Business Cards

cleverbusinesscards.com

     There was another article in the Wall Street Journal this past week that caught my eye. This one, about business cards, was nowhere near as serious as the one by Mr. Morgenthau. The article is titled: Business Cards Aren’t Dead, They’re Just Getting Weirder.
     There are online companies like moo.com and cleverbusinesscards.com that specialize in creating cards that are different and standout. A business card is a handout and a reminder. Everyone has them and are happy to pass them out to prospective clients, people that we want to stay in touch with, or for general networking purposes. It is not uncommon to return from a conference, seminar, convention, trade show, or networking event with a stack of business cards. If you don’t do something with them almost immediately, these piles of business cards become desk or briefcase clutter. The next step is to toss them.
     What is an immediate action for business cards? Sales folks know what to do with them as the cards represent new contacts and leads that are essential to business development. They used to file them in a Rolodex to keep on their desk and so they could access whoever they wanted whenever they wanted to. The quality, depth, and breadth of one’s Rolodex was a sign of influence, importance, and connectivity in the 1960s and 70s.
     Now, of course, Rolodexes have been replaced with electronic contacts. They have been replaced by smart phones, LinkedIn and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. There is really no need to keep a business card after a LinkedIn connection has been made and the address, phone, and email has been entered into one’s contacts or CRM. It is even possible with phones to exchange contact information electronically.
    So, are business cards still important? Why carry them around and why pass them out?

     The answer?  They are still very convenient. Not everyone is phone and tech savvy. It takes no time and very little effort to take someones business card and put it in your shirt or jacket pocket to follow through with it the next time you are at your desk or on your computer. This is all well and good, assuming the card is not lost or you simply forget to do it; both of which, I have been guilty of.
     With the flexibility of programmable controllers business cards no longer have to adhere to a standard size. In fact they come in varieties of colors, shapes, and thicknesses that until just a few years ago were not possible. People have taken to making them unique in hopes that it will differentiate them from all the other business cards a perspective customer or client may have collected at a networking event or conference.
     This desire for differentiation is what draws folks to the moo.com and cleverbusinesscards.com. It is also what makes businesses provide coffee cups, pens, and calendars with the same information that is on their business cards. They want people to keep these handouts, trinkets and trash in promotional products industry slang, on their desk to keep their names top of mind. While I appreciate a good pen or coffee cup, I do not think I have ever thought of a product or service that I needed, looked at the pen or coffee cup, and then called or emailed that person or company. I have no idea what the statistics are for this or how one might even track such. 

4allpromos.com

     What led me to write this piece is the Lock Pick business card featured in the WSJ and on cleverbusinesscards.com. I was fascinated because I never thought of such a thing and for some reason I have always wanted lock pick tools… like I would ever use them. Clever Business Cards does indeed live up to their name with their offerings.
     A product that used to be more popular is the small desk calendar as in the photo. 4AllPromos.com, where I copied the photo, calls this the Legacy Desk calendar. I remember my parents always had one or two either from an Armenian Funeral Director or my father’s first cousin, John Baronian, who had an insurance agency in Medford MA. I cannot recall the last time anyone gave me one of these, if ever. Heck, I cannot remember the last time I actually saw one.

     Actually on cue, between editing and posting this piece today, I went to an operations/supply chain business networking cocktail party.  I met folks there from a Chicago based packaging company, PackSmart.  They were passing out mouse pads with a calendar on them.  They have been giving out these mouse pad calendars for years.  They are so popular that people call each year looking for the new one.  I will certainly replace my coffee stained old mouse pad with this one.
    A few years ago when I was trying to make a go of a consulting business, I added a dimension to my service offering: Business Writing. I would help folks write the business equivalent of term papers i.e. business plans, strategic plans, requests for proposals, responses to requests for proposals, and website copy. The reasoning was that the last thing most small business owners wanted to do was to put finger to keyboard and have to produce such a document.  I understood business and liked to write.  It was a good addition to my supply chain consulting.
     I thought to make a more creative and distinctive business card for this

more creative and distinctive service offering. I just seen the movie Hitch in which the star, Will Smith, had a square black business card with rounded corners and shinier black printing. I liked the shape and went for it. I did not go for the black on black opting instead for more legibility. My friend Rose Kostan-Schwartz (rosekostanschwartz.com) helped me with the logo and layout and the Alphagraphics in Bannockburn, IL printed them out. I got a lot of compliments when I passed them out as they were unique. Today, I still like them but they are not so unique.

Tell the Truth About the Armenian Genocide

Ambassador Henry Morgenthau

     Robert M. Morgenthau had an Opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today: Will Trump Tell the Truth About the Armenian Genocide? The gist of the article is that president after president has come into office with a promise to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and to move the US embassy there. These same presidents have also promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Both promises were never fulfilled. As President Trump has recently lived up to his promise of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and has committed to move the US Embassy there, Mr. Morgenthau suggests that President Trump should recognize the Armenian Genocide as well.
      Mr. Morgenthau, 98, who was was the Manhattan District Attorney from 1975 to 2009 is a valued friend of the Armenians. His grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916. Ambassador Morgenthau was the most prominent American to speak out against the Armenian Genocide at that time and perhaps ever. In Mr. Morgenthau’s words from his article:

For me, this chronicle is not confined to history books. My paternal grandfather, Henry Morgenthau, was President Wilson’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire as the horror began to unfold. He quickly understood that this was slaughter on a scale the modern world had never seen. He protested to Turkish leaders, who replied that the Armenians were not American citizens and thus none of the ambassador’s concern. Besides, they said, Ambassador Morgenthau was Jewish, and the Armenians were Christian. 

The Turks even threatened to pressure Washington to recall him. My grandfather’s reply was eloquent: “I could think of no greater honor than to be recalled because I, a Jew, have done everything in my power to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Christians.”

