Today I ran in the 1st Annual Highland Alumni Huff and Puff. Nothing amazing happened, so there's nothing really to write about it. So I figured I'd reuse an old blog entry from when I was in the Czech Republic. This is from a race that I ran after my first month in Prague.  I enjoyed the race very much, so I've been wanting to put this in there, so I figure today is as good a reason as any.  So here it goes

September 21 2003
Two big things happened today. Today is our first luniversary of being in Prague and J-dawg and I ran in the Mattoni Grand Prix. The Mattoni Grand Prix is a 10K (6.25 miles) race through downtown Prague. It was very exciting and very tiring. Danny and I went down to Staré Město (the Old Square) early and watched the women's 5K and some of the Barman race. The 5K (3.125 miles) was interesting because it's fun to watch women run who run 5K faster than I will ever be able to run it.
The Barman race was stupid. It was just a bunch of people who work in bars running around with Mattoni water trying not to drop it. We watched a little bit of it, but then decided to stretch for the race.
Finally we got to the men's race. J-dawg and I stretched while we waited for the ones in charge to announce the important people (a few Kenyans and some Czechs) then they fired the gun. At first I was very upset because there was this mass of people that were in my way. I had to dodge slow, chubby old people, I kept having to slow down, and I had to run all around to get around these slower people that started ahead of me somehow. But it wasn't too long before I got out of most of them and I was with the big dogs (or at least the other people who were running approximately my pace). As time went on fewer and fewer people were with me.
Just before the half way point, this guy in a yellow shirt flew past me. For some reason I looked down and I noticed that the chump wasn't wearing any shoes. Not that he wasn't wearing good shows or that he wasn't wearing running shoes, but the crazy guy just plain wasn't wearing any shoes. Not only that, but he was booking. I thought to myself, I can't let a guy with no shoes beat me, but he got pretty far ahead. When I finally reached the half way point I turned up the heat ever so slightly. I had 5 kilometers left and I wanted to do the second half faster than the first. At about 7 Kilometers a nice guy that I caught up with offered me something to drink, despite germs and such I was thirsty enough to gladly accept. I was surprised at how much energy this gave me and at 8 kilometers I caught up with the shoeless wonder.
He and I passed eachother back and forth for most of the rest of the race. But finally when I reached the home stretch I turned up the heat a little bit more. I was passing people left and right; it felt great. And I also passed my barefooted friend.
I was coming up to the finish line. 40 feet to go, 30 feet 25 feet, and as 20 feet came up someone passed me. It was terrible; I have no idea who he was nothing in my life would change if I did or didn't beat this guy; but still I was hearbroken at the idea of this guy beating in the last second. But I decided I could not let him pass me. I was already tired from running the last kilometer, but I went full tilt. The announcer noticed our small battle and started yelling something all I understood was my number. I imagined that he was saying, "366 is coming up right behind on his tail." Finally, with a few feet to go I passed him and crosed the finish line. I hadn't done anything amazing. I had finished in just under 45 minutes but I won the battle at the end and I was satisfied. Ohh yeah...I was also dead tired. I couldn't bend down to take of the ankle thing. I could barely carry the bags they handed me or the medal. I gladly took an apple and a water, found a shady corner, rested, and ate my apple basking in my personal glory. Anyway, it was great fun, and now I'll be pumped for a while for the marathon in May.

Note: I didn't end up running in the marathon (I'm a sissy)

   My little sister's name is Ann. I love my little sister. I often enjoy coming up with silly nicknames for her. And she's cool with it, so it makes it all the better. Here, I'll give you a few examples.

