Life: Why the 'd' in fridge but not refrigerator? Why I never thought of this before?

While trying to create an application to track why appliances, I wanted to build a list of common alternative spellings including misspellings of words to make it easier to find things. This brought me to search for alternative spellings for refrigerator.

The first article that came up was why is there a 'd' in fridge but not refrigerator. I already knew how to spell both but it has never occurred to me to ask why it is different. Of course once I thought about it, it made sense why it was that way.

I have always thought that I was pretty good at picking out these kinds of particularities. This experience has really grounded me more on my thought biases and how my mind over simplifies things.

For those who wanted to know the answer, this site does a pretty good job explaining: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/fridge-vs-frig-spelling-short-for-refrigerator.

Other pages seem a miss a point here and there.

LIFE: I am sad that I find coupons and discounts still feel too expensive to buy

Just received some coupons for fast food restaurant. I remember in my youth when these were great deals, but now even the discounted price seems too high too buy. 

$X.00 off? No longer even 50% off the item good.

BUY 1 GET 1 for $X.00? No longer BOGO?

Plus how expensive fast food is lately, I can only count my blessing that I am past the age of convenience. Inflation is also crazy... X%? It's more like 200%. My groceries typically cost around $100 just a year ago but now $300 for the same items.

Scammish: MtGA still rigged... un-retirement

Saw a new update and wanted to try it out.

Some cool new features... experience is still poor.

MTGA random stats?

There are lot of pages discussing the RNG of MtGA and how it is well distributed or even slightly biased. None seems to be close to my playing experience.

All the studies are based on numbers by WotC, so I am just going to say BS on whatever they publish. I do not believe the people who are saying good things about the MTGA RNG. Do not belittle the posters that the negative outcomes are due to the sheer number of games that we play or that our memory only remembers negative events more prevalently.

Rigged opponents

I have been playing black for a couple days. 60+ games and a couple red aggros. Lots of white aggros. Still lots of droughts and floods with a 24/60 land ratio.

Today went back to my red aggro deck. 20+ Suddenly half of my opponents are red aggros. No white aggros.

RNG? Cheating?

3 games in a row. I play against someone who had at least two Wandering Emperor.

1 game with 2 four-of-a-kind cards within 8 rounds

There are pairs of cards that I always see with opponents like Djinn / Tolarian Terror, Sheoldred / Obliterator, etc. Do I ever just see one? Nope. Do I ever get both? Nope. I will concede that it is likely that a mono-blue deck have a higher chance due to the amount of cards that it draws... but the consistency is still too high. 

Opponent rarely floods or droughts

Ever notice that the opponent never gets stuck on two lands? I have seen that maybe twice in the last half year. Maybe if you include everyone that quits without playing, that is maybe once a day.

Ever notice that opponent multi-color deck always has the right lands? I've played against many 5-color decks and they have all 5 colors with their first 5 lands. With duress, I even saw one that only had 2 of the same land then drew 4 lands of each other color and play Jodah by round 5.

Yet when I play 2-color deck, I consistently only get one color. I even mulligan 3 times in a row and drew only one color.

I have droughted several times up to rounds 9 and 10... always stuck with 2 initial lands.

1. 7 draws no lands, (20/60 = 1/3) which is 0.04% or 1:2187. So even if my memory is inflated, I should have seen this once since I started playing. Yet, I see get this daily which is far less than a hundred games. Even if you want to argue weekly, this is a very far cry from expected value.
2. When I flood, half my cards are land. This almost always happen right after I break out of a series of drought.

Bots? Suspicious

Are the bots really bots? Do they leave without playing a card? Do they leave because you kill one creature? Do they chat? Do their cards highlight as if they are looking at the cards?

I guess you could program that... but why? Particularly when there are so many other issues...

Toxic opponents

And for real players, why even have a limited chat options? Why is there no option to auto-mute? "Oops" after I play a card is clearly sarcasm. As much as I do not take it to heart, it still decreases my liking of this game and makes me regret the times that I forget to mute the opponents. Half the "Good games" is un-sportsman where I am afraid to even say Good Game because I do not know if they have something up their sleeve. I also have a hard time responding to people saying Hello but at he same time thankful they reminded me to mute the chat.

