Thursday, October 30, 2014

Why People Fish...
Part 2


This is how this year's fishing variable interval reinforcement schedule played out:

Again, beautiful fall weather, good tide and positive fishing reports were on our side. At our first fishing destination, the water was clear enough to see bait fish following our lures. (Reinforcement of a kind – if bait fish were interested in our lures, surely their larger predators would be as well, no?) After a few casts I caught the smallest bluefish I'd ever seen, all of about three inches. Like a rat getting a single small pellet of food for a lever press...

(For those of you out there that care about such things, we were fishing for bluefish of any size. Bluefish can reach 40 pounds, though under 20 is more common. Smaller, seven to ten inch bluefish are called snappers and are fun to catch and make great eating. They are also the fish I was wildly successful at catching through my teen and college years, much to the chagrin of my brother whom I'd regularly outfish.)

I moved to another part of the pier we were fishing from and hit a hot spot – sort of. I would feel a sharp tug on the line, then nothing. Again, another tug, and nothing. Finally, the rod bent, and I knew I had a big one, which I played until it reached the surface, where I could see the 18-20 inch bluefish skillfully throw the hook and swim away. Like a rat almost getting a substantial reward of food for a lever press. I kept casting.

Another hit, another large blue, not quite as big as the first one, but equally skilled in throwing the hook when I got it to the surface, allowing me to see, again, the size of the one that got away. (Yeah, I know...it sounds like a classic fish story...) More casts, more tugs, at variable intervals, but no more visual appearances. I kept casting.

Meanwhile, my fellow rats fishermen were not seeing quite the action I was, but still kept fishing, experiencing a sort of vicarious variable interval reinforcement from my partial success. We then traveled to another fishing area several miles away where other fishermen had buckets of kingfish they had been rewarded with on their own variable interval schedule. This time my husband hooked and landed a snapper-sized blue, providing my brother and I with the vicarious reinforcement which kept us fishing the surrounding area with no success.

We moved to a third fishing area, one, again, with lots of interested bait fish, some big enough to actually hook and land (more small food pellet reinforcement for lever pressing). It was here I got my own official snapper-sized blue, nostalgically bringing back memories of outfishing my brother. We called it a day shortly thereafter (Lacking that genetic disposition, my husband's fishing stamina was waning.) and we went out for dinner.

At the end of dinner, my brother, who had had up until that point the least successful day of fishing of the three of us, announced he might go to the ocean side of the island and make a few casts before heading home. (It was already dark and he had a four hour trip ahead of him.) As tempting as it was to join him, I played the good wife, said goodbye to my brother, and went back to the hotel with my fished-out husband. Emails from my brother the next day contained a photo of the striped bass he caught in the dark and the tale of a much larger striper that snapped the line and got away with one of my brother's favorite lures.
 
Why do people fish?

Variable interval reinforcement...

Will we be back next year? Oh, yeah...



Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught. - Author Unknown

Wednesday, October 29, 2014


Why People Fish...
Part 1


Why do people fish?”

We were about to embark on a day of fishing with my brother on a recent trip to the east coast when my husband posed the question. He, unlike my brother and me, had not inherited the fishing-obsession gene that runs strong in my family.* He is not opposed to fishing, actually enjoys it in moderate quantities, and will fish with me in the ponds in our backyard. For the past two years he has good-naturedly obtained a New York State Marine Registration which enables him to partake in the marathon fishing day my brother and I engage in when we see each other once a year. We meet on the south shore of Long Island, the area where my brother and I honed our fishing skills growing up, but an area neither of us live close to any more.

I could have answered the question with some sweet brother-sister bonding explanation (I do love my brother.) or said something about the exquisite beauty of the bays and grassy islands I used to take for granted when I lived there but now really miss (They are beautiful and I do miss them.) but I didn't even think of these as reasons at the time. Instead, based on my years of fishing experience and observations, a 40-year old random bit of Psychology 100 popped out of my mouth:

Variable Interval Reinforcement,” I answered...

