They’re all related. Sort of.

We had an early frost here – meaning a busy twilight in the garden as everyone hurried to wrap sturdy plants in fabric, cut down weaker plants for the compost pile, and harvest everything possible for a bounty that seemed premature. I felt like I was preparing for a war to hustle among the other quiet and somber gardeners, passing plots that would not survive the night with what I could carry. We did take in ~100 tomatoes, still on big chunks of vine to drape all over the house – a trick I learned from my dad to keep the tomatoes ripening into the autumn. All the basil has been processed with olive oil and put in the freezer, we’ve pickled green tomatoes and brussel sprouts, have a crisper full of bell peppers that never quite reached the promised orange or purple colors, and paper bags full of onions and potatoes. These are all good things, of course.

But an early frost is so frustrating – it feels like a statistical aberration, like losing $500 at the slot machines in your first 20 minutes. Given all the averages, shouldn’t we get a couple more weeks to ripen the crops, enjoy fresh herbs, and maybe coax a few more marigolds and nasturtiums in the shorter days? Apparently not. Nature isn’t into observing averages on a regular basis.

Statistics is a huge (and not displeasing) part of my life right now, given that my new position involves drawing up experiments and checking them for accuracy by comparing their values to previous tests. It is a bizarre thing to realize that when I took engineering statistics in college, apparently it wasn’t the statistics I hated. It was our professor, and the 8am start time of the class (which I think I would still hate now). I’m glad to draw up fancy spreadsheets showing my colleagues with less experience that yep, my chemical concoctions are accurate and precise. Take that, Kompala!

Statistics is something that Sam struggles a little more with. A weekend in Blackhawk where admittedly I expected the odds to be against all visitors, cost Sam $120. The majority of that was for a practice run at poker, something he’s been working on – but like the friends who came with us there are many good poker players who show up at casinos on weekends to take money from those still learning. I respect statistics over skill at corporations that are very good at both, so I played slot machines for 20 minutes, and stopped once I had a $5 profit. Statistics would show a curve of winnings in any casino game that takes relatively little skill, and most of the curve would have me at a loss – so I walked away happy.