Rob's Musings

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2009-11-08T20:55:00.004-05:00

This weekend I thumbed through a photo album from my bachelor party and came across a few pictures of the late Jon Alsop. When I searched to see if his memorial video was up on YouTube I found the audio was pulled due to copyright.

Jon's probably chuckling right now over his copyright infringement.

At least this video avoided any infringement.

It's Movember

2009-11-01T16:29:00.003-05:00

Since my father is a prostate cancer survivor I thought it would be fitting for me to join the Movember movement.

This month I'm growth a mustache to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer.

Join me in growing your own or please donate.

I'm looking forward to enjoying my mustache culture.

Upgrade for online access with Amazon

2009-10-18T09:49:00.005-05:00

I was pulling a few books from Amazon to recommend and noticed the page saying, "Upgrade this book for $2.29 more, and you can read, search, and annotate every page online"

Further investigation resulted in this screen shot -

Interesting to see Amazon offering this, but what about paying a slight upgrade fee to give me Kindle access to existing purchases? I've blogged about this idea before. Either way this is a great scalable way to to generate incremental revenue with almost no physical distribution costs. I wonder what the economics are with the publishers.

I'm sure there are some rights issues, but the reality is that with this solution or Kindle upgrades there is still the potential that I have sold the book on the secondary market. The only challenge is that most books depreciate rapidly after purchase.

Fall Feeding For The Bees

2009-10-11T19:50:00.005-05:00

Today marked 21 days since I put the Formic Acid pads on a few of my Varroa infested hives, thus off they came. It's also starting to get cold and the hives need to be prepared for the winter.

I installed the entrance reducers on all of the hives as well as put on the top feeders so I could get 2 gallons of 2:1 sugar water into the hives. It's critical to feed the bees Fumagilin-B to avoid the human equivalent of a cruise ship getting one of those stomach viruses and everyone encountering severe intestinal distress. The honey bee equivalent disease is called Nosema.

Mixing up 13 gallons of sugar water (2 gallons per full hive, 1 gallon for my nuc) takes give or take 100 pounds of sugar. Normally I picked up 25 lb bags at Sam's Club, this time they were all out so it was 10 ten pound bags. Below is photo of my sugar posing with Fumagilin-B medication.

Capitalism: A Love Story - Something every capitalist needs to see

2009-10-03T18:33:00.005-05:00

Today Diana and I spent two hours watching Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. While I believe in capitalism and this film is against it, most people like me will probably write it off.

DO NOT. Go see it.

What I took away from the movie:

1. The Political Donor class is in charge - this is the ultra wealthy who lobby government to the benefit of enriching themselves. Michael Moore cites FOA, "friends of Angelo", key political figures who got sweet loan deals from Countrywide. Special deals for special people. This is but one example and it touches some key political figures, the very people who were supposed to be watching out for the public.

Want to read about how the tax code is cheated by the super rich - read Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else

2. Mortgage Fraud an insider's job - citing the FBI's 2005 report, "Based on existing investigations and mortgage fraud reporting, 80 percent of all reported fraud losses involve collaboration or collusion by industry insiders."

Beyond insiders committing fraud, nobody was really looking out for the borrowers. Sure it's America, buyer beware, but be reasonable, not everyone is financially savvy. I'm sure it's possible when a loan officer is looking at a couple thousand dollar commission on a loan, he/she might not be completely level with the borrower. Next thing you know their floating rate has lead to foreclosure.

3. Obama received a lot of money from the investment houses who were bailed out or benefited from the bailout; almost a million from Goldman Sachs alone.

4. Michael Moore makes the suggestion that the reason why Americans haven't revolted against the rich is because the general public is lulled into the thought that they too can be rich some day. Maybe that's so, or maybe they don't notice the money being siphoned off slow and steady.

He wants democracy to replace capitalism, I'd like to see democracy back to help change our cronyism back to capitalism.

We need to put the regulations back in place that can level the playing field. Much of the great wealth in this country has been generated by men and women who have leveraged people educated by the US educational system and our infrastructure.

Our system relies on taxes to fund grants and research - the same taxes many ultra-rich seek to avoid. It's fine to be successful and become rich, just make sure you are paying your fair share.

At least in this country you probably won't be kidnapped or have your company nationalized, at least not right now.

Blasting a cold the old fashioned way

2009-09-27T17:59:00.005-05:00

There are multiple colds running around the office right now, a few had taken people down for a few days. I thought I had escaped the scourge with my regular cleaning regimen.