   My Freshman year in college I took French. It was the first foreign language that I took and really liked. So anyway, the french word for sister is soeur. When converted to American-English sounds it's very extremely a lot close to "sir." Here I found a jackpot. I could give my sister an endearing foreign language nickname, and I could call her "sir."
  This was especially great when she had friends over who had never heard this name before. Her friends would be there and I'd treat her just like I normally do, and I would continue to call her "sir." Finally, when her friend and she were safely in the private confines her of own room, her friend would timidly and with a touch of astonishment ask, "Did he call you 'sir'?"
  Ann would smile and presumably explain that "soeur", which sounds like "sir", isn't actually "sir," but "soeur," which is loosely pronounced like "sir," but again is not actually "sir," but "soeur." But my sister isn't the biggest fan of foreign langauges so I like to imagine her response being something more like: "Yes, I endeavor that he would address me as 'Ann.' And he only says, 'Yes, sir.' I emphatically cry out, 'My name is ANN', and his lone response: 'No sir, I don't like it!'" (Okay so I wanted to quote Mr. Horse, so sue me.)
  Later I added onto this, yet this addition wasn't nearly as welcome by my sister. We had soeur for sister, but if you say my sister it's "ma soeur." This one I started using whenever she'd tell me what to do, though I'd put more emphasis on the "ma" and and make it into a negro slave 'a'. Which would produce, "Massur" (I'm not sure exactly how to spell it, but you know what sound I'm shooting for.) She said it sounded like I was talking like a slave (which was the point) and she didn't like it so I only got to use it a few times.

  There's another name that I've enjoyed. Remeber the old Ace Ventura movies? There's a word that Jim Carrey says a lot in the moves, whenever something happens. The word is mandinga. So anyway, this was well after the movies came out and were forgotten by some, but I was using the word anyway, cuz it was fun. So I'd be talking to my little sister, and she'd say something worth an explative like, "Raisin Bran has two scoops." or "Our male dog Andrion is going to have babies." I'd say, "Mandinga," or more commonly "Mandinga Ann." Gradually this would morph into "Mandinga Anndinga." And finally I began to simply call her Anndinga. This one has been one of my favorite nicknames for my sister.

  There's another one that I've been using for a while. I will admit that I actually stole it from someone, but this person was using it ineffectively, and I figured I could get more milage out of it. I have at least one friend, whose name starts with 'A,' and my cousing started calling him "A". She tried to explain to him that it was hip or the fashnizzle. But she and he didn't see eye to eye, so it only lastest little more than a week. A couple months (or quite possibly years) after my cousin gave up, I started calling my sister, A. And my sister seems to like it just fine. So anyway, here's my confession that "A" is not a Korben Rusek original. 

  The most recent one happened just last Sabbath. Our church was at the nursing home and we were singing to them. I can't remember exactly what the song was about, but simply that it mentioned our/an "ancestor." I immediately thought to myself, they're singing about Ann, my "Ann-sester." (If you don't understand how that name came about, then I'm sorry.) I turned to her and said, "You're my Ann-sester." Seeing as how I'd given her no explanation and just called her my "ancestor", she just gave me a normal confused stare. After I explained it to her, she was farely impressed. But either way, I like it and it'll go along well with soeur and confuse her friends just as well.
  So on to the point (I guess) of this entry. The very next day, Sunday, I got together with a bunch of my friends to talk about a Star Wars parody that we are planning (It'll be pretty funny, but if you love conservative environment destroying politics, or almost pansy liberals, then please don't get upset at me). But anyway, we were talking about the Darth Vader-ish character and the Luke-ish one, and someone said, "We can have the Vader-ish one say, 'Luke-ish, I am your ancestor.'" Mandinga, this made me laugh, seeing as how I was going to play the Luke-ish character and someone would say that to me. I tried to explain it to them, "You know ancester: Ann-sester, get it Ann--Sester." Yeah, they didn't get it either.

  I've been sick for a few days now. It started very early Tuesday. Yesterday my mom, a Nurse Practitioner, was talking to my grandmother, a grandmother, on the phone. I heard her say, "Yeah he's got something with flu-like symptoms." I assumed that that meant that it was like the flu, but not the flu, whatever that meant. I also assumed that that meant I could give it a name.
   So how about something exciting like, "La Grippe"? But I come to find out that name is already taken. Apparently there's already a sickness called "La Grippe," but they don't even call it a sickness; they use the silly word "Pandemic," whatever that is. So I need a better name for my "flu-not flu."
   So back to the drawing board. Well I don't know what it is, so I could go for something like, "What is it?" But in order to make it sound good in English, I'd have to have it in a different langauge. So I shot for Hebrew and got "Manna." But apparently that one is also taken, who'd a thunk it? It was used for bread from heaven, and I certainly don't want to call my "flu-not flu," "Bread from heaven."
   So I give up and we'll just call it, "Korben's flu-not flu."

