November 2014: Food Replicators and 3D Printers

     Caveat: This letter is about what was once science fiction and now seems possible. Therefore, there are a lot of video links in it and, thus, is best read on a PC or pad, if you want the full experience. 

     Since I was a youngster, I was fascinated with a kind of space age alchemy. Alchemy like turning lead in gold in Medieval times alchemy? Not exactly, I did say space age alchemy. I remember seeing television shows like Lost in Space, Star Trek, and other movies that I cannot recall. Sometimes, when the crew was being social, they would go to galley or dining hall for something to eat. They would go to a voice-activated vending machine of sorts and tell the gizmo what they wanted to eat. After a few seconds, some flashing lights, and perhaps some space-age beeps and blips, presto change-o, the food was ready in the dispenser. One could ask for a steak medium rare with mashed potatoes and, voila, the machine would make it. Not only would the machine make it but would deliver it on a plate in a presentation that one might expect from a fine restaurant. 

     These machines would make all kinds of foods almost by magic. Not only could it make human food from hot dogs to spaghetti and meatballs but it could make alien food too. Let’s say you had a bulgy eyed lizard skinned Zerloffian from Harmol Solar System. Your guest wants some Feldjgis smothered in Glamixinas? No problem for our Veg-o-matic Pi Squared. Just tell the machine what your guest wants and it will serve it lukewarm or frozen depending on his or her mother made it. The machine never said no and it never seemed to malfunction or be out of anything. It was amazing.   

     There was never any explanation of how it worked or where the ingredients came from. We were supposed to be OK with the fact that it was space-aged or magic. After all, we were conditioned to expect miraculous things from the future! Being fascinated with this bit of science fiction, I was curious how it worked and when we might start seeing these machines in our school cafeterias and our homes. It would be pretty cool. I assumed that it used any form of matter or materials as an input and that the science and technology inside the machine was so sophisticated it could take trash and turn it into crème brûlée!

     Since this machine could turn anything into anything we wanted to eat, it stands to reason that another machine could be made to convert any trash into energy. This was, of course, shown as a possibility in Back to the Future 3 or 5… or was it 1. The time traveling DeLorean took any kind of trashy input and turned it into nuclear energy. How perfectly splendid! All we have to do to get there is, simply, to invent the flux capacitor, dilithium crystals, flubber, and the 3D printer. Come to think of it, these miraculous machines of the future should even be able to do old-fashioned alchemy i.e. turn lead into gold.

     I wonder what that would do to the price of gold? I wonder what that would do to the value you place on gold. That will have to wait for some future letter.
     The gizmo on the Star Trek franchise of TV shows and movies was called a Replicator. Thanks to YouTube there are several examples of how this fascinating item performs. Witness this from one of the more recent Star Trek TV series. This version of replicator is more magical than most. Want a glass of ice water? It creates it out of nothing in a most fashionable glass. Want pan-fried catfish? No problem. The Replicator creates a most stylish presentation including plate, silverware, a slice of lemon and sides. It is amazing.
     Of course, even with something so advanced, flexible, and diverse as a Food Replicator, humans will become jaded and not want to wait. We will expect the machine to read our minds. Certainly, there will be occasional computer glitch that can be mildly irritating depending on just how hungry one is. All in all the Food Replicator is an amazing bit of science fiction that hopefully will be one of the greatest inventions ever!
      There are some that claim the future is now and 3D printing is the answer. Hmmm, we have seen movies made about the flux capacitor. The entire Star Trek brand is fueled by dilithium crystals, which make warp drive possible. We all know how cool flubber is. What then are 3D printers?
      There was a report on National Public Radio supports the claim that the future may be much closer then we think: NPR Story. It seems that the US Army is seriously dabbling with 3-D Printers to create food that is engineered for each single soldier. We are going to print food? How do you print food?

     There is a higher tech twist to this project the Army researchers are working on. Per the NPR story:

Imagine soldiers who are strapped, head to toe, with sensors that measure if they're high or low in potassium or cholesterol. 

"We envision to have a 3-D printer that is interfaced with the soldier. And that sensor can deliver information to the computer software," Oleksyk says. "And then they would be able to have either powdered or liquid matrices that are very nutrient dense, that they have on demand that they can take and eat immediately to fill that need."

     The quote is attributed to Lauren Oleksyk, a food technologist who is leading this project. It is pretty impressive. Basically, the US Army wants to have a machine that will make a variety of energy and nutrition bars for soldiers on the battlefield. The goal is to have the bars customized to each soldier in terms of both nutrient content and, I suppose, flavor. It would consider if the soldier is diabetic, lactose intolerant, dehydrated, or any number of conditions.

      These “printers” will take the various ingredients specified by soldier’s sensory input, add flavors, some based nutritional goo that will probably needed to hold the concoction together, mix them, apply heat if necessary, press the bars, cool them if necessary, coat them (think chocolate), and finally wrap-up them. I do not suppose this entire process pushing the start button until the bar is dispensed will be anywhere as quick as the Star Trek video showed.

      The future is now… sort of. There are a variety of 3D Printers available on Amazon.com. They range in price, and let’s assume capability relative to price, from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. There is even a 3D Printers & Supplies Store on Amazon. The site even provide an explanation of what 3D Printing is:

3D Printing, also called additive manufacturing, is the process of taking a digital model of an object of any geometric shape and creating a three-dimensional (3D) solid object replica. A 3D printer uses rapid prototyping, a pre-production process that allows manufacturers to scale a model using computer-aided design (CAD) data, or modeling software. A solid object is created using layers of various materials such as liquid, paper, powder, or metal that form a series of cross sections. The additive process automatically fuses the joined layers to create the object. Using a 3D printer filament, commonly supplied in various colors on spools, the 3D printer is able to create a smooth extrusion, creating a shape form as the material comes through the nozzle.

Commonly used in manufacturing, machining, automotive, construction, medical, and architectural industries, 3D printers are applicable to a wide variety of fields. Education, engineering, and jewelry-making professionals also use additive manufacturing. Manufacturing, in both industrial and remote areas, can utilize this technology. For example, if new machinery is required, new machined objects can begin to take shape in minutes. Material savings can be measured in decreased material waste during the manufacturing process.

