The View From The Pop

The First Snow Is Early

2011-10-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

It's not even Halloween and already flakes are falling. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE IT. I love the winter, I love the cold weather, and I love the snow. To ski, to play in, and even just to look at, the snow always makes me feel more alive, and more serene.

My Dad hated it, and still does. He viewed it as an annoyance, an element of nature that had to be shoveled, plowed, and fought through. Winter is never his time. He is a true summer guy and has been throughout his life. This is not hard to understand considering where he grew up in Jamesport, Long Island. His back yard was the gorgeous Peconic Bay, and his play toys were boats that he and his father made. Whether it was by sail or by power, or on a ship, the water has always been his playground and even his office.

But the coming snow also always makes me reminisce to when I was young working with my Dad to help remove his nemesis. We had a big and very old International Harvester traktor with a plow and chains on huge spiked tires. I was so proud and psyched to come to the age when Dad let me hop in the driver seat and take over the plowing. It was COLD, but driving the snow off of our long driveway was an all consuming task that kept the cold far from my mind.

I remember my Pop's winter work coat. It was a brown thing with a fuzzy lining. I remember his gloves and how his glasses fogged when he first went outside. I remember the black winter hat that he wore to the office, a black fuzzy persian envoy. I remember him sharpening the blades on my sled for a little more speed, and falling flat on his back once when he pushed a whole group of kids down Horseneck Path.

I am so grateful for all of these memories. I am so grateful that I get to reminisce with my Dad as the first snows of 2011 start to come down. The flakes may not stick today, but the memories they conjure will stick in my mind forever.

Lessons From 1938

2011-09-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

I love revisiting history with my Dad for two reasons: 1- it keeps proving that history will repeat itself over and over, and 2- he was actually there for so much of it, so his view is more factual experience than historical conjecture.

For example, he and I were discussing some of the new job programs that our federal government is planning to stick us with. He began to reminisce about a time when there was another federal jobs program during a time of economic crisis. Yes, I'm referring to the Great Depression that began in 1929 and the New Deal that resulted.

As we all know, the New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented between 1933 and 1936, during the first term of FDR. The programs were responses to the Depression and focused on what historians call the "3 Rs": Relief, Recovery, and Reform. That is, Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression, with its base in liberal ideas, big government machines, and newly empowered labor unions.

The New Deal basically poured federal money towards job creation in the form of economic stimulus. Sound familiar? At the time, the New Deal was pouring unheard of amounts of federal money into the National Recovery Act, the Wagoner Act to promote labor unions, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief program, the Social Security Act, and new programs to aid tenant farmers and migrant workers. The final major items of New Deal legislation were the creation of the United States Housing Authority and Farm Security Administration, both in 1937, then the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set maximum hours and minimum wages for most categories of workers, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938.

Now, let's forget for a moment that many of these federal acts were considered (and actually were) unconstitutional, but rather let's focus on the real, plain, unadulterated truth as told by someone who was actually there.

NONE OF IT WORKED. In fact, THESE FEDERAL PROGRAMS ONLY MADE THE DEPRESSION WORSE. I quote my Dad, "the worst economic year during the Depression was actually 1938, years after the bulk of the New Deal was implemented. There was NO business to be had anywhere in 1938. That's when we hit rock bottom. Truly the only thing that brought this country out of the Depression was WWII. The New Deal just burdened us with federal programs that we still can't get rid of today. Programs that are now called entitlements."

So, as I said above, as history repeats itself we can actually tell the future. Our current administration will win re-election, burden us with more unconstitutional federal programs and regulations in the guise of "job creation", and 9 years after the Recession started in 2008 we will hit rock bottom, which means that we will then enter into a huge war in 2017. With one distinct difference; this war will not be about fascism, it will be about 2 billion Chinese jacking us for the $30 Trillion we owe them.

