Word Fun

Occasionally I get interested in word puzzles and oddities. A few months ago I was on a hunt for flippable compound words such as these...

houseboat | boathouse
handoff | offhand
gunshot | shotgun
outsell | sellout
hangover | overhang
layout | outlay
huntsman | manhunts
workout | outwork
sidetrack | trackside
oversleep | sleepover
guesthouse | houseguest
outbreak | breakout
outlook | lookout
outwork | workout
layover | overlay
Passover | overpass
sleepover | oversleep
bucksaw | sawbuck
overturn | turnover
bookwork | workbook
woodworm | wormwood

I think I have them all, but it would be incredible if you could come up with another one.

If you get bored of that, there is always this puzzle. It took me probably 15 minutes to figure it out. After which I felt dumb for not getting it sooner. Can you do it?

Random:
"The five boxing wizards jump quickly" is one of the shortest sentences that uses all the letters of the alphabet.

In Turkish there is this one:
Pijamalı hasta yağız şoföre çabucak güvendi.
(The patient in pajamas trusted the swarthy driver quickly)

Misa's Map

Farthest North: Vlieland, North Holland, Europe
Farthest South: Isla Bridges (Ushuaia), South America
Farthest East: Bali, Indonesia
Farthest West: Waialua, Oahu, Hawaii


... so clearly my sister kicks my butt :)

See the post below if you don't know what this is about.

Perspective, part 2: Travel

The extremes of where I have been:

North: Lyngby, Denmark
East: Ankara, Turkey
South: Orlando, Florida, USA
West: Tuscon, Arizona, USA
Shown above is the smallest rectangle you could draw on a world map that includes all of the places I have been. As a percentage of the world, it is still a bit small, but I am doing better than a lot of people in history. Also, I know some people who have never left New England, so that makes me feel fortunate. What does your rectangle look like? What would you like it to look like?

If you want me to make a map like this for you, just let me know the extremes of the places you have been, and I will see what I can do.

Anyway, all of this thought about travel makes me wonder... do I know the half of what things are like in China or what a Chinese person thinks about? I have never been to China so how could I? Is it even fair to use a term like "Chinese person"? Aren't they all different? When I was in Turkey and Denmark, I was very interested in what the Turks and Danes thought about Americans. Inevitably I was always asked early in a conversation where exactly I was from. I got sort of a strange feeling when I told them I am American because I don't feel like I am just an American. Or just any other one thing. I don't consider myself a typical American or an accurate representative of an American. But what is a typical American? Clearly, I have been reading the book "On Identity" by Amin Maalouf lately. (Read it.) In the book, the author describes some of the dangers of categorizing people and deep-rooted loyalties based on local societal expectations. I like to think of sports fanhood in this regard.

A diehard Redsox fan is so because he/she was raised this way and all their closest friends are also fans. A diehard Redsox fan has less repect for a stranger who is a Yankeees fan, than a stranger who is a Redsox fan based soley on this one thing. But the Yankees fan is a Yankees fan for very much the same reasons that the Redsox fan is a Redsox fan. It is all about their local societal expectations. The Yankees fan probably grew up in New York, the Redsox fan probably grew up in or near Massachusetts. And so conflict and discrimination arise out of almost nothing.

Fan violence in baseball is not very noteworthy, but when these sorts of tensions arise over something like religion or who was on the righteous side of a violent conflict, a lot of strife can ensue. It takes someone with a more open mind to see the other side. If that other side is a country that one that one has never visited, then I think paying a visit to that country and living like the people there can really help to see their view.

Is there a word for something that is obvious but still needs to be stated?

Let me know what you think about all this. Also, if you haven't emailed me your colors from the post below, go ahead and give it go when you have a moment.

Perspective, part 1: Colors

I associate people with colors. When I think of a friend, such as you for instance, there are colors in my head that are unique to you. I imagine that everyone does this to some extent. Most of the colors in my mind are like the ones in the picture at the right.

What I ask you to do is, send me an email* or just post a comment, and say which three colors from the picture you associate the most with me. Go ahead and put them in order if there is an order. In return, I will tell you which three colors I associate with you.