Game still crashing

Game still continuously crashing. Every time the phone goes to sleep or locks, the game has to reconnect to the server. No other games I played has this "feature". Also it takes longer for the game to reconnect than to just shut it off and start it up again. So..........

Scammish: (Opinion) MtGA rigged... eventually leading to quitting the game

This may come from me being triggered but it won't change the fact that I am quitting this game. I just lost the last 6 games. Each game the opponents had exactly the mana they needed and the cards they needed to counter my deck.

Again, I played another multi-color deck with Jodah, the Unifier. Guess when it played each and everytime? On the fifth round. One of each color. I barely can get two different lands with a two color deck. I barely even get three lands by the third round. Yet, every multi color deck is able to not only get one of each color but 5 lands.

I played a black deck which always seem to be able to play a Sheoldred by round 4. Then always followed by a Phyrexian Obliterator. If not Sheoldred by round 4, then Obliterator by round 4. I have a black deck with 4 Sheoldred. I barely even get a Sheoldred in a game. So, not only that I have to face this card occasionally but  every mono-black deck.

Then you play a blue counter deck. Play a creature? Create counter. Early game? Counter unless you pay extra obviously no one has extra mana in early game. Play sorcery? Counter that. Play a mix? Exactly the counter they need for it.

Play a Djinn deck? Always by round 4. I have played it so many times that I can tell when I play against one. Basically, if it is not a pure counter deck, it's a Djinn deck.

Cannot leave out that MtGA also loves to play mono-red aggro deck against my own mono-red aggro deck. Yet each time, I either drought or flood.

Prior dry run included 3 games in a row with only 2 lands from a 21 land / 60 deck with at least 11+ draws. Then followed by 3 floods where I drop more than 50% lands in 15+ draws from the same 21 land / 60 decks. If random, this is the crappiest RNG engine. Ending with 3 lands after 17 draws....

That's it. I'm triggered. I'm done with this game. In my opinion, this is a scam. I was happy to pay to play, and I have but now sad that I did. I was happy to play Magic online. But this supposed "RNG" is too ridiculous. If this is a case of just being bad luck, then... well... still quitting.

Some posters say losers don't know how to build a deck and say others don't know what randomness is. I think they are paid "opinions". This sort of randomness is almost on the scale of Zynga's "randomness" which is designed only to feed on people's addictions which in my opinion is a scam. Which makes this scammish but nearly a scam.

#MagicTheGatheringArena

Life: Problem Getting a Travel Visa to Save

I keep getting this error: "The passport or travel document number does not match"

(IV) By clicking the “Save” button found on the bottom of each page what you have completed up to that point will be saved for 30 days. To return to a partially completed application, please click the "Retrieve an Application" button on the homepage and enter your application ID and Passport/Travel Document Number.

I have done this twice already. There are like 10 steps and I have yet to pass step 7. Yet the system either cannot save or cannot load, and there is no way to see what the problem is. I was afraid this was going to happen the second time. So I left the browser open all night but it just went to the main home page again where it asks to create a new application or load.

NOTE (2023-02-26): Still does not work.

Life: Someone attempted to access my Spam Microsoft Hotmail Account

Fortunately, the account they attempted to hack is an account that I use for all non-personal uses. I don't know if anyone has ever successfully hacked my email to my knowledge, but it is likely there may have been a person that I am unaware of. I have changed my passwords multiple times when Microsoft messages that there seems to be suspicious activity.

Changed Password

Today I got that message about two hours ago. I completely forgot my password so I reset the password. It then sends a code to the Authenticator app but I have never set up this account to my Authenticator app so I cannot receive the code. I send it to a backup email. Change password. Signed in, wants to verify with Authenticator app. Changed it back to email. Which then had me change my password again. (All passwords can be repeated so I have to come up with a new password that I am likely to forget again since I rarely use this account except to get verification emails). Finally able to access email and added to my Authenticator.

