My Old Blog

The crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin, is dead. I always knew that crazy fucker would die young, eaten by an animal or bitten by a snake.

He was filming a show called “The Ocean’s Deadliest” off the coast of Australia and was stung by a ray in the heart and died. In retrospect, I suppose the show was aptly named.

Apparently it was a freak accident….stingrays are usually not deadly….except when they stab you in the heart with their 12 inch barbs. I guess everyone realizes that the likelihood of a “freak” accident rises dramatically when you repeatedly put yourself in situations that invite “freak” occurrences.

Those closest to him say that he died doing what he loved. I have some respect for that…but the guy was a father, husband, son, and brother as well. His line of work seemed to imply a kind of death wish??

The fact that he was filming a TV show also invites the bizarre, and very likely, possibility that his death is actually on camera. Would you care to see the footage of your husband’s death? Will the series “The Ocean’s Deadliest” still air? Is it a tribute to watch it or is it macabre?

Regardless, I feel sorry for the guy as he seemed to genuinely love what he did and was well respected as a naturalist…..and he was crazy as a loon.

Rest in Peace Steve Irwin

Three and a half years ago I wrote a story about Easter Island….the land of the Moai statues. In the face of our current global climate change, Easter Island is often held up as a model of ecological disaster…..what might happen to us if we continue to use the environment faster than it can regenerate.

The common line went that the Easter Islanders had deforested their small island making canoes and those large statues, and eventually left themselves without resources. Their society whithered and died and the island was annexed by Chile and is now a romantic tourist destination for its Moai and the fact that it is one of the most isolated spots on the planet.

My comment was this: “How the @#$&! could a society make such a horrendously bad decision as to cut down all the trees on which they depend? I mean, what did they say as they were cutting down the last palm tree? “Gee…..” Actually, I can’t even make anything up. No one could be that stupid.

Surely the Easter Islanders, capable of making those amazing statues, must have realized the consequences of destroying their own forest. It wasn’t a subtle error. Easter Island is very small. No one could have made the mistake of cutting down the last lonely tree in front of them while thinking there were others elsewhere. It would have been obvious.”

Obviously something about that story never jived with me. I really didn’t/don’t understand. It turns out my skepticism was warranted.

Easter Island’s history has been revised, and there are two new culprits.

1) The environmental degradation was caused by the polynesian rat…brought by the settlers. The rats ate the native tree species’ seeds and the trees thus reproduced less and less. Remember rats breed like rats. Without any predators and lots of food/seeds….their population exploded and they simply ate too many seeds for the trees to sustain themselves. Botanists have seen this pattern with rats and forests in other small islands in the South Pacific, so it is not a far fetched idea. The people surely contributed too….but archaeological evidence suggest there simply weren’t enough people to wipe the island clean of its large forests.

That isn’t a very glamorous explanation, but it makes way more sense to me than people cutting down ALL the forests and thus killing their livelihood.

2) What about the fall of the Rapa Nui civilization? They may have had the rats to blame for the ecocide….however, even with severly diminished resources, the Rapa Nui still did not disappear. They were alive and well when the first Europeans reached the island.

That’s when the problems started. They were enslaved by Europeans and killed by our diseases. That was the end of the Rapa Nui. There were fewer than 100 left when Chile annexed the island in 1888. Again, not a particularly glamorous story…but certainly one that jives well with the rest of history.

I think the idea of people committing ecological suicide is a tough one to swallow. Even tougher than that though is the idea that Europeans swallowed the globe searching for gold to keep up their wars….enslaving and spreading disease every step of the way.

When I was in India I worked with people doing exactly the same job as I did in the US. I got a great opportunity to compare US and Indian work cultures….and I will say that they are very different, and without knowledge of those difference you will never get anything done…with the knowledge you still might get nothing done…but at least you will be able to explain the reasons why.

So my company sent me to India to support our work there, and now, as more Indians are gaining experience to work on more complicated projects, we have begun to bring Indians to the US to learn. Ankur, a really bright guy I worked with while I was there, is the first Indian to come to Atlanta. Needless to say, he is amazed.

It was a great opportunity for me to go to India to live and work for 6 months…but lets face it: For an American, India is always within reach. We can all pack up and see the Taj Mahal if we really want. Sure, the flight is a little expensive, but we can do it. For an Indian…this is the motherlode to be chosen to live and work in the US for 2 months.