I've Seen What Happy Is

2011-07-23T07:08:00.001-07:00

My father continues to teach me every day. He continues to teach me the most important lessons of life. And he continues to teach me what it means to strive to be a good man.

His latest lesson derived from a glance and a facial expression. It was all at once an expression of complete and utter contentment, peace, accomplishment, and hope.

Last weekend my sister and her family joined me and my family at my parent's house. During the simple act of eating breakfast together around a large table I saw the expression that so moved me. It happened when my father looked around the table at his three grandsons, his granddaughter, his son, son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law, and his wife. I think even my new puppy caught glimpse.

He was for that moment filled with pride. It was a pride that I am just beginning to understand at this stage in my life, and one that I truly hope to feel at his stage in life. It was a pride earned from being the patriarch of a thriving family, and from being loved by that family.

With just a glance he teaches me. With just a glance I learn what I want in life. With just a glance I am utterly grateful.

Sharing Just For Sharing - The Plateau Of Social

2011-06-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

Acta Non Verba is the credo of Father's alma mater, USMMA. It means "Actions Not Words."

My Dad and I are also big Theodore Roosevelt fans, who's personal credo was "speak softly and carry a big stick"-- another version of "Actions Not Words."

But today being famous has become its own virtue. People are famous just for being famous, with no "Action" required. The Kardashians are a prime example of this dynamic. Aside from one uninspiring sex tape (so I'm told) have any one of them ever done anything except whine in front of a camera? Other examples include the likes of Paris Hilton, The Situation, and a myriad of YouTubers out there just flooding the world with their own likenesses.

Social media has only served to exacerbate this phenomenon. In fact, sharing has now become its own virtue. Klout scores, Twitter followers, likes, retweets - they are all becoming a new doorway to our own perceived fame. While chasing this fame won't end social networking as we know it, I do believe it is leading to its plateau.

My friend Tony Gandia pointed out to me that UNfriending has become a trend. Why? because people are flooding us by hitting share just to hit share. People are pumping more and more useless and regurgitated information into the ether as if they themselves created the original content. All this in an attempt to to increase the Klout score, tack up some likes, grab some followers, and reach for our own little moments of fame.

There is information and data, and then there is noise. And here I am ready to hit "publish post" to create some more noise.

CAORF

2011-06-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

CAORF (Pronounced Kay-orff) certainly sounds like some paradoxical enemy spy organization from "Get Smart". I can picture Agent 99 yelling to Max "look out Max! Boris is a CAORF agent!" (Max's nemeses were actually Chaos agents).

But in the real world CAORF stands for the Computer Aided Operations Research Facility which is located on the grounds of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. Originally built by the Federal Government as the National Maritime Research Center, CAORF was for a time one of the most sophisticated ship simulators in the world. Why do I blog on CAORF? Two reasons: one- to make a point about the evolution of technology and two- (and almost more importantly) because my Dad had a huge hand in the development and management of the facility.

The facility's main purpose was and still is to train ship personnel in a full fidelity simulator, to look at the layouts of specific harbor and channel designs, to determine the viability of specific ship dimensions and designs to pass through those harbors and channels before the ship is even built, and to study the causes of accidents and to make recommendations to avoid them before they happen.

The simulator bridge contains actual maritime equipment, including radar, communications and steering mechanisms. Encompassing the bridge is a massive 240-foot horizontal 24-foot vertical panorama of actual port conditions. The simulation can be varied by type of vessel, cargo load, time of day, atmospheric and tide conditions, other ships passing and tug effects.

My first point is this; back in 1975 when CAORF was first operational all this was accomplished through several rooms of computers and video hardware. And by several rooms, I mean the facility practically had its own building on the Kings Point campus. I should know, I saw it several times. The facility was a complex myriad of refrigerator sized tape-to-tape drives, Smart Car sized CRTs, old style lamp driven projectors, miles of wires, behemoth cooling units, expansive control panels, and it had an electricity appetite of a small town. All of this produced what was considered at the time to be state-of-the-art graphics.

