The Unmuddled Mathematician

Actuarial Marriage

By Chris Coray, The Unmuddled Mathematician

Go ahead, re-read the title.  It is not “Actual Marriage”, but Actuarial Marriage.  There is a

difference.  In my professional career one of the things I worked on was establishing an Actuarial Science program at Utah State.  This is a field in advanced applied mathematics where graduates can get really good jobs.  But that has nothing to do with the topic of this article.

There are volumes of data used by actuaries, including what are called Mortality Tables, which pretty much contain information about questions like this, “If you are currently age X, what is your life expectancy?”  This information is used by insurance companies.  It is also the source of a commonly held belief that women live longer than men.  The difference is quantifiable.  So I've pondered (slowly, like most men) about why this is so and have finally had an epiphany.  It is just not so.  There is no biological reason of which I am aware that provides an argument about why the difference is life expectancies.  In fact, my argument is that there is no biological difference.  But there are reasons for the actuarial difference.

Aha, you say, then how do I account for the difference?  The answer hit me when I was doing what all humans should spend more time doing, i.e., fishing.  The words of Isaac Walton were floating in my thoughts, especially the sentence, “The hours a man spends fishing are not subtracted from his life.”  There is no proof of this claim, but it seems like it is almost like scripture.  And then it hit me.  Hours spent fishing are not subtracted from a life, but maybe there are other activities that are subtracted, sometimes with multipliers.   This revelation started a whole chain of possibilities.  A partial list is included, but feel free to add those about which you are as certain as I am about my partial list.

Item 1---Waiting.  How much time does the average male spend waiting for his spouse.  This waiting can occur in many places, like in the garage as the spouse, who has urged her mate to be on time while he is in fact sitting behind the wheel cooling his jets as he waits for his dearest to actually show up at the vehicle.  Is it possible to become a fossil hardened statue while sitting behind the wheel of a car just waiting?  I think likely.  And if the waiting happens while the female spouse is shopping then a multiplier of 2 or 3 is applied to that waiting time and it is subtracted immediately from his life.   You show me a man who is peaceful while waiting for a shopping wife and I will show you a man who has been dead for some time and has assumed room temperature.  If the engine is running it also adds to global warming as ancient dinosaurs are consumed while the husband (if he is still alive) guesses how long this wait will be. 

Item 2---Dressing.  Is it important that a man’s tie matches his pants and coat, or anything else for that matter?  Or that he is wearing a navy blue shirt and black pants?  Or one of the other deadly sins?  Not to your average guy, who would be happy in Levis any day but must be inspected by the spouse before appearing in public and changing colors if told to do so.  This wasted inspection and change time has a multiplier of 4 on the life expectancy shrinkage scale.

Item 3---Sports.  This life shrinkage is entirely self inflicted.  Using a vocabulary that contains at most 100 words, sports announcers (there are thousands in the world, all of whom attended at least 1^st grade) can hold the attention of single cell amoebas (men) for what is close to infinite time during a game of any kind, as no upper limit has ever been reached.  The “unforgettable” games are of course completely forgettable and so much alike that the synapses in our male brains become brittle, like aluminum wire, and fail much earlier than would be the case if we were just engaged in human conversation.  “This is a “critical third down” describes something for which I can imagine nothing less critical.  We are saved a little bit by the fact that the multiplier here is only ½ in decrease of life expectancy. 

Item 4---Doing dumb things.  Again, self inflicted but without limits, and way tipped toward males.  There is a group each year who earn what is called a Darwin award, which is given to a man who manages to get himself killed doing something really stupid he chose and executed himself, and it earns the name since the fellow has removed himself from the gene pool.  You can look up winners on the web.

Finally, I close with an example of something like those in item 4 but which will not cause gene pool removal.  My dear friend the Muddled Male just had made and sent off to the state a new photo of himself so he could get his concealed carry permit renewed.   Darth Vader (also known as Ann to civilized people) allows him to do this because she does not allow him to actually own a gun.  None.  So in an extreme situation I guess he could flash his card and save a damsel or some other person in distress.  The saving would occur only if the person viewing the card laughs himself to death, which has a probability greater than zero.