     In the past two days, I had a chance to make two new friends. One is a talented ceramic artist. He is a Kurd who grew up in Iran. Amongst other things we talked about how Turkey, just this week, bombed US backed Kurdish forces in Syria. We talked about how the Turks had the Kurds do some of the dirty work during the Armenian Genocide. With the Armenian Question then answered, the Turkish Government has been trying to solve the Kurdish Question. It is scary to think what might happen given Erdogan’s rhetoric and action. My other acquaintance is a student in my operations management class.

Robert M. Morgenthau

She is from Rwanda and has lived in exile with her family in South Africa, Botswana, and a few other African countries before her family settled in Chicago last year. We talked about how hard it is for the international community to step in and stop mass killings and genocides. This may be true even when there is economic interests and other national interests at stake.
     Maybe it is finally time for a US President to recognize the Armenian Genocide this year. Turkey is not the ally we once thought they were and President Trump may just express his frustrations with Turkey and Erdogan. As far as I am concerned, he could even do it in a tweet.
     As Armenians, we have hope every year as April 24th approaches. We will speak out, write letters, to the President, Senators, and Representatives encouraging them to do the right thing and acknowledge a historical truth. Every year we are disappointed. We will do the same this year and every year until the US government does the right thing. Again, as

Mr. Morgenthau wrote in the last two paragraphs of his piece:

Every April, the president issues a proclamation recognizing the atrocity that was inflicted on the Armenian people. But bowing to Turkish pressure, that proclamation has never contained the word “genocide.” That must change. 

I do not underestimate the concerns of those who say the wrath of Turkey may work against U.S. interests—as I do not dismiss those who say moving the embassy to Jerusalem may complicate peace negotiations. But a just and lasting world order cannot be built on falsehoods and equivocations. Let President Trump demonstrate that commitment once more by declaring the truth of the Armenian genocide. This would send clear message to the thugs in power around the world: Your criminal acts will not go unnoticed.

     Thank you Mr. Morganthau.

The Proofreading Conundrum

www.wikihow.com/Copyedit-and-Proofread-Written-Work

     Oh my!
     My friend Ara, yes that Ara, called to commend me on the Oud Strings and Mzrabs blog post of yesterday. As he also blogs, hyetimesmusic.com, he also asked a simple and innocent question: “do you proofread before you post.” I responded with, “I take it there were some errors in my post.” He said, “A few.” “Dang, and I proofread it twice.”
     I just went over yesterday’s post and there were a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. I was embarrassed seeing how many there were. I proofread it twice, last evening, before posting it and still the errors got through. I usually proofread all posts twice. I do not like to make errors. After all, my industrial career was rooted in quality management.
     Some of the errors were certainly my bad typing, misspellings, and poor grammar. Others were the fact that I was typing the word “ouds,” the plural of the instrument I play, which kept getting autocorrected to “ours.”
     So, what’s going on?
     There are two things. First, it is harder to proofread one’s own writing than that of someone else. I think there is an underlying belief in my mind that “It is impossible for me to have made any errors.” Thus, when I proofread my own stuff, I might just gloss right over some of the errors.
     The second factors is what I can only call biorhythms. Some days, I can type like the wind, well a gentle breeze, everything flows, and there are very few errors. On these same days, I am an astute and diligent proofreader. On other days, I type like the keyboard is under a layer of mud and I, seemingly, proofread without my reading glasses i.e. in a blurry state.
     What the heck are biorhythms? It is a concept developed by a German physician in the late 1800s that was quite popular in the 1970s here in the US.

According to the theory of biorhythms, a person's life is influenced by rhythmic biological cycles that affect his or her ability in various domains, such as mental, physical and emotional activity. These cycles begin at birth and oscillate in a steady (sine wave) fashion throughout life, and by modeling them mathematically, it is suggested that a person's level of ability in each of these domains can be predicted from day to day. The theory is built on the idea that the biofeedback chemical and hormonal secretion functions within the body could show a sinusoidal behavior over time. Wikipedia

     No one talks about biorhythms anymore. Most scientists do not believe in them. I never believed in them. I believe the theory is nonsense especially if the periodicity is a fixed sine curve set at birth. Hey, they were popular in the 1970s. It was a whacky decade. I am the only person I know that keeps referring to biorhythms these days. I even blogged on them back in 2010: Biorhythms and Mood Rings.
     On the other hand, I do believe there are ebbs and flows in focus, aptitude, and cognition. These ebbs and flows are stochastic both in terms of amplitude and frequency. 

     Let’s see if my proofreading of this post is any improvement.

Oud Strings and Mzrabs

With a Najarian Electric, OU80 Strings, and Yissi mzrab. 