1. Purell - after riding the subway and a few times during the day upon returning to my office

2. Clorox Wipes - wipe down my desk, office phone, iPhone, blackberry, mouse, and laptop at least once a week

3. Lysol Spray - spray down my keyboard on Friday just before I leave for the day

Now I'm enjoying a sore throat along with some nasal congestion and irritation.

I'm treating myself with a Neti Pot, multiple packets of Emergen-C mixed in water, 10 pills of PB8 PRO-BIOTIC ACIDOPHLUS, and my secret weapon Comvita Propolis Lemon & Honey Lozenges.

Bees use propolis to protect the hive and they gather it from various local plants. This mixture of resins, waxes, and other materials apparently has a natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.

Formic Acid Steam For My Varroa Mites

2009-09-20T07:55:00.004-05:00

My first beehive has a serious infestation of Varroa mite s, when I pull the screened bottom board tray I see hundreds of them. The mites are transmitting the deformed wing virus as I see the bees bouncing bees with deformed wings out of the hive.

From a scale perspective, if Varroa mites attacked humans it would be like having something the size of a dinner plate attached to your back.

Yesterday I applied formic acid pads for the first time to see if I can get the Varroa count down before the winter. It's relatively easy, just need to be careful since you are handling acid which is breathable and can damage your skin. I'll be back in 21 days to see how well it worked.

What's interesting is that formic acid is naturally occurring in honey, just not at the sauna levels.

Johns Hopkins SDS Interview Techniques and Etiquette Panel

2009-09-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

This marks the second year the Johns Hopkins Second Decade Society has held their Interview Techniques and Etiquette Panel at the Homewood Campus.

Below are some reference materials so the attendees can follow up:

Being a big fan of Manager Tools pod casts here are few that a student about to enter the job market should listen to:

How to handle the weakness question in an interview

How to answer the leadership style question in an interview

I would also recommend their new podcast series, CareerTools.

Breaking through the clutter:

Make your resume and cover letter stand out: I remember back in the late nineties waiting for my interview to begin at an investment bank in the WTC complex. Sitting in the HR department, I looked over and saw an inbox stacked with resumes, they were all folded and creased. They didn't lay flat and I'm sure were hard to photo copy as well as handle and read. I started from that point forward sending all my resumes and cover letters via USPS Priority envelopes. I took one more step and placed them inside a manila envelope with a label and the persons name on that as well. Thus when the priority envelope is thrown away you still have a great presentation of your resume.

High quality resume paper is heavy, you put that in a normal envelope and it will come out with permanent creases.

Most likely the HR department are your gate keepers, make life as easy as possible for them.

What are the pros and cons?

1. This candidate is so interested they went these extra steps to deliver

2. It could skip some of the normal work flows that resumes get processed through.

3. It guarantees that your resume and cover letter are delivered in a pristine format. No vagaries of whether your word doc formatted correctly.

4. Most people like opening up packages, you're information is now a professional looking package

5. It's expensive $4.95 per envelope, I think when I was using them it was ~$2

6. Maybe the employer gets upset because it didn't come through the proper delivery format. On their website, via bits and bytes. Sure that's a concern, but you cover yourself by submitting the requested information the standard way. I've done hiring via electronic job boards at jobs past and the incremental cost for a candidate to submit a resume is low thus you get a lot of resumes many of them not qualified.

People tend to take the pray and spray approach.

If I had a resume show up on my desk in a priority envelope and they let me know they also submitted via the normal channels and the resume was a fit. That would stand out. Maybe others would disagree, but from my perspective it stands out.

Research your interviewers:

1. Use Linkedin - Linkedin can provide an amazing amount of information about your interviewers to understand their backgrounds. What school, activities, etc... These are all useful data points to help seed your interview conversation. It can help make your interview more memorable and connected

Books to prepare for your interview:

Hiring the Best: Manager's Guide to Effective Interviewing and Recruiting: I found this book back when the first edition was out and it's been useful in my hiring ever since. It's covers great behavioral questions and it's from the hiring manager's perspective. If you want to be fully prepared for tough questions that will strain you preparation, read this book and prepare answers for all of the relevant questions.

Learn about what makes you tick:

1. Take a Myers-Briggs test online

2. Disc profile if you want to pay for it

Key point I'm making here is the better you know yourself the better you can represent yourself.