When the data is in, I will post a chart showing which ones were most popular. I wonder how closely the colors you pick for me will match the ones that I would pick for myself. Remember that of course this is not a contest of any kind, and the specifics of the answers are of no consequence. There are no rules. If you find only two colors that work, go with those. If you find four, so be it. I am just really curious to see which colors you think of when you think of me. Perhaps patterns will emerge, maybe one color will come out well above all the others. Ok, I am getting really curious now.

*jeremyrchapman@gmail.com

The latest with me

It is the middle of summer. These days are simple but full. If you only look at the moments when I am with friends, everything is fun filled and exciting, and as someone else I would think just looking at those times gosh I wish I had his life. So in that way it is like any sitcom. You never see the long day at work, the trips to the bathroom, the conversationless lunches, or the commute. So my life, like anyone's is a balance of the tv-worthy parts and the day to day. But I mention this so that you don't think I am trying to deceive you when, in giving an account of my life as I remember it now, I describe only the most exciting parts.

Half of my life now takes place in the office of KEMA or in the car in between work and home. That cannot be too exciting right? Well, I like my job and I don't mind the drive. Furthermore, there is a huge advantage for me with all the traveling to work. I put a map here showing in green, places of interest (friends, home, work), my two main routes to work (shown in red and orange), and places where I sleep over (green dots with bright green dots inside). You can see from the map, that my commute takes me near a couple places that I would otherwise not go anywhere near, notably Framingham and Boston. In Framingham I have a couple friends from school, each with whom I stay the night once a week. In Boston there is another friend from school and a new friend from Turkey.

I stumbled upon a website called meetups.com which is for people of a common interest who want to get together and hang out. Turns out that there is one for people to speak/practice speaking Turkish. So I signed up and I went to Boston a couple weeks ago to meetup with these Turkish people at a middle eastern restaurant. As expected, they are a fun bunch of people and I had a great time there. There was live Turkish music and someone was having a birthday. The music and atomosphere reminded me a little of a bar that I visited while in Aydın called Çatı. Anyway, I was too shy to speak Turkish because the people there all knew English. Still I got to talk about Turkey with them, which was almost as good. Then after a short while I learned that the woman sitting across from me, who was the mother of one of the folks there, didn't know any English at all. With her, I had no shyness and I spoke with her for 10 or 15 minutes, until the limits of my Turkish were pushed too far. For a short time after that, her daughter translated for us.

Within a few days of the meetup, I checked my email to see that a member had seen my profile and written to me. Her name is Safiye. She is a student who has been in the US for a few months but has had difficulty meeting Americans and wants to practice English more. She must have seen the opportunity presented in an American wanting to learn Turkish (me!). So we met last week and walked around the Copley Square area then walked toward the Common. We talked about a number of things relating mostly to Turkey and so forth. It was a nice evening. Since then we have talked and taught each other things about our countries and languages. I feel compelled, perhaps by gratitude for the many ways various Turks and other foreigners have shown me kindness and hospitality, to look after her while she is here. Besides, hanging out in Boston is always fun. I have another friend living in Boston as well, Amy Castonguay. She is from WPI and we have a lot of theatre and comedy friends in common. The other day, the three of us spent some time in the Boston Common together. There, we watched a performance of Shakespeare's "As You Like It", with Amy helpfully translating it from Shakespearian into layman's English. She was in a performance of the same play last year and amazingly could still recite some of the lines. In my -limited- acting experience, I have always had an incredible ability to forget my lines immediately following the last performance.

Anyway, Safiye and I continue to meet a couple times a week. She teaches me Turkish phrases, I help her with English sometimes. This Friday we will go to the next Turkish meetup together. Actually, it is kind of ironic that I will be taking her there for the first time.

This is my life now. Day to day I am happy, hopeful. I am happy to be keeping in touch with friends, old and new. I am hopeful for a good year ahead. There are a few things I want to write more about, which I will do in my upcoming posts. Take care.

4th of July weekend

Fourth of July weekend was one of the best I have had. After work on Thursday, I drove up to Maine. On the drive there, I called my two sisters and brother to talk with them. For almost the entire state of Maine, I was on the phone with one of my siblings. It really helped kill the time and it was nice anyway just to talk with them. In no hurry, I drove at gas-saving speeds the whole time and made good use of cruise control. Later I calculated that I got 34.5 mpg for that trip which is rather good for my car. I got to the house and a little while later my dad and step-mom came home from a dinner they had been invited out to.