Suspicious Activity

Quickly went to the account access history and I see a whole list of different countries for the last 3 weeks. The first few activity were 3-8 days apart (Russia, US, and Canada). Then it suddenly bursts into multiple attempts within the last 6 hours which appears to be about 5 attempts per hour. Each time from a different country. 

Why did it take 4 hours for the suspicious activity to be triggered? From activity history after Russia, US, and Canada, there were China, Morocco, India, Mexico, Egypt, Peru, Indonesia, Brazil, Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Iran, Albania, Cambodia, and Spain. All that within 6 hours. It seems it should have triggered after the first hour. Who can possibly travel that quickly or change that many VPNs or that many cloud services in such a short period time with no past history of doing so?

Summary

Looks like someone attempted to hack my email. I changed the password. I find it suspicious why it took so long for the Suspicious activity to be triggered. Fortunately, no harm appears to have been done. History says no successful logins. Even if successful, account isn't used for anything but still sucks to have to remember yet another password.

Life: Yakult in a bottle? YES!!

Ever have those little Japanese yogurt dessert drink? They sometimes serve them frozen at some Korean restaurants (although I haven't seen any in the west coast). I have always been good and only at most one a day when I had a pack at home. "Had" not "bought" because I think they are way too expensive as I rather drink something else for the cost.

After I met my wife and her friends, they all would drink the entire pack in a single sitting. I would still just drink my one realizing I will never have a chance to drink a second one. I just cannot get myself to drink a second one.

Still in the back of my mind, I feel like it is such a waste of money. It would be like if I paid and drank 5 cans of soda when it would have been much cheaper if I just drank a 2-liter bottle. 

Then one day, my wife brings home a bottle! Now I feel much better even though I have absolutely no idea how much the bottle costs. I still do not drink much although it tastes exactly the same. Mostly due to trying to lose weight. If I were fit or skinny, I probably would drink the whole bottle in one sitting.

Whatever the case, I think this is an interest case on how my brain works. They also do the same for the individually packed seaweed packs and I have almost the exact sbrain-breakdown.

Work Life: Gen Z vs the rest - Response to Top 3 workplace practices Gen Z dislike

All generations have these people. Not just at work.

If anything, journalism surely has dipped over the years.

Reference

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-top-3-workplace-practices-that-give-gen-z-employees-the-ick-and-how-to-avoid-them/ar-AA139Dp2?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=5c77c89c73434a75b22253f7dcba07ea#comments

Life: Encouraging People to Learn to Code/Program/Develop

There is a lot of context to baseline here. By people, I mean the general population. By coding, I mean software programming like assembly, C#, or C++ on a very basic level. And the issue I am try to address is why many people find programming too difficult to want to learn.

Although easy and hard are relative, I am going to generalize that when most people say that it is hard, they mean that they do not want to bother learning or even understand it. Yet, they can follow the most complex story lines, office politics, and so many non-standard social norms on a regular basis.

We are in an era where technology is being embedded everywhere. Knowing how to code will likely be needed everywhere whether you are a waiter, box mover, design, doctor, lawyer, president, etc.

To me, the odd part is that coding uses a very tiny subset of our language yet executes the result nearly 100% of the time. So it should not be difficult to at least understand. In some ways, it basically is a simulation of logic.

The troubling part when I hear people not wanting to understand coding is that I "hear" them say that they don't want to understand logic and leaving that for someone else to fix.

Life: One of many things to do after getting a green card (GC) / permanent resident card

After helping a friend who recently received his green card...

If you have bank account(s), make sure to update your account status so that they provide a W-2 otherwise, they will send a W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E.

Life: Fixing Squeaky Door Hinge with White Lithium Grease (by inexperienced almost a year later)

Disclaimer: This information is only provided as an anecdote. I have no knowledge of hinges or grease or any carpentry except for the basic usage of a door. This may or may not work for others.

I just used a screw driver to remove the hinge from the door. Placed it in a box, then used a white lithium grease spray () on the hinge. I do a quick spray across the side then put it upside-down and spray into the center pin of the hinge in hopes for it to drip "down" (towards the top of the pin). I also close/open the hinges in hopes to get the grease moved around in the mechanics.

