On Saturday I went to a restaurant in West LA called Yakitoriya. It's a Japanese restaurant where all of the dishes are some part of a chicken on a stick and it seemed like you could name pretty much any part of the chicken you wanted. Since there was a 5 stick minimum I went for their 5 stick combo. The chicken breast with wasabi and chicken liver were good. A few of the dishes were alright and I discovered that I'm not a fan of chicken gizzards. The taste wasn't so bad, but the only thing I can think of to describe the texture is partially melted plastic - not that I've ate that much plastic, but I bet that's what it would be like.
That night I also saw The Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie. In some sense there's not much point giving an opinion since anyone who watched the show has to see the movie and anyone who hasn't seen the show shouldn't see the movie. I guess for the people who have only seen a few episodes I'd say watch more of the show rather than going to the movie (especially since you'll want to know the characters that they use in the movie). It was very funny and had an excellent opening, but it did feel a bit stretched which isn't so surprising since the show is normally only 15 minutes long. Yes, this is what they were advertising when they shut down Boston - I still think that the city over reacted and that "wires and batteries" doesn't make something a bomb!
I also saw the apple TV in person for the first time that night. Well they definitely did a good job making the box look good. Maybe the next step will be working on the picture. I watched clips from BSG, The Office, and Scrubs - not shows that require particularly good picture (I wasn't watching nature scenes or even an action scene in BSG) and the graininess was distractingly obvious. The sales people said that the TV I was looking at isn't HD which is part of the problem (but my TV isn't HD either...), but they also had an HD TV and it didn't look a whole lot better. Sounds like they are going to have to up the resolution of the downloads before the apple TV becomes attractive. It really makes me wonder who is buying it.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Thinking
For once amazon suggested a book that was not just another book by the author of the book I was buying (yeah, amazon's suggestions are better than I give them credit for, but still fall way short of my expectations). Anyway, I tried it out and ended up with The Thinker's Toolkit by Morgan D. Jones. Normally I would be more skeptical of a book trying to teach problem solving, but the author is a former CIA analyst so I was more inclined to give him a chance. The book does have some useful techniques in it, but the author annoyed me by going on about how none of the techniques are taught in school since I had learned most of them in school.
The overall message from the book is that your mind has its own ways of solving a problem which are not necessarily the best when trying to rationally analyze a problem, especially if trying to do so without bias and that you can help the process by properly structuring the problem. Take the time to write down the problem and information and spend the time to do a good job presenting the information and then logical analysis will flow more easily.
The rest of the book is fourteen ways of structuring a problem. Mostly just tables (which he calls matrices, but he really means tables), time lines, decision and probability trees and various ways of looking at utility and expected utility. There are also a few others.
Many of the techniques I had learned in engineering and economics classes (having taken game theory I had trouble paying attention to the chapter about making tables of expected utilities - well at least two of you know what I'm talking about), but I did learn that these same techniques are used by people analyzing world events - in many of the examples he took newspaper articles and looked deeper into the issue and used the techniques to structure the information.
Overall Debugging wins - and I did not bother using Morgan Jones's 9 step method for creating a weighted ranking to make that determination.
The overall message from the book is that your mind has its own ways of solving a problem which are not necessarily the best when trying to rationally analyze a problem, especially if trying to do so without bias and that you can help the process by properly structuring the problem. Take the time to write down the problem and information and spend the time to do a good job presenting the information and then logical analysis will flow more easily.
The rest of the book is fourteen ways of structuring a problem. Mostly just tables (which he calls matrices, but he really means tables), time lines, decision and probability trees and various ways of looking at utility and expected utility. There are also a few others.
Many of the techniques I had learned in engineering and economics classes (having taken game theory I had trouble paying attention to the chapter about making tables of expected utilities - well at least two of you know what I'm talking about), but I did learn that these same techniques are used by people analyzing world events - in many of the examples he took newspaper articles and looked deeper into the issue and used the techniques to structure the information.
Overall Debugging wins - and I did not bother using Morgan Jones's 9 step method for creating a weighted ranking to make that determination.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Eric was right (aka Neurophysiology)
Eric was right. Quite a while ago (back when he was a fellow CA resident) I asked Eric what type of book I should read if I wanted to learn more about the brain. He told me that I was looking for stuff about the brain (the object), not the mind (thoughts - world of psychology) and that I should pick a particular sense and focus on it. He also gave me a few more clues on finding something I would find interesting. Well, I couldn't be satisfied by just picking one sense, I had to know about them all, and how neurons work, and about motion, and upper level thought, and basically all of neurophysiology and so I ended up reading the book Neurophysiology.