     Recently, a friend and oud playing brother, Rich Berberian, texted me and a few other oud players. He wanted to know which strings we might recommend for a Najarian Electric Oud. He has been playing about as long as I have. I realized that I was not alone in testing and using different string brands and gauges. The exchange made me think to blog about oud strings and picks which I shortly gave up on.
     A few days later, another friend, Elyse Semerdjian, Professor of History at Whitman College, texted me asking a similar question. She has an Arabic style oud and felt the strings on her instrument were too thick, too heavy a gauge that is, and thus not as comfortable to play as she might want. I gave a string recommendation but also suggested she use a lighter more flexible pick. I took her inquiry as a divine sign that I should write the bloggy bit I had previously shelved, so here we go.
     Since I was sixteen I have played the oud. It is a middle eastern instrument that is oval shaped with with six strings. The five higher pitched strings are double strings while the lowest pitched string is a single. The double strings, I am assuming, are for acoustic volume, while the lone bass string, is loud enough to be a single. The oud gets it famously mesmerizing sound from that fact that the face and soundboard of the instrument, often made from spruce, is unfinished and for most ouds the strings are tied directly to the bridge as opposed to having a separate bridge. Thus, a plucked string does not ring and linger like a guitar but is muted.
     Like all stringed instruments, the strings used to be made of gut. Literally, they were made from fibers found in the linings of animal intestines.  That was like over fifty years ago. Since then, they have been replaced by nylon. In the Armenian/Turkish tradition that I grew up in, I use a EABEAD tuning from bass to most treble. The bass E and A strings were octaves to the higher pitched ones and are generally hit to reenforce and enrich which was being done on the higher octave string. The higher pitched strings are nylon with the remainder of the strings having a multifilament nylon core that tightly wrapped with a fine gauge metal wire that is usual steel, nickel, bronze, or copper plated with silver or other alloy.
     When I first started playing, it was impossible to buy oud strings. They simply didn’t exist and if they did elsewhere in the world, they were unavailable in Detroit, Michigan. Instead, we had to buy two sets of classical guitar strings. I remember Savarez and D’Addario being amongst the brands I often used. The problem with using classical guitar strings was that classical guitars were tuned EADGBE. The G string was nylon and not the best choice for the higher octave E string on the oud. It just didn’t sound as good. I would either make do with the nylon E string or have to buy single strings and special order a special gauge wound string for the E. This was both a pain and more expensive. I am not sure strings were readily available in the Middle East back in the 1940s - 1960s either. I heard stories of Udi Hrant Kenkulian, the great Armenian oud master, coming to the US buying several difference gauges of fishing line, which he cut to an arm’s length, coiled, and enveloped them into sets of oud strings he would sell to other players on his return to Istanbul.
     Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, as programmable controlled manufacturing came to the wire and cable and thus the string industry, it suddenly became easy to run strings at various gauges whether they were pure nylon or wound. The great American born Armenian players Richard Hagopian and John Bilezikjian worked with the E. and O. Mari company that made LaBella and Daniel Mari strings to produce strings to their specifications. As soon as I heard that LaBella had oud strings, the OU80 model, I bought and tried them. I was astonished, impressed, and delighted to see Richard Hagopian’s photo on the back of the package. They were the only oud strings I have used for like 30+ years. I used them on all my ouds either electric or acoustic. When I bought a Cengiz Sarikus Iraqi style oud with a floating bridge, I bought La Bella OU80A strings; the A being for Arab tuning of EADGCF.
     The oud is played using an elongated plectrum or pick that is held between the thumb and forefinger. The plectrum is called mzrab or mzrap in the Armenian/Turkish tradition and rishi or risha in the Arab world. The length of the pick runs along palm at the knuckles and emerges out the other end of the hand. Sometimes, which is my style, the mzrab emerges out between the ring finger and pinkie. The old masters in the Armenian/Turkish tradition used eagle quills as mzrabs. The end of the

Part of my current inventory of oud strings

feather was flattened out, oiled, and trimmed. The style then was to have to leave a bit of the feather at the end, the part that was sticking out of the pinkie side of their hand. It was a nice bit of flair. The shape of the mzrab, how it is held, and the round belly of the oud effects the geometry of hand, mzrab, and string. It is different than using a guitar pick where the hand is more flat against the face of the instrument. I do believe the mzrab forces the player to strike the string differently. I did experiment using a guitar pick for a while. It did not take me long to return to a more traditional mzrab.
     These days mzrabs are made of celluloid, nylon, or teflon. The modern mzrabs are much better. The Arab rishis were made of cow horn that were cut, shaped, sanded, and oiled. The best Arab oud players I know still use and prefer cow horn rishis.
     And what was a more traditional mzrab in my early playing days? Certainly not an eagle quill as they were hard to come and requiring too much processing. I used what all the other oud players were using. We would take nylon cable straps of the proper thickness which we could cut to the desired length and tip shape. We would then tapper down the tip with sandpaper. It was very effective though I believed that my hand heat reduced what the called memory and resiliance. In the 1980s, I became aware of the Jim Dunlop company that developed and sold some excellent nylon guitar picks. These are the guitar picks I experimented with and liked them. I wrote the company and asked if they could provide sheets of their nylon that I could craft into mzrabs. As I suspected, their nylon guitar picks were molded and thus not available in sheets. The did offer me strips of another material, Tortex, the might be suitable. I loved them. Tortex had great memory and resilience. The came in red which is the smallest thickness, orange which is the medium gauge, and yellow, the stiffest of the three. None of the other oud players liked the Tortex mzrabs I gave them. The orange mzrab was all I used until 2010.

Growing collection of mzrabs and rishis

     In 2010, I went to Istanbul. I was there delivering a speech and course on Supply Chain Management. Needless to say I went to Cengiz Sarikus’s shop where I bought the aforementioned oud. It was there I tried a teflon mzrab. I fell in love with them and have mostly used them ever since.
     Certainly, when it comes to playing, the quality of the oud is first and foremost. There is no substitute with a well-crafted instrument with good action which is basically dependent on the distance from string to fingerboard and a great sound. The better the maker, the better the fits of the pegs, and thus the easier to tune. But, next come the strings, mzrabs, and the interaction of the two. For me it is a dynamic system. On any given day, I may want a stiffer or softer mzrab. It has something to do with how much I have been practicing and probably biorhythms.  At the start of most gigs, I will start with a softer mzrab and switch to a stiffer one as the gig progresses. I might even do that twice. With different strings, some are lighter gauge and some are heavier, I will use different thickness mzrabs to get the feel I like.
     Recently, this whole string-mzrab thing has gotten more complicated. For years, I have been able to buy LaBella oud string online. Recently, like in the past two years, the brands and sellers of oud strings online has exploded. Not only strings but now there are mzrabs and rishis available domestically and internationally. I kind of went crazy with the plectra basically because they were so cheap. Now, even the mzrabs are branded. I have gotten Yissi mzrabs from Pyramid mzrabs from Germany. Pyramid is a German based string company and, yes, they have oud strings which I have yet to try, but I will.
     I have used a site, juststrings.com, to buy oud strings. Lately, I have switched to stringsbymail.com which has lower prices and offers 27 different oud string SKUs and the full line of Pyramid Celluloid Oud picks. At any gig, I always have a few Pyramids and Yissis in my shirt pocket.
    Gotta love the flexibility of modern manufacturing and the creation of a global marketplace thanks to e-commerce!