One last point:

Your about to be a Hopkins graduate, you've probably worked really hard. I know how driven most of the students were when I attended. You need to put the same level of effort into your job search.

You can read a thousand different books on finding a job - the difference between the people who succeed and those who don't are the ones that actually take action. There will always be the next book on X, many people just keep buying, reading, and shelving versus actioning.

Do a great job, be successful, join SDS, and present here in 10 years yourself.

Pictures from Sunday - Post Honey Harvest

2009-09-13T18:29:00.005-05:00

This was the honey harvest weekend and it was a bad season. I harvested less honey than I did last year and that was the first year for that particular hive. I can only hope for a big year in 2010, with six strong hives; took some pictures below of the bees cleaning out the leftover honey in the extractor.

We also stopped by the annual fireman BBQ in Cedar Point Park. What an amazing spot, a public camp ground open to anyone. Definitely rediscovered the beauty here and will have to take some bike rides with Diana to explore.

A funny Vibram Five Fingers Article in the NY Times

2009-09-11T21:10:00.002-05:00

My mother saved this article from the NY Times for my wife, Diana. Apparently other couples have similar Vibram Five Fingers challenges.

Remembering September 11th

2009-09-11T07:45:00.002-05:00

I wrote this post back on September 11th, 2006.

It's still relevant as it's what I remember from that day.

No Impact Man Screening

2009-09-10T18:18:00.002-05:00

Diana and I had the privlege of an invitiaton from Businessweek to see the screening of No Impact Man this past Tuesday. Great movie and I look forward to reading Colin Beavan's book as well.

While I was checking out Colin's blog I came across the trailer to the movie Tapped. It's worth a gander.

Queen Castle Update

2009-09-07T20:45:00.003-05:00

I mentioned in a previous post that I had setup a queen castle with four frames, each containing a few queen cells. This weekend I re-examined the four compartments and sure enough there were queens and a three had eggs.

QC #1: Queen was moving and there were fresh eggs in the comb. I marked her green.

QC #2: Queen was moving and there were fresh eggs as well. Marked her green.

QC #3: Queen was moving, but no eggs. Tried to mark her, but no luck catching her. The lack of eggs has me worried.

QC #4: Queen was moving and there were fresh eggs. Marked her green.

Since it looks like Queen #3 might not be a winner, I removed the divider board between 3 & 4 and I'll let the bees sort out which queen lives. Since I have one marked green and the other not, I will soon find out.

Catching a swarm hive

2009-08-26T07:00:00.003-05:00

Saturday I was walking around the in-laws property and noticed a lot of bees flying around a section of the privet hedge.

Hmm, that's odd there are no flowers there.

After closer inspection I thought I had found a swarm, but it was a hive that had formed in the hedge. This would explain why my father-in-law was chased by the bees when he was mowing. Normally bees won't come after you if you're not near their hive. He clearly was near this hive.

By the look of things this hive was there for a few weeks, you can see in the pictures there was sealed brood.

First step was to get the hive out of the bush and into a hive body. Only problem was that all of mine are in use. I had a few boxes kicking around from my father's beekeeping days. Took a bottom board and hive body, fired up the propane torch to "toast" the inside to kill any latent diseases and they were put back into service. As you can see from the pictures I don't have a proper hive top, a simple piece of plywood would have to do.

I placed the wild hive in the box, hoping they'd start building out the frames. That lead me to build some bee swarm frames from plans I found on the Internet. I built six of them and then went to work on Sunday placing the comb into the frames. The wild hive was designed to hang off the bush not lay sideways.

Of course another swarm showed up yesterday, thanks to some family help they are sitting in a Nuc hive right now.

Time to setup my queen castle

2009-08-24T06:45:00.000-05:00

Came out this Friday to find hive #4 covered in bees. Sure it was hot outside, but there was just an inordinate number of bees compared to all the other hives. Since I needed to refill the feeder I opened up the hive and sure enough I found over 8 sealed queen cells. (Below is a picture of an empty queen cell from earlier in the season.)

Perfect opportunity to try out my queen castle from Brushy Mountain. All four bays are now filled with a frame of brood and a queen cell or two along with a division feeder. Now I wait and in two-three weeks I should find four matted queen bees.

I wasn't able to find the queen in hive #4 so I'm not sure if she's dead or left with a swarm. I'm not too worried as the main hive still has a few queen cells. We'll have to wait and see how this all turns out.

