Justin - Anticipation

Anticipation.

Anticipating.

Anticipate.

In anticipation of your quick reply.

I am anticipating a smooth transition.

I anticipate the worst.

 

          Anticipating is a strange thing. You can anticipate the bad. You can anticipate the good. Context to the verb anticipate indicates trepidation or optimistic eagerness. Sometimes it is just a matter of seeing and preparing. Radar anticipated Colonel Potter’s needs. The snooty waiter anticipated that Kermit would want straws for the wine.

 

          To a degree, we celebrate anticipation. Wedding and baby showers are given in anticipation of an event (though I recently had a friend that had her baby the Tuesday before her scheduled shower making a mockery of the whole system.) Advent is celebrated in anticipation of Christmas (though retailers start their anticipatory celebration of Christmas right after Halloween.) We decorate in anticipation of various holidays. We put out empty Easter baskets and hang empty stockings anticipating their filling. An engagement ring is placed on a finger with the anticipation that another ring will follow in the near future.

         

On my sixth wedding anniversary, I had been alone in Texas for two weeks after starting a new job. It had been hard for me to leave Michigan, harder still to be alone in a new place trying to start a new chapter without anyone I knew. My wife and (at this point) three children were arriving on a plane that day. I got to the airport early and waited as close as I could to the security checkpoint in anticipation of balance restored. Anticipation of seeing my family again. Anticipation of starting this new life properly.

 

On my son Dylan’s tenth birthday, we started a two-day journey caravanning with a moving truck and our van. We were moving from the desert oilfields of Midland, Texas to the mountain splendor of the Great Salt Lake Valley. We had been planning for months; preparing, packing, loading. We had spent the previous day sitting at the end of our block with a broken down moving truck. We were ready. We were eager. But we were leaving later than we had anticipated. I was nervous, but I was anticipating a better life in a better place for my family. It was a hard trip, but we have found what we were looking for. I will never be an Utahan, I will always be a Michigander, but I anticipate happily living out our lives in Salt Lake City.

        

          On my seventeenth wedding anniversary, I will embark with my wife and now seven children on a two-day journey from Salt Lake City to the land of my birth. I anticipate a smooth trip. I have anticipation of introducing my five year old to a place he has never been and to relatives he has never met; his uncle Jason and his Smith cousins, other than Shelby. He has met Shelby; he is too polite to say, but I think he was unimpressed. After eleven years of missing a lot of family going-ons, I anticipate seeing two of my nieces march with the same Fife and Drum Corps that I was with for six years, so long ago; being able to be there for my oldest nieces graduation party (they were seven when I moved to Texas;) seeing things and people I have not seen in too long.

          Today for me is awash with anticipation. I will be off work for two weeks straight for the first time since I can’t remember when. I get to go to Michigan. Tonight, I will likely sleep a restless and poor, anticipatory sleep like a child on Christmas Eve. The two-day road trip will be full of anticipatory talk of doing this and that and seeing Grandma and Grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins. There will be music played too loud and scenery gazing and silly car games all filled with exited, hopeful anticipation.

       

          We anticipate a good visit.

          We are anticipating a fun road trip.

          In anticipation of a quick return.

          Anticipate.

          Anticipating.

          Anticipation.

Justin - Spoon River Shakespeare

Rosencrantz or Guildenstern

I was a friend to the prince;
A childhood playmate and a school mate in Wittenberg.
I only ever sought his happiness.
When his father died and his uncle took the throne,
I saw how the prince was troubled.
When the new king asked that I see after his nephew,
I was happy to attend my friend in his time of need.
I only sought to bring him peace.
When the king sent us to England,
I swear to you I did not know what was in his letter.
I would not have delivered my friend to the executioner.
Yet, the prince found the letter;
He assumed my affections were false.
He thought I knew.
So, he abandoned me to the pirates when they attacked,
And I, having given my life to the service of the court,
Am only now remembered in coupling with the other.
No one ever says “Rosencrantz” or “Guildenstern;”
Always “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”
Always together.
Even here in this unmarked grave.
Even I can scarcely remember which name is mine;
Rosencrantz or Guildenstern?
I don’t suppose it matters anymore.
I mean, what's in a name?
I can only hope my friend, Prince Hamlet, found his happiness and peace.

Shakespeare - Jason

Romeo Montague

I knew not how long I was gone.

The dark balcony shook my foggy thoughts

It was here, with Mercutio, I shared a laugh,

And he was no judge, least not of the affections I shared.

My last affection, oh my last affection, was kin to Tybalt,

Villainous Tybalt who stilled Mercutio’s laugh.

Through my guard with his fiddlestick, as my lad had called it.

Then one last "grave" pun.

What choice did I have?

Mercutio’s mirthless blood called for revenge.

So I lived as a felon and outlaw.

The Capulet, Paris found me shrouded in grief

He sought to arrest me, but I was arrested already.

So, a double murderer I became.

I lay noble Paris beside sweet Juliet.

My sun had set

I was parched.

Justin - Discovery

When I started working on the formula for square pyramidal numbers I had already found the formula for triangular numbers with a little help from my brother and the formula for triangular pyramidal numbers. The reason discovering the answer to this is of note is that while the pattern in the other two series was apparent fairly early, the pattern for square pyramidal numbers was not.

A square pyramidal number (sp_n) is the sum of all whole number squares up to and including n. For example if n=4 than sp_n= 30 or 1+4+9+16. I started working on the problem by making a table showing n, n­­², and sp_n.  