     A Dremel 3D Printer costs $1,264 on eBay and only $999 on Amazon. Here is a video of it making a simple frog. Another video shows the Top 5 Best 3D Printers To Buy USA. So, they produce plastic parts that can be used as toys, prototypes, and perhaps even replacement parts depending on the kind of material used in the extrusion process. If we want to think big, there are folks working on building houses using 3D printers (this is also a great video to introduce 3D printing). It seems we are at the dawn of something with great and unlimited potential.

     Of course, the printer has to follow a plan. A detailed digital drawing is needed to print the simple frog and an even more detailed drawing is needed to print an entire house. With regards to the house, it is not exactly clear exactly how much house is printed. Is a big persons Little Tyke house? Does it print the plumbing and electrical wiring? I am guessing that the foundation still has to be dug and poured the old fashioned way? How about the roof? Are the shingles printed onto the roof or is that another process? These are all “small details” that need to be worked out. 

     Let’s get back to food. It seems like nutritional meal bars are probably coming to a military unit near you. What if you want tad something a bit more satisfying like a burger or a pizza? Not to be outdone by the Army, NASA has invested in the 3D printing of food. They began with pizza. Here is an article and a video of the first foray in this technology. They chose to make pizza. Notice the printer has three nozzles: one for dough, another for the sauce, and the third for cheese. The result is pizza but, frankly, it did not look too appetizing. For now, we should let the Army do their thing and invent the best meal replacement bar they can. Maybe these 3D bar printers will available in stores and vending areas and will be exciting as the high tech Coke machines that provide virtually every product they sell. 

     If you watched any of the 3D videos, it is clear we are nowhere near the Star Trek food replicator. There might be some decent applications. But there is nothing on the horizon where we can walk up to a machine and order anything we want and have it served quickly and in a presentation we might only find in a high end restaurant. This is what I would love to see.
     I have no clue how such a replicator would work. But, I have always had a notion of how I think, or wish, replicators should work. In my vision, a replicator makes everything from a base food powder or slurry. Really awesome technology would then transform the base into the desired finished food at the perfect temperature. The finished products would be placed on in a bowl or on a plate, depending on the kind of food ordered, and dispensed. My version of the replicator would not necessarily, as in the Star Trek version, replicate the plates and silverware. The plates would be in a hopper and silverware would be in bins next to the replicator.
     There are probably many obstacles to ever seeing such a food replicator in the near future. First and foremost would be the whiz-bang technology that would transform the base food goo or slurry into any kind of vegetable, meat, fish, legume, grain, pasta, libation, and condiment conceivable. Given we had the technology, the next question is would the process be time and cost effective? Such a transformation might require much more energy than it would actually cost to buy and prepare the real food the machine is replicating. In the movies, the replication is instantaneous. There is a microwave like convenience to these replicators. The replication transformation might take as much time as to prepare the same meal using real ingredients. Lastly, many people are railing against genetically modified foods. I cannot imagine what these folks would say about replicated food even though the machine in my imagination would be generically equivalent to the best natural foods ever experienced.
     If by chance this concept comes to fruition, I have a phase two in mind. In the follow-up, a preprocessor would be added that would allow any form of matter to be put into the replicator. It would transform the “stuff” into the base food slurry. We could dump table scraps into the replicator. We could put all our household refuge. It could be pretty amazing.
      Why stop here? Eventually, we should be able to replicate food simply from energy. As we will have to ween ourselves off of fossil fuels and migrate to something close to what I will call safe fusion, we may have unlimited and cheap energy available.
     There is another reason why we may need this kind of replicator technology sooner rather than later. There was an article in the November 17, 2014 USA Today, that reported that the demand for chocolate could exceed supply as early as the year 2020. This shortage is due to a variety of reasons that includes global warming reducing the growing regions, a disease effecting cacao yields, increased demands for chocolate from China, and cacao producers deciding to grow more profitable crops e.g. corn and rubber. Of course, if supply goes down, prices will go up. When prices go up, more growers may want to cash in and most likely the market will adjust to a new equilibrium. Needless to say, as the world population increases we will run into more and more shortages. There are similar reports that coffee production areas are also shrinking due to climate reasons. It is predicted that supply will not be able to meet demand for this commodity as well. Replicators will be needed to cover these shortages and provide people with the full litany of products they value and enjoy.
      After we get this replicator gizmo going we turn our attention to creating the transporter and the Wayback Machine.

Singles Day?

     November 11th was Singles Day in China. It was also the single biggest shopping day in China… ever. For that matter, it was the single biggest shopping in the history of the world… ever. The fact China had the biggest shopping day ever is not really a surprise when you consider that it is the most populous country in the world with a population of 1.37 billion people accounting for 19% of the worlds population. But, Singles Day?

     Singles Day is a relatively new holiday in China. Per a National Public Radio report:

In the 1990s, Chinese university students began celebrating being unattached on Nov. 11, which of course is abbreviated 11/11.  

The idea was for singles to go out, go to parties, go to bars without all the Valentine's Day commercial schmaltz.

At least that's what it was. Now it's the biggest commercial holiday on the planet. 

Chinese shoppers bought more than $9 billion in goods for themselves today. Alibaba began promoting the celebrations in recent years as a way for singles to treat themselves to something special, and online retailers jumped in, offering deep discounts on purchases.

     Singles Day has turned into a day when people by gifts not for others but for themselves. It is a day to indulge oneself with at treat or more and more a luxury gift. It is a very different and, as the NPR report states, new kind of holiday. From a shopping perspective, it is huge. $9 Billion in sales is three times what was spent in 2013 for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the US.  Apparently, one kind of "commercial schmaltz" has been replaced by another.

     Again while the sales numbers are impressive, it is proportional to populations of the China and the US. As China has emerged as a global economic powerhouse in the past ten to fifteen years, the buying power and lifestyles of the Chinese people has increased. This all kind of makes sense.

     The real surprise for me is the self-indulgent nature of the holiday. We, here in the good old USA, are supposed to be the most self-indulgent country in the world. Others keep telling us that all the time.  Yet, our busiest shopping day of the year is dedicated to purchasing gifts to give to others… not ourselves. Here come the Chinese, they create a holiday that is only fifteen or twenty years old. It is focused on self-indulgence and it unbelievably becomes the biggest shopping day on the planet. That is astounding.

