Archive for December, 2008
I have about 5 minutes before I leave for work and wanted to post this yesterday but got to be too busy.
First the book report:
For those that have read what became one of my favorite books, Freakonomics, Super Crunchers can almost be seen as a sequel. I can’t say that Super Crunchers is a great “page turner” because it is fairly technical, though has several great examples to show what they mean by things. But, I found it interesting.
Basically, the book talks about the impact statistics have on the world. Specifically giant pools of information called Data Mining. I remember the term from my old marketing classes. A quick example would be, lets say there’s statistics out there that show that middle-aged married women that come to Las Vegas with their husbands will gamble and lose on average $900 before they decide to completely give up gambling because the losses are too great. For those of you who gamble and have been in a casino many times you get a playing card to receive points when at slots or at tables. Sure you get points and can eventually win things, but for the casino it’s their way of tracking your wins/losses, time spent, what you like to play and with that data they are able to build statistical evidence to show your tendencies. So, this lady is at $850 down at a casino and the card tells us this, at that exact time a floor manager is instructed to go up to the lady, apologize for her losses that evening, and give both her and her husband a free supper at the steakhouse to be used immediately. The casino is out of 2 steak suppers, but statistics show the next time she comes to Vegas she’ll not only keep gambling, but make sure to gamble at that particular casino.
It made me think of the power of stats, assuming you have enough data to make sense of it.
Post part 2:
Merry Christmas everyone. But at this point, I suppose it’s time to say Happy New Year. This year we will be bringing in the new year at one of Linds’ Forensixxx and I’ve made friends with pretty much all of her colleagues so it should be a good time.
Our new years resolution is to lose weight. I don’t have much to lose by looking at me, but I guess I could gain from eating better so we’re going on a somewhat strict diet starting January 1st. Yikes.
Rausch—Out.
December 29th, 2008
Sorry about the poor editing last time. In fact, from one faithful reader I was told, “you really should review your posts before you publish them”. I took this advice and did nothing with the post, except vow to pay closer attention to what I’m writing.
Before I go on, Linds and my prayers are with the Rolfes family as their grandfather passed recently. Take care guys.
Also, since there is a decent chance I won’t be posting before Christmas I wanted to say a few quick things before getting into the next book:
I just discovered Britty’s blog. I am so thrilled it’s out there, for a link check out Miles’ blog (lazy(desert)ness), but I am so thrilled she’s posting again and after reading it I felt like we caught up. Britt, not sure if you ever read this blog, but you’re going on what’s probably a painful but exciting religious journey right now and I wish you the best.
Work is hard. I didn’t realize I had it so easy before, cold calling all day long for 2 years, and trust me, it’s not easy, but now I have a whole new set of rules and guidelines to follow and I’ve started completely over. I won’t lie, I expected to be killing my number already and I’m lagging behind and feeling guilty for being so confident before. It’s a numbers game and we need to be in front of a lot of people this time of year and cold calling for a face-to-face appointment can take a lot of courage, and without momentum, it’s hard to come by.
I speak for Linds and I both when I say we’re coming up on a very difficult holiday. We’ll certainly enjoy our time together, but being very family oriented people it’ll be hard with some of our favorite annual reunions being passed up. But, I hope you guys have fun with your families n whatnot.
Linds is loving her job and her co-workers seem very cool. I get along with all of my co-workers really well, also. Definitely a plus, cause you can control where you work, but no one likes picking the perfect job and then being surrounded by people you could care less about.
I need to game more. I’ve recently been wanting to do a lil multi-player COD2. Or even BF42. Join as Plethora Ramsbottom.
Alright, on to the book report:
Tales from Q School is another “Behind the scenes look into sports” book by John Feinstein. I love this type of book because the access he gets as a writer can’t even compete to what a camera could ever do. Books like this are made with tapes and tapes of tape recorded casual conversations and spools of notebooks full of notes, and Feinstein has a great eye for golf and college basketball in particular. I recently found out he’s a Dukie, which means I hate him.
For non-golfers, Q School is a marathon of a golf tournament that you have to place in the top 25 to make the pro tour in golf. There are several ways to avoid going to Q School, the easiest is winning a tournament the year before or finishing in the top 125. Q School is like a tournament in structure, meaning you survive the first course, go to the next, then the next and the the final round. It is very grueling and absolutely pressure packed. The crowd is almost evenly split between wannabe rookies straight out of college and has-been’s looking for one last chance to make it.
For the typical golf fan, you may not “get it”. If you’re a “watch every tournament, take golf lessons” kind of golf fan, it’s a must read. If you’re Miles, it’s a $15 coaster.
I enjoyed it, if you’re looking for a great sports book, I would always encourage you to read “Season on the Brink” first, one of Feinstein’s first and greatest books about Coach Bobby Knight.
Rausch Out.
December 22nd, 2008
So lately I’ve been getting through a lot of books. Mostly books on tape, but not all of them.
So, much like
I am going to do some book reports. Maybe reading my review/thoughts will encourage some of my readers to check out the books.
First we’ll start with
by Glenn Beck. (Book on Tape)
As far as narrators go sometimes you win (
’s narrator) and sometimes you lose (
,
) and this time I won. Glenn Beck is actually a radio guy so of course you’d assume he’d read his own book and keep my attention.
This was a political book that was inspired by Al Gore’s drama “An Inconvenient Truth”. Some of this book was interesting, some was not, but it was a good read. Just a word of warning, he’s very conservative and honest about it. He has problems with Keith Olberman claiming he’s a journalist when he’s so proudly liberal and then defends himself by saying he’s an entertainer, not a journalist. I see the point, but I never really considered Keith a journalist.
Most interesting point: We’ve had a global cooling in 1924, warming in 1935, heating in 1974, and again we’re in global warming. These claims were all reported on by the NY Times, Newsweek, and Time Magazine. Does that mean we shouldn’t halt going green? Not at all, but it does mean that we shouldn’t all be writing our obituaries or overreacting or certainly not crowning Al Gore, journalist apparently turned scientist, Best Man in the World for his movie.
Some other topics of discussion in his book:
Pedophiles
Poverty/Crime
Capitalism
Radical Islam
Minimum Wage
and then some non-political themed topics like family and wife stuff
I would recommend this to Conservatives or Liberals that want a good idea of general themes in the Republican Psyche. The “Why” they think that, not just “what” do they think.
Good read. I give it 8 Stars out of 10.
December 16th, 2008
Grandpa would be proud.
December 13th, 2008
Happy Birthday Mommy.
December 10th, 2008