Ankur has been here for about 2 weeks, and I was curious to see how his visit is going….to compare my experience in India to his in the US.

Obviously they didn’t put him up in a 5 star hotel like I lived in while in Delhi. He lives in an apartment near the office. They did rent a car for him, which is nice, but did not give him a cell phone like they did for us. I got a business stipend in India (as all business travelers do)….he gets one too….its just half as much as mine was. I find that odd since it is far more expensive to live in the US on a Indian’s salary than it was for us to live in Delhi earning US dollars. Overall though, he is not getting shafted…it is a great opportunity any way you cut it and he is super happy to be here.

I also asked about the office….how it differs from the office in Delhi (where they did exactly the same work). What’d he say? Well…we are very busy he said…very busy. He couldn’t get over how hard we work…how focused we are during the day on producing results. The Indian office environment is much more collegial…more relaxed and more relationship oriented. In the US we do work. In India the office is a mix of things….not all of which revolve around getting stuff done.

He also said we disagree with each other more than in India….as in when we are “discussing” a course of action in a meeting, we are likely to throw out a bunch of ideas, not all of which will be of the same vein….and then we hammer out what we think is best, often having to compromise since not all opinions can be accomodated. Business research suggests that good decisions are generally made this way….the heartier the “discussion” (which often appears as disagreement), the more robust the decision. In India the manager decides and everyone else agrees….period. There is nearly as much dissent…in fact, there really isn’t any. It is not culturally appropriate for an employee to disagree publicly with a manager. Any discussion like that would need to take place through the informal channel.

He said we go to meetings all the time, where you are asked about your work and have to give updates and feel embarrassed if you don’t have the right answer. Meetings generate follow-ups too and people do them. In India a meeting is where you talk a little bit about what you should be doing and are going to do, but nothing specific is finalized, no one takes ownership of anything discussed, and all the real decisions are made informally outside the meeting. If you don’t do something or it isn’t done in the way originally expected, it is glossed over or spun until the outcome is diffused in a smoke of Indian sideways head nodding. For the record though, I love India…especially the people.

He said the US is big, and clean and very efficient. He marvelled at how we all obey the traffic laws and signals. All the cars are big and shiny and don’t have dents. He actually said the word efficient…which is something I try to explain to foreigners about the US, and they do not understand. Things largely just work in the US….although we certainly pay a high price for all that efficiency.

So Ankur expressed largely what I figured an Indian would about first impressions of the US and the office environment. I did find it interesting though, and I am very happy for him since he is such a bright guy, and a hard worker.

Its been two weeks since I last wrote. I’m back to working 50+ gruelling hours a week. That puts a damper on my free thoughts.

I’ve started dreaming about work again…..not the kind where I’m always missing deadlines and I get fired or anything like that….but the kind where no matter what I’m dreaming about people from work are in the scene and issues from work are incorporated into the loose storyline.

I had a bad week last week overall. I need to write about that separately….but my dog was put to sleep. She was 20 years old. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have her. That was actually very sad for me, and even if I didn’t always see her, since I live in Atlanta…..I did often think about her holding down the fort in Easley….sleeping in various rooms, licking people, playing with her food, wandering around like she was lost. I loved that dog, and I often said she was the only member of the family who had never said a cross word to anyone. How true!! I’ll miss you giz/gizzer/wizzer/wizard/blizzard/lickmo.

I am almost 32 years old and this is the first time I have ever lived a year that is largely a repeat of another one. Bizarre.

It is the front end of the busiest time of year at work for me. It will last at least 4 months. I wrote about it when I first moved to Atlanta three years ago and wasn’t all that pleased (although at the time I had declared a one year moratorium on questionging myself, so I was unable to fully experience the mood). Last year though I escaped it because I was in India…..now its back, and I’m working weekends, and something feels very familiar about it all.

I start feeling guilty about stuff…like not calling people back, being grumpy alot, eating too much at dinner because I work late and by the time I get off at 7 or so I’m starving from lunch at noon. I don’t sleep as well because I’m always thinking about what I need to do or trying to figure out what I wasn’t able to that day.