  Let me tell you a little bit about my sickness. On Tuesday morning I woke up with a temperature of 102. I don't remember most of the day cuz I slept during most of it. I had moved to the couch and fallen asleep around 10am, my mom came home around 5pm and I had just woken up. She asked me if I wanted to watch some TV. I thought to myself, "I went to sleep around 10am, so she must be here for lunch or something. She's crazy there's nothing good on TV at noon, they just have soaps and game shows (which I admit the game shows are farely interesting at times)." But anyway, I thought it was funny cuz she shortly left to go see some more patients and I went to my computer and say that she wasn't crazy; I was.
  Ok, on to Wednesday. Tuesday I ate nothing and drank very little. So I woke up at like 4 on Wednesday, dying of thirst. I layed in bed for almost an hour before I decided water wouldn't come to me. I crawled out of bed and headed out my room. I went out the door, and the next thing I new I was in the floor of the computer room and my body was hurting and I had no idea where I was or why I was there. (For those of you who don't know. From my room you go up the stairs, through the living room and a hallway and take a quick right and your in the computer room.) As you can imagine it is pretty freaky having no idea where you are or even why your there. After I decided no one had kidnapped me and it wasn't all some elaborate terrorist plot, I got up and found my way to the couch to wait about 30 minutes till my mom's alarm clock would go off and I could ask her to get me some water.
  Now comes Thursday. Thursday was generally a better day than the others. I still couldn't sit at my computer for an extended period of time, so I got an old laptop with a wireless card and lay on the couch. The first problem was that I couldn't get the laptop on the internet. I soon gave that up and switched to trying to pass the time playing games on the laptop. I found that "korben's flu-not flu" does a number on your mental processes. I tried Free Cell, but just couldn't think clearly enough to decide on all the layers of cards and such. Next I went to Minesweeper, another great game I haven't played in a long time. But I just couldn't make myself enjoy it. That being a windows 98 machine I was out of options, so I had to resort to Solitaire. Now I mean no offense to those of you who may enjoy solitaire, but I find many games much more stimulating. Anyway, my sickness made me resort to solitaire. After playing for about an hour I only beat it once, I think.

So enough rambling about my "Korben's flu-not flu."

Last week (mostly Thursday morning between midnight and 6) I read a book entitled, "The History of Pi", by Petr Beckmann.

Obviously, since I read most of it one sitting (or lying) I found it to be a rather interesting book.

The book is full of stories of some of the most genious mathematicians of known history: people like Archimedes, Euler, and Newton. Besides just things they did with pi it also talks about how their discoveries led to further knowledge about pi. There are also stories about not so brilliant people, weirdos of late who decided pi was exactly equal to 256/81 or 3, and attempts at legislating the value of pi (whatever that would accomplish).

From time to time he also got sidetracked with a little bit of history surrounding the time that things did or didn't happen. Highly notable were the times when mathematics wained. This is the only part that I didn't enjoy in the book. At times he seemed to say, "Stupid religion killed mathematicians and scientists and slowed the progress of knowledge acquisition." While it is true that confused religious zealots killed many of the world's great minds and many who could have become the world's great minds, this does not imply that religion is the one to blame.

Though he claims not to be a mathematician I still believe he should see the flaw in this implication. Let me try to explain why.

Many people outside of America hate Americans. Why is this? They see what America, or its leaders, does and they immediately blame the people. Anyone who thinks logically will see the flaw. When I was in the Czech Republic I ran into people who disliked me right off the bat. This wasn't because of my charming personality or my dashing good looks; it was because they projected the evils (or perceived evils) of America onto me. Now if we had sat down and talked about our differences they would have found that I actually agree (to a lesser extent maybe) with them in that America has done and currently is doing bad things. But we didn't have that talk, so they continued to believe I was a war-mongering American Imperialist scum. 

Now if I'm walking along the streets and I come across a German, I don't say, "You pig! Don't you know what Germany did in World War II? How can you live yourself?" Or when I come across a Frenchman, I don't curse them for the innocent lives lost in the French Revolution. And finally, when I meet a Muslim, I'm not dumb enough to accuse that man of the atrocities of 9/11, even though the men involved were muslim and as they died they were praising Allah.

The flaw is obvious. Someone's actions don't necessarily typify the actions of another. And neither do someone's actions typify the ideal of a group to which they belong. And it just bothers me when people do not see the flaws in their stereotypes of religion.