Singles Day puts a lot of stress on the
Chinese parcel shipping supply chain.

      In the NPR report, Jack Ma, the founder and Chairman of Alibaba (the amazon.com of China), envisions Singles Day spreading around the world. The NPR report did not think that would happen here as Singles Day is so close to our well entrenched holiday shopping season. There certainly is a case for the timing of Sngles Day, but I could see the concept of Singles Day taking off here nonetheless. Since it is made up holiday, we can put the US Singles Day in March. Heck, if I was Alibaba, Amazon, and other retailers, I would not want the US Singles Day to be on the same day as China’s. Stagger things so as not to strain the global retail supply chains all on the same day.

     I can see the advertisements, “After doing for and giving to others all year, isn’t it time that you did something for yourself?” I can see another advertisement playing on the old Janis Joplin song.

Why don’t I buy ME a new Mercedes-Benz
My friends all drive Porches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So why don’t I buy ME a new Mercedes-Benz

     Oh yeah, this could become a huge shopping holiday here.

Those Krazy Kids these Days

      I grew up in an era that had some unique challenges.  While it was America, the land of both freedom and plenty, my coming of age was in the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s.  There was unrest about the Vietnam War.  There were social movements for minority rights and feminism.  The ecology movement got its start then. We also had something called the Generation Gap.  We were the first TV generation.  We were part of the post World War II baby boom that for sure had a silver spoon in our mouths.  We took a lot of the 1950s and early 60s rhetoric seriously.  We felt part of a modern age where anything was possible.  Those ideals, optimism, and “wanting it now” had us focusing on things that were not aligned with the values and wants of our parents generation in those days.  I even wrote about this back in November, 2008 in a post called Was it the Weirdest Times?  

      There are always generational issues.  “Kids these days don’t know how easy they have it,” has probably been uttered by people my age for ages.   The same goes for the younger saying, “OK here we go again, another sermon on how easy we have it these days.”  

      I just heard and read news stories this week about things young people are doing that caught my by surprise.  It is nothing about work ethic.  It is not about expectations or even a new generation gap.  I was just surprised by the reports because I was unaware of the trends.  They are as follows:

1. Per the New York Times, millennials are not necessarily owning TVs and not subscribing to cable television at the levels of older generations
2. A recent story on NPR, explored why millennials are ignoring voicemail.

     OK then.  What is happening?  Let’s start with TV.  I thought TV was an American icon.  I already admitted that I

am part of the first generation raised with television.  There was never a thought that it would go away, and it is not going away now.  It is simply becoming more personal, viewed on pad and computers more so that on “TV sets” by the millennial generation.  Cable is expensive and TVs take up valuable space in dorms and first apartments.  So, millennials are moving toward on-demand services like netflix and watching these on-demand shows on their pads.  From an economic standpoint, the cable providers are pricing themselves out of the marketplace.

     The also think that voicemail is passé.  They would clearly rather text than be bothered with all the extra keystrokes and time lags required to retrieve a voice mail.  With all of the social media available these days, there is only so much any person can attend too.  Voicemail clearly does not make the top 3 or 5 mode of social media or social interaction for most young folks.  While this may be the case, that may change when they enter the job market and deal with older colleagues who still use and value voice mails.

     There is a certain practicality to young people.  As they will define future it makes all the sense to pay attention to where they are trending.  

     Have a comment on all this?  Text me as the kid in me is done with voicemail!

Negative Political Ads

      The midterm election takes place this coming Tuesday, November 4, 2014. I have already voted. One might guess from my zip code how I voted but who I voted for is not material to this blog post. This piece is not about trying to convince anyone to vote for a particular party or a particular candidate. This is about the horrendous advertisements we have been bombarded by this season.
      The ads are disgusting and for the most part negative. The candidates are all attacking their opponents rather than touting their own acumen and capabilities. The ads, from either party for most of the important races, make the opponents out to be incompetent and crooked. While this is a tried and true campaign strategy, the negativity of the ads this year seem at the extreme. In watching these attack ads, I am not even considering or evaluating which candidate to vote for. Instead, I find myself astonished that the candidate is not doing time in a maximum security prison.
      Allow me to focus on just two offices in which the candidates are setting a new low standard in negative ads. This year we are electing a Governor here in Illinois. The election pits the incumbent Pat Quinn against Bruce Rauner. There is also a congressional race 10th District where I live. The incumbent Brac Schneider is running against Bob Dold the fellow he unseated in the last election. Both races are close and this probably explains the number and intensity of the negative ads.
       Rauner is painting Quinn out to be crooked. He is supposedly the latest corrupt head of a state this has had four of the last governors do prison time. Really? Over half of the last seven governors have gone to jail. In listening to the ads, I am convinced that whoever gets elected on Tuesday should go directly to jail, not passing Go, and definitely not collecting their $200. Quinn’s ads paint the billionaire Rauner as a greedy one-percenter or, maybe in this case, a tenth of a percenter. In watching the ads, it seems he has killed through neglect due to greed several people in the nursing homes via which he made part of his fortune. I am not sure why Quinn waited until the election to bring these “facts” to our attention. He should have had Rauner arrested and prosecuted.
      The Congressional race is no better. If anything, it is more confusing. I am not sure which candidate hates old people and which hates kids. It is unclear which is corrupt and which is just plain stupid. The negative ads are so bad, that it is impossible to identify with a candidate based on the issues I am actually interested in addressing. It is not only disgusting but totally confusing.
     Here is the rub. I have actually met each of these four candidates in person and heard them speak. They are each intelligent, charming, and very well spoken. In person, the discussed issues more than they attacked their opponents. What a contrast to the ads that has me wondering why these fellows are not all in jail.
     Because of these ads, I have spoke with a few people who are not going to vote simply because they find all of this so disgusting. I could easily vote for whoever runs on a platform of

[1] Banning negative ads
[2] Making the no call list reall work

     Ah… democracy.