Oh to Hand Write!

The Handwritten Draft of this Post

     Oh to hand write indeed!  When I was a youngster, I could not wait to learn to hand write. It seemed so magical and mysterious.  How could these markings, these endless flows of penish waves be made in such a way that others, in on the code, could decipher them.  I wanted to be part of the inner circle.  I wanted to know the key.
     At Burns Elementary in Detroit, they first taught us to print.  I understood why.  As we were learning to read printed block letters, we should first learn to write the same way.  But, come on, I wanted to hand write.  I really wanted to hand write.
     If not the first day of 3rd grade, it was in the first week, we began to learn cursive writing.  We didn't call it anything so highbrow.  We simply called it handwriting.  I was excited.  The day had finally arrived.  We spent the whole first session writing i's and e's.  I was proud of my page of i's and e's truly.  I took it home to show my Mom.  But, it also felt lame.  I felt like I could have handled three, five, ten, heck, I was ready for all 26 letters.
     Actually, it came very quickly after that first day.  Almost as quickly as I learned, two negatives popped up.  First, it was faster than printing but dang if it wasn't still tedious.  I always thought because of the flowy and graceful appearance, the handwriting would be much faster.  Second, my handwriting was not uniform.  It was just not very elegant looking or beautiful.  A few of the girls seemed to be very good at it.  Their handwriting was uniform, elegant, and beautiful.  Mine was ugly and embarrassing.
      Soon after we learned to write, we were given themes, book reports, and such.  I struggled.  I struggled with the handwriting and the content.  I do believe a lack of eloquent content was the biggest factor.  It took everything I had to fill a page with the handwriting that I had so longed for.   And when I say a page, it was that greenish very wide rule beginning handwriting paper.  I used every schoolkid trick in the book.  I wrote larger and longer.  I cheated on the margins but never enough to be obvious.  Who am I kidding?  I am sure our teacher, Mrs. Blakely, knew.
     I remember Gail Palmer, Patti Haley, and especially Mary Simmons.  As I would be turning in my ugly handwriting wide margin page, I might catch a  glance at the girls' papers.  They all seemed like they had six pages of the most beautiful handwriting with no extra margins.
     I was not until I started this daily writing habit back in 2002 that I really became comfortable with my handwriting.  I am OK with it today and realize I have my own style that is elegant and uniform in its own way.  Plus, I can now  crank it out when I want to.  It may have taken a long time but I may have fulfilled that childhood dream of handwriting. 

Resolution Update

starwars.com

     In changing a habit, or in this case, recharging one, it is good to celebrate little victories.
     On New Year’s Day, I made a resolution to resume my habit of writing everyday and posted such on this blog.
     I am happy to report that I have, so far, written everyday. That daily writing has resulted in nine blog posts. That surpasses the number of posts for all of 2017 was at a all time low of just eight posts. Also, the number of page views is the second highest ever and may actually beat my all tie high month because a post about the Detroit Lion’s suddenly become not awful went viral, relatively speaking. The post on Ara Topouzian has the most page views and the one about taking our grandson to Disneyland for his third birthday is number two.
      I made other resolutions as well. But, I did not make them public nor do i plan to. They are the typical resolutions many people make. And like many people, my performance on these other resolutions have been so-so to dismal.
     I am OK with this. Many of our resolutions are about changing habits that are very well established and very hard to change. We tend to believe that stating a resolution firmly is all that is needed and, presto, the habit is changed and everyone lives happily ever after. With this mindset and approach, it is no surprise that by this point in January most everyone has abandoned their resolutions.
     We should view it as a continuous improvement process where we get a little bit better every day. This allows us to gradually, but steadily, wean ourselves of a bad habit while simultaneously replacing it with a better one. It seems to make more sense to me. Or it just may be a rationalization for not really getting going on these other resolutions.
      A resolution is something we have resolved to do. A quick search on definition of resolve yielded “decide firmly on a course of action.” Decide firmly. Then stick to it. Make it happen. Or as the Nike folks say, Just Do It.
      I have often downplayed the Nike slogan. But, maybe it is right. In a 2011 movie, Friends with Benefits, Woody Harrelson played Justin Timberlakes boss. At one point near the end, the Woody character gave the following little sermon:

Hey, everybody wants a short cut in life.My guide book is very simple:You wanna lose weight? Stop eating, fatty!You wanna make money? Work your ass off, lazy!You wanna be happy? Find someone you like and never let him go. Or her…

     Or as Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.”  So I should lace-up my physical and mental Nike's and Just Do It.

The More things Change…

IMDB

     The world has certainly changed. Much of the dramatic change seems to have happened in more recent history. As they say, since 1900 the pace of change has simply been accelerating.
    Think of smart phones. They are essential to the way we live and they have only been around for ten years. Think of the internet, another indispensable time saver and a large part of what makes smart phones smart. The internet has only really been available and useful to the common man for just over twenty years. Think of how television replaced radios, and how cable and the internet have changed how and on what devices we watch TV and listen to the radio. Think of recorded music. We went from wax cylinders to 78 rpms to 45 and 33 and a third rpms. Records gave way to cassettes which were quickly replaced by CDs and then… iTunes and iPods. Now we have Spotify. Think personal computers and how they have both freed us and enslaved us. Washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, toilets, running water and more have all made our modern life convenient and requiring less physical labor that all generations before. We have the automobile and airplanes that make travel and freight inexpensive and available to all.
     While we are amazed and obsessed by the latest and greatest, e.g. smartphones, perhaps the greatest invention since the wheel was the electric light. Today, we just take lighting for granted and can barely imagine a time when people relied on candles, lanterns, whale oil, or gas lamps. The generation and distribution of electricity began in the late 1800s and it took a good thirty plus years the entire US. When people got it, it changed their lives like nothing before. I would argue that the light bulb and the distribution of electricity is the biggest game changer of the past 150 years.
     Yet, with all of this change, with all of the studies and observations that show how all of these innovations have changed us, there are somethings that somehow seem the same. Every generation thinks that the latest generation entering adulthood doesn’t have the same work ethic and feels more entitled. Parents are always telling their children to stop listen to the radio, accusing them of being glued to the television, addicted to video

oldmainartifacts

games, iPods, their smart phones, etc. 

