Planned Obsolescence? Really?

https://www.earthlaws.org.au/psa/ 

     Owning a house involves maintaining the house. With the turn of the century, it seems things need maintaining more often. Also, maintaining things seems to have become replacing things.
     Our house is really a great house. It is 20 years old and we love the architect designed space and flow of the floor plan. We are on our second set of furnaces and air conditioners. Even more remarkably, we are on our third set of water heaters. We bought a freezer in 2007 and it died and had to be replaced this year. The range has a ventilation fan for our countertop range. It went kaput and needs to be replaced as the parts to repair it are no longer available.
     The water heaters are $1,200 wholesale. The furnaces and air conditioners were approximately $3,000 each. The range fan is also $3,000. The freezer was a bargain at a measly $550. None of these items could be repaired. The furnaces and air conditioners were so expensive to repair that no one would do it. The water heaters and freezer could not be repaired because of the way they were designed. Therefore, everything had to be replaced. I think we only replaced one water heater and one furnace (oil burner) in my first twenty years of home ownership. That number has been eclipsed in the second two decades.
      This all offends me as Quality professional. It reminds me of a concept that I thought was long gone from the world of product development, namely, Planned Obsolescence which per Google is defined as:

a policy of producing consumer goods that rapidly become obsolete and so require replacing, achieved by frequent changes in design, termination of the supply of spare parts, and the use of nondurable materials.

     This definition fits perfectly to each of the appliances I have mentioned.
      I am keenly aware that our appliances and gadgets are more complicated these days and thus potentially more prone to failure. I understand that to keep prices competitive, there is a relentless effort to reduce costs. This means using less material for the same function and using less expensive materials. There is a limit to how much cost can be reduced before quality and reliability suffer. I believe we are way past that threshold and the part of quality that we have traded off for price containment is durability and repairability.
     Has this been done on purpose? Is there some devious intent behind this? I do not think so. I believe it is an unintended consequence of trying to provide energy efficient products laden with features at the lowest possible prices. This results in products that work quite well but have shorter life-spans. I would rather have a few less features, perhaps even pay a little more, for quality base functionality with impressive durability.
     I do believe we a third wave quality and reliability revolution. The first was in 1920s and 30s when Walter Shewhart developed the system of Quality Control. The second was Post World War II when the Japanese created their system of Quality Management. We need to be on the brink of a third wave to create products that last longer with lower cost of total ownership. The products need to be repairable, perhaps even like automobiles, with a maintenance schedule designed to ensure operational quality with exceptional reliability and durability. The manufacturers that can do this will shake-up the market as Toyota did to Ford and GM in the 1970s and 80s.

June 25, 2019

     It is my birthday. We really celebrated it on the 23rd. We were in Washington DC for the christening of our youngest grandchild. We celebrated four birthdays on three cakes. My in-law Yervant and I share a birthday: the 25th. The 25th was also the birthday of my father in-law who passed away in 2010. My oldest grandson is the next day, June 26, and my only granddaughter is the day after that. It is a wonderful cluster of birthdays. We were kind of hoping for all of us to share one birthday. But, it is better that each of the little ones has their own birthday. We can celebrate together, and the grandkids can still have their own day where we can celebrate them separately. I like it.
     So, what did I do for my birthday? The only thing on my schedule was to address the incoming class of transfer students to North Park. I welcomed them to North Park and spoke to them about the merits of meeting with their faculty advisor to ensure they plan their schedules and graduate on-time. I passed out an OpEd piece How to Get the Most Out of College by Frank Bruni in the August 17, 2018 New York Times. It is a very good piece that provides excellent advice to undergraduates. All in all, I enjoyed motivating these new students.
     Other than that, I talked to family and friends online and by phone both audio and video. The highlight, by far, were the two face time calls with my grandchildren. Hearing them sing happy birthday from DC and LA was the best. I got messages from around the corner and heard from friends around the world. There were phone calls, messages, and posts on Facebook. I tried to thank each individually on Facebook but quickly got hopelessly behind. Thankfully, I have this blog with which to thank everyone en masse. It is really heartwarming to have so many people reaching out with birthday greetings and well wishes.
     I began this blog in 2004 as an e-letter. My friend, Marilyn Zavidow, named it This Side of Fifty. Well, I am certainly well on this side of fifty. But, it is good. I am enjoying my family and have pure joy watching the grandchildren grow. I am also enjoying my encore career as a college professor. It is the best retirement pastime or hobby for me.
     This is not a birthday that ends in a five or a zero. It is an in-between birthday. But, it is a birthday that has me resolved to pay much more attention to my health and well-being than ever before. Sure, I know. I have said this a countless number of times. This time seems different. Actually, this time has to be different. I want to operate at peak performance and independently as long as I possibly can. This commitment to personal health and well-being was certainly a lesson my father, his brother, and their father and uncle advocated and exemplified in their daily life. I truly have to start being a Gavoor man.  Hopefully more on this in the coming year.
     Thanks again for all the greeting and well-wishes. I feel truly blessed.