I have done this on five hinges on three separate doors. This solved all squeaky problems for me. I use this particular grease because it was recommended on a site that I looked up too long ago. I have not used any other grease before so I cannot compare whether this is better than other options.

There were no problems with the hinges. I unscrewed and screwed from bottom to top starting with the half on the door frame. I don't think the order really matters.

So far satisfied with the results. I just completed three hinges. I did two about ten months ago and those doors are still ok.

Reference

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CINVA6/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

- CRC 5037 White Lithium Grease - 10 Wt Oz.

Life: Empathy vs Sympathy

 https://www.6seconds.org/2021/01/20/empathy-vs-sympathy-what-the-difference/

I liked this video. It makes a lot of sense. I am not sure if I totally agree with the definition of empathy and sympathy. I will admit that my definitions may be (probably is most likely) incorrect. But, I understand the point of Brene Brown.

The struggle to help is real. There have been many times where I really just say "I do not know what to say." And I don't feel that it is so easy because while one says it, one still battles the urges to do something. If you say it but don't battle it, then it may come across empty. I feel it is not just words alone but also the expressions that I am also struggling to find an answer... or maybe even to say an answer.

In my mind, there are a lot of questions or "at leasts" but often conclude that it just belittles the feeling or inappropriate for the moment. I think the person who shared the feeling can sense this.

What I like about this video is learning that this feeling is not only normal but the better option.

Work Life: If you need help, pause to listen (also works for normal life)

A close person had asked what sorts of food to make and was clearly asking me for assistance. 

"What food should I make?"

"There isn't much ingredients."

"It is hard to decide."

"Give me a list of things I can make."

And on and on and on...

I even made some attempts to provide some feedback. I tried using handle signal for a pause or a few seconds. Eventually even trying to interrupt. But she just kept on going for 30+ minutes, even repeating questions/statements.

She is definitely not the first person that I interacted with like that. Even at work there are people who just keep on asking, repeating the same question, talking a mile-a-minute, etc. These people at least you can kind of ignore or build a method to get out.

The worst are people who have an open Q&A to a presentation. They use half the time to present, then uses the second half asking for questions, to be open about questions, etc. There would be people with raised hands or try to get attention, but the presenter just keeps on going.

My Advice

1. Be comfortable with very uncomfortable silence

2. Pauses in your speech. 

Why?

1. Some people do not interrupt out of respect. It is more polite to hear the whole thing before responding.

2. Who's helping who? If you are asking for help, it is not my problem that you run out of time.

3. Respect runs both ways. If you do not respect my time, then I am less likely to interrupt you to help you.

(Bonus Skill) Learn to Empathize and Summarize

I understand that most people are unable to understand this so I will give a pass to some people (but know that I will still be irritated inside).

Empathy is your ability to put yourself in someone else's situation and have an interest to help. You do not need to fully understand especially the emotional part. In this case of seeking help, you need to understand who your audience is. Do they know your situation? Do they know the details? Do they know enough to help solve your problem? The counter-balance to this is to also know when too much information is too much information. The easiest is to listen if they have questions. Part of this is also to understand the person is also trying to come up with a solution within a limited period of time that you have spent significantly more time on.

I have no answer how to practice empathy. One of the common tests to see if someone has empathy is by just listening tell you their day. People with low empathy will commonly just jump from story to story with no context. No identifiers to understand that "he" in story 1 is different from "he" in story 2. And when it becomes clearer that story 2 is in place and I speak up, the speaker actually gets more irritated, frustrated, and/or angry.

Maybe I am not a great listener, but an empathetic person should change their speech patterns to their audience. That is essentially what empathy is. I have had little luck in explaining empathy to less-empathetic people. When I explain empathy to highly-empathetic people, I am not really explaining empathy. I am mostly teaching them other points-of-views that they haven't considered, then they go to town with it.