I’m not complaining about work really. The rest of the year ain’t that bad, so working hard a few months is……well, pretty much life. What decent job isn’t a little hard? Its pretty interesting….like solving brain teasers everyday and getting paid. The problem is that with brain teasers you know they have a solution…at work sometimes we just can’t do it no matter how clever we are. Its hard to draw the line between “not clever enough” and “not possible”.

So this year is a repeat. I still can’t believe that. I’ve lived 31 unique years. I guess it depends on how you define repeat…but still it is the first one that I identify as the same as a previous one. I admit I’m getting antsy.

Its strange though, sitting here identifying this year as so noteworthy for its sameness, when I think repeat years are pretty much the norm by the time you are 30.

Not that I think repeat years are bad, although they can be. That book I just read Stumbling on Happiness said that often people mistakenly think that variety is the spice of life, when studies show they are happier most of the time sticking with what they already know they like.

So do I like it? Well….that is one of my talents. I can make myself believe just about anything if I need to. It is a scary talent at times and it makes it hard for me to know if I like it, or if I have made myself accept it because these are the circumstances of my life, and until I really decide I want to change them…..it does no good to dislike them.

Perhaps I will look back and hate this repeat year. Perhaps I will look back and smile. I guess it depends on what I need to believe to get myself to do whatever I fancy to do next.

Everyone knows I am addicted to this stuff. What a great read. I wish we were all more aware that we are one step away from being stars if we just pick our spot and work hard. I’ll include an excerpt below. Here is the link to the article.

Ericsson has spent the last 30 years probing the implications of the first experiment he ever conducted as a professional. The year was 1976, and he was studying the limits of memory. At the time, it was believed that the brain could only remember about seven random numbers at a particular moment. Ericsson thought he’d try to increase this capacity through rigorous training. “I was really surprised when, after about 20 hours of training, we could expand the short term memory for digits from seven to 20,” Ericsson recalls. “Then [the experimental subject] just kept on improving. After about 200 hours of training, he could remember over 80 numbers. It was very surprising.”

Ericsson wondered what other human talents were malleable. After all, if memory ability wasn’t innate, then it seemed hard to imagine what was. What else could people learn to do better?

Ericsson started studying a range of “expert performers.” He investigated chess grandmasters and the stars of the PGA tour, Scrabble champions and brain surgeons, concert pianists and circus acrobats. After putting these peak performers through a battery of cognitive tests, Ericsson realized that their talent wasn’t genetic. They weren’t born with better brains. In fact, the average IQ of people at the top of their field, no matter what it is, equaled that of the average college student.

But if talent isn’t innate, then where does it come from? Ericsson’s answer was so simple it was shocking: Practice makes perfect. Talent comes from learning by doing. For example, when Ericsson studied classical pianists, he found that the winners of competitions had practiced over 10,000 hours by the age of 20, while less accomplished performers only practiced between 2,000 and 5,000 hours. This same effect was apparent across a range of fields. “From the outside, it seems like talented people don’t have to put in a lot of effort,” Ericsson says. “They make it look so easy. But when you look closely, the opposite is actually true. The best performers are almost always the ones who practice the most. I have yet to find a talented person who didn’t earn their talent through hard work and thousands of hours
of practice.”

I remember when I first moved to Atlanta I spent many weekends in complete anonymity. I didn’t really know many people and I would drink coffee and read magazines and watch people like they couldn’t see me. I would go to bars alone and drink, or go to the mall occasionally and just walk through it, never buying anything.

I am a nostalgic person and so those days seem peaceful to me now. I guess they were in a lonely sort of way. Of course those were also the days of 60 hour work weeks, which I positively hated.

I don’t think I am able to accurately judge how happy I was in the past. That book I just read (Stumbling on Happiness) says none of us are. I have such fond memories of travel, and alot of times it was the best thing ever for sure….but I guess the best times were actually living abroad doing something.

The physical act of traveling was so often not “happy”. It involved waiting, and being hot (or cold) and uncomfortable. It involved the stress of never knowing where you are and what you’re about to get into. When things went bad there was little comfort as you were by yourself and doing it all voluntarily. Did I mention it involved alot of waiting and/or sitting on moving vehicles/boat/planes/whatever.

I just guess I am really nostalgic. So the point, if there is one, is that I did “stuff” all weekend and never really sat down for a minute alone with my thoughts….except for right now for an hour before bed.