In behavioral psychology, operant conditioning uses various schedules of reinforcement to shape behavior. Rewards given on a schedule keep mice (and people with fishing rods) repeating certain behaviors. Lab rats will press levers, run mazes, even endure electrical shock, for food. People with fishing rods will cast for hours, in the dark, under difficult weather conditions, for the possible thrill of catching a fish.

Continuous reinforcement, where the desired behavior is rewarded every time it occurs, causes the behavior to occur at a frequent rate, but if the reward is removed, the behavior will quickly cease. But variable interval reinforcement encourages a behavior that is much harder to extinguish, rewarding the behavior after an unpredictable amount of time has passed. A rat in a behavioral science lab might be rewarded with a pellet of food after his first bar press following a one minute interval, receiving another pellet for the first response following a five minute interval, and a third food pellet for the first response following a two minute interval. Variable interval reinforcement encourages slow, steady, repeat behavior. Variable interval reinforcement is why people fish...

My husband's question was, I think, partly motivated by the memory of last year's fishing trip – beautiful fall weather, good tide, positive fishing reports, yet not a single bite for any of us. Is weather, tide and someone else's opinion of whether the fish might show up enough to keep us coming back to try again? Thanks to variable interval reinforcement, yes...


Tomorrow: How this year's reinforcement schedule played out.


*Hooked, May 10, 2013



Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn. - Chuck Clark

Thursday, October 23, 2014

 
Happy Mole Day!
(Nerds R Us Redux)



I almost forgot today was Mole Day...October 23...10/23...1023

My chemist husband emailed me this morning to tell me he arrived at work today at 6:02 am...on 10/23.

Avogadro’s number is 6.02 x 1023. (Actually, it's a longer decimal, carried out to many more places, but 6.02 x 1023 is its common nickname.) This number, named after the Italian scientist for his contributions to molecular theory, represents the number of particles found in one mole of a substance, the mole being the number of atoms determined experimentally to be found in 12 grams of carbon. Or something like that...of interest mainly to those trying to pass high school chemistry or scientists who work with chemical compounds (said husband being the latter).

Last March 14, Pi Day (3/14...3.14), I wrote about our family celebrating the nerd holidays.* I included a recipe for a Pi Day celebratory pear pie. I also promised a recipe for mol(e)lasses cookies come Mole Day. Well, the day is here and so is the recipe. Enjoy, perhaps after a tamale or enchilada covered in mole poblano sauce... 

 
Mole Day Mol(e)asses Cookies


¾ cup oil
¼ cup dark molasses
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 ¾ cups flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon cloves


In a large bowl, stir together oil, molasses, and 1 cup of the sugar. Add eggs and beat until smooth. Add baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, beating until well combined. Add flour. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until next day.
Place remaining ¼ cup sugar in a small bowl. Roll dough into 1-inch balls, then roll in sugar to coat. Place 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets. Bake in a 350° oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to racks and let cool completely Store airtight.



*The Angle, March 14, 2014


Nerd Girl Problem #25 – England has a magical channel called BBC where shows like Sherlock and Doctor Who originated. America has E!, which boasts Jersey Shore and Keeping Up With the Kardashians.

Saturday, October 11, 2014


An Introvert in the Hands of an Extroverted God


I'm surprised it didn't occur to me sooner. The Trinity stuff should have been a dead giveaway – triune God, three Persons in One, a divine posse, heavenly hommies. And what about His motivation for creating mankind, His words regarding Adam - “It is not good that the man should be alone”...? Yep, the Deity I worshiped was an extrovert...

As early as middle school, long before I was familiar with the meaning of the word, I knew I was not one - an “extrovert”, that is. I knew what one was, the boy in school who engaged the teacher in circuitous conversations that made her forget the promised quiz, the girl who could fearlessly approach any group of kids and start talking about anything. Nope, not me... If a teacher wanted to hear what I had to say, I needed to be called on. And I could come up with the perfect social conversation starter...usually about two hours after the opportunity to use it had passed. Some people described me as shy, but I thought of myself as quiet – until I had something to say – and then I said it, after thoroughly pondering and rehearsing it over and over in my mind, of course. My mind was a very busy place, but nobody knew that except me. Because of the way my mind and personality worked, and because of all the energy it took to put myself out there – in school, in the neighborhood, in relationships – there were certain social things that I shied away from doing, usually involving large groups of people. “That's just not me,” I would think, and go and find another book to read.