But on the most basic level, if you are asking someone to solve a problem... they need to have all the ingredients to solve the problem. If you lack an ingredient, then they will either say it is unsolvable or they will assume certain values or defaults (whether it is correct or not because maybe it may still help).

On the other hand, do not overwhelm them with information. So learn to summarize. Give as much ingredients as possible that is needed but not too much more than needed.

All this is just to get information from a person one time with little past negative history. To get continued help is another level of empathy. How is this experience going to help or detract some from help you in the future? Some people may help you this time but if the experience is poor, will they help in the future. In summary, empathy is not just a moment but also multi-level. Fortunately if you are starting to understand empathy, some empathetic people will understand and give some leeway. This is probably one of the few things that I believe hard-work and time will help anyone's quest to be more empathetic.

Life: Drinking more water seems to help with night time sleep but not perfect

I still occasionally wake up in the middle of the night. Drinking more liquids throughout the day seem to help with my restless leg syndrome which in turn helps me sleep better. I definitely had more no-wake nights, and definitely better sleep nights even if I wake up.

Having good sleep habits is still good. Some days when I am too exhausted and I take a nap during the day, I have more difficulty staying asleep. Twice that I did this, I ended up just watching videos at night as lying there did not help at all. With nothing to do actually makes my body feel worse. Watching video distracts me from that feeling and I will eventually drift asleep.

I am not sure if I have insomnia as I usually don't have trouble going back to sleep. Majority of the time, I can just move to the couch and fall asleep. I haven't determined if it is because the couch is more firm or because it is cooler there.

In the past, I tend to sleep much better if I keep the windows open because it cooled my room. Recently, I cannot keep the windows open for reasons out of my control. I am also not sure if sleeping with a blanket helps, as I seem to also lose my blank for reasons out of my control. Although, maybe I can just use a second blanket. I do tend to kick my blanket and even my pillow so this may be a very difficult experiment.

Any case... for a period of time, sleeping was getting harder and my restless leg syndrome was getting pretty bad. Drinking more water does seem to significantly help. I have not been perfect and on/near days that I was more dehydrated (in hindsight), I did notice that I had more trouble sleeping.

How much is enough drinking? I typically can drink 3-4 cups a day on a good day. On bad days, I drink almost no cups of water. I do not drink alcohol often. On the couple days where I did drink a decent amount, I usually fall asleep pretty quickly but the quality of the sleep is not as good. I do get buzzed very easily but I don't get drunk easily. I also never had a hangover... not sure if that is related to me never having a headache. So not sure if my advice on drinking will help anyone else. I don't recall having much issue with restless leg syndrome so maybe having liquids help more with that and that in turns help me sleep uninterrupted, and somehow alcohol lowers the quality of my sleep.

Autism Spectrum vs me

I surely do relate to some of the key items of the low-end of the autism spectrum especially when I look back into my past.

I am told that I didn't start speaking till I was four. I do not make eye contact. There are stories that I did not look up at the teacher till second grade. Supposedly, it was such a big moment the first time that I did. The teacher personally stopped by our home to report the "happy" news. I was always very quiet till 15-16.

I probably don't have it, but reading some of the articles help me understand myself in a way where others fail to satisfy my questions. I believe I do a very good job of masking normal behavior.

I believe the biggest factor to my drive to understand to be normal is my insatiable need to understand the world. I ask a lot of questions to that point where people would put their hands up and walk away. Even if I agree with their point of view, I will play devil's advocate to better understand. So this is my drive to go against some of my natural tendencies.

I still struggle with some things like eye contact. When I really get into a conversation, I stop looking... at anything. I couldn't tell the person's facial expression, other conversations, time, place, etc. I get so hyper-focused that I do not sense anything else. Nowadays, I have to conscientiously remember to look at the face. I will naturally look at the mouth at best, but usually will just stare into space. I am really not sure where I am looking at once I am engrossed in a conversation.