     I have an oil painting in my North Park office. It was given to me when I worked at
Sanford Brands (now Newell Rubbermaid Office Products). It is, of course, a mass produced reproduction of a painting by Norman Rockwell commissioned by Sanford Inks for advertising like the one pictured here. My students will see the painting and often ask, ”What year is that painting? Is the lady using a laptop?” I am not sure of the year, but for sure the lady is using a stenographer’s or secretary’s box which was basically a portable desk with a writing surface when opened and storage for paper and writing utensils. I will admit that when I first glanced at the painting, I saw that same thing.
     The other day I was watching a classic old movie, Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) and Melyn Douglas (Leon). The movie was released in November 1938 and set in the time period between the two World Wars. There is some pretty witty dialogue in the film. This one really got my attention and inspired this piece.

Ninotchka: Radio. What's radio? 

Leon: Radio is a little box that you buy on the installment plan and before you tune it in, they tell you there's a new model out. wikiquote

     Dang if I don’t feel that way every time I buy a car, computer, or phone. While technology changes ever more rapidly, some things seem the same.

Government Effectiveness

     Ah the title, Government Effectivenss. It is always good to title a piece with an oxymoron. As Will Rogers said, “I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."
     Well here is a fact. Over the weekend a “thing” happened in Hawaii. If it had not been all over the news, I never in a million years would have guessed what the “thing” was.
     What happened was that on January 13th a text was sent to every cell phone in the state saying there was an inbound missile threat directing everyone to seek immediate shelter. Needless to say, many people panicked. There were reports of people putting their kids in the tub and lying on top of them. Others climbed down manholes either alone or with their families for protection. This was all taken pretty seriously given the tensions with North Korea over their missile tests. It took the state Emergency Management Agency just over 30 minutes to send out a second text saying it was a false alarm.
     The Governor apologized for the error attributing to “an emergency worker hitting the wrong template during a routine drill” CNN.  CNN also provided "The texts loved ones sent during the Hawaii missile alert mishap."  These give a sense of the kind of disbelief and panic that people experienced. 

    Oh my… there is a basic adage in quality management that a human error that can be easily made will be made. To know that such things are possible, however, requires an analysis to determine the likelihood of errors happening and the impact if the do. This is called a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). The team would then have to develop fixes for the failure modes that have a high likelihood of occurring and huge effect. I am guessing sending out an alarm that Hawaii is under a missile attack when it indeed wasn’t, would have qualified for such a fix.
     It seems very odd and definitely wrong, that something like this could happen so easily. I suppose that is why they do routine drills to catch errors such as this.
     This incident in Hawaii reminds me of my biggest and maybe longest standing pet peeve: The No-Call List. To me, it has been a dismal failure. My usual rant on this subject

is that how can we solve any of the serious problems facing this country such North Korea Nukes, our decaying infrastructure, education, inequality, health care, hacking, and poverty to name a few if we cannot make the No Call List system work. All of these other problems seem bigger and more complicated. Put my tax dollars to good use and make the No Call List live up to its name and promise.
     The Washington Post had an article in their January 10 Magazine: 'How robo-callers outwitted the government and completely wrecked the Do Not Call list'. The No Call List began in 2003. Something like 50 million people signed up for it almost immediately. I was one of those. Today, there are 230 million numbers on the No Call List today. The governing authority over the No Call List , the Federal Trade Commission, gets 19,000 complaints a day! Just today, as an example, I got two unknown calls on my cell and six on my home phone.
    The Washington Post article helped me understand the history and challenges in what I have been assuming to be an easy thing to get done. It seems the No Call List was created in the era of telemarketing i.e. humans calling from call centers. Apparently, it worked for awhile. I suppose I am just not remembering that era at all. Then, two things happened that have circumvented the system: more sophisticated robocalling software and internet based calling (VOIP). VOIP allows for very low cost calling from anywhere in the world. Basically, all one needs is a good laptop, some good software which I am guessing is readily available, and one is in business. The software these days can give the appearance of the incoming call coming from one’s own area code which fools both the person being called but apparently also the Feds. There were 1 billion robocalls in 2015. In 2017, that number jumped to 2.5 billion.
     For the most part, Robocalls are illegal in this country. It seems the callers are way ahead of the FTC on this and they are close to impossible to catch and prosecute. The Washington Post article introduced a fellow, Michael Aaron Jones. The FTC called in this very well off owner of robocalling businesses to testify on his business and the industry in general. Apparently, he was very forthcoming. After his testamony, “he returned to California and resumed robo-calling. In January 2017, the FTC sued him. Five months later, a federal judge banned him from telemarketing and hit him with a $2.7 million penalty. He didn’t bother contesting the judgment.” Clearly, the fine was a cost of doing business in his very lucrative enterprise.
     MarketWatch reports similar numbers in an article, ‘2017 was the worst year yet for robocalls’:

There was five more times the number of robocalls in 2017 than there was in 2009, a report from the Federal Trade Comission said. The commission received a total of 4.5 million robocall complaints in 2017, up from 3.4 million in 2016. In addition, the FTC received 2.5 million complaints about telemarketing calls, up from 1.8 million live calls. 

Phone scams result in more than $350 million in financial losses annually, according to Consumers Union. Spam calls vary in purpose, according to a study released in July from caller ID and spam blocking service Truecaller, with 43% of them general nuisance, 29% scams, 19% financial service, and 7% debt collectors.