Holly crap that's a big topic. I had no idea. It's so big that I would say if someone wanted an introduction to it they should pick out one section to learn about... oh, wait, that sounds familiar.
I had been reading about cardiovascular physiology and that's a big topic, but wasn't terribly overwhelming. But after getting a bit into neurophysiology I realized that the eye, which may not be as complex as the heart, but is on a similar level, is one part of one sense and I realized how immense the topic is.
Before I go further - if you actually know something about the topic more than just reading one book feel free to jump in and correct any mistakes I make or add where I may have missed something.
Anyway, given that I did read the book I did learn a lot. I won't bother posting my page of equivalents between common electrical circuits and what is found in the body. One item I will comment on is that I knew that the body is very often a low pass filter (allows low frequency signals while stopping high frequency ones - a crude example is if you run your hand through a flame really fast it doesn't hurt as much as if you just leave it there - the body's low pass filtering also provides some leeway in how electric shocks are applied to it), but I didn't realize the amount of high pass filtering that is used in the body. The whole concept of adaption is high pass filtering (as you put on clothes you probably feel them, but once they are on you don't think about it - you've adapted to the feeling of them being there - you've high pass filtered the signal). This occurs in space as well as time by use of lateral inhibition - step into a really hot bath and you'll notice the feeling is really just the ring around where you are on the edge of being in the water. Also vision relies a lot of edge (or line) detection which is high pass filtering.
I also have to mention that the ear spatially performs a fourier transform - how cool is that!
One random fun fact about eyes. I had always had the impression that your pupils dilating and contracting is what controls the amount of light going into your eyes. Really it does make some difference, but not nearly enough to make up for the range of light that your eyes are able to deal with. What is really happening is that as your pupils contract they hide the more sensitive cells in your eyes, leaving only the cell that deal well with lots of light and as they dilate they expose the more light sensitive cells. The less sensitive cells are the ones that allow for color vision which is why color vision is better when there is more light. I feel like I've been lied to (or at least misled) by numerous science museums that all have that same exhibit with a light that shines in your eye and a mirror that lets you see your pupil adjust.
One sense I've always wondered about is smell. I never had a great idea how the other senses worked, but I had a general idea. But I had no idea how smell works - that's actually one of the reasons I wanted to read about more than one sense - I didn't want to just read about smell, but I wanted to know what's going on there. Well, I feel better now since it turns out no one really knows what's going on there. You're nose has a bunch of cells with a variety of molecule detectors, but how they all work together is a mystery. I really appreciate that the book was willing to admit when something is unknown - I think that's really missing from biology classes.
One thing that I've been realizing as I learn more about physiology is how much is going on inside cells. Perhaps I'm just revealing how little attention I paid in biology, but I had the impression that a cell is just a collection of some molecules (say 10 to 100). Clearly this is way off and a whole lot can go on inside a cell - catching on to that has really helped in understanding how biological systems can be so complex.
I guess I found it interesting and learned something because there are a number of things I would write about, but I should cut this off somewhere and if you're interested you can always read the book (or even better, take Eric's advice).
Holly crap that's a big topic. I had no idea. It's so big that I would say if someone wanted an introduction to it they should pick out one section to learn about... oh, wait, that sounds familiar.
I had been reading about cardiovascular physiology and that's a big topic, but wasn't terribly overwhelming. But after getting a bit into neurophysiology I realized that the eye, which may not be as complex as the heart, but is on a similar level, is one part of one sense and I realized how immense the topic is.
Before I go further - if you actually know something about the topic more than just reading one book feel free to jump in and correct any mistakes I make or add where I may have missed something.
Anyway, given that I did read the book I did learn a lot. I won't bother posting my page of equivalents between common electrical circuits and what is found in the body. One item I will comment on is that I knew that the body is very often a low pass filter (allows low frequency signals while stopping high frequency ones - a crude example is if you run your hand through a flame really fast it doesn't hurt as much as if you just leave it there - the body's low pass filtering also provides some leeway in how electric shocks are applied to it), but I didn't realize the amount of high pass filtering that is used in the body. The whole concept of adaption is high pass filtering (as you put on clothes you probably feel them, but once they are on you don't think about it - you've adapted to the feeling of them being there - you've high pass filtered the signal). This occurs in space as well as time by use of lateral inhibition - step into a really hot bath and you'll notice the feeling is really just the ring around where you are on the edge of being in the water. Also vision relies a lot of edge (or line) detection which is high pass filtering.