October 2014: Watch Out What You Ask For

     There is an old adage: Watch out what you ask for, you may get it. Supposedly, you want something so badly and when and if you get it, it might be disappointing or not what you thought it would be. This saying is most used in references to relationships and new jobs and promotions. There is that promotion you wanted so bad, fought to get, and then got it. Then after a brief honeymoon period, you realize, "Oh my, what did I get myself into this is so much work and ridiculously political." Watch out what you ask for, you may get it.
     This letter is about that old adage but with a positive ending. I actually got what I wanted and more so than at any other time and I am both embracing and loving it.
      I have always wanted to teach at the college level. Over the years I have done just that but as an adjunct i.e. part time. I always wanted a full time job, to be part of full time faculty and all that means. What that means is being on campus quite a bit and integrating into the entire education, scholarly, and university experience. I have, as my sister Nancy reminded me recently, wanted this since I was in college. It was a job, career, and lifestyle that had a great deal of appeal to me.
     I have, as mentioned, taught a fair amount of adjunct courses over the years. I taught a lot as a graduate assistant and then part time in the 1970s and early 1980s. Then, I took a twenty-seven year break to have a full corporate career which I also loved and appreciated. In the height of the Great Recession, in 2010, I began teaching again albeit part time. If we put all of that teaching together, I have nine years of full time teaching experience. Six of those were in the last four years where often I was teaching five classes where the norm is three. I was teaching at the College of Lake County (CLC) which is a two year college, DeVry University and their Keller Graduate School of Management, and North Park University. The great majority of my full time teaching was in mathematics and since 2010 mostly statistics. 
      Leona Mirza is an Armenian friend and now a colleague, got me into North Park University as an adjunct. I first met her when my distant cousin Richard Hovanissian was visiting us and speaking at the AGBU Center in 2007 when we first moved to Chicago. Uncle Richard was scheduled to meet Leona and her husband for breakfast. As he was staying at our house and I was his means of transportation, I was invited too. We met Leona, at the Tre Kroner Restaurant on Foster Avenue. It was a glorious October Sunday morning and we sat outside. I noticed a lovely campus setting across the street from the restaurant. I commented on how lovely the campus looked and wondered what university it was. Leona said, "North Park University, it is where I teach." I remember thinking; it would be a cool place to teach. 
     In January of 2011, we were at an Isabel Bayrakdarian concert on the University of Chicago campus. Leona, her husband, and sister were also at the concert. We exchanged pleasantries and in the course of chatting, she asked me what I was doing. I responded that I was trying to get a consulting business going and doing some adjunct teaching at the College of Lake County and DeVry University. She asked me what I was teaching and I said mostly Statistics. She reminded me that she was on the Mathematics faculty of North Park University and was the course head for Statistics. She also mentioned that they were looking for adjuncts. Remembering the October Sunday morning and the impression the campus made on me, I said that I would be interested. She and another colleague came to observe a class of mine at CLC and after that encouraged me to apply for an adjunct position at North Park. By June, I was given an adjunct appointment at North Park and taught three sections of the Introduction to Statistics in the fall of that year.
      I loved the campus and the students from the get go. I taught Statistics there for three semesters. In the second semester, in March of 2012, I saw a notice in a campus email that the School of Business and Nonprofit Management (SBNM) was looking for an adjunct to teach Operations Management in the winter semester of the following year. As this was a class that I always wanted to teach, I sent a note of inquiry right away. I got a response in a few days that the Dean and Operations Director of SBNM wanted to meet with me. After that meeting, and their review of my resume and transcripts, I was asked to teach this class as an adjunct. I was teaching in place of a very nice man, a full time faculty member, who was going to retire because his wife was ailing and he was her caregiver.

Leona Mirza

     When they posted the full time position, I decided to apply which I did in December of 2012. I filled out the application over the Christmas break. In addition to my business/corporate resume, I prepared a teaching resume and an essay on my philosophy and approach to teaching. Most of these materials were updates of three other full time teaching positions I had applied for. All three were in Mathematics at the College of Lake County and all of resulted in a "thanks but no thanks letter" without even an interview.
     My expectations were pretty low. I had done some pretty intense job searching during the first two years of the Great Recession. Except for a few the adjunct teaching jobs and some good consulting work, I had not succeeded in finding a full time corporate position of any kind let alone a full time position of the caliber that I most recently had. The Great Recession job market led me to become, in a word, jaded. I was all but convinced that the show was over for me. I believed the primary factor for this was due to my age. I had even blogged on age discrimination. It is there. It is real. Many people in my situation have grudgingly accepting this reality. While accepting this new normal on one level, I continued to apply for positions that were of interest to me. The Professor of Operations Management position at North Park University was certainly a position I was quite interested in.
     I was therefore delighted when I was notified, in early January, that I made it to the next cut. From an undisclosed pool of applicants, six were chosen for the next step which was a one hour group interview with a subset of the search committee. These interviews were done by video conference, unless the candidate was in the Chicago area in which case the interview would be face-to-face. As I was already teaching a classes on campus for the department, I had a face to face interview with three members of the selection committee. That took place in early February, a few weeks after the spring term began. I dutifully dressed up in a suit and tie and was asked a series of questions in team interview style. As in the written application, I did my best and thought that I had answered the questions to the best of my ability.
      In another few weeks, I learned that I had made the next cut to a field of three that would be brought in for all day interviews. The interviews were with the President of the University, the Provost, the Human Resource Director, a campus pastor, and another team interview this time with the entire search committee. The day also included a mock teaching session with students who were given evaluation forms to fill out. Again, as I was teaching a class on campus, the mock teaching took place in my actual class. This was certainly an advantage. I shuffled my syllabus a bit and gave a lecture introducing quality management: a definite forte of mine. Amazingly, the faculty asked most of the questions that resulted in an animated discussion. I was sweating bullets but held my own. Later that evening I was taken to dinner, at Tre Kroner again, by the Dean of the School of Business and Nonprofit Management and the esteemed economics professor Lee Sundholm. It was a great end to a long day.