The more background noise, the less I am able to understand people. I am terrible when there is noise. Not that it bothers me, but I cannot "hear" what people are saying. Sometimes I wonder if I am deaf but I hear sounds. And I can hear very minute sounds that others cannot hear. But when there any sort of sound, my ability to hear what people are saying drops exponentially while others can hear perfectly fine. I have had little to explain this phenomenon, but the article by Burgess has the best example thus far. On her "spectrum", there is a category for sensory filter. I believe this is where I am rather weak on.

I also struggle with expressing what I feel. I think the problem for me is that I really do not feel anything, especially things to an extreme. I do not really hate, nor do I really love. Things just is. People's fascination with art and music is lost on me. I still go to museums, and I just fail to see what other's see. There is no particular music that I love, none that I hate. I am unable to really mean it when I say that I totally love this song, music, artist, etc. I like the beat, the rhythm, the lyrics, but I approach it more analytically. For me, it is amazing how well they can maintain a beat, how they can change the beat but keep the sound coherent or lyrics that uses limited words that rhyme yet still send a message. Although I do not have extremes, I do have preferences but the reasons seem to still be consistent. If the lyrics is repeated too often (bores me) or distracts me from whatever I am focusing on, then I do dislike the song. But I have not heard anything where I would want to ever consider ripping my ears off. I don't even plug my ears or even change the radio station.

To me bad music is like food that has a bad after-taste. There are food that tastes good and there is food that does not taste good. And that pretty much is the summary of my taste palate. There is very few foods that I dislike. Even fewer where I refuse to eat. But there is nothing I wouldn't try for free, and I would hate to waste money by paying an exorbitant amount of money for something that tastes good. Yes, it tastes better but is it worth paying 2x to 5x the food and labor? I am perfectly fine with eating unsalted boiled chicken. It does not taste great, but not worth $10 for an alternative.

I still consider myself a loner. Ironically, I was told that I was like a social butterfly at the office. This is due to the fact that I go around and talk to people (about work or their social problems). But for me, this activity is extremely exhausting. But I "force" myself because I want to understand. And I learned that people do not share as much information when I do not share some information.

I do get frustrated. This is usually when I am unable to understand more about the situation. But I think the blame really goes to people who do not make very coherent logical steps. Uusually there is still some reason they do things that are more self-centered, for their big ego, etc. I just do not understand why they think that way. I get most frustrated with people who have no interest in self-improvement except to manipulate others for their own life improvements.

From what I have analyzed about people, I find that I have a very different approach to the world. And my biggest worry about this thought is that everyone seem to feel that they are different (like how everyone thinks they are right or good). So how do I actually gauge how different I am?

http://themighty.com/2016/05/rebecca-burgess-comic-redesigns-the-autism-spectrum/

Life: Do I need more water to sleep well at night? Second night experiment

I have been terrible with my water consumption since my last attempt about a month ago, and I haven't been sleeping through the night. Fortunately, I do not stay up (for the most part) and can fall asleep after I move to the couch. I'm not sure why changing my sleeping place helps with my sleep.

Yesterday while cleaning my place, I drank more water and again I was able to sleep without any interruption. Odd part is that I actually feel more tired than usually when waking up. The energy catches up soon though and now I feel I have more energy than usual.

So unsure if water is my problem, but seems suspiciously correlated. It may also have to do with the cleaning and possibly racing the neighbor's kids. I am so out of shape that the little "jog" may have been a workout for my body.

Reference

https://douglastclee.blogspot.com/2021/07/life-do-i-need-more-water-to-sleep-well.html

Buggish: The full path must be less than 260 characters long; other restrictions apply. If the report server is in native mode, the path must start with slash.

One of those moments where I just want to pull my hair out. I had this working last night, and suddenly stopped working. I just spent the last several hours troubleshooting the error: tried different configurations, parameters, figure out how to use Fiddler, several google searches, etc.

The problem/answer was basically that I was using the wrong slashes. The path should be using forward slashes '/' not back slashes '\' and without rdl.

\Folder1\ReportName

Psychology

To give myself the tiniest of credit, I initially solved this while rushing to pick up my daughter. It's a lame excuse but I think it important to why I didn't remember what I did. It worked and I left figuring I could return to see my work.