I also have to mention that the ear spatially performs a fourier transform - how cool is that!
One random fun fact about eyes. I had always had the impression that your pupils dilating and contracting is what controls the amount of light going into your eyes. Really it does make some difference, but not nearly enough to make up for the range of light that your eyes are able to deal with. What is really happening is that as your pupils contract they hide the more sensitive cells in your eyes, leaving only the cell that deal well with lots of light and as they dilate they expose the more light sensitive cells. The less sensitive cells are the ones that allow for color vision which is why color vision is better when there is more light. I feel like I've been lied to (or at least misled) by numerous science museums that all have that same exhibit with a light that shines in your eye and a mirror that lets you see your pupil adjust.
One sense I've always wondered about is smell. I never had a great idea how the other senses worked, but I had a general idea. But I had no idea how smell works - that's actually one of the reasons I wanted to read about more than one sense - I didn't want to just read about smell, but I wanted to know what's going on there. Well, I feel better now since it turns out no one really knows what's going on there. You're nose has a bunch of cells with a variety of molecule detectors, but how they all work together is a mystery. I really appreciate that the book was willing to admit when something is unknown - I think that's really missing from biology classes.
One thing that I've been realizing as I learn more about physiology is how much is going on inside cells. Perhaps I'm just revealing how little attention I paid in biology, but I had the impression that a cell is just a collection of some molecules (say 10 to 100). Clearly this is way off and a whole lot can go on inside a cell - catching on to that has really helped in understanding how biological systems can be so complex.
I guess I found it interesting and learned something because there are a number of things I would write about, but I should cut this off somewhere and if you're interested you can always read the book (or even better, take Eric's advice).
Thursday, April 12, 2007
iTunes volume
Does anyone else find that the iTunes volume control does not have sufficient range when changing between listening environments? I've found that by going into view -> equalizer you can set the preamp volume which gives you another set of controls on the volume. When I'm in a loud environment or when connected to my stero and pick-up (aka noise) is the key problem I set the equalizer volume all the way up to get enough sound out. When I am listening with headphones in a quiet environment (typically at work) I set the preamp volume all the way down so that I don't have to play the game of how close to zero can I set the volume control without setting it to mute.
Anyway I posted the following on apple's support page and for some reason decided to share it here (Max if you feel the need to do some more mac hacking...)
Depending on how I am listening to music on iTunes (headphones, computer speakers, external speakers) I have to change the equalizer volume in order to either get the volume loud enough or turn down the equalizer volume to get enough resolution on the normal volume control. If the equalizer volume is all the way up and I am using headphone then I have to set the iTunes volume as close to the bottom as possible. But if I am using the computer speakers in a noisy environment I have to set the equalizer volume all the way to the top to be able to hear anything. Overall that means I am changing the equalizer volume, the normal iTunes volume, and the operating system's volume.
Instead of having the dual volume control (equalizer and normal) in iTunes, the main volume control should act like the dock. When I click on the volume control it should expand to the entire width of the screen. This would allow sufficient resolution on the volume while providing the entire range.
Anyway I posted the following on apple's support page and for some reason decided to share it here (Max if you feel the need to do some more mac hacking...)
Depending on how I am listening to music on iTunes (headphones, computer speakers, external speakers) I have to change the equalizer volume in order to either get the volume loud enough or turn down the equalizer volume to get enough resolution on the normal volume control. If the equalizer volume is all the way up and I am using headphone then I have to set the iTunes volume as close to the bottom as possible. But if I am using the computer speakers in a noisy environment I have to set the equalizer volume all the way to the top to be able to hear anything. Overall that means I am changing the equalizer volume, the normal iTunes volume, and the operating system's volume.
Instead of having the dual volume control (equalizer and normal) in iTunes, the main volume control should act like the dock. When I click on the volume control it should expand to the entire width of the screen. This would allow sufficient resolution on the volume while providing the entire range.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Debugging
I think that sometimes people will find a single word to describe a set of activities they are doing and then use that word unendingly. This has caused me to be sick of the words simulation and debugging. It's a really bad pair of words for an electrical engineer to be tired of. If used when describing a specific action and switched up with some synonyms they're fine but if you are looking at some circuits for several months and you use the word simulation every time you talk about working on them it gets super repetitive (notice how I used three different words to describe it instead of 1?!?! - yes I know that none of this applies to anyone that reads this, but I had to say it).