When Two Armenians Meet in Prague

Maestro Haig Utidjian

      In a March 7, 2019 post, Going to Prague, I wrote about looking forward to meeting Haig Utidjian a composer, maestro, and deacon that I got to know on about a year ago.
    We first became acquainted on Facebook in June 2018 via my distant cousin, Levon Avdoyan, who is recently retired from the Library of Congress and a revered scholar on Armenia and the Middle East. Levon had organized a conference in Washington, DC on Armenian Studies and he had invited Haig to make a presentation. About a year ago, Levon, Haig, and I got into a wonderful discussion on a Sunday morning on FB. Oddly, I do not recall the specific Armenian topic but do fondly recall being a part of the trio with these two scholars. We agreed that we should continue the discussion in DC when we were at the conference which I was planning to attend. We were going to DC for the Smithsonian Folklore Festival which was featuring Armenia. Alas, our plans changed, and I was unable to get there early enough to attend the conference.
     Later in that summer of 2018. we decided to make Prague the destination for the School of Business and Nonprofit Management International Experience Trip for 2019, I let Haig know. I was looking at getting to meet him as bonus of the trip.
      A few days before leaving, we texted again and tried to coordinate our schedules. It was going to be tough. Certainly, we had a busy tour schedule. Haig was also busy with his class and various ensemble practice schedules. I did mention we were free on Sunday, and perhaps we could meet at the Armenian Church. He said “splendid” and that would work as he was the deacon. Haig informed me that it would only be a vesper service taking place in the early afternoon. It mattered not; I was looking forward to meeting him.
     Haig didn’t just say “splendid.” As he knew I was a musician, he said “Splendid, we will put you in a shabik (robe) and we will sing two Lenten sharagans (hymns) together. I will send you the music.” I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. I am a so-so sight reader when playing the oud. I am a horrible sight reader when it comes to singing.
     A few minutes later, I got a text from Haig. Sure enough, there were two attachments. I opened the first. There was no music, just words, naturally in Armenian script. Upon further review, I noticed every other line were the lyrics, the in between lines were a cross between braille and Arabic. Slowly, I realized, that he sent me the music in Hamparsum Nota! This well-known, and seldom used these days, notation was the invention of Hampartsum Limondjian, better known as Hamparsum Baba, in Turkey. Hamparsum Baba developed a system of musical notation that he developed rooted in an older Armenian system of runes. Hamparsum Nota is credited with preserving classical Ottoman music until Western musical notation was adopted. I was impressed that Haig thought I could read Hamparsum Nota which I cannot. But, I was suddenly motivated to learn more. This is the kind of inspirational fellow Maestro Haig is!
     I asked if any of the students wanted to go with me. Donna Hardy and her

Me, Vita, Fr. Barsegh, and Donna
Church of the Holy Spirit

friend Vita Robinson decided they wanted to go to church and, as they did not want to venture out alone, decided to come with me. The church the Armenians were using was the Church of the Holy Spirit. This historic medieval Catholic Church is next to the even more famous Spanish Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter which is designated as a UNESCO Historic Site. The Cardinal Duka, the archbishop of Prague and the Primate of Bohemia, has graciously allowed the Armenians to use this beautiful old stone church.
     It was a drizzly cold day in Prague. They church did not have a heating system, so it was cold, even colder than outside, in the sanctuary. We never took off our coats. It was definitely how our ancestors went to church. Haig sang beautifully. He has a lovely clear tenor voice and his nuances of the church modes took me back to my youth back in St. Sarkis Church in Detroit. After the short service, we took some photos and went to Father Barsegh’s office… where there was heat! We had coffee and chatted with Father Barsegh.
     After that, Donna, Vita, Haig, and I went to a bistro and chatted some more.