I think I left my project running and stopped the debugging, so I didn't see what values I ended putting in. This probably wouldn't have helped because I probably wouldn't have looked at the direction of the slash. I figured I had it in the code because I got tired of entering the data so I hard-coded the initial value.

I assumed that was correct and maybe I just put in the wrong path. I tried several paths like http://SsrsServer/ReportServer, http://SsrsServer/Reports/, http://Ssrs/Reports/browse, /folder1/reportName, /folder1/reportName.rdl, and also sorts of permutations of paths and file names.

I do not know why I didn't even check the slashes as that should have been one of the first things to check. To make it worse, I do not know why I even thought of it so suddenly. After this entire ordeal, I recall how I figured it out in the first place was because I used the http path then removed the beginning part. Because it used forward slashes, this fixed my problem.

Sometimes I really find how amazing my brain is at forgetting things.

Work Life: Why do I seem like an enemy when providing fyi? (no answer)

Scenario

A colleague (Bob) who does not report to me became extremely defensive. I suspected that the topic I wanted to share would could be misinterpreted so I had prefaced my call that this is purely informational. I explained that I am not blaming him or blaming anyone. Yet, he really took offense and told me that the process was broken and he will continue to do as he sees fit.

I do know one of the problems was that I am sharing this information because of an issue that came up which was not directly him fault. There is some fault because he made the change directly in production and due to unforeseeable issue, the db team had to restore him db object with one from another environment. Essentially, him change was overwritten. To make matters worse was that he was just on vacation. Him manager had to contact me to get a backup because I audit the promotions. I did not know the origin, and I told him that there has never been a request for that object so I do not have backup. DB did not have a backup because the issue was that it was corrupted... also the DB team did not want to restore an entire enterprise core database just for a single object.

Initially, I called him to let him know what happened since he was not here at the time. The DB team is also implementing processes to audit and log user access which was very loose before. I shared this information, the he started to explain why he had to do what he did. I listened to what he said then I explained that I am not saying that he did anything wrong in the past. Everyone understands people did what they had to before. To address him concern about process, I just shared that we have a process to promote changes. He retorts that the process is too slow so he has to make the changes in production to appease the business. I tried to explain that is not him problem. He continues to reiterate then added that someone needs to define a process (I interpreted that as he is not taking that from me). After a while he continued to repeat herself, and I tried to interrupt because he was addressing poor process. I wanted to share that he will get into policy issues if he continues and that he should take proactive actions. He would not listen and said so directly with "I will not escalate anything" which to me was ironic because he is personally escalating him fixes. So eventually I just let him finish, doesn't ask me any questions,  basically gives me an empty thanks, and hung up on me. 

Since he will not stop doing what he does, I called his manager (Joe). I did not share most of the details from my last conversation. I did tell him that Bob is under the impression that he has to make changes in production to fix the issues. I asked Joe to speak with Bob that he does not need to be concerned with escalating the fix. Bob's focus is to come up with a solution. If my process is too slow for the customer, then that is between the customer, me, and the executive management because my process is dictated from them. My process is typically slow because it requires their approvals. Joe was already on board with my process, probably unaware that Bob did this, and exemplified by these recent issue that he had to support during Bob's absence. I also told him that I am not looking for anyone to get in trouble. I am just trying to keep them from getting in trouble. Joe agrees and will speak with Bob. 

My Thoughts on Above Scenario

First, I felt bad that he thought I was attacking him. Second, I felt a little angry because I am trying to help him by sharing some changes maybe he was not aware of. If anything, he can just ignore my advice and continue as he had before. Third, I felt guilty for being angry.

Then my thoughts turned to an article I read recently about why geniuses have "poor" social skills. I remember my reaction was that geniuses are not the only ones with poor social skills. Every level of intelligence have examples of poor social skills. Back to the topic, one of the comments was that geniuses just don't want to deal with low iq conversations.

Initially I thought that made some sense because the topic is not important to them. Either because they know the answer already (fastest route from A to B) or the topic is inconsequential to their beliefs or values (why did A cheat on B on a scripted show). But after this transaction, I am starting to think the main reasons is that it is just a waste of time.