Warning - if you are not an engineer the rest of this post is probably pretty boring (even more so than usual).
Well, now that I've stated my distaste for the word, time to discuss a book titled Debugging by David J. Agans. After coming up with my own rule for debugging I decided to see what others had to say about it (also worked out well because I got the book in time to use some of it on the tester stuff I was working on in KS). The book discusses 9 rules for debugging. There were a few rules that have caused me to watch how I work, such as when you talk to someone to get a fresh opinion, don't tell them your theory or it ruins the point - I am sometimes guilty of doing that. Also if you didn't fix it, it ain't fixed - the point of this rule is once you think you've fixed it, make it fail again and show that your fix by itself actually gets it working again, which is a step I often skip. But mostly it is nice to see some rules of debugging spelled out so that when I work I can identify which rule I am applying and feel more confident about what I am doing, or see that I am not following one and rethink my strategy. Also when I don't feel like carefully changing one thing at a time or keeping an audit trail or learning about the system (reading the manual) or one of the other slow, boring parts of debugging (especially when it is late and the sounds of the test floor are getting on my nerves), thinking back to the rules is useful.
The book also has some interesting examples since the guy went to MIT and has worked on a number of interesting projects including working on pong and creating the mode where it plays against itself as a way of having the game run so that he could observe intermittent issues.
I would claim that my drop your assumptions rule is a combination of two of his rules, check the plug (basically, check your assumptions) and quit thinking and look (rather than thinking up theories, go make some observations and run some tests - especially when you are about to make the claim "that can't happen").
I was a bit skeptical at first that the book would be mostly obvious and that reading about something that is often considered a skill wouldn't be that helpful, but if you do a lot of debugging I would actually recommend it.
Warning - if you are not an engineer the rest of this post is probably pretty boring (even more so than usual).
Well, now that I've stated my distaste for the word, time to discuss a book titled Debugging by David J. Agans. After coming up with my own rule for debugging I decided to see what others had to say about it (also worked out well because I got the book in time to use some of it on the tester stuff I was working on in KS). The book discusses 9 rules for debugging. There were a few rules that have caused me to watch how I work, such as when you talk to someone to get a fresh opinion, don't tell them your theory or it ruins the point - I am sometimes guilty of doing that. Also if you didn't fix it, it ain't fixed - the point of this rule is once you think you've fixed it, make it fail again and show that your fix by itself actually gets it working again, which is a step I often skip. But mostly it is nice to see some rules of debugging spelled out so that when I work I can identify which rule I am applying and feel more confident about what I am doing, or see that I am not following one and rethink my strategy. Also when I don't feel like carefully changing one thing at a time or keeping an audit trail or learning about the system (reading the manual) or one of the other slow, boring parts of debugging (especially when it is late and the sounds of the test floor are getting on my nerves), thinking back to the rules is useful.
The book also has some interesting examples since the guy went to MIT and has worked on a number of interesting projects including working on pong and creating the mode where it plays against itself as a way of having the game run so that he could observe intermittent issues.
I would claim that my drop your assumptions rule is a combination of two of his rules, check the plug (basically, check your assumptions) and quit thinking and look (rather than thinking up theories, go make some observations and run some tests - especially when you are about to make the claim "that can't happen").
I was a bit skeptical at first that the book would be mostly obvious and that reading about something that is often considered a skill wouldn't be that helpful, but if you do a lot of debugging I would actually recommend it.