When I was seventeen, I decided to take God seriously and found myself on the other side of a sudden shift from a third person (“Him and me”) relationship with God to a second person (“You and me”) relationship. The relationship got personal in the best kind of way, and in the early days of getting to know that triune God of the Bible – Father, Son and Spirit – in a deeper way, I found myself listening for His speaking into my life. (I'm not getting weird here. I'm not talking about audible voices, just a strong sense of thoughts and ideas that were too wise and profound to come from my teenaged introverted mind...) One of the first things I felt God speaking to me about went something like this: “You know how you don't do certain things because you think you can't, that it isn't in your personality to be outgoing, to speak up in groups? Well, I've changed all that...” (“Wow!” I thought. “God knows who I am, and He's going to turn me into one of those cool, outgoing, social types!”) But He wasn't done. “I've changed all that. I'm taking away your ability to use the quiet, thinking person I made you as an excuse not to do what I call you to do, to speak when and where and to whom I want you to speak...” I was left with the profound sense of, yes, God did know who I was, who He created me to be, but it wasn't up to me to decide what I was capable of doing. It was up to Him. I wasn't sure how I felt about that...taking away my ability to use my introvertedness as an excuse...previously, it had worked so well for me...

Over the years since then I have found myself in situations where I have been asked to do something I have perceived as too “extroverted” for who I am – speak in public, facilitate a Bible study, lead a small group, approach and socially engage someone I barely knew. My default is to want to use my introvertedness as a good reason why I can't do it. But God had been true to His word. He did in fact change me, taking away my introverted excuse of social energy deficiency. As I'd step back, as the words “No, I really can't do that...” were making their way to my lips, the hand of Him who created me would gently push me forward, and I'd find myself saying “O.K. I'll give it a try...” Yeah, momentary panic would often ensue - “I can't believe I just agreed to do that...” - but over time I've learned to depend on my faithful, extroverted God to compensate for my perceived introverted social deficiencies.

So, I've gone through most of my life feeling like, as I've described to myself, a large rubber band, functioning at the stretched limits of my introvertedness. Sometimes I fear I'll snap, when I've said “yes” to something outside my comfort zone, but, in truth, I never do snap. When I stumbled upon the following quote in Susan Cain's excellent book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, it was with some amusement and a sense of camaraderie:

...Free will can take us far,...but cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer. We might call this the “rubber band theory” of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much.

The introvert in me wants to wholeheartedly agree with this statement, but my extroverted God reminds me that it is He who determines the limits to which I can be stretched. He made me the way I am, in His image, so sometimes I acknowledge that if He is the extroverted God I perceive Him to be, part of me must have some piece of the extrovert in me as well. Other times, when I think He's completely forgotten who I am and how He made me, I'm reminded of Jesus, in Matthew's gospel -

And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone... *

- and then I know my God does understand what it means to be an introvert, seeing Him through His son's need for those moments of quiet solitude. So, I trust Him with the rubber band that is me. He knows the amount of stretching I am capable of. In His hands I can rest in the confidence I will not break, even when I may not feel it in the moment. He may choose, like a bold middle school student, stirring up things in the back of the classroom, to stretch and shoot me in directions that would cause my old, distant now, self to mumble “I can't...not me.” But this present introvert, in the hands of my extroverted God, all excuses removed, can only acknowledge such a launching as a trajectory toward the true me...


When you meet me, you think I am quiet.  Then you get to know me and just wish I was quiet. - Anonymous

Quiet people have the loudest minds. - Stephen Hawking


* Matthew 14:23

Friday, October 3, 2014

 
Well, the short version - not dead... - Sherlock

Miss me? - Jim Moriarty



What I Did this Summer...

I haven't been writing much this summer. Truthfully, I haven't written anything at all. My life for the past three months has been consumed by the most all-encompassing, mentally exhausting, and emotionally draining of first world problems...

Yep...kitchen remodeling...