Either they have to figure it out on their own or they will never understand it. Adding myself to the variable made no difference to the outcome, so why add myself to the problem. So, why do I even bother? I want to see them do well but they do not listen. Even if they listen, they do not do because either they didn't understand or they do not understand the consequence. So if anything, I seem to have made matters worse.

I don't know. I really do feel that I waste more of most people's time. There have definitely been some that it helps. But honestly, it is just tiring to think if I am being more helpful than hurtful.

My Thoughts in General

Then I started thinking of others that have became angry, pissed, upset, or defensive when I was just trying to give some information small or large. In my personal life, I am very sarcastic so I can see some personal relations strained because it seems that I am not very good at explaining what sarcasm is.

So is it maybe me that is the problem? If I could redo my conversation with Bob, what could I have done better? If I didn't have the conversation, then at least Bob wouldn't have gotten unhappy.

I really cannot think of anything to change. Give more apologies? Give more prefaces? The only thing I can think of is to not have brought it up... but then I wouldn't have learned that he was pressured to deliver a fix (as much as I tried to relay that it was not his role to escalate or to resolve the issue).

Another thing that I have trouble explaining to people is that I very rarely get frustrated at people, but I do get frustrated with inefficiencies. For example, people who leave trash near the trash can. Is it really that hard to push it a couple more inches into the trash can? I have to schedule time every week just to clean the pile of trash into the trash, then they complain why I have no time. I explain if they just put in the last 1% effort after they already did 99% of the effort (ie trash, laundry, cling cabinets, turning off the light, locking door, care for things only they care about like garden, plants, etc), they could save me a lot of time. Somehow that conversation always ends up with everyone being upset even though I was only sharing that if they did their part, they would save "me" a lot of time... mind you, I do not bring up this conversation nor have I complained that I do this for them.

I am starting to think transparency is such a farce. Unless people start to be more self-aware, all these things is such a waste of my time. Sometimes I feel like a complete idiot whenever I try. Am I losing hope in people?

Life: Do I need more water to sleep well at night? First night experiment

Lately, I have been waking up in the middle of the night. I also think I have restless leg syndrome at night. I usually go lie on the couch, and somehow that helps me go back to sleep. 

I know I do not drink enough water through out the day, and yesterday was the first time that I reached 5 cups (normal drinking cup not the unit of measure). I cannot remember the last time I even had more than one cup of water. I do drink some milk which I guess could count as some water.

Yesterday randomly, I started drinking more water. I brought the water pitcher to my work desk which reminded me to drink more water. I was wondering why I felt like I had more energy today, and realized that I slept the entire night... it was actually kind of odd to wake up on the bed.

Maybe coincidence, so will continue to test this out. Although I already missed drinking water this morning. I was going to post after a few more tries but given my track record... I may forget to do this after day three and I wanted a record to show when I last tried it.

...

kind of like all my attempts to start exercising...

...

sigh

...

Sequel (Edited 2021-08-17)

https://douglastclee.blogspot.com/2021/08/life-do-i-need-more-water-to-sleep-well.html

Life: So sad after accidentally breaking bird eggs

I cannot express enough how sad I am feeling right now. I just returned home from a walk. Our Christmas wreath was still on our door, and for some reason today I decided to take it down. Probably because this was the first time I returned home without my hands full. Because the wreath hung over my head, I grabbed it from the bottom and flipped it upside-down... then suddenly there were a couple splats. I thought it was bird poop, but at closer inspection after I put down the wreath... I noticed they were two tiny eggs.

I feel so sad for the birds. And suddenly a couple puzzle pieces came together. I now recall that there is always a bird that flies away when I open or walk by the door. I know it won't do anything but I put the wreath back but on the ground. I made sure it was rightside-up just in case there were other eggs left in the wreath. It was dark so I couldn't tell. I also just read that most birds won't return if their nest was disturbed so it will unlikely return.

Now I know to take down winter ornaments right away. Sadly, I feel I will remember this every year now.