Haig brought me books he had authored to carry back to the states for Levon. I was delighted to do so. He also generously brought copies for me as well. One of the books was titled: Tntesean and the Music of the Armenian Hymnal. This book introduces, well almost everyone, to the massive tome (like 800 pages) that Elia Tntesean compiled in the 1800s of all the Hymns of the Armenian Church that had been preserved using Hamparsum Nota. The second book was, Treasures of the Earliest Christian Nation: Spirituality, Art, and Music in Medieval Armenian Manuscripts. Both books, at first glance, were impressive.
     In inspecting and thumbing through the Tntesean book, I noticed an endorsement on the back from “Krikor Pidedjian, Komitas State Conservatoire of Yerevan.” I know Krikor very well as he was the Director of Camp Haiastan when I attended back in 1967. When we moved to New York, I was reacquainted with Krikor, an eminent authority on Armenian Sacred music himself. I asked, “I see Krikor Pidedjian endorsed your work. How wonderful.” Haig replied, “Do you know Krikor?” I related how I did. It seems that when Haig was preparing this book, he visited St. Nerses Seminary in New York and everyone told him he needed to meet with Krikor. As it was arranged, Krikor’s wife let Haig know the visit would be brief because of Krikor’s health. Perhaps, he could only meet for half an hour. Well, Krikor was engaged to exchange views and knowledge with another scholar passionate about Armenian Church Music. They spent almost five hours together.
     Haig asked, if I would kindly carry two more books back to the States for

Krikor which I most certainly agreed to. As he did not have the books with him, we would have to meet again. Haig invited me to his apartment on my last evening in Prague. We had Armenian coffee. We toasted each other over a glass of Mekhitarine (a light herb brandy made by the Armenian Mekhitarist monks in Vienna). And, we talked. We talked about the history of our people. We talked about where we started and how we each got to where we were in life. He showed me the massive Tntesean Hymnal he had bought in Istanbul. He gave me a brief lesson in Hamparsum Nota and he sight read several passages giving me a short lesson in reading the Nota. I was simply amazed and wondered out loud that there might only be ten folks in the world that could do this.  Haig said, "Ten might be too low, but it is probably less than 25."
     From his two books, here the biographical paragraph on Haig:

Haig Utidjian, PhD, MSc(DIC), CAS(GSMD) is an orchestral conductor, chorus master, and musicologist. In his native Cyprus, he was a pupil of Abp Zareh Aznaworean of blessed memory, and is a Senior Deacon of the Armenian Church, with research interest in the musicology and theology of the Armenian Hymnal and in the works of St. Gregory of Narek. He was recently decorated with the Komitas medal by the Armenian state and the Yakop Melapart medal by the National Library of Armenia

     When we met, Haig insisted on talking to me as much as possible in Armenian. My Armenian skills were the limiting factor. He was quite fluent. He is

Haig signing his books

dedicated to preserving Western Armenian and the Church musical tradition of Bolis (Istanbul) rooted in Hampartsum Limondjian, Elia Tntesean, and Archbishop Zareh of blessed memory. He simply lives his life in this manner. It is inspiring and impressive.
      Upon returning home, I got a glimpse of Haig’s family heritage. There was an article in the April 9thNew York Times, “Stoning Gay People? The Sultan of Brunei Doesn’t Understand Modern Islam: The Ottoman Empire was more liberal.” They were quoting an English translation of the Ottoman Penal Code by John Bucknill and Haig Utidjian. Levon noticed this and brought it to Haig’s attention. The Haig Utidjian refered to in this article was a lawyer and the great-grandfather of the Haig I have been writing about here.  There is a long history of Utidjians in the intelligentsia  of the Armenians in Istanbul.
     As I am writing this I am listening to a CD Haig gave me. It is an April 4, 2016 recording of Charles University Orchestra with Maestro Haig conducting. They were performing Komitas/Sahakiants’ Liturgy for Strings. Here is a link to view the concert on YouTube.
     What an amazing fellow! Haig is a gentleman, a scholar, and an amazing and passionate Armenian. Certainly, when the two of us met, we most certainly created a new Armenia.

The Church of the Holy Spirit

When Two Armenians Meet in Lake Forest

      Of course, the title of this piece is from one of the variations of the famous William Saroyan quote: For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia. I was not expecting to meet another Armenian today though I am never against it. I am always up for creating a New Armenia. Today’s story was something different and, actually, something special.

     I was out and about this afternoon running errands. I went to downtown Lake Forest. I had a box of freshly baked choreg to mail to the grandkids in Los Angeles. All of our grandkids on both coasts love “Medzig hats” or Grandma’s bread (instead of Medzmayrig which is Armenian for Grandmother, Judy selected the diminutive Medzig). While waiting in line at the Post Office, juggling the two boxes I had to mail, I noticed that the young lady in front of me had a tattoo on top of her left foot. When I regained control of the boxes and set them on the ground as the line was a bit long, I looked again at the tattoo. It was two lines of script that looked like it was Thai or Sanskrit or even… um… Armenian. Nah… it couldn’t be. Mind you, my perspective had me trying to read the script upside down. 

