away, do they let any two people to file jointly, what? My answer is neither. We want people to save money for their future and give money to charity, but we make it hard to fully benefit from these things. Save your receipts and you can only claim X amount and only if it met these conditions. Quit charging income tax, eliminate April 15th and that whole tax structure and start taxing expenditure instead. The tax breaks that are abused in the code go away. If you want to save your money, how ever you choose to do it, it isn't taxed. If you want to gift your money or give to charity, it isn't taxed. If you want to buy a house or a yacht, on the other hand, it is going to be taxed. If you spend more, you pay more. This seems to make much more since then having some pay none so the other have a heavier burden. The other advantage is this, we would adapt to this increased cost quickly and makes it nearly impossible to default on a payment.

Last issue for consideration is one of budgeting. The budget must always be approved, balanced and the people have the right to decide on major expenditures outside of the budget. As the payroll is part of the budget, it is crazy to me that we would pay people on a none approved budget, especially people who are responsible to getting the budget approved. If you can't come to an approval, you will stop being paid. Second, you can only budget the money which is coming in. Based on the plan above, if the United States spends 4.6 trillion a year and 10% is taxed, we would need to have an annual budget that came in under 460 billion dollars. As a note, this would be a drastic cut if my numbers are even close to right. The point is, we can't keep spending like we are using someone else's credit card, we need to be serious about righting the ship. In that same vein, if the government wants to propose something which is going to result in a tax increase, outside of the budget, they need to be clear with the people on why they are doing it, how much it will cost and let them vote. As it stands, the government spends the money and passes along the bill, which is wrong.

I have more issues, but no more time.pick it apart or ask questions as you see fit.