      Then, I waited. I do believe I was the first of three to be brought in for the all day interview process but was never sure. My interview day was in mid-March. I heard nothing for day which turned into weeks. Was no news, no news? Or was it a bad omen? With each passing day, it went from hopeful and hoping to hear, to a bit agonizing, and then quite frustrating. There was nothing to do but worry which I knew to be a negative strategy. The right thing to do was to stay upbeat, hopeful, and positive. This was all easier to say than to actually do.
     In the interim, amid what seemed like endless waiting, another job popped up. There was a director/coordinator of Math and Science at The Illinois Institute of Art in Schaumberg. This for profit college is part of The Education Management Corporation which has subsidiaries of The Art Institutes and Argosy University. The Illinois Institute of Art specializes in graphic arts, web design, fashion design, and more. They offer a few math classes and one science course. The job I applied for was to coordinate course scheduling, hiring adjuncts and ensuring their availability, and teaching the occasional class.
      The Illinois Institute of Art was interested in my application and they were interested in moving very fast. I interviewed three times in two weeks and was a finalist with one other person. I had still not heard from North Park. Suddenly, I had two active prospects. This certainly had not happened since the onset of the Great Recession. In fact, I cannot recall ever having two active job prospects at one time. I was one of three finalists at one and one of two at the other. Assuming a one-third chance of getting one and a fifty percent chance of getting the other, I had a fifty percent chance of getting at least one job offer.
     The Illinois Institute of Arts certainly moved faster than North Park. I received a phone call saying I was the finalist. All that remained was one final interview with the President. I scheduled the interview ten days out to buy a little time. I felt a little guilty doing it, but did it anyway. A few days later, I heard from North Park... obviously the news was the good news I was waiting for. I was totally elated. It was the job I have wanted most of my life and I was psyched.
     I had to inform The Illinois Institute of Art that I was taking another job. I was now feeling a lot guilty for having to tell them no. This is in spite of firing off countless numbers of applications and resumes into the HR black holes of corporations during the Great Recession. Companies, awash with hundreds of applications for an opening, held all the power and rarely let applicants know the job was pulled or filled. They acted in their own interests without any concern for any common courtesies. I vowed I would act the same way given a chance. Yet, when at that crossroads, I felt bad. I felt guilt, for turning them down. They totally understood and I appreciated that.
  I accepted the North Park position and was looking forward to the start of classes in late August. Given that I my teaching experience translated into six full time equivalent years, I was brought in as an Associate Professor and not an Assistant. Cool.

     My teaching load this first semester is four courses. A normal load is three. I am teaching three of these courses for the first time, so I have three preparations which is a heavy load. It has been a lot of work. There are other activities I never had to do as an adjunct. These include advising students on which courses to take next. I have ten students currently assigned to me and that will increase next year. I have to attend department meetings and soon I will be assigned, as all full time faculty must, to be on a University committees working on any number of academic and administrative changes. There are activities that every faculty is expected to do. These include holding fixed office hours, participating in convocation and graduation ceremonies, participating in a new faculty series of meetings, and attending all faculty meetings three or four times a year.
     Listening to some of the other faculty members, these meetings can get tedious. They can be rife with politics in a way that is special to academia (this means catty in a way you never see in the corporate environment.)
     Oddly, surprisingly, and wonderfully, I am embracing it all. I am doing it more enthusiastically than I did for any other company or job that I have ever had. I am actually enjoying every minute of it. I have also joined two groups that read and discuss books on improving college level teaching. I have attended soccer games, volley ball games, and concerts in which my students are participating.
     It has been a lot of work and been a lot of fun and the single best career move I have ever made. Recently, George Halas’s grandson, a graduate of North Park, was speaking on campus. He quoted his grandfather as saying. “It is only work if you would rather be doing something else.” That quote is now hanging up in my office.
     So, as they say, watch out what you ask for… you might just get it.

$2.99 Gasoline

Dave Ouzounian Photo on Facebook

     I filled up the tank of my Toyota 4Runner for about $45 the other day. It took 15 gallons and the gasoline was priced at $2.99. I thought I was doing well but then saw my old friend Dave Ouzounian having posted a photo on FB where the price per gallon was $2.89.  Darn Illinois gas taxes.  This is the lowest we have seen gasoline for years. It is amazing because every few years since 2006, there has been a prediction that gasoline was going to hit $5 per gallon and the impact that was going to have on our economy.
      More people talk about gasoline prices than any other product or commodity. If we had to choose one item replace the consumer price index it would be gasoline. It may not be the most accurate indicator from an economics standpoint, but it is certainly a very good emotional indicator. Gasoline is simply a large and visible expense. Based on 15 gallons per fill-up and 5 fill-ups a month, gasoline expenses would be $300 a month if gas prices were $4 a gallon but only $225 a gallon if gas prices were $3.  The savings of $75 is significant to most people.

      This drop in prices is certainly welcome news to most drivers.   It is the lowest prices we have seen since the winter of 2009 which was the pit of the Great Recession.  It is easy to forget, at least easy for me to forget, that gasoline was under $2 per gallon 11 short years ago.
      What is the reason for this drop in gasoline prices? It seems to our own domestic petroleum production. We have a massive, and until recently untapped, oil resource. There are billions of barrels of oil underneath our country.  For years, energy wonks have been saying that this oil could make us energy independent of the Middle East which is a most interesting proposition. The problem was that our oil, which had the potential to make us almost independent of imports, was shale oil. The oil was infused in rock and sand. Getting this oil had traditionally been more expensive than any imported oil, so it never was the economical choice. That all changed with the development of a new drilling technique called fracking.

What is fracking?
Hydraulic fracturing is the process of drilling for natural gas and oil underneath the ground. Water mixed with other components is pumped into the ground to create cracks (also referred to as fissures or fractures) to release the gas into wells that have been built for collection.

Groundwater protection remains a main goal and paramount to the success of and well operation. Both the well’s design, the casing, and the inherent risk associated with the hydraulic fracturing process itself all factor into new shale gas well development. Over the years, this technology has been used safely and successfully in over one million wells. Regulators together with operators have mitigated many of environmental risks. Shale gas, or natural gas, producers most often will leave a small wellhead behind on the property along with several storage tanks, and a metering system to measure shale gas production. www.what-is-fracking.com

      I can almost hear the chants "Drill baby drill" which were a popular slogan from the Republican 2008 Presidential Campaign. Per Wikipedia, Michael Steele, at that time a former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland and soon to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee, used these words at the Republican National Convention. Shortly before the convention, Erik Rush titled a piece "Drill, baby, drill" in his conservative blog The Other Rush. It resonated with people both positively and negatively. Some have attributed it as the 2008 version of the 1964 slogan "Burn, baby, burn" used by radicals in the urban race riots of the 1960s. I know John McCain used the "Drill, baby, drill" slogan, but, in my head, I only hear Sarah Palin voice saying it.
       The slogan and, perhaps more so, the fracking technology have made oil more abundant and have brought prices down to levels not seen before the Great Recession. No one is currently talking about $5 per gallon gasoline these days. The only question is how long this will last. Every article and newscast reporting on the drop in gasoline prices finishes with the sobering "no one is sure how long this is going to last."
      Are there any problems with fracking? It all depends who you ask. Within in the industry, there are, of course, no negative reports. Amongst environmentalists, it is a different story. To them, fracking is a horrible thing that needs to stopped immediately.