Honey bee and a crazy caterpillar

2009-08-23T22:15:00.001-05:00

Snapped some nice shots on Saturday of a few honey bees all over the mint in the garden along with a crazy looking caterpillar.

Dilbert Covers A Mutual Fund Reality

2009-08-23T13:06:00.000-05:00

Florida Honey is going 100% pure - VIA NPR radio

2009-08-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

Culling the Drone Comb

2009-08-16T17:45:00.004-05:00

Saturday marked 21 days from when I originally put in Pierco plastic drone comb frames into three of my hives. I pulled them and sure enough the swarm hive had built them out the frames in a normal fashion. I took a few pictures before I placed them in the freezer to kill off any drone brood and Varroa mites hiding out in those cells.

Notice the honey for the drone brood with the white cappings on the upper edges. I replaced these frames with new blank Pierco drone frames to be switched in another 21 days.

East Hampton Library's Authors Night

2009-08-09T21:13:00.005-05:00

While I was helping out with the Cole Haan gift bags, the event was rocking. There were a ton of people and everyone seemed to be having a great time. This year was bigger than last, can't imagine what next year will bring.

Did get a chance to chat with Nelson DeMille, one of my favorite authors. Looking forward to the Lions Game sequel.

Below are some photos, from Keri Lamparter the PR maven.

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McInerney, Luannn de Lesseps, Candace Bushnell at Authors... on Twitpic">
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Bethenny Frankel, Alec Baldwin & Countess Luann de Lesseps at... on Twitpic">
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Heche at Authors Night at the East H... on Twitpic">
McInerney, Candace Bushnell & Alec Baldw... on Twitpic">

I'm sure their planes are already nicer than flying commerical

2009-08-08T07:42:00.003-05:00

Great article in WSJ.com today - "Lawmakers' Global-Warming Trip Hit Tourist Hot Spots"

While I won't debate the educational value of these trips, I will point out the following:

It's tough to calculate the travel bills racked up by members of Congress, but one thing's for sure: They use a lot of airplanes. In recent days, House of Representatives members allocated $550 million to upgrade the fleet of luxury Air Force jets used for trips like these -- even though the Defense Department says it doesn't need all the planes. - WSJ

Sure maybe it's stimulus money, or maybe the seats are comfortable. Why not invest in something that builds future capabilities of the country.

Having a drink with my bees

2009-08-02T22:33:00.002-05:00

After swimming a few laps this afternoon I lounged out for a cold Red Bridge Beer.

Who comes along?

One of my bees, to drink the pool water off my foot. What's amazing is that she came back 5 times and brought friends.

More Kindle 2 thoughts

2009-08-02T13:58:00.000-05:00

More features I'd like to see the Kindle 2 offer (a follow-up to an earlier post on the Kindle 2):

Hardcover plus Kindle Version: My wife helps organize the Authors Night book fair in East Hampton. It would be great to get a signed copy of Bob Caro's book and get the electronic version to read it.

A real progression indicator: How close are you to finishing based on the book, not the appendices. I recently read The First Tycoon, and the book essentially ends at the 73% mark. I could feel the book winding down, but kept seeing the percent read not making sense.

Reading Stats: Word per minute, statistics on your reading consumption, your consumed word asset allocation (fiction, non-fiction, history, etc). Imagine Morningstar's X-Ray feature but applied to your reading.

Moving the swarm nuc into a full hive

2009-08-01T13:54:00.000-05:00

Finally got a chance to upload the photos I took last weekend. You'll see below the swarm nuc being moved into a full hive. The swarm is doing amazingly well.

More details on using a portable air conditioner in your steel casement windows

2009-08-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

For some reason my blog post, How to use an air conditioner and not destory your steel casement windows, was one of my most popular via SiteMeter.

I thought it might be helpful to go into a little more detail on the Plexiglas insert I built for the portable air conditioner.

Below you'll see some metal twist clasps that are spaced off the Plexiglass with some metal washers. The nut is attached with Loctite Threadlocker to prevent it from loosening up with use.

The Plexiglas insert is compressed by the window itself. On the left of the picture below you'll see the left of the window pressing against the Plexi and holding it in.

The handle of the window is held with the eyelet bolt and tightened with a wingnut.

FYI - Here's a useful link to Consumer Reports for an air conditioner sizing worksheet.