     Most everyone I know simply do not answer the phone if they don’t recognize the number. Obviously, enough answer to wrack up $350 million in losses per year.
     The FTC has challenged the best tech companies in the country to develop counter measures. We are talking about companies like Apple and Google.
     In my simple view of things, making the No Call List work is the first line of government effectiveness. I hope with the new tax cuts, funding for my pet peeve project don’t get slashed.

Daily Writing vs Daily Posting

Professors Gavoor and Farruggia

     My colleague and good friend Professor Gianfranco Farruggia sent me a text earlier this week commenting that he had not seen a This Side of Fifty post for a few days. “I thought your resolution was to write every day! Let’s get on it.” This is why he is a good friend. He has my back and is urging me to stick to my resolution and I appreciate greatly. He finished with, “Do you need some material?”
     Let’s start with the first question. I did make a resolution to write every day. I did not make a resolution to blog what I write everyday. My resolution was in fact to write a minimum of 500 words a day. Those that I deemed interesting enough, I will post here. The remainder will stay in my notebook or hard-drive.
     My resolution was to resume an old habit that I have let lag the past few years. From June 25, 2002, my 49th birthday, until a few years ago, I wrote a page every day. The intent was to have a really engaging, very funny, and full insight autobiographical book ready to go by my 50th birthday. I had illusions of being the toast of my generation having written a handbook on crossing the mid-century mark. I envisioned myself being a frequent guest on Oprah and Letterman.
     Well that didn’t happen. While I wrote dutifully every day, sometimes at dawn, on the train or an airplane, or just before turning in, I quickly came to the realization that my writing was less engaging, way less funny, and lacking the insight I had wanted. In fact, much of it was self-indulgent, introspective, um…, how do I put this? Ah yes, whiney. I was bored reading some of the drivel I wrote.
     I had to decide what to do with all of this writing. I started distributing a monthly e-Letter to friends and family. The first e-Letter, February 2004, which is now on this blog explains how the idea of an e-Letter came about. Throughout a month of daily writing, a topic would emerge, which I would then craft into the monthly e-Letter. Another good friend Marilyn Davidow named the letter and this blog which evolved from it: The Other Side of Fifty.
     So... my intent this year was to take up the habit of daily writing but not necessarily daily blogging.
     As for the second question: Do I need material? I would say that material is all around me. If indeed I do write everyday, there is no shortage of material. Topics pop up in the news, in conversations, in the sweet, mean, or humorous things I see people do.  Topics are everywhere if I am looking for them.  For example, Gian’s text provided the topics for today’s bit of writing. I could have all written about President Trump’s use of the word shithole. I need to write about Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). I will probably write about both over this long weekend and if they meet whatever standard it is I am using for blog-worthiness, I will post them.
     Thanks for checking up on my Gian! I appreciate it.

A Manifesto?

     I am on a flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. I am doing my doing my writing on the plane connected to WiFi that I glad paid an unreasonable $16 for. It is January 7th, and I have written every day this year thus far even though this my fifth post of the year. I am happy with that and committed to continue writing everyday with the cautious optimism of of someone trying to replace a bad habit with a good one.
     I have even written a haiku every day. The only one I kind of like is:

this fresh page, less blank,
full of some kind of thinking
fragrance or reeking?

     We are heading back to a less cold Chicago than we left eight short days ago. The plane will actually land in the very wee hours of Monday, January 8th. No time to rest though. I will be off to Detroit to visit my parents and participate in a business meeting or two. I

     I was set with all all this technology including my slender smaller screen Macbook on the tray table with Wonder Woman playing on the seat back screen just above it. I was pretty comfortable. Then I realized I was at the geometric limit of that comfort when the WWII veteran in the seat in front of me reclined his seat. I can only imagine how comical I now look.

     Despite this rambling preamble, I had a notion to write a manifesto of sorts tonight. I have always wanted to write a manifesto. I like the sound of a manifesto and the idea having my own. It has to be rooted The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx. It is the only manifesto I really know about.  Growing up in the dregs of the Cold War, I was compelled to read The Communist Manifesto since it was the philosophical cornerstone of our then national enemy. In reading it, I was surprised that it actually made sense to me.  Over time I realized that the USSR had usurped the utopian vision of Marx. Reading it made me want to write a Manifesto even more.

     In the resurrection of this notion to pen a manifesto, I have yet another chance to show how naïve I am and how much more I have to learn.  I, laughingly, hereby admit that I am not exactly sure what a manifesto is and, golly gee whiz, I ought to before ever attempting to write one. 

     So, I turned to the internet. I read a few defintions and liked this one from merriam-webster.com: “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer.”

     Thankfully, that is, in fact, what I kind of thought a manifesto was but just never articulated. In a sense, this blog, at times, is a manifesto. Perhaps, I am in the habit of writing it but not quite ready to edit and consolidate it just yet.

     It makes me realize that I need to focus my darling writing by have a clear vision of th book or books I want to write and then preparing outlines that would guide my daily writing.  One of those books is the Manifesto I think is in me.