The entire process of fracking — from drilling a well to transporting waste — endangers our water and the health of our communities. There is clear evidence of the growing damage caused by fracking:

• Some people who live near fracking sites have become seriously ill from drinking contaminated water. Others can light their tap on fire due to the amount of methane in their water.
• The oil and gas industry isn’t required to disclose the chemicals they use in the fracking process, but many are known endocrine disruptors and carcinogens.
• Communities with fracking have seen declines in property values, increases in crime, and losses in local tourism and agriculture.
• Methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change, leaks from fracking industry sites.

www.foodandwaterwatch.org

      So, what are we to do?
      The majority of the consumer public will probably enjoy the lower gas prices. Good or bad, we value convenience, prefer lower prices, and tend to think short term.  Maybe prices will go below $2 per gallon.  Maybe prices will get to the 1970 levels of $.55 per gallon... plus you get a free glass!  No fracking way this will happen.

Reading the Morning Paper... Again

Democratic Blog News

     In this digital age, it is a well noted truth that less people read newspapers with every passing year. This has had a devastating impact on the newspaper business with papers in general thinning down due to losses in advertising. Papers have merged and even gone out of business. Most every newspaper has down sized considerably and have tried to build their online presence with various degrees of success. The hardest part of going online is monetizing it. Most every paper is available online for free. Out of all the newspapers I have perused from time to time online, only the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal require a subscription.
      I certainly have been part of this trend. I have home delivery of the New York Times but only on Sundays. This gives me a hard-copy of my favorite day but more importantly, my Sunday only subscription gives my full online access to the New York Times. Thus, I have the app on my PC, iPad, and iPhone. It is quite convenient. Even more convenient and free is Google News which is my home page on all my web browsers. It organizes all the news from a variety of domestic and international papers and provides different perspectives on the same story. I have to think about going to the New York Times app whereas Google News is the home page on the web-browser I use the most. Google News and Yahoo News both have similar capabilities. Both allow users to read the stories or watch videos. For basic news, they are quite good and quite sufficient. I access all of these on my PC, iPad, and to a lesser extent my phone. These have been my news sources these days.

     The problem is not just circulation revenue.  The loss of circulation has impacted advertising revenue and this is what has really hurt the industry the most.  The Sunday New York Times used to be as thick as a phone book because of all the full color advertising inserts and full page ads in the paper itself.  Today, the Sunday Times is less thick then a weekday version of paper in the old days.  The same is true for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Detroit News, and The Boston Globe to name a few.  This is just another consequence of the speed and power of the internet.  The Newspaper Advertising Revenue graphs shows how ad revenue is the lowest it has been since 1950.

      Even with this convenience I have not habitually read the Times or Google News. I turn to them when I hear of a news story the perks my interest but I do not access them by habit. That is simply because I have not really had a daily routine in which the habit of reading the news fit into a natural time slot. When I used to commute to New York by train, the morning commute was when I read the paper.
      Lately, I have been reading the news every morning. Furthermore, I have been reading the newspaper everyday. Yes, I mean the printed on paper newspaper. This is because, with my full time position at North Park University, I have a routine. I am at my office most days before around 7 am. I am the first one in most days. The School of Business and Nonprofit Management has a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Our offices are in an old house, so the paper is waiting for me on the stoop every day. I bring it in with and sit an peruse the paper, old style, from front to back. It has been quite pleasant and quite informative.
     There is something about laying the paper out on the desk, scanning each page for articles and ads of interest, reading them, and then turning the page.  It is different from doing the same on a computer screen.  Both have their advantages and drawbacks.  It just feels good to be a little old school at my new school.
     Last week, I experienced something I completely had forgotten about. It had rained all night and I had the pleasure of having to read a half wet newspaper.