Sidebar: You may be wondering why I am focused on the tattoo of a young lady while standing in line at the Post Office. That is a very fair question. My wife asked me the same thing. The answer is simple. I tend to notice everything. I tend to notice everything when my nose isn’t buried in my phone. For example, the fellow behind me at the Post Office who looked like a retired CEO had on a royal blue Pebble Beach golf sweater; the Post Office Manager was helping a little old lady tape up a package; more people came in to check their Post Office Boxes than waiting in line to at the one sole window that was open. This ability to notice details may have been honed during my years of operations and quality management where it was my job to walk through factories and, basically, notice everything both good and bad. Maybe, I had the ability to notice everything all my life and this was the reason I was effective at my job. 

     So, I told the young lady, “I am trying to read the tattoo on your foot. What language is it? I want to say that it looks Armenian.” She responded, “It is Armenian.” I moved to get a better view of the tattoo. It said Խաղաղություն Սեր, Peace Love. She had it done at a tattoo parlor in Grayslake. What a cool tattoo.  
     It was my pleasure to meet Elizabeth “Elle” Sergenian. It was a pleasure to create a New Armenia for a few minutes at the Lake Forest, IL Post Office. She was gracious enough to allow me to photograph her tattoo and include it in this bloggy bit. 
     Afterwards, I realized that I was so amazed by seeing this tattoo that I did not really ask the normal questions when two Armenians meet. We did become friends on Facebook and I was able to figure out that Elle may be related to the Sergenian Carpet and Endless Knot folks in Madison, WI. 
     Like my Chidem Inch series of posts, I think I will start another such thread: When Two Armenians Meet. Thanks William Saroyan! Thanks Elle! Thanks US Postal Service!

Խաղաղություն
Սեր

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Around the World in 24 Days

     Any regular reader of this blog probably knows that I am a reader of the Wall Street Journal. It is indispensable resource to me as professor in the School of Business and Nonprofit Management at North Park University. I read it almost every day and clip articles for use in all my classes. I share current news stories that exemplify what we are covering in class. This really helps drive the concepts home.
     The Journal is the primary news source for business professionals in the US. It is one of the few newspapers to thrive in this internet age. They were the first newspaper that I know of that was able to successfully establish and sell subscriptions for online access. One of the reasons this was possible was because their reader base is more affluent and thus can afford it. Also, the quality of the writing, reporting, and quality coverage of all things business has made it the Journal de riguer for business men and women.
     Given the affluence of their subscribers, the products advertised include pricey luxury goods. There are ads for high end watches and executive clothing. While I am a subscriber and reader, I am at the low end of their readership in terms of affluence. There is little chance that I will ever spend $1,500 for a suitcase, $2,000 for a pen, $70K for a watch, $3,000 for a suit, or $5M for a vacation home. While these kinds of items are certainly pricey, they are “normal,” run of the mill, ads in the Journal. I am used to them.
     Yesterday, May 31, there was an ad that did surprise me. The National Geographic Society has a subsidiary called National Geographic Expeditions. They advertised “An Extraordinary Journey by Private Jet.” The expedition is being called “The Future of Everything.” It is a twenty-four-day trip that will take place May 15 – June 7, 2020. Every two days the tour group is moves to a different global locale to “experience ancient traditions and meet the innovators determining what’s next for our planet.” The trip begins in Seattle and ends up in Boston. In between, the stops are in Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Estonia, Finland, and Iceland. No more detail was provided in the advertisement but more is provided on www.natgeoexpeditions.com/wjs as well five other trips.
     The private jet? It is a specially configured 757 for 75 passengers versus the normal 233. There will be an executive chef and a dedicated tour physician aboard. Oddly, they didn’t mention a thing about the inflight entertainment options.
     The cost for The Future of Everything Expedition: $92,795 for double occupancy and $102,045 for single occupancy. For all this money, the traveler is still responsible for getting to Seattle and back home from Boston.
     This sounds like an amazing trip. It is certainly pricey, but that is what amazing costs. Would I want to participate? Absolutely! Unless I win the lottery in the next few months, this expedition is outside my budget. The North Park School of Business and Nonprofit Management International Experience trip is much more my speed.