That's at least a part of my take on it. Hopefully, it makes sense.

A little background for those who don't know: PDE (Differential Equations 2 or Partial Differential Equations) is one of my many math classes this semester. To take PDE you must first take Calculus 1, Calculus 2, Differential Equations, and have at least a passing knowledge of bacis Algebra. The point here is not to say, "Look at me I'm smart," but to say, "Look at me I like math."

So anyway, the other day I was sitting in PDE while we were doing some farely interesting PDEs. I realized something that I had realized at the end of my first semester of DE. There was just something that didn't strike me as so interesting. I couldn't precisely pinpoint it, but I decided to blame it on too much Algebra. In DE or PDE you end up with really long equations that need a page or more just for simplification, so it must have been too much Algebra...

But wait!! I love algebra, don't I? Maybe I was a late bloomer, but highschool Algebra was when I realized (to my social horror) that I loved math. Now I'll tell anyone that I love math, but at that point it seemed to me that it was something that you weren't supposed to tell anyone, cuz it was cool to hate math. But anyway, algebra was when I discovered my calling; when I discovered that math was my thing. So then why in the world should that be my reason for not enjoying DE as much as possible? As you can see this greatly confused me: knowing algebra was my first math love and at the same time blaming it for the foul taste I found in DE.

After much deliberation, my mind told myself this little story as an attempt to explain itself to itself, so I'll translate it to english as best as possible (my mind speaks think, not English...that's why writing classes are difficult for me and math is so easy):

A couple years ago I decided I wanted to download the Bible in MP3 format. I searched for a long time and finally found one for free at http://www.audiotreasure.com. Now I could have right clicked on each individual chapter of the bible and clicked "save as" and so on. But instead I found a list of books of the bible, and wrote a program to make a list of the links I wanted to download. Then I gave that list to a program called get right and it downloaded them while I did something else. Now I had the books of the bible on my computer. I really didn't like the way they were organized or the lack thereof. I wanted each book to have it's own directory. Again I could have right-clicked in the proper window and selected "New Folder" and then renamed it to "01_Genesis" and continued inductively for the next 65 books. But I could also shoot myself, and I didn't want to do either. So I wrote a program that created the directories and stuck the files in them. I then wanted playlists for each separate book of the Bible, and again I wrote a program.

So what's the moral? Maybe it's obvious, but the moral is I can't stand doing such tedious monotonous work. The moral is, "I'm not a computer." It's the computer to do mindless boring calculations. After realizing some of the amazing power of computers (I didn't start programming till late in highschool), my mind started to become more and more resistant to doing such monotonous work. So when I was in the end of my first semester of DE, my mind was trying to tell myself, "Hey bub, we only do this kinda stuff to a certain extent and you're about to cross the line. You better watch it, or I'm gonna go postal!" So the verdict is that my mind has decided that all this algebra is the work of a computer, not of itself.

So have I given up on DE or PDE, heck no. Thankfully I've found that I can connect to a computer at school from my house and run either maple or mathematica and happily delegate that kind of work to a mindless computational beast. Thank you Mathematica for saving me from hating DE.

It seems that lately there have been a lot of people (women mainly) trying to get me hooked up with somebody. It amazes me the things they will do or say and the illogic they will go to when setting up a couple is their goal. I'll tell you a few stories that at least I find humorous.

  It all starts with this lady in my church. She's about my mother's age (I'll give the lady 45-55). Anyway, she'd been trying to get me to date her niece. I had never (and still never have) met her neice, so she decided to describe her to me with all the qualities that a respectable young church-going man would seek out in a woman. So we're at church and she's telling me all the wonderful things about her neice. Things like: "she's so nice," "she's so pretty," "she's so smart," and continuing on in that vein until she begins to run out of synonyms. So she finally ends with the best she can come up with; she says, "And she's got really big..." as she prematurely ends this hanging sentence her hands go toward her boobal area and make a cup-like fashion. 
  Holy wow, I was floored. I couldn't believe this lady would do this, especially at church (it just seems wrong.) Although maybe, I should have been quick, like my boy Jason suggested, and said something like, "How about in the sack? Is she a ravenous animal in the sack?"