I went to bed early because I was tired and because that is what I do every night when I have work the next day.
Accordingly, I woke up at around 7:30 the next morning. It was the actual 4th of July. I had a bowl of cereal and listened to the chickens in the yard clucking around. We all sat around the table talking about plans for the day. It seemed simple: go to the Harborside "Parade", come back, load the kayaks onto the car, and then go kayaking all afternoon. Well, that is basically what happened, but it was not easy. My step-grandmother wanted to come along with us to the "parade" which meant we had to drive through the "parade" before it started to drop her off so that she would not have to walk far. Also, we had to bring the dog, Maude, because grandma had made a fourth of July outfit for her to wear. The weather was good and the "parade" was enjoyable. Oh and I put the quotes there because I think of a parade as an unstoppable wall of enthusiastic and/or motivated people, but given the size of the town (extra small), it was more like a quaint old-fashioned affair, like a scene one would expect to see in a Norman Rockwell painting. Well, minus my dad running around with his camera taking pictures, my step-mom casually trying to avoid her local enemies, and Maude freaking out because of all the people and the other dogs. I found it hard not to feel like a complete outsider.

The very moment it looked like things were wrapping up in Harborside, I turned to dad and asked if I could go get the car before all the other traffic. He said sure. The car was parked a ways away. I walked until I was out of sight of the other people. Then I ran. Jumping in the car, I turned it on quickly. I hit the gas but it took a couple moments for the engine to engage and I nearly peeled out of the parking spot. Then, driving with the determination of a madman, the aggressiveness of an old man, at the speed of a dead man, I crawled through the street past all the young and old smiling faces. I wore a big smile to hide within me the dire sense of imprisonment and maniacal hate caused by all the foot traffic in my way. I stopped the car in front of grandma and the family. I was about to climb out and let dad drive, but the next thing I knew, everyone was in the car. Someone said "drive," but it probably was just the voice in my head. We made it away from Harborside with no delays. When we got home, I made the mistake of asking my stepmom what she thought of the event. She pulled a couple of brewskies out of the fridge and handed one to me. It was 12:30 in the afternoon.

A bit frazzled from the morning, we loaded the kayaks onto the car and drove for the town landing. Out on the water, we all felt much better. I discovered that I am amazing at kayaking. I am so great! Also I discovered that my camera strapped nicely to the front of my lifejacket so I took some videos from that angle. Anyway, we paddled on over to a beach when suddenly my cell phone started making noise. I had a voicemail!. I must have hit a pocket of reception. I stepped on to the beach and listened to the soft angelic voice of the sweetest girl I know. Everything was just peachy at this point. We parked the kayaks and went for a swim. The water was like ice. It was rock hard! Haha, no actually it was really cold. I went under briefly.

Tired and sore we returned home. Dad and I walked the dogs while my stepmom made dinner. Dinner was homemade pizza complete with vegetables from a local garden. We watched a movie that night. "Love in the Time of Cholera" it was called. I expected it to be horribly depressing but it was actually alright. I went to bed but left the computer on in order to download the latest Young Turks podcast.

The next day, we went kayaking again. In the car we listened to The Young Turks show. It was hilarious as usual. We decided not to pick up junkfood for the beach, a decision we later regretted but made up for.

So we kayaked on. We stopped at a beach, but I didn't swim this time, because I had been cold all afternoon (temperature-wise... not cold-hearted) the day before as a result of having swum. We listened to some more TYT on the way home and stopped for junkfood at the market. We ate some more delicious organic food for dinner.

The next morning I left to join the herd of all the other people driving south after the holiday. I stopped at the blueberry farm in Orland to take a picture of the wind turbine there for the New England Wind Forum website and magazine. One of the chief editors of the magazine had asked this favor of me when we met in Houston at the AWEA convention.

The rest of the drive totally sucked and I'd rather not talk about it. When I got home I relaxed for a while and then rested my head. As well as my sore, sunburnt arms. Reflecting on the weekend I have to say it was awesome. Don't know when I will get to see my dad and stepmom again or even kayak again, but I hope it is soon.