a random walk

This morning reminded me of a "drunkard's walk," or Markov Chain, in mathematics.  Less colorful mathematicians call them "random walks," viz.,

Random walks are an example of Markov processes, in which future behaviour is independent of past history. A typical example is the drunkard’s walk, in which a point beginning at the origin of the Euclidean plane moves a distance of one unit for each unit of time, the direction of motion, however, being random at each step.

. . . what happened, phenomenologically, was that I woke up because I was cold.  Got dressed.  Staggered into the kitchen, where the clock told me it was only 4:50.  Rather than return to the damp cold bedclothes, I put on a jacket and relaxed in the recliner and listened to the coffeepot blurping.  When the coffee was done, I went out into the morning dark to get the paper and saw that I'd left the Xmas lights on.  Went into the garage and unplugged them. All of these independent events happened before my morning officially started.

Thus the day began in a state of what I now christen "stochastic fatigue."  I hadn't really gone anywhere, but was getting tired.  It didn't help that the newspaper was all about some lunatic couple who decided to dress all in black and go kill a bunch of strangers.  And coworkers.  An all-American sport.  I suppose it could happen in Lithuania.  But then people would think it was strange.

To be fair, it was strange even for America, since the rampage was more carefully planned than most highway projects.  They had their assault gear all set out, along with pipe bombs and another 3,000 rounds of ammunition.  Unsurprisingly, the ammo was standard American military fodder, 9-mm. and .223 caliber.

You have to wonder what their breakfast conversation was like.  "Did you remember the hand grenades?"  "No – you said you were going to do the hand grenades!"  "I did not!  You're always blaming me!"  And so a domestic dispute spills over into the common weal.

Seriously, their careful advance planning didn't seem to include survival.  They set out bombs in a "roll-out" configuration, so they could keep chucking them out efficiently until they died.  They also had explosives attached to small remote-controlled toy cars, which apparently is an Al-Qaeda "signature."  But hey, anyone can use it now.

But the thing seemed to start in a fit of pique; the guy stormed out of an office party at a perceived slight.  Then came back loaded for jihad.  Just a couple of nuts – Muslim nuts, but in a thoroughly American tradition.  If we want to take out an office mate, there's a gun shop just down the street.

Whew.  Somebody pour me a cup of egg nog.

Other than blog stuff, what happened yesterday was that I wrote for awhile, and then went down to the book store to do some Christmas shopping, and then came home to write a bit more.  Typical exciting day.

We met Chuck and Judy for dinner at a Japanese restaurant for a pretty good meal, and then to the local playhouse for a presentation of Mary Poppins, which was more entertaining than I expected.  Interesting flying-umbrella special effects, and a dandy villainess who all but twirled her moustache.  I had a hard time following the dialogue, the more so because it featured a couple of children as leads, and their thin piping voices didn't carry.  But it was a good time, and wine was only a dollar a glass!

Joe