Disneyland Revisited

jungleis101.blogspot.com

     I recently wrote about spending the day at Disneyland for my grandson’s birthday. While I was thoroughly enjoying myself as Vaughn enjoyed himself, you have to know that I was also looking at the park from an operations perspective. So, I decided to post again on Disneyland from that point of view.
     When Disneyland first opened in 1955, admission for a day was $1 per person. That daily rate, which we paid, is currently $110 per person. Back in 1955, there were 18 attractions or rides. Today, there are over 50 attractions. Business Insider
     The most astounding phenomena I noted was that people pay hundreds of dollars per party to basically spend a lot of time, a disproportional amount of time, waiting in line. As of 4:30 today per laughingplace.com, the waits a selection of attractions or rides were: 

• 80 mins for Matterhorn 
• 80 mins for Space Mountain 
• 75 mins for It’s a Small World 
• 60 mins for Haunted Mansion 
• 35 mins for Mickey’s House and Meet Mickey 
• 30 mins for Dumbo 
• 15 mins for Mad Tea Party 
• 10 mins for King Arthur’s Carousel 

     I guestimated that each each ride lasts an average 12 mins based on a quora.com post that that Pirates of the Caribbean was the longest ride at 15 minutes. I also guessed that people spent an average of 15 minutes between rides (including restroom breaks, eating). A little spreadsheet magic revealed that a party would have to spend 10 hours at the park. (I was amazed that it was exactly 10 hours.)  One would spend 6.4 hours or 64% of that time waiting in line, 2 hours or 20% between rides, and only 1.6 hours or 16% of that time actually on a ride. To me that is crazy, but it proves just how attractive these attractions are. Folks are more than willing to pay hundreds of dollars a day to spend 84% of the time in the park going between attractions or waiting in line for an attraction.
     Of course, very few go to Disneyland to get as many rides in as they can. There is the daily parade down Main Street. There is always a song or dance act in the town square. Each section of the park has its own theater show of some sort. Lastly, there is the daily fireworks display. So, it is not all about the rides. We were there six hours. We saw the parade and went on five rides. The numbers based on my quick study resonate with me. I felt like we were easily in line at least 64% of the time. By the way, we waited in line to park the car, to catch the tram from the garage to the park, and a hour to get our tickets from the will-call window.
     Disneyland is amazing. For the number of people there, it is remarkably clean. Every worker, or cast member as everyone is called, is super friendly and helpful. All the acts are top notch and really engaging. And the attractions or rides? They are all in tip-top condition, very well designed, and super entertaining and fun. Everything is well scripted. Certainly, all the singing and dancing in the parades are scripted but one could tell just watching that every job from running a ride to emptying the trash was scripted to well designed standard operating procedures.
     I would sure love to get a back lot, behind the scenes, operations tour…

Disneyland Birthday

     I actually wrote this weeks earlier, but am just getting around to posting. We were recently at Disneyland day celebrating the the birthday of our grandson Vaughn Alexan, the first born of our daughter Armene and her husband Michael.
     It has been over twenty maybe twenty-five years since visiting a Disney theme park. All told, I have been to Disneyland three times, counting the visit yesterday, and Disney World once. It was the first time for us taking a child or grandchild on their birthday and also the first time being at a Disney park during the Holiday Season.
     The weather was partly sunny in the 70s. What a pleasure to be in shorts and a polo when just a short week ago we were experiencing an arctic blast that is still engulfing Chicago.

      It was just Vaughn and both sets of his grandparents, Ana, Manuk, Judy, and I. How much more special does it get than that? We got to the park just in time for early afternoon parade down Main Street. It was Holiday themed and spectacularly well done. There was a teen marching band from Ontario Canada that had just participated in the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day. There were dancers and singers, top notch performers all. There were floats with the Disney characters ranging from the classics of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto, to the casts of Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, and Cinderella. As you might expect, the last float was none other than Santa himself. Through the entire parade, Vaughn sat their either totally mesmerized, in awe, or calling out and waving to the various characters. His pure appreciation and enthusiasm made us all feel like children again.
      As Vaughn is just a few years old, there were a vast number of rides that would have just been too scary, so we basically spent our time on Main Street, Toon Town, and Fantasy Land. The rides? The classics for someone his age: It’s a Small World, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, King Arthur’s Carousel, and Mad Tea Party (the Tea Cup ride). We waited in line for the Story Book Land boat ride, but when Vaughn saw that boats first cruised right into the open mouth of very toothy whale, well… he wanted no part of that. We

ended our time at the park in Toon Town where we visited Mickey’s house where our birthday boy got to meet Mickey himself.
     We took a gazillion photos and videos. The plan is to present him with a photo album so he can see how much fun we had well after the memory of the day has faded. Neither of his grandparents will need such a nudge. We were thankful for having the chance to take him on his special day and a bit grateful that six hours was about the limit of his stamina which is just about how much time our creaky knees and joints were good for.
     We went to the Black Bear Diner in La Habra where Vaughn enjoyed his favorite dish: mac and cheese. We sang happy birthday over ice cream, they oddly had no cake, and then returned home to open some presents. Vaughn fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow and probably dreamt about his special day. I am certain we grandparents did the same.
     Happy birthday Vaughn!

Congratulations to Ara Topouzian

     It is good having a resolution to write more!
     One of the great things about writing daily is that one is more aware of the news and happenings of friends and family simply because such things provide something to write about. Today was a perfect example of this.
     I learned from Facebook that my good friend Ara Topouzian was named to the Michigan Council for the Arts:

"Governor Rick Snyder recently announced the appointment of Ara Topouzian, President/CEO of the Troy Chamber of Commerce, to the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. 

The 15-member council, housed in the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, helps create an environment of artistic, creative, and cultural activity to support Michigan’s quality of life and economic vitality."  Troy Chamber of Commerce Press Release

     I am so happy for my friend, our dear family friend, and fellow musician. In the past few years, he has expressed a desire to get more involved in the arts on a broader scale either in Metro Detroit or in the State. It is just great to see someone that I know realize what they desired and worked for.
     I know, I know, I am positively writing about Ara and seriously praising and congratulating him. As appropriate as it is, it is out of character because that is not what Ara and I do for each other. We have fun with each other. We make fun of each other. We make fun and take shots at each other with such gusto and vigor that folks will often question whether we actually like each other. We do.
     Simply, on some level, perhaps all levels, we think we are the second coming of The Three Stooges or any other slapstick comedy act. Indeed, I have blogged about him three other times and mentioned him in blogs probably a dozen more times:

• A Documentary on Armenian Music In Detroit
• The Wily Ara Topouzian
• January 2010: New Work & Ara^2