Taken together these situations and others are in fact the cause of the actuarial difference in life expectancies.  I am surprised the difference is not larger.

Hay Bale Minon Appears For Rich High Homecoming

Created and photographed by Tammy Calder

New Bear Lake Law Opens Access For Beach-goers

Eli Lucero/Herald Journal

The Herald Journal

By Kevin Opsahl Staff writer
Reprinted with permission

GARDEN CITY — As the executive directors of Bear Lake Watch, David and Claudia Cottle spent years working on a comprehensive management plan with land managers to allow easy motorized and vessel use on the giant lake spanning Utah and Idaho.

Then in 2013, House Bill 333 became law, restricting motor or vessel access to people who owned property “adjacent” to Bear Lake and only allowing them to do it in areas designated by the state as open — all to hamper the threat of invasive species. Later, during the famed Raspberry Days, the Cottles became “buried” with people complaining about HB 333, they said.

Before they knew it, David and Claudia, of Fish Haven, Idaho, and a handful of other area residents, were at the Utah Legislature speaking in support of a new bill, known as HB 140, co-sponsored this year by Rep. Curt Webb, R-Providence.

“Anyone who goes to Bear Lake knows that the blue goes straight from your eyes to your heart,” Claudia said in an interview with The Herald Journal earlier this week. “The passion is there from thousands of people around Utah and Southeast Idaho.”

Claudia emphasized that Bear Lake Watch, a citizens group dedicated to preserving and protecting the turquoise lake, played a minimal role in seeing HB 140 pass the Legislature and receive a signature by the governor.

Under the new law, the Division of Forestry, Fire and State Lands issues permits to anyone, allowing them to launch or retrieve a motorboat on state lands surrounding Bear Lake. A permit is required for all motorboat activities.

As for motorized access, people are allowed to travel within no more than 100 feet of the water’s edge to launch or retrieve a motorboat — if the person is permitted to do so — to transport an individual with limited mobility, or deposit or retrieve equipment to a beach site.

Beach-goers can also travel in a motorized vehicle parallel to the water’s edge no more than 500 yards in each direction in areas designated by the state as open. They’re also allowed motorized access to and from the beach site. But they can’t drive recklessly or exceed a speed limit of 10 miles per hour.

Now, as the jam-packed tourism season in the Bear Lake area comes to a close, citizens and public officials are reflecting on the law’s effect on the area.

“A paradigm shift”

Webb emphasizes his bill that become law restores access to public property by saying the Utah beachfront is open everywhere “except where the state can justify closure.”


“You’ll see signs that say, ‘This area of the beach is closed,’” Webb explained. “There are a few areas that are environmentally sensitive.”


There are also signs around the beaches of Utah’s side of Bear Lake outlining the motorized and boat access rules of the new law.


Matt Coombs, Forestry, Fire and State Lands’ sovereign lands coordinator, told The Herald Journal “the paradigm shift” Webb refers to is a major part of the new law.

“We created a motorized access plan for Bear Lake, HB 140 has sped us up on that process; based on that plan, we marked some areas that have been closed historically ... and then areas that were marked were opened, so we’ve seen a lot more vehicles on the beach this year,” Coombs said. “That was the first step. There are still going to be some management decisions in terms of what areas are open, what areas are closed.”

Coombs said the state recognizes the need to open access while also protecting habitats.

“That’s part of our job is to strike that balance,” he said.

In terms of vessel access to the lake under the new law, Webb emphasizes the popular marina has always been open to boat users and will continue to be; but now that anyone can launch under the new law, they have to be educated about invasive species like quagga mussels.

Webb, who owns property at Bear Lake, is happy with the way the his bill is being enforced.

“I believe that the state and those who are charged with planning uses for Bear Lake’s sovereign lands have accepted the shift and have begun to govern accordingly,” Webb said. “This summer is evidence of that. Looking ahead, I believe governance will be refined and improved to afford reasonable and orderly public access to all citizens of our state, whose land it is.”

Earlier this month, Rich County deputy Sheriff Matt Landfair sat in his patrol car and surveyed the people out using Garden City beach. Activity was sparse on that late summer day, but it was only a few weeks ago that people were using motorized vehicles — under certain conditions — on the beach.