  Next comes a lady who taught me through many years of my schooling. She also goes to my church, so we won't use names but we'll say she thinks of herself as "Matchmaker Joanernational." She's usually not quite so improper about her expressions regarding the ladies. There's this one girl that she's always thought I should date (for protection of the innocent we'll call her "Ana-sooz.") Anyway, Ana-zoos found herself a boyfriend and the lady from church was bummed and she told me about it. But then her husband (call him...umm...boB) changed to subject. We started talking about one of the Math teachers at UAS, a university that I went to. boB told me that he and the teacher talked about me and my brother. I told boB that I was thinking about getting my PhD in Math and teaching there. Quickly Joanernational piped up and said, "Yeah! You could teach there and find a wife!".
  Yes, I know; "haha,  that's funny." But the scarey thing is that I don't think she was joking, I think she was actually serious, because she added onto the end, "you'll graduate young and so you could find a girl there that's not too young for you." I didn't know what to say...It just seemed so wrong. The idea of saying, "yeah I'll teach at UAS (that's what we're calling the school),  and find me a wife!"

  Now on to the last one. Well call this person (I need to find a new encryption scheme) moM. Her desire to get me a girl is more recent. But no less illogical. She just recently went to Nebraska (I live in TN...that's 15-17 hrs away) with my sister to look at a school. When she was there she called me to let me know she had found the "perfect" girl for me. I forget her name, so we'll call her "Iforgethername." But she told me that "Iforgethername" was such a sweet, nice, and pretty girl.
  Sure it's sweet and all that she wants to find me a girl, but I tried to explain to her that Nebraska is 15-17 HOURS away, a little to far for my tastes. But no, she had expected that. she already had a foolproof response for that one. So here's her response:
"Oh, well next year she's planning on going to school at home instead of Nebraska."
"Fine, where's home."
"Oh, she's from "Iforgetthecity," Maryland."
Ohh, she had me foiled on this one, see it's much better. Instead of the 15 hours I had thought it would be to drive to see my true love, she had cut it down to a measely 12 hours...what logic, what logic.
(p.s. moM if you are reading this, I do love you, I just find this seeking a girlfriend for me silly.)

Anyway, that's the end of my three stories. I hope you find them as interesting/humorous as I found then un comfortable.

The other day I went to walmart to get some new blades, so I could shave with something less than a year old. As I was walking through the isles I noticed all sorts of new-fangled razor blades. There's the vibrating Mach 3, the four-bladed Quattro Pro, and the mp3 integrated iBlade. To some extent at least, I find the evolution of razor blades interesting. I imagine a bunch of guys who work for some razor blade company sitting around the current model trying to figure out what the next big thing for razor blades should be:

"Let's put a toothbrush on the other end: the Mach Total."
"No. If the get the ends confused, it could be disastrous."
"How about a scientific calulator: the Sensor Tensor."
"No. It'd have to be a joint venture with HP or something."
"Let's connect it to the internet: the Braun Bluetooth."
"No. No one likes the internet, besides what if it gets a virus and takes over the world?"
"Wait, I've got it! Lets add another blade!!"
"Brilliant, now that's thinking."

Then I begin to wonder how much they pay the genius who comes up with the idea of an extra blade. Maybe I should take the queue and start my own razor blade company. If I created the Rusek HenDeco, my company'd be years ahead of it's time.

So anyway, back to my original story...Not being a big fan of razors that look like spaceships I use a Sensor Excel (an old school two-blade jobby.) I bought some blades for it, and went on my merry low-tech two-blade way. This morning when I finally got around to shaving I found that the box came with a sensor 3 (umm...three blades) blade. Now, if I were just a Computer Science major I wouldn't have done this. But I'm also a math major, so I have a scientific mind of sorts (you gotta ask Stefan about that.) So I wondered what the difference is (if any) between the two-blade blade and that extra high-tech blade. I decided to shave half my face with the two-blade and the other half with the three-blade. I lathered up and began my adventure. (I know the story has been exciting so far, so here's the anti-climactic ending) So, I shaved one side with 3 blades and the other with two, and I didn't notice any difference. It kinda discouraged me, but if it makes you feel better I did nick myself a little bit with that stupid extra blade. So I guess my dreams of the Rusek HenDeco will never be...but I've never used a woman's razor, so I could still, in good conscious, make the Ruskova HenDeca.