Into the Head of Stephen (a little)

I do the same thing. Well, not to the same extreme. Here, an example: at work, sometimes people will pay with those gift cards that look like credit cards. There's no way for me to check the amount left on the card. So if your purchase is for more than the amount on the card, and you didn't keep track of everything, then it'll be hard to finish off the card. Or so you would think. But I'm a computer science graduate. I've been waiting (for weeks) for this scenario to happen while the store is quiet, so I can tell the person that we can get the card cleaned out (exactly) in 10-15 passes (given their total, I can give an exact number). Yay for modifying search algorithms for real life use!

I also have a tendency to try and find patterns, even where ones likely fail to exist. For example, there are four of us who are close friends and attend church together (Rae, Eleanor, Jessica, myself). After Eleanor and AJ started dating, I noticed a pattern. We were getting into relationships one by one, youngest to oldest. So Jessica's next, then me. I noticed there was a three month time between Rae and Eleanor (Rae and Eleanor noticed that the times were near the people's birthdays). So that means Jessica should be soon. Then, I'll either get a girl in June (birthday) or August (3 months). Well, assuming Jessica doesn't introduce some weird non-linear time pattern thing...

Of course, then there's the pattern Rae noticed. When she and Sean get married, she'll be Eleanor's (her best friend) cousin (Sean is Eleanor's second cousin). If Eleanor and AJ get married, then AJ will be Rae's cousin as well. To continue getting our friends all related to each other, she insists I marry Sean's sister, Rachel. Uh....yeah, sure Rae. And then Jessica needs to marry AJ's younger brother, Mark, and we're all family. Okay, we're already family, but this will leave a train of blood and marriage relationships we can cite on that point. Except it's not gonna happen. I think...

Okay, that's it for my random post. Off to bed, so I can get up for work (8 am, after I just left at 10 pm, exciting!). Oh, and due to pressure from Steve McClain, I've started pondering the nature of my next entry in the Spiritual Gifts Series. All my other readers (if any of you are left), shame on you for never commenting. I'd have gotten to work ages ago if you had.