The Pale Blue Folio

   Gloria, a close friend of ours, needed an amplifier and microphone for a small fundraising gathering (www.savethearq.org). Naturally, she sought me out. Normally I would have been at the event she was hosting but I had a musical engagement of my own that weekend that same evening. If I was going to her fundraising, I would have taken some equipment and set it up.
     As most of my equipment is bulky, I was trying to think of a low weight compact option for her. Eventually, I remembered that I had brought a very small Fender amp when I lived in Connecticut. Occasionally, I needed a to take an amp and oud into the city on the train. So, I needed something small and compact. I used it a lot when I was playing with the Nour Folk Ensemble. To add an element of coincidence, Bedross Der Matossian, Professor of History at the University of Nebraska who was to be the guest speaker at the fundraiser was in the Nour Folk Ensemble as well.
     To make a short story, more convoluted, I went in the basement and retrieved the black back with the small Fender amp in it. I retrieved a microphone and cable from a gig bag in the garage and thought to test it out to make sure it worked. I opened the black satchel and took the amp out. There was a muted royal blue, fake leather, 8.5x11 folio in the bag. I used that folio to carry the program notes and lyrics for Nour. It still had those notes and programs inside it. It was kind of cool and nostalgic… well as nostalgic as something eight or nine years ago can be. It made me reflect on the practices we used to have at NYU. I thought about Ayda Erbal who was the musical director and organizer of Nour. I thought of Ozan Aksoy the very talented ethnomusicologist who was so skilled on so many instruments and who brought and infused a Kardes Turkuler like style to our selections and arrangements. I thought of the concerts we did. I thought of my time in New York City. It was a good little journey down memory lane. It was amazing what finding something that I have not seen or used for eight years could trigger.
     It did not end there.
     The surprise came when I removed the last of the Nour concert notes in the folio to reveal a logo on the inside front cover of the folio. It was the oval logo of the Ford Motor Company. As my first full time job was at Ford, the wayback machine of my memory jumped back another thirty years to 1976. I had completely forgotten that this folio was from my days Ford which lasted until 1983.
     Ford always held a mystique in our family. My maternal Grandfather Levon, worked in the foundry until he retired in the mid or early 1960s. Ford Motor Company paid him a pension until he passed in 1974 and then continued to pay the same to my Grandmother until she passed away in 2007. The paid forty plus years of pension which may have actually been longer than my Grandfather actually worked there.
     I was so proud to have gotten that job. I loved the idea of the auto industry. I loved the idea of the Ford legacy and legend in and around Dearborn and Detroit. I thought I would work at Ford until I retired and was even more certain I would be some kind of bigwig there. After all, I was a Detroit boy. I grew up there and went to college there. I pretty much was doing what many of us thought we were supposed to be doing and what most certainly seemed like a natural progression. It did not turn out that way. There are no regrets at all. I was glad to have started at Ford and equally glad I worked at Colgate in New York City.
      Thanks to that benign folio, of which I have several simaler, I had a great and unexpected trip back to my Ford days and with co-workers like R.K. Jones, Arnie Campbell, Emil Ruta, Caroline Straub, and so many more. I remembered my bosses like Don Olson, Carlos Dominguez, and Ron Rieger. I remember sitting in the first Deming and Taguchi lectures as Ford was struggling with adopting quality principles and practices. I thought of starting work before PCs were invented. I reflected on our offices in the old Edison Elementary School that Ford bought and turned into offices. I thought of my summer job at Ford that Armen Topouzian arranged for in his department. I got wonderful experiences that set the basis for the rest of my corporate career. They were great memories of great days at a great company.
     I probably should go through more of my old stuff and see what else pops up.  

September 2014: The Sporting Scene

     Michigan Football: Michigan Football and the Athletic Department seem to be in dire straits these days. Students and alumni alike are clamoring for the firing of the head football coach Brady Hoke and the Athletic Director Dave Brandon. When Rich Rodriguez was the coach these same folks wanted him replaced with a "Michigan Man." Well, they got their wish. Brady Hoke was an assistant of Lloyd Carr from 1995 - 2001. Brandon, who came in a year before Hoke in 2010, is probably even more of a "Michigan Man" given that he played football for the late great Bo Schembechler from 1970 to 1974. Brandon was a backup quarterback who only an appearance in one game.
      Brandon runs the Athletic Department like he ran Domino's Pizza where he was CEO when Bain took them over. He brought his corporate style to the Athletic Department. He runs things in a no nonsense bold and determined style where performance is demanded and expected. In his first year, he fired Rich Rodriguez and hired Hoke who by all reports was not the first choice. It looked like exactly the right move as Hoke went 11-2 in his first season beating Ohio State and then going to the Sugar Bowl and beating Virginia Tech. Excellent. The faithful was delighted. We all thought that this new coach in Bo and Lloyd tradition was bringing us right back to glory. Everyone was psyched. The problem was the Hoke massed that impressive record with Rich Rod's guys which included the great Denard Robinson at quarterback. The fan base did not see that as the problem until maybe last year and for sure this season.
     Hoke's record deteriorated from 11-2 to 8-5 in 2012, 7-6 in 2013, and this year 2-3 so far. He has recruited well or supposedly well per the rankings. Either the recruiting was over rated or Hoke and his staff have not developed that talent into a team that meets the expectations of the fan base. The criticism is opposite that of the Rich Rod era. In every year of his coaching tenure at Michigan, Rodriguez had improved offenses. The continual improvement in offense was impressive and exciting. His issue was on the defensive side. His teams were not able to hold the opposition to fewer points than the substantial numbers the offense was posting. Hoke has the opposite problem. The defense has improved... a lot. The offenses of last season and this season are giving up too many turnovers that have turned into points that the defense is marginally responsible for.
      To top all of this off, Hoke blew it this past Saturday against Minnesota. Quarterback Shane Morris suffered a leg injury. He was clearly limping and he was left in the game. A few plays later, Morris took a vicious helmet to his chin hit and was clearly woozy. He was again left in the game. There has been massive criticism of Hoke for not putting the health and safety of his "kids" on the priority and requirement that is college football in 2014. He first claimed that he was not aware. By saying that, he dug a deeper hole for himself on many levels. As head coach, he is supposed to the CEO or general of his team. The devil is indeed in the details and when he blows something like this... well, everyone jumps to the conclusion that everything else is run in the same haphazard manner and thus it is clear why a team with class recruits is underperforming. It is not just about headphones (Hoke is the only major head coach who roams the sidelines without headphones), but it is most definitely about his management style.
     During the Notre Dame trouncing, I was tweeting and Facebooking about the differences between Brian Kelly and Brady Hoke on the sidelines. Kelly was animated and on fire. Hoke looked like he was not engaged in the game. Kelly was coaching his key players after both spectacular plays and mishaps. Hoke was not shown talking to his players at all and when he did, the conversations did not seem energizing and motivating but rather benign. Cool and calm works if you are John Wooden with his record. For Hoke, with his record, his sideline behavior looks more like deer in the headlights.
     Suffice it say, what many reporters, tweeters, bloggers, and Facebookers have already noted or wished: Hoke, as head coach of Michigan, is a dead man walking. He will lose his job unless by some miracle they run the table for the remainder of the season. The sentiment, at least on the fan and student side, extends to Brandon as well. Whether one or both go, this matter is clearly out of my hands. The new Michigan President Mark Schlissel has some tough decisions to make in this his third month in the position.
     Here is my fear. I do not want to get into the same coach musical chair cycle that both Michigan State and Notre Dame experienced before they settled on their current program defining coaches. Michigan could be headed in that direction if they replace Hoke and get another coach that does not deliver a string of 10 win seasons in short order.
     We are a spoiled lot, us Michigan fans. From the day Bo beat Ohio State in his first season, the expectation and pride has been very high. The Big House aura and record string of 100,000+ crowds, the overall winning percentage, the number of successive years going to bowl games, the record string of games not being shutout, the distinctive helmets, and so much more have given the fan base both pride and high expectations. It has been a much bumpier road of late. "Of late" either started when Ohio State hired Jim Tressel or Appalachian State upset us (some say the biggest upset in the history of college football).
     What will happen? With regards to the AD and head coach? I will have to wait and see how Schlissel and Brandon or just Schlissel alone handles this. I hope it is just in Schlissel's hand and I hope that he replaces Brandon and then he and new AD layout a strategic plan that the AD then carries out, the first action item of which is what to do about the head football coach. In the meantime, I do hope Michigan runs the table as I am still a big fan. What is the probability of that happening? Very low.
      Wrigley Field: I went to a Chicago Cubs game the evening of September 24th. They played their longtime rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, against whom they always play well. It was the last home game of the season and the weather was just perfect for any sport played outside. It was a pretty good baseball game that the Cubs won 3-1.
     I have not been at the opening day of any major league baseball team. Now,