As has been said many times before, we now carry more technology power in the palms of our hands than NASA used to land a man on the moon, or than my Dad had to build CAORF.

First consider what a tremendous undertaking it had to have been to build CAORF back in '75. Today we can look at virtually any spot on the globe with Google maps on an iPhone, but back then it took a huge team of technologists, scientists, contractors, engineers, programmers, bureaucrats, electricians, fabricators, and project managers, etc... plus sizable budgets to even power up the instillation. Also consider for a second how CAORF helped to pioneer so much of the technology we take for granted today. For instance, it had 'apps' that ran on a simultaneous integration and manipulation of computer languages like Fortran, C, and even Basic, before there were Linux or even MSDOS based operating systems. These 'apps' created some of the first true topographical simulations ever, and are the basis of so many of today's gaming and CGI systems.

Now almost more of a museum than a functioning facility, CAORF stands as a true testament to the spirit of innovation so pervasive in the field of technology. My Dad might even say the same about himself at the age of 83. Much like how museums teach us the lessons of the past to help us keep evolving our human endeavors, so too do the stories, lessons, and experiences of men like my Dad help us to keep building onward.

Hangin' With Some Crazy Guys

2011-05-19T12:23:00.000-07:00

I have hung out with some crazy people in my lifetime. During my college days and certainly during my first few years living in Manhattan I could usually be found in a death defying, sometimes law defying, and utterly common sense defying activity accompanied by one or more of my mad friends. But the people that I hung out with in even the craziest of moments couldn't hold a candle to some of the guys that my Dad knew.

Take for instance this story that my Dad has told me a few times over the years. It begins on a Navy Ship in a port near Korea during the war there. He used to see a small group of guys using the helo deck to do a light work out in the early hours of the morning. The light work out that these guys were doing included hundreds of push-ups with another guy on their back, swims of two or three miles off the side of the ship, and calisthenics that would kill most men. My Dad got to know the guys and found out that they were UDTs, the Navy's Under Water Demolition Team.

One evening while Dad was the officer on watch, he got a call from the local authorities in port. Its seems that 5 of his new UDT friends wandered into a bar that was strictly a Marine hangout. The 20 or so Marines that were in the bar did not take kindly to seeing a few 'sailors' make themselves at home in their establishment, and of course a ruckus ensued.

When my Dad received the call he heard a distressed police officer ask, "who the hell are these guys? Your 5 sailors are in my jail, and they put 20 Marines in the hospital."

Some of you may know that UDTs were the precursors to the modern day Navy SEALS. You may also know that it was a SEAL team that popped a cap through Osama's left eye ball recently.

Again, I've hung out with some crazy dudes in my time, but how I wish I was with my Dad picking up 5 insane UDTs from a Korean jail after putting 20 Marines in the hospital.

Perspective By Dad and Douglas Adams

2011-04-25T05:35:00.000-07:00

Is it really work/life balance or is it money/life balance? After all, work is a conduit to money for most people unless you're lucky enough to be in an endeavor that you find personally fulfilling (which I luckily do).

Easter is always a great time to reflect on such things. It is a spiritual time when life begins anew, and hope seems to be budding with each spring flower and Yankee win. Easter is also a great time to chat with my Pop about life and get his learned prespective from 83 years of quality experience.

Like many men, he spent most of his life in the endeavor of making money. However his, more than most, were endeavors that provided him great personal and professional fulfilment. His career provided for his family, and in his earlier career he provided for his soul as well. From all of that effort, time, and life experience one theme came shining through in our discussions this weekend; money is a fine way to be comfortable, but it will not make you happy. Happiness comes from health, family, home, and worthwhile pursuits.

I know, I know... it's a bit cliche. But it bears reminding, especially as we face a recovery that is moving at a glacial pace. But has this recession left us in a better mindspace about how much emphasis we will put towards money versus life?

