Monday, September 08, 2003

 

The Seattle Seahawks played their opening game of the season at home and miracle of miracles, they won!
I went to my first football game in Seattle in the new stadium yesterday. It is a nice place, but I really liked the Kingdome. The dome had a reputation as being the loudest in recorded history. Anyway, exactly 17 years ago, on the opening day of football season, which this game was for this year, Seattle won over New Orleans by a score of 27 to 10. It was a good game and the weather cooperated. Rain was forecast, but the rain held off. It was overcast, however, and cooler than it has been for the last couple of weeks, like 10 weeks. For the last 10 weeks, it has been over 70 every day and as high as 90. Yes, 10 weeks without any rain and temperatures well above average for this time of year with almost every day a cloudless sky. Anyway, I spent a bundle of bucks. You can't bring anything in with you, so no cooler with refreshemets like I used to bring into the Kingdome. It used to be only glass containers were not allowed, but now it is everything except maybe a sandwich in a clear plastic bag. Damn the security since nine-eleven. I knew this, so I brought nothing, and that is why I spent a bundle of bucks. Stadium food and drink are very expensive and the game goes on for over 3 hours, which is too long to go without some form of refreshment, so I paid the price. At least I didn't drive over on the ferry but walked on with a small backpack with my radio, a book and the Sunday newspaper. On the ferry, I watched the scenery go by instead of reading the paper. I always find myself just observing what goes by when I am on the ferry to Seattle or coming back. The only time I don't is when it is too dark to see anything, and even then, I like looking at the lights. I always go outside to the front, sometimes the back when I am on the way home. I like to see the Seattle skyline when it appears, and the lights at night when I leave. Seattle has a glow to it which is a warm and comforting color. It does not have a cold harsh light at night as some cities I've seen. Maybe it is all of the sodium iodide street lamps. A while back they started replacing mercury vapor lamps with high pressure sodium iodide lamps, for 2 reasons, the mercury, and less power. The difference is the sodium lights are yellow-white whereas the mercury vapor is blue-white, which gives the light it gives off a "warmer" tone. Blue is cold, yellow is warm. After the game, I walked around Seattle for quite a while, just wandering, since I had not just wandered with no purpose other than to look around for a long time. I found a small place in the oriental district (which they have renamed the international district. It was the oriental district when I first visited Seattle in 1970, so that is how I will always know it. In 1970, a round trip as a walk on cost $1.70, $0.85 each way, and back then, the ferry system used to donate tickets to the YMCA for military in Bremerton to use!) to have dinner and had an excellent combination dinner of tempura, sticky rice and grilled vegetables with a bit of sake to wash it all down. Anyway, the significant event today was the opening game of the season for the Seattle Seahawks, and they won, something they have not for 17 years. Oh, another thing, on the ferry, I was playing a trivia game with some people. The question was, how high can you count using all of your fingers and toes? My answer, 2 to the 20th power minus 1, which is the correct answer. I had to expalin it to them. All of the others said 20! Then I explained about counting in binary with a finger up being 1 and a finger down being 0. Consider just one hand, 2 to the 5th power minus 1. All fingers (and thumb) down represents 00000, and all fingers being up represents 11111. In binary, 11111 is equivalent to 31, 2 to the 4th (16), plus 2 to the 3rd (8), plus 2 to the 2nd (4), plus 2 to the 1st (2), plus 2 to the 0th (1), powers, which added together equals 31. For all 20 digits, this means a bit over a million in all. Think about it, 32 x 32 x 32 x 32 - 1 is the total. This represents all 20 digits being raised, which is why it is minus one, as if all went to zero it means carrying a 1 to the 21st place. Of course, there is a practical problem to consider, remembering which digits are up and down and knowing how to count in binary, but the question did not ask about what was practical, but what was possible, and I can (maybe) count to over a million just using the 20 digits on my hands and feet. Is it just me or are these people really that naive about what I call simple math? I've noticed people do not know (or maybe refuse to take the time to think about it) how to do what I call, simple arithmetic. Cashiers can't make change unless the machine tells them exactly how much. Give a cashier $5.02 to pay a bill of $4.87 and they have to ask the machine to figure out the change is $0.15! Really! I've had this happen. I ran up a $4.87 charge on the way back today buying some munchies for the ferry trip back home. I handed the clerk a $5 bill, and then I said, wait, I have a couple of pennies, and then after the $5 bill, I gave the cashier 2 pennies. The register said I should get $0.13 in change and me adding 2 pennies so I would get a dime and a nickel instead of a dime and 3 more pennies, confused the issue. I could not believe the amount of confusion I saw on the cashier's face until I explianed how it worked out, 5.02 minus 4.87 equals 0.15, a dime and a nickel. The look of relief at learning this was like the light bulb over the head of a character in the comic strip. I tell you, it seems to me our society is raising a bunch of semi-illiterate people who lack the basic skills to get by in life. It is so sad to observe this kind of thing in people today, and the real problem is that I seem to notice it more and more as time goes by. Like I said, it was so sad to see the look of confusion on a simple math problem involving only 2 pennies, a dime and a nickel.

Posted by: Rowlfe - at: 9/08/2003 09:02:00 AM

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