Our house, and everything in it, turned 25 this year. Though the original hot water heater and furnace keep chugging away long past their life expectancies, the roof had already been replaced (twice!), the front porch rebuilt, and over the past few years the rotting windows, held in place for a few years by tension curtain rods, have all been replaced. I'd replaced drawer glides on some of the kitchen drawers, rebuilt drawer supports, repaired broken doors and retouched ever-fading kitchen cabinet surfaces. Time for a new kitchen...

Like most home improvement projects, the kitchen cabinet replacement grew in scope with every step of the planning. New cabinets meant, of course, new sink, new faucet, new microwave and new countertops. (Our appliances had already been replaced in the past few years.) Said kitchen was also surrounded by equally old vinyl flooring which snaked into the front hallway, powder room, laundry room and family room. Here, a large chunk of it had been removed years earlier during the replacement of the sliding glass doors and was successfully hidden under some carpet runner that had been cut to fit over what was now bare underlayment. As such visually neat fixes often do, it made us completely forget there was a major gap in our flooring. But when we forced ourselves to acknowledge the hole under our feet, kitchen remodeling now included a large area of new flooring which then somehow made the installation of a new toilet and new faucet in the powder room make sense...

Kitchen cabinet selection was relatively easy. We worked with a great craftsman who steered us toward a selection of beautiful styles of cabinetry. But what color? Our first challenge was to find a floor and cabinet color that would not do outright battle with the wood windows I had over-zealously stained some years before in what could only be called a shade of “aggressive maple”. Twelve stain swatches later, I decided on a warm shade of light maple that seemed to make peace between the window and trim color and the wood grain of the new vinyl plank floor. It would look absolutely beautiful on the cabinets but, as I was later to find, would make the choosing of backsplash tile almost impossible, “warm shade of light maple” not being a trending color. (My physiologically color blind husband begs out of all decisions involving color selection, which he finds “confusing”. I promised him the cabinets wouldn't be “hot pink”, which is how he perceives some of the grayer neutrals...)

Then there was cabinet hardware selection, bought and returned multiple times for multiple reasons. Styles we liked didn't fit the drawers. Styles that did never seemed to be stocked in quantities enough for all the cabinets, and any additional ones ordered ran the risk of having slightly different finishes. We found that kitchen sink drains have migrated off-center over the years, making it difficult to find a simple stainless steel sink that didn't require major replumbing to hook it up. Styles of faucets, kitchen and bath, are always changing, and we threw caution to the wind and bought the latest and the greatest in faucets, which were actually both a fun and functional improvement over our old ones.

The weeks of actual renovation were “inconvenient”, but only for us spoiled first world inhabitants who feel periodically having to wash dishes in a small powder room sink was “roughing it” and having no microwave, “primitive”. The days without a stove meant eating out, not really a hardship with Culver's just around the corner. A temporary countertop came and went, a temporary sink came and went. And then the new countertop decision. Formica or granite? The prices of each had been growing closer over recent years so we went with the granite. This decision led to what I can only describe as an opportunity for me to get in touch with my sin nature (but that's another blog post). The countertop had been installed with a shallow, four foot scratch in a very visible area. The granite people came back, in not a timely manner, to buff out the scratch, leaving a four foot smeared section in the otherwise reflective surface of the granite. Weeks and many phone calls later, the granite people returned, cut out the marred section of countertop and replaced it with a “cousin” slab of the same section of granite.

I was going to wait to start writing again when the Great Summer Project was completed, but it's the beginning of October, and I still don't see an end in sight. The new kitchen is functional, looks great, but I'm still waiting – for months now - to get an estimate on installing a tile backsplash. (Tilers must be the busiest tradesmen in the remodeling business, judging from the difficulty they have in finding time to schedule estimates and jobs. Want to learn a trade that will keep you gainfully employed? Become a tiler.) And the tile stores are full of tile samples, none of which play nicely with that warm shade of light maple of my cabinets. (It's a yellow/gray trending color palette out there at present. White and black are starting to look like real color options to me at the moment.) But, with only a hope of having a backsplash by Thanksgiving, or maybe Christmas, I'm declaring the Great Summer Project done. I'm back writing...




Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
- Barbara Johnson