 

n	n­­2	spn
1	1	1
2	4	5
3	9	14
4	16	30
5	25	55
6	36	91
7	49	140
8	64	204
9	81	285
10	100	385

 

Next, I started looking for a pattern by looking at the relationship between n and sp_n­. Which gave me this table:

spn	n	spn/n­­
1	1	1
5	2	2 ½
14	3	4 ⅔
30	4	7 ½
55	5	11
91	6	15 ⅙
140	7	20
204	8	25 ½
285	9	31 ⅔
385	10	38 ½

 

Examining the fractions I see that to get whole number answers in each of the relationships, I need to multiply by 6.

spn	6spn	n	6spn/n­­
1	6	1	6
5	30	2	15
14	84	3	28
30	180	4	45
55	330	5	66
91	546	6	91
140	840	7	120
204	1224	8	153
285	1710	9	190
385	2310	10	231

 

Now I could start to see a pattern. In each case, 6sp_n/n is divisible by n+1. 6sp₂/2 is evenly divisible by 3.­­­­ 6sp₃/3 is evenly divisible by 4.­­­­

spn	6spn	n	6spn/n­­	(6spn/n)/(n+1)­­
1	6	1	6	3
5	30	2	15	5
14	84	3	28	7
30	180	4	45	9
55	330	5	66	11
91	546	6	91	13
140	840	7	120	15
204	1224	8	153	17
285	1710	9	190	19
385	2310	10	231	21

 

Now the pattern is fully evident. The results are counting odds starting at 3. More importantly, the new results are n+(n+1). So, 6sp_n is n(n+1)(n+n+1) or the pyramidal number for n is the product of n, the next whole number (n+1) and the sum of n and the next whole number divided by six. Written out fully the formula is:

n(n+1)(2n+1)

          6                  

­­­I call this a discovery not because I was the first person to find this formula. Wikipedia has several pages about triangular and pyramidal numbers. I call this a discovery because I went in search for it and found it. I was not taught about pyramidal numbers. I never looked it up until I started writing this piece. The discovery was finding it.

Too often we discount the idea of discovery by requiring a person to be the first. I think this breaks the spirit of discovery, damages born curiosity. We should all be searching and trying to discover. Finding things out for ourselves. I have figured out triangular numbers and two forms of pyramidal numbers for myself. I have discovered them, though they were solved by other people before me. I went on to figure out a formula for the addition of cubed numbers. I am thinking hexagonal numbers will be next, then hexagonal pyramids.  

Jason - Discovery

Self Discovery

Early on in my life, it seemed I was surrounded by people who were smarter than me. They were older, or studied more, or seemed to just naturally know things and remember things I did not. Additionally, it seemed like for them was easy. Less red marks on their tests. They never complained about homework. So, I geared my life, in a way, to become like those who were smarter than me. I wanted to get smarter and smarter. I wanted to take pride in my intellect. I would even put down the role of things like emotion. I loved those robot or emotionless characters that seem to occur so frequently in Sci-Fi. They were always so perfect, so respected and never unhappy. It took me far too long to discover the truth, that Intellect, that trait I prized so much, is not that important.

You might think about all the things that get debated today. After all with Facebook and the current political climate it seems with have crafted a debate culture. And with that in mind, doesn’t intellect become the prized possession? If we were all rational, listening, open-minded and not entrenched in our positions, intellect would be prized. But passion is more important than truth. People come to an argument with a position and then add to it the things that support their position and dismiss everything else as fake. How many people strongly in one political camp have shifted to the other side? How many Pro-Choice have become Pro-Life or vica versa? How many Libertarians or Atheists or even Shih Tzu lovers have budged on their position? Arguments, if they are to be won at all, are won in the heart, not the brain.

The real bastion of intellect, the place where reason should reign supreme should be the workplace, right? It is there where numbers don’t lie, where performance speaks the loudest. This is true, but the deeper truth is this, while intellect makes all of those things easier the best employees cone with a range of intellect, what they share is passion and determination. Often the smartest guy in the room just wants to give ideas, but not get his hands dirty. I’ll take the passionate one over the professor in almost every circumstance at work.

Perhaps I loved intellect because I loved those characters who exemplified it. I loved Spock, who could do right in the face of fear, could hand out fact after fact. Who somehow in his coldness became more attractive. I love Data, his Next Generation counterpart, who was an android. He aspired to be human, but no matter how he tried he could not feel, Could not love. To me this made him strong, made him admirable. This works in fiction, but in the real world, when I tried to mold myself that way, it separated me, it stranded me on an island. What I thought made me inspirational, instead made me cold and unapproachable. If you want to be relatable, useful, you need to embrace empathy and vulnerability. No one cares about what I know, if they can’t care about me and they think I don’t care about them.

So here it is the discovery I made far too late in life. Intelligence is nice to have, but it really is not that valuable. On most topics and in most circles, brains are not going to win debates. In the workplace my brains are not going to make me a great worker. In my relationships, my brains are not going to make me loved and attractive. If I want to change people, it is going to be with my heart. If I want to be a great worker, it will be because of my heart. If I am going to be a great friend and father, it will be through my heart. Heart is greater than brains. Perhaps that is why Data aspired to be human.

Jason - Meaning of LIfe

The Oak

Where whispers wind and leaves bespoke
And contemplates the mighty oak
Her heart so stretched into the sky
While arid days have left her dry
She lives that rain her roots will soak

What legacy will time invoke
That acorns sprout where crown has broke
Perhaps the child will hope supply
Where whispers wind

The farmer sees in she a yoke
And meat would hang within her smoke
Her crook a nest for lone magpie
So each can draw some use to vie
From fractured dream the tree awoke
Where whispers wind