Wishing You A Festive Week

Merry felicitations and salutations to you and your loved ones for the Holidays.  I am off to the airport for my trip to Las Vegas.  Viva!  This blog will resume its normal activities upon my return after Christmas.

Almost Perilous Travel

I was unsure this year about where I was going to be spending Christmas.  Basically it came down to New York City or Las Vegas.  In the end I ended up booking a trip to Las Vegas and this seems fortuitous as there is a blizzard striking the Northeast.  I almost always make the wrong choice when faced with two possible futures so no doubt there will be a karmic cost to this.  I leave in the morning, weather permitting, and hopefully there will be some mild debauchery on the agenda.  I am not sure if or when my brother will be able to get out of there to join me on my trip but I assume that he will emerge from New York City eventually.

So I am dutifully packing.  The cats became concerned when I pulled out  the suitcase and are circling around, giving me reproachful looks.  No doubt my best bet is to bribe them with copious amounts of catnip.

The Greatest Gift

I set out yesterday to write about the commercialization of  Christmas and what the meaning of a great gift really is, but I could not really come up with something more apt than a piece I wrote before my stroke, so I reposting it now.  My father has been gone for a long time but I think this epitomizes his spirit in a small way.

In 1972, I was eight years old and very acquisitive.  My father was rapidly becoming affluent and presents which had been unthinkable and out of reach, were now possible.  There were many toys that I wanted and I apparently composed endless lists and obsessed about what I might be getting during that Christmas season.  On Christmas Eve my father took me with him on a last minute shopping expedition.  I was excited.  Might I be getting some good toys?

Instead he took me into New York City to a homeless shelter in the neighborhood where he grew up.  He had apparently been going there every year bringing food and helping to serve dinner on Christmas Eve.  Everyone knew him there.  He had gifts for the staff and food and money for the people in the shelter.  I had no idea what was going on, but I knew that this was not what I had in mind.

I was assigned to help wash dishes.  We stayed for only a few hours but those hours have stayed with me, simmering in my subconscious.  I was shocked to see children my age who had nothing, most of them not even functioning parents.  Many of the people there were mentally ill and made no sense to me.  I remember wanting desperately to leave.  Each time I went to complain to my father he would say:

"You are right, it is awful here.  That's why they need your help."

I have no idea what toys I received for Christmas that year, but I do know that I received a great gift.  I have not always honored this gift as well as I might, but I would like to say, more than thirty-five years late, thanks Dad. 

Keep It Down

So I was playing the guitar this afternoon, working on my Christmas carols, when I heard a banging on my wall.  One of my neighbors then shouts, “turn it down, it’s the middle of the day!”  In a few hours it will be three in the morning.  Almost time to start practicing again.

Thought For The Day

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Mohandas Gandhi

Glogg

As we move deeper into December in Chicago, it is now Glogg season. Glogg is a mulled wine as prepared in Nordic countries and since I live very close to Andersonville, a traditional Swedish enclave where it can be found in many of the shops, restaurants and stores in that part of the city, I am lucky enough to have it firsthand. If you find yourself in Chicago during this season you should stop in Andersonville and get yourself some Glogg. If you have never heard of Glogg you can read about it here. If you are really handy you can make some yourself, here is a good recipe.

Around And About In Chicago

Dim Sum

I had Dim Sum this morning at one of the better Dim Sum places in Chinatown, Shui Wah.  If you ever find yourself in Chicago’s Chinatown it is a must not miss treat.  I took a few pictures with the dreaded phone camera so you could have a peek:

Free Holiday Album

Available from I-tunes here.

Cristkindlmarket

It is a balmy 9 degrees (f) this morning, after the temperature was much closer yesterday to zero, so I am headed today for the Cristkindlmarket, an annual German Holiday festival in the Loop at Daley Plaza.  So you should head down there t00 and I will buy you an important Holiday pretzel and a celebratory stollen holiday cake!

Puzzling

I can’t sleep so I am flipping through the channels on my television when I come upon a rerun of the dreadful television series from the 1980s, “Murder She Wrote.”  This starred Angela Lansbury and seemed to be about a woman who often was places where people were murdered and then she would then proceed to solve those murders.  While I never really watched the show I always wondered after the first season or so, when she had solved dozens of murders already, how did she keep getting invited places?  I mean wouldn’t you run screaming from the room if she came over your house?  I mean this clearly meant someone was about to die.  And if you were planning on killing someone that day wouldn’t you delay your plans when you saw that meddling women waddle into view?

Lunch

Table Talk

I am sitting at a poker table, patiently folding hand after hand, when a sleazy looking guy in his twenties sits down to the spot on my left.  After a bit he remarks to the comely dealer at the table, “You know, you really are fine.   We should hook up later after your shift is over.”

The dealer, without pausing as she dealt the cards, replies, “I am sorry sir, but I am not permitted to date outside my species.”

Gift Help

The US Postal Service has an annual "Letters to Santa" program here in Chicago and in other Cities, which gives needy children the opportunity to get gifts during the holidays. You can read about this worthy program here.   To see if a post office in your area is participating you can click here.

Anyway I am seeking gift suggestions for young children as part of this program.  Any help appreciated.

Thought For The Day

"The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you're off it."

Jackie Gleason

Timely Libation

Because it is snowing there can be only one drink for today:

Snowball

• 2 oz Advocaat Liqueur
• 4 oz 7Up
• ice

Sugar the rim of the glass.  Add ingredients.  Stir.  Drink.  Make snowman.

Advocaat liqueur is from Holland and is made from egg yolks, brandy, vanilla and sugar.  It is sweet and creamy and perfect for a holiday cocktail.

Word For The Day

wassail, noun and verb – n,  1) A salutation or toast given in drinking someone's health or as an expression of good will at a festivity. 2) The drink used in such toasting, commonly ale or wine spiced with roasted apples and sugar.3)  A festivity characterized by much drinking. v., 1) To drink to the health of; toast.

Free Christmas Music

Amazon is offering some free Christmas MP3’s which are available here.

Thought For The Day

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

Confucius

Monty Hall Problem

I first read the following problem in Parade Magazine in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant,

"Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice? "

The answer to this problem is yes!  By switching, your chance of winning the car is doubled.

When the person makes their initial choice, there is a 1 in 3 chance that they will choose the door with the car behind it.  Thus, there is a 2/3rds chance that one of the other doors has the car behind it.  When Monty opens another door and you see the goat, there is still a 2/3rds chance that the player has not chosen the door that contains the car.  Therefore, if you switch, there is now a 2/3rds chance that you will have chosen the door with the car behind it.

Looked at from another view point: if you switch you will ensure you will win if you picked a door that has a goat behind it.  The chance that there was a goat behind the first door you picked was 2/3.  Thus you should switch.

My more talented mathematical friends would probably use Bayes’ theorem to show this.  I drew a diagram flow charting the options which helped me to conceptualize this.  It is interesting that many people will intuitively get this question wrong and will have a hard time accepting the answer even after you diagram it for them.  I do not know what this says about human nature except we are innumerate as a culture or a species.