One hour. That ain’t shit….not that being alone with your thoughts is all its cracked up to be.

I should’ve ironed clothes or played video games….then I could’ve avoided the sad nostalgic reflection altogether.

I think I’ll go get a beer and remind myself that we are all incapable of comparing our present happiness with the past.

I sort of already know this stuff, but it always strikes me just how many people have these issues and how little we talk about it.

According to Day-Timers Inc., a maker of organizational products based in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, people are unhappier and more stressed out at work than ever before. The company found that 18 percent of 1,000 working Americans acknowledge being diagnosed or treated for depression within the past five years, with 13 percent saying they’ve been treated for anxiety disorders during the same time period. Less than half of all workers (47 percent) report being happy, compared with 54 percent a decade ago, while only 41 percent say they enjoy good or excellent health, down from 51 percent. Also, advances in technology such as e-mail and cell phones appear to be hampering workers’ ability to accomplish their daily tasks, with only half reporting that they do so consistently. In 1994, the figure was 82 percent.

I read some articles tonight about the effect of immigration on unemployment and wages. Most accounts say there is negligible effect…perhaps only that native high school dropouts suffer a bit. In general, prices drop and demand rises.

Why the big stink about immigration then if no one can identify it as a wholesale negative?

Without immigration the US would barely have a replacement birthrate. Economic “growth” is all predicated by a need for increasing population. Europe is having fits with its aging population and shrinking workforce. Immigration is a positive.

Immigration, if it is bad at all, is bad for the poor and uneducated. Since those who make laws are largely rich and white, why do they care? Prices in general go down. All the rich whites can afford a gardener or a housekeeper.

Well…that’s a good question….one that has nothing to do with economics. I think there is certain affront to the government that we cannot control our own border. Especially in the face of the “war on terror”.

Also, I think the tall, rich, educated, skilled, white politicians have some sort of instinctive hestitation towards opening the flood gates to short, poor, largely illiterate, unskilled immigrants. It is akin to “losing” the country. The fact that they don’t speak English is probably not helping either.

I have no strong feeling one way or another. I guess I fall into the skilled, white, educated camp (although not rich)….but I don’t care one way or another about “losing” the country.

Losing it to what? To immigrants? Isn’t that how we got here in the first place? We’re all immigrants.

Well…sort of. At the turn of the century everyone was an unskilled worker…..so an influx of more unskilled workers simply increased our labor pool…they were not different than the whiteys who were already here. No one had a high school education. We were all in the same boat so to speak.

Now all the “natives” have college educations and the immigrants not only don’t have high school educations, they don’t even speak English. That makes it a little different than the previous immigrants.

And that is what it comes down to if I had to guess. The “general public” is apprehensive. It is fear of the “unlike”. “Unlike” being a different level of education, different language, and different physical characteristics. Because economists can’t find any overtly negative effect of their influx. They’re just here. They aren’t making us poor or taking our jobs.

Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I speak Spanish well enough.

Venga. Me da igual.

What’s been going on lately?

That story I submitted to the “…from a Backback” series got accepted for publication last week. I posted the story on this website August 29, 2004……I thought I was slow. That’s almost two years. Not a high priority I guess.

I went to Orlando with work the other day. All we did was work and eat lavish meals. I didn’t see anything of the city, stayed in one of those business traveler hotels (Hilton Garden). That’s the first real glimpse I’ve ever gotten of the traveling consultant lifestyle.

I think I could do it….except for the food. All we did was eat and schmooze with the client. I still feel fat from dinner on Tuesday night.

Speaking of being fat, I am “trying” to lose a few pounds, or at least not to gain a few more, and I find it is hard to do. I cannot control very well how much I eat. If I push back from the table…I just get hungry earlier and have to snack between meals. I don’t accept losing weight if it means going around hungry all the time.

Exercise is something I am better with. I can generally motivate myself to go do something cardiovascular. Its just that work makes me so tired. I guess that is everyone’s excuse.

My life is very predictable right now. I do the same things often and have thus far not really gotten tired of them. I really do benefit everyday from all those years of travel though. I don’t have to play the game in my head of “I wish I had done….” or “I would be happier if only…”. I did all those things. The grass is not always greener somewhere else….the grass is just different.

I wouldn’t be comfortable with that though if I didn’t know firsthand.