     Just after I read the press release announcing his appointment to the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, I texted him my sincere and heartfelt congratulations. It did not take long for that to unravel into what we usually do. I started pretending I was any number of prima donna Armenian musicians who would be jealous of Ara and scoff at this news and great honor. I could hear him laughing even though I am in Los Angeles and he is in Detroit.
     Ara will be a great asset to the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. He will participate and get involved with enthusiasm. He will influence the presence of the Arts in Michigan and enhance the output of the Council in positive ways always, looking to help the segments of the population that have not gotten the exposure they deserve.
     I was looking for the right photo to accompany this bloggy bit. It couldn’t be a serious photo that is for sure. But, I also did not want to make the distinguished appointee look too goofy (oh my the restraint I had to use here). So, I settled on a photo we took when we did a concert in Farmington Hills a few years ago. We were backstage in the wood shop before the concert and we thought we would do a little work on our really expensive, hand crafted, instruments.  The look on his face?  Priceless.
     Congratulations Ara… well deserved. Make us all proud.

Resolving to Write More

      On this first day of 2018, I have resolved to resume my daily writing and subsequent blogging in earnest.  Let's see how it works as resolutions, while set with strong intentions, are only meaningful for a scant few days of the new year.  In January 2008, I even blogged about it:  Be it Resolved.
      I was looking for a bloggy bit I thought I had posted here.  I knew the title, Two Popes? No Big Deal.  It was nowhere to be found.  As a borderline elderly gent, I was, of course, worried about senility and other cognitive degenerating ailments.  In this case, I knew I wrote it.  So, I did a general Google search.  Lo and behold, it popped up, not as a blog post but rather in the Armenian Weekly as a Letter to the Editor on March 12, 2013.  OK then.  I did write it.   I just forgot where it was published.  The good thing was that I felt a lot less senile.  To me this seemed like a normal error; the kind I have made with regularity throughout my life.
     I read the letter and I liked what I wrote.  I liked my writing style that combined insight, humor, sarcasm, and the national self-deprecation that the Armenian people need more of.  That is when I realized how much I missed the daily writing and subsequent blogging.   The resolution was almost immediate.  
     I used to write the first thing every morning.  Looking back at the almost fourteen years in which I was actually good at writing every day, I realized that it was when I started writing at the end of the day when the habit began to wane.  I was probably just too tired at the end of the day.  Also, when I began my encore career as a full-time faculty member, I seem to have less time than when I was a corporate executive.  This last observation mystifies me because the only conclusions possible is that I was a much better corporate executive than I am a college professors.  The other conclusion is that I was more willing to shirk my corporate responsibilities to write than I am my professorial duties.  Both conclusions unsettle me for different reasons though both are hits to my self-image and self-worth.  I might consider exploring this subject in a future blog if I didn't find it so danged boring.
     I have made several other resolutions yesterday and today.  The only one that I am making public is the one disclosed here which is to renew and resume my daily writing habit.  Certainly I know that with any resolution made at this time of year and, in fact, anything called a "resolution," the obvious question is whether it can be sustained?  Will it last a day, a week, or even a month, let alone "the rest of my life" timeframe given to almost every resolution.  All I can say is let's see...
     So, I start 2018 with this short prelude and include my Letter to the Editor telling the Catholics not to worry about having two Popes.

---

Dear Editor,

In February, Pope Benedict announced his intention to resign the Papacy. As the month ended, he officially stepped down. The College of Cardinals is convening shortly to choose the next Pope. The intent is to have the new Pontiff in place before Easter, this holiest time in Christendom.

There has been a lot of buzz since Pope Benedict’s announcement. His resignation or retirement or whatever it is called only happened once before, and that was something like 600 years ago. There has been a lot of discussion and speculation about having two living Popes. Who would have the authority? Who would have the greater influence? Would Pope Benedict second-guess the new pontiff’s actions? This is in spite of Pope Benedict’s stated preference to live out his days in prayer as a simple hermit.

This is new and uncharted territory for the Catholic Church. They are not sure how to act and react. The second oldest Christian Church needs the help from the oldest Christian Church in the world: the Armenians.

How could the tiny nation of Armenia and Armenians in the diaspora possibly help the far bigger and far richer Catholic Church? Well, in this one regard, the Armenians have a vast amount of experience. Armenians have had two or more Popes—we call them Catholicoses—for centuries.

Indeed, we are a small nation. Has there been any reason to have two Popes? It is simple; we have a history of being invaded by peoples who did not appreciate our Christianity. We moved the head of our church upon occasion from Etchmiadzin (our Vatican) to different and safer locations. As Armenia is a mountainous place with plenty of isolated places, it was easy to have a Vatican tucked here or there to be used as needed. When they moved the Catholicos back, the vacated temporary Vatican had all this structure of followers, priests, bishops, and monasteries. This infrastructure simply did what human infrastructures do—they assumed they had an independent right to exist. So, they simply elected a brand new Catholicos and, voila, we had two. There were periods of times when we had more than two Popes. We tried a few different numbers and for our really small numbers and dysfunctional collective psyche, two Popes seemed to be the optimal number.

Truth be told, we have a few Patriarchates as well. One is in Istanbul and the other is in Jerusalem. These Patriarchs are like junior Popes. We are small but we are splintered. In this splintering, and through constantly being conquered, we have found our strength and odd arrogance that has sustained us as a people for these many years.

We could tell our Catholic brothers and sisters not to worry. It is no big deal having two Popes. There are problems like families divided by allegiance to one Pope or the other. The factions may not talk to each other for several generations. Yes, there may be excessive facilities since each Pope needs his own church in each community. No big deal, really. There is nothing to make a fuss over. It is actually fun and a source of incessant heated debates and discussions at every holiday. Except for the divided factions that hate each other and never speak, it helps keep families together and feeling righteous. The Catholics have no clue how rich their lives will become with two Popes!

Welcome to the two-Pope club, brothers and sisters.

Sincerely,
Mark Gavoor