This got me to thinking of one of my favorite books which I recently started to re-read. It's the five part trilogy of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, in which he kicks off the whole story like this:

" Orbiting at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-decended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This plant has a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy."

Happy Spring, and please remember to take a whiff of the budding flowers and to just listen to ball game on the radio.

And subject to my last blog, Pop met Ripley and thinks he's going to be a great one.

The View From The Pop: Marking Time With Dogs

2011-04-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

The View From The Pop: Marking Time With Dogs: "Certain days stand out as markers across our lives. Birthdays, of course, are a basic measure and today happens to be mine. But my birthday..."

Marking Time With Dogs

2011-04-03T13:59:00.000-07:00

Certain days stand out as markers across our lives. Birthdays, of course, are a basic measure and today happens to be mine. But my birthday is not what has me thinking about milestones or reminiscing through my years. It is the passing of my dog, Oscar, that has my thoughts turning towards my years with him at our family's side. During Oscar's lifetime we built a new home, had our child, and raised her to become a bright and precocious second grader.

My daughter loved Oscar like a brother, and has never known life without him. Which got me to thinking that I have never known life without a dog either. Noel was a little dog that saw me all the way through junior high school. Berlin was a sweetheart mutt saw me off to college. While in college my future wife gave me Othello, who was with us as we entered the real world. Then came Oscar. Our handsome blonde Retriever with a huge body and bigger heart. All of theses amazing animals stand as chapters of my life.

Othello became a ward of my father when I moved into New York City. Othello became a chapter in my father's life as well, marking his entry into retirement. In fact they entered into their individual retirements together as the two of them were inseparable day-in and day-out. A morning walk along the shores of Lloyd Harbor, an afternoon of household tinkering not more than a few feet apart, and the occasional shared nap. They had the good life together.

My father had the unwanted task of putting Othello down when it was his time. My father did his duty well, but it was hard for him to say that final goodbye. So when it was my time yesterday to put Oscar in the car for his final ride, yet again my dad was the inspiration who helped me to handle the morbid duty with dignity and feeling. He told me that my emotions in the vets office would surprise me, and he sure was right.

My father no longer has a dog, so he loved Oscar when I brought him to visit. Dad says that he's just not willing to go through that last trip to the vet ever again after so many. After all, the man is 83, and he's raised and trained dogs all of his life. I'm may get to that point some day as well, but today I already started the new chapter, named Ripley.

Ripley is a yellow lab that just came into our home today for the first time and my eyes begin to gaze towards the milestones that will hopefully be marked in his chapter. If providence allows, Ripley will see my daughter off to college, my 30th wedding anniversary, and of course all of those Christmas moments, barbecues, beach days, snowmen, proms, promotions, and a few sad times too. Each will hopefully be marked with another handsome blonde head to greet me as I walk in the door each day.

I can't wait for my father to meet him.

We Think It Is So Much Harder Now, But Is It?

2011-03-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

We're moving at warp speed from day to day, meeting to meeting, project to project, and commitment to commitment. We're working harder than ever to succeed, provide for our families, and in many cases just to make ends meet. Many of us in my generation, the 35 - 45 set, who are starting and raising families, and who are building careers, are often quick to lament how complex and fast paced our lives are now. Technology, broadband, and constant access have turned up the heat on our lives, and we strain against the pressure. But is it really harder now then it was when, for example, when my father was my age?

My father was born two years before the Great Depression. He was a college kid (at a Federal a academy) during World War II. He served in the US Navy as an Officer in Korea, and he started his family when our country was engaged in Vietnam. He was in corporate America during the hardly booming 70's, and then he had to send two kids to private colleges just as tuitions started to balloon in the 80's. And in the midst of all this providing there was retirement to prepare for in the late 90's, a retirement that arrived somewhat earlier than expected due to the now common term downsizing.