“It’s almost a compromise,” Landfair explained. “They are allowed access on the beach, however, only within certain perameters. The typography of the beach changes on a regular basis ... so in order to preserve that, we need to control the amount of motor vehicles driving up and down.”

Now that the law is in effect, Webb said he’d like to hear public feedback about it.

“We did it so that everyone had access to public ground — I hope that’s what we’ve been able to accomplish,” the Providence lawmaker said. “This lake is worth protecting, it is the gem of the state, in my opinion, for recreation. We have to have that balance of use of public lands for the benefit of everybody.”

Access controversy

Darin Pugmire, a life-long Bear Lake area resident who is on the town council and owns a business on the lake, said before HB 333 came along, there were relatively “no issues” for people to access the lake.

“It was wide open all around,” Pugmire said. “There was no quota on what you could and couldn’t do and unfortunately people abused that; we didn’t have the number of people then that we do now. Because of the number of people, that’s why the Legislature had to pass something to make sure there were some teeth into what they’re proposing."

In 2013, then Rep. Ronda Menlove, R-Garland, sponsored HB 333.

The bill satisfied lake homeowners but angered Bear Lake area residents and people from out of town who used the lake for recreation.

Menlove could not be reached by The Herald Journal this week.

Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, who carried Menlove’s bill through the Senate, supported the 2013 bill, but told The Herald Journal he didn’t understand the bill as well as he thought. Hillyard was interested in the bill’s restrictive access to prevent boat-goers from potentially bringing the invasive species such as quagga mussels into Bear Lake.

“It went further than that; it gave Garden City too much police power,” Hillyard said.

When HB 333 went into effect, it drove down business in Bear Lake/Garden City, Pugmire observed at the time.

“It pushed a lot of them down to the valley, down to the north end of the lake; it stays warmer there,” he said. “It pushed a lot of business out of Garden City.”

But it’s hard tell how much it impacted to tourism industry in the area overall, because the number of people coming to Bear Lake every summer increased.

“The worst thing that ever happened (was that Bear Lake) was not open to the public,” Pugmire said. “But we all know that’s not the way it works on sovereign lands. I’m glad we got (the law) changed; now everyone has the same exact ability to access the lake.”

Hillyard changed his approach during the 2015 session with Webb’s new Bear Lake bill.

“This time, I made sure I was involved in all of the discussions so I knew better about what this bill is doing. Curt’s bill does open it up and I feel comfortable where it ended up — some people are unhappy about it because cabin owners think they own the land all the way down to the water. They don’t; it belongs to all of us.”

He added, “As we watch what happens we may have to fine tune (Webb’s bill) some, but I think Curt did a masterful job on it.”

However, Hillyard believes the 2013 bill was the starting point for some improvements with Bear Lake access.

“I think it did one good thing: It taught us where this line ought to be,” the senior lawmaker said. “Maybe (the 2013 bill) did go to far, but maybe we needed a wake up call to really make people think a minute, ‘You know, I have an obligation to make sure I don’t transport quagga mussels to Bear Lake which are infested in Lake Powell.’”

Garden City Mayor John Spuhler said the new law is beneficial to Bear Lake and its summer season. He was against certain parts of the bill earlier this year, as was Pugmire, before it went ahead in the legislative process.

“I think, at the end of the day, the changes that he made enhances the experience,” the mayor said. “The bill didn’t create more access as much as ease of use and more defined use policies. People came to respect the (need to protect the) environment and sovereign lands did a great job of identifying what areas were off limits. It’s going to be good for years to come.”

Spuhler thanked Webb, saying the law as currently written was possible because of compromise between Garden City officials and Webb. Back in a February Garden City conference call with city officials and residents, many people worried Bear Lake beaches would be turned into a race way under the bill’s initial language.

“Because of the intent of motorized access is to get a spot on the beach for your day use, that made all of the difference in the world, because of the compromise Rep. Webb made,” Spuhler said. “The original bill did not represent that — and no one wanted the beach to become a raceway on the beach. Because he wrote that intent language in there, it makes it easy for our deputies and ordinance people to go down and say, ‘your not allowed to do that; you can bring your stuff down the beach and park here.’ Without that, this bill could have been fairly disastrous.”