I can say that I have been to a last game. This was the Cubs last home game of the 2014 season. This does not have the same coolness as being able to say I was at opening day. But, in this case, there was a coolness factor. Being at that game was something very special.
       It was the last game in the Old Wrigley Field. On September 25th, the Cubs are beginning a major renovation of Wrigley Field. It will be a four year project that will be done, for obvious reasons, in the off season. The project will cost half a billion dollars is being funded entirely by the Rickett family who are the Cubs’ owners. While the plan includes expanding concourses, vending, and restrooms to bring those spaces and offerings up to modern standards, the whole project is designed to keep preserve and maybe enhance what makes Wrigley Field so special. The plan is being called both a renovation and restoration. Both words describe what they intend to accomplish in terms of both renovation and restoration:
 

• Wider concourses, more restrooms, and more food and drink vending are absolutely needed in this modern era. Currently the concourses floors are cement and the atmosphere is dingy to drab. The renderings of what is planned look like a brand what can be called both retro with ironwork reminiscent of the 1930s with modern amenities. 
• Any plan for a modern baseball field has to include state of the art corporate suites with all the appropriate luxuries that will bring in premium revenues. While doing this, the seating capacity of the stadium. 
• The iconic parts of the stadium will be restored and look the same. The ivy covered walls will remain. The historic marquee will remain. It seems that even the classic old time scoreboard will be preserved though a Jumbotron will be added in left field. 
• The press box will be expanded and modernized to state of the art telecommunications standards.
• Many of the changes will not be noticeable to the fans. The current stadium is old and is common with old structures the cement and structural steel need to be replaced. The plan calls this in terms of replacing the wooden roof with a more modern structure. The cement in the stands will be removed and new seating platforms installed. The water pipes into the stadium and the plumbing within are all being replaced. The electrical in the stadium will be replaced.

     The Cubs fans are truly a die-hard lot. They are very reminiscent of the Boston Red Sox fans before their recent post season successes. Both teams have been part of major league baseball for well over a century and both teams had early success followed by long agonizing droughts throughout which their fans were incredibly loyal. My Grandmother Gavoor was one of those Bosox fans. She would watch every game and would refer to them as the “Gosh darn Red Sox” when they lost. For a comprehensive history of the Red Sox nation before the Red Sox World Series wins in this new century check out Fenway Park Living Museum. There was also a great soliloquy in the Farrelly Brothers movie Fever Pitch in which Jimmy Fallon explains the whole curse of the

With my good friend and Cardinals
fan extraordinaire Claude Ohanesian

Bambino.
     The Cubs have been in ten World Series. They have only won twice: 1907 and 1908 hardly the modern era. Their last appearance was in 1945. In 2003, the Cubs did make it to the NL Championship but did not advance to the World Series.

Back in 1945, a man by the name of William "Billy Goat" Sianis attempted to bring a goat named, Murphy, to Wrigley Field during Game 4 of the World Series. Sianis was the owner of the "Billy Goat Tavern" and was a diehard Cubs fan.

Since there was no signs or warnings that barred animals from the park, Sianis figured he would have no problem bringing Murphy to the park. Ready with one ticket for himself and one ticket for Murphy, Sianis and his pet watched the game until late in the game when they were asked to leave. Orders came directly from Cubs owner, P.K. Wrigley, asking that both Sianis and his pet goat be ushered out of the park. The reason given was "because the goat stinks". As a disgusted Sianis left, he was heard saying "The Cubs ain't gonna win no more. The Cubs will never win a World Series so long as the goat is not allowed in Wrigley Field."

After the Cubs lost the Series to the Tigers in seven games, Sianis sent a telegram to Wrigley that said "Who Stinks Now?" Diehard Cubs fans believe the curse still exists today.

     While the Billy Goat curse is well known, it is not the only curse. In fact, there is entire website dedicated to Chicago Cubs Curses. There are five of them which may be independent or actually related to the Billy Goat Curse (cue the eerie music soundtrack). The most recent incident was in the 2003 playoff game against the Marlins when:

Steve Bartman, a local 26-year old global human resources worker from the Northern suburbs of Chicago, became the latest "goat" when he attempted to catch a foul ball near the left field wall. As Cubs left fielder, Moises Alou, attempted to catch the same ball, Bartman, and others could be seen deflecting the ball. What could have been a momentum killer for the Marlins eventually was a major blame to the collapse of the Cubs after being one game away from the World Series.

     One of the weirdest Cub curses was about the 1986 World Series between the Red Sox and Mets in which Boston’s first Bill Buckner flubbed a routine ground ball that went between his legs for a hit. The Mets won that game forcing a game seven which the Mets also won. Until they won their World Series earlier in this century, that play is prime proof of the curse of the Bambino to the Red Sox faithful. What does this have to do with the Cubs? 

A picture taken over 20 years ago showing Buckner walking off the field after committing the error revealed something that has been undiscovered until recently. As Buckner walked off the field, he removed his glove, exposing a worn Chicago Cubs batting glove with the Cubs logo on the back. Buckner had previously played for the Cubs before joining the Red Sox and was apparently wearing the batting glove for luck. Instead it acts as one more piece of evidence as to why the Cubs Curse exists.

     Buckner was wearing a Red Sox uniform and a Cubs batting glove. He was double cursed.

     To see and learn more of what is planned go to The Wrigly Field Plan Site. It is a most informative website.