LA for the day
On Saturday I headed to LA for the day. The number of degrees of separation between me and the people I went with is too long to bother with. First we made our way to The Griffith Observatory which reopened somewhat recently after having been closed for a while. It is a bit small but had some interesting aspects. It has a small museum about space and astronomy. One of the parts of the museum is a periodic table setup so that there is a piece of each element in a case labeled by its symbol (hm, I wonder if they actually bothered with putting hydrogen in there or if they figured no one would know one clear gas from another). I found that exciting because I finally got to see what molybdenum looks like (when I went to SciTech at the Technion in high school my group's project was spectroscopy and every thing we looked at seemed to have molybdenum in it - I think there was some operator error going on there). Even though it was a cloudy day it was still a nice view of LA (if for some reason you want a clear view of the hollywood sign Griffith Park is the place to go). Since it was a cloudy day we did not stick around until night time to look through the telescope. I'd like to go back some time and look through the telescope, but it is from the 1930s or 40s so I'm not sure how impressive the view will be. There is also a planetarium there. I think the last time I went to a planetarium was in middle school and I was really impressed by the changes. I seem to remember the stars moving around and someone with a laser pointer trying to circle constellations (or maybe if it was really fancy it would put up outlines of them). At this one, there was a little of that, but a lot of it was computer animation telling a story of the history of astronomy and explaining the importance of further exploration. The guy doing the narration was a bit over the top (not every line should sound like it is the most important thing ever said), but overall I was very impressed. I was a little disappointed that the Leonard Nimoy event horizon theater was showing a video about the construction of the building, I was expecting something a bit more interesting based on the name (it was also funny when I commented on it and over the course of the conversation slowly realized that not everyone knows Leonard Nimoy by name, I am actually still a bit thrown off by that). It was cool though that their coffee shop is called the Cafe at the End of the Universe (One of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books is called the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, I also almost assumed people would get that, but I'm not quite that disconnected from society). Of all the things a young adult could do to show they are somewhat different than their parents I think that I wrapped it up by going to a museum and not even walking into the gift shop.
After the observatory we made our way to little Ethiopia for dinner (living in San Clemente, I'm so close to good, interesting food, and yet so far). We sat around a little table in an area made to look like a little hut. When they brought out the food it was all on a big platter in the middle and we were given a plate of bread. The idea is that you take some bread, pick up some food with it and eat it. For communal eating it actually makes a lot more sense than a fork since you don't reuse anything that you put in your mouth. This is somewhat similar to some Indian food, and the food looked similar too. Some of the flavors were the same, but some were quite different. The bread actually had a bit of a sponge look and a somewhat sour flavor. Overall I prefer Indian food, but it provided some interesting variety.
After dinner we headed to a free play at a theater school. I was expecting a bit more from a theater school in West Hollywood. The actors seemed to do a good job, but I definitely did not get whatever point they were trying to make and did not appreciate the amount of time spent by actors standing at the front of the stage giving a yelling monolog to the audience. Luckily there were a few amusing lines mixed in there.
After the observatory we made our way to little Ethiopia for dinner (living in San Clemente, I'm so close to good, interesting food, and yet so far). We sat around a little table in an area made to look like a little hut. When they brought out the food it was all on a big platter in the middle and we were given a plate of bread. The idea is that you take some bread, pick up some food with it and eat it. For communal eating it actually makes a lot more sense than a fork since you don't reuse anything that you put in your mouth. This is somewhat similar to some Indian food, and the food looked similar too. Some of the flavors were the same, but some were quite different. The bread actually had a bit of a sponge look and a somewhat sour flavor. Overall I prefer Indian food, but it provided some interesting variety.
After dinner we headed to a free play at a theater school. I was expecting a bit more from a theater school in West Hollywood. The actors seemed to do a good job, but I definitely did not get whatever point they were trying to make and did not appreciate the amount of time spent by actors standing at the front of the stage giving a yelling monolog to the audience. Luckily there were a few amusing lines mixed in there.
Lightening
At work we are transition our integrated circuit test to a company in Wichita KS. I was sent out there to help get things going about 2 weeks ago. Over the weekend I stayed in Kansas and drove to Overland Park to spend the weekend with my family. If any of my KC friends are reading this - sorry I didn't say anything, but it's been a while since I've been home so I was spending the time with my family. If I'm back in KC I'll give you a call.
It was fun being home for the weekend - went golfing twice, went for a bike ride, played some racquetball with my dad, went to lunch with my parents and grandpa, saw some family friends and met some of my parents new friends. I was also able to stay on Monday so that I could spend passover with my family. I learned that if you go golfing in a group of 5 people who are all at a similar skill level it doesn't seem so bad when you average something like double par. I was also very impressed by my parent's activity level. That was the most exercise I've gotten over a weekend in a while (well, probably since skiing).
It was fun to see the family at passover. You're not supposed to use metaphors where people have a better feeling for the thing being explained than the metaphor for it, but oh well here it goes. Being at Passover was a bit like being at a lecture where I had caught on to the topic being explained. For those that have had to deal with being next to me when this occurs you probably understand that a stream of mildly amusing (well at least to me), somewhat sarcastic comments start coming out of my mouth. In lecture when I make such comments it is usually just the people adjacent to me, who don't already know to tune me out, that hear me, but at passover everyone has to know what everyone else said and understand why the person thinks the comment was amusing. Hm, as I read over this paragraph I realize it might be like my comments where the person who finds them funniest is myself. In case the metaphor seems negative - it's not, I miss joking around with friends during lecture. Anyway, I was glad to see that everyone seemed to be doing well and I'm interested to see how my cousin's college selection process goes. It was also good to get some of those passover pastries (hmm, pastry doesn't seem like the right word) that I would not have had if on my own.
There were a few things I noticed while I was in Kansas:
-The main one was lightening. I might just have a bad memory (or the more recent theory that I just don't pay attention), but when I was home and saw lightening and heard thunder it occurred to me that it has been a while since I've seen and heard those. I don't think that I've seen/heard a thunderstorm since being in California (if you think I'm just making that up, let me know). I do think that if it is going to rain heavily it is kind of cool to have the sounds and light show go along with it.
-Another was all the signs with guns and a red circle and line through them. This was totally new to me. Apparently Kansas has recently passed a law that concealed weapons are allowed, but not if the building has a no gun sign out front. I think they could at least come up with a more pleasing imagine since it is now the places that don't want guns that have a picture of a gun on their front door.
-Smoking or non-smoking? It has been a while since I have heard that question and since I have smelled smoke in a restaurant. As much as I may be for individual freedoms, the first amendment does not allow you to infringe on the freedom's of others, which I think includes not having a cancer causing smoke blown in your face.
-Would you like separate checks? I'm not as certain about this one, but I noticed that a lot of restaurants in Kansas asked if you want separate checks (well, when it made sense, such as when I was with a coworker or when my family was out with another family). Obviously, sometimes I get asked that, but I feel like normally one check is assumed unless the people eating request separate checks.
It was fun being home for the weekend - went golfing twice, went for a bike ride, played some racquetball with my dad, went to lunch with my parents and grandpa, saw some family friends and met some of my parents new friends. I was also able to stay on Monday so that I could spend passover with my family. I learned that if you go golfing in a group of 5 people who are all at a similar skill level it doesn't seem so bad when you average something like double par. I was also very impressed by my parent's activity level. That was the most exercise I've gotten over a weekend in a while (well, probably since skiing).
It was fun to see the family at passover. You're not supposed to use metaphors where people have a better feeling for the thing being explained than the metaphor for it, but oh well here it goes. Being at Passover was a bit like being at a lecture where I had caught on to the topic being explained. For those that have had to deal with being next to me when this occurs you probably understand that a stream of mildly amusing (well at least to me), somewhat sarcastic comments start coming out of my mouth. In lecture when I make such comments it is usually just the people adjacent to me, who don't already know to tune me out, that hear me, but at passover everyone has to know what everyone else said and understand why the person thinks the comment was amusing. Hm, as I read over this paragraph I realize it might be like my comments where the person who finds them funniest is myself. In case the metaphor seems negative - it's not, I miss joking around with friends during lecture. Anyway, I was glad to see that everyone seemed to be doing well and I'm interested to see how my cousin's college selection process goes. It was also good to get some of those passover pastries (hmm, pastry doesn't seem like the right word) that I would not have had if on my own.
There were a few things I noticed while I was in Kansas:
-The main one was lightening. I might just have a bad memory (or the more recent theory that I just don't pay attention), but when I was home and saw lightening and heard thunder it occurred to me that it has been a while since I've seen and heard those. I don't think that I've seen/heard a thunderstorm since being in California (if you think I'm just making that up, let me know). I do think that if it is going to rain heavily it is kind of cool to have the sounds and light show go along with it.
-Another was all the signs with guns and a red circle and line through them. This was totally new to me. Apparently Kansas has recently passed a law that concealed weapons are allowed, but not if the building has a no gun sign out front. I think they could at least come up with a more pleasing imagine since it is now the places that don't want guns that have a picture of a gun on their front door.
-Smoking or non-smoking? It has been a while since I have heard that question and since I have smelled smoke in a restaurant. As much as I may be for individual freedoms, the first amendment does not allow you to infringe on the freedom's of others, which I think includes not having a cancer causing smoke blown in your face.
-Would you like separate checks? I'm not as certain about this one, but I noticed that a lot of restaurants in Kansas asked if you want separate checks (well, when it made sense, such as when I was with a coworker or when my family was out with another family). Obviously, sometimes I get asked that, but I feel like normally one check is assumed unless the people eating request separate checks.
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