Granted there was no 24/7 information cycle, there was no constant transaction stream at the speed of broadband, and there were no PDAs as appendages. But does it sound like it was easier during my father's time to raise his family, grow a career, and grasp at some peace of mind? Yet he made it seem so doable, almost easy. Now I understand.

It may not be easy now, but it certainly was no easier then.

The Conversation Hasn't Even Changed

2009-10-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

I happen to catch re-runs of "The West Wing" (the TV series that ran seven seasons from 1999-2006) every so often. The last episode that I saw was a debate between the two "candidates" for president played by Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda. This episode was written in 2005 and filmed in 2006, and what struck me most is that the debate is 100% accurate to the issues of 2009.

While I do think that Aaron Sorkin created a show with a firm and somewhat visionary grasp of American political issues, I don't think it's possible that he could see into the future four years hence. Unfortunately it's more true that we are debating the EXACT SAME ISSUES today in the real America that we were over four years ago in both the real America and the "West Wing" America.

If you tuned into any political news show right now you would see debates that contest issues including increased oil drilling, alternative energy policies, immigration and border control, gay rights, abortion, the sustainability of social security, and especially a healthcare public option. Yet, these were all issues written into a fictitious debate for a TV show back in 2005, and if you closed your eyes you would swear that the statements were from today.

Both sides were making the exact same points that they are making today. Both sides were using the exact same arguments that they are using today. Both sides had the exact same objections, ideas, proposals, data, and spin that they have today.

The script was so similar to today's rhetoric that this TV show brought a significant and distressing point to light for me: Not only has nothing been resolved, THE CONVERSATION HASN'T EVEN CHANGED! And look back to the real presidential debates even further back in time and judge for yourself. Are they still bickering about saving social security, expanding Medicare, or a woman's right to choose?

Maybe it's just human nature or maybe it's our two party political system that avoids issue resolution. In the recent history of the United States maybe there are really only two seminal moments when policy really underwent drastic change: when FDR dramatically expanded the role of the government and then fifty years later when Ronald Reagan (arguably) reduced the roll of the government. And maybe, just maybe, people can only tolerate or allow dramatic change or resolution every fifty years or so with a war or a crisis thrown in between from time to time.

Just about every politician extols change. It is certainly not a new campaign message. In fact it is probably one of the easiest of campaign messages because, like a weatherman, apparently our political leaders can predict whatever they want without ever having to be right. There's always an approaching cold front to blame, or a prevailing wind that threw off the weather prediction. For politicians the easy scapegoat, the prevailing wind, is always Washington politics.

It is our fault really. This is after all a government for the people by the people. We not only allow our issues to go unresolved, we allow the conversation to stay exactly same. As my father once said, "we hardly even make 'em work for it and we get what we deserve."

The Problem With Blogs: No Answers

2009-07-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

The problem: Blogs and blogging are lacking in brand loyalty. The solution: Blog some answers.

Blogs are a brand. The act of blogging is participating in the brand of Blogs. One could say that since so many people are blogging then the Blog brand is strong. I contend that the brand is not as strong as one might think.

There are many positive brand attributes to Blogs. They are seen as great way to "be heard" and as a great conduit for sharing and learning information. However, all too often the Blog brand does not fulfill on its promise, leaving long term brand loyalty to be suspect. While many have rushed to blogging only a handful actually keep up with their blog updates for more than a couple of months and many more forsake their blogs altogether in just a short amount of time.

To me, one issue facing the Blog brand is one of substance. All too often the blogs themselves are just endless rants on extraneous topics written by people who are unqualified or unmotivated to offer up a real opinion or solution. Many are quick to offer a critique, but maybe blogging would inspire more loyalty if they would also offer SOLUTIONS, or even ideas that could lead to solutions.

I used to say to any and all of my bosses or clients, "I will never just identify a problem without offering you a solution to the problem." It's very easy to just flag an issue and offer a critique. It is much harder and yet much more productive to flag an issue and offer a solution. Any team member that can do the latter is a much more valuable player. If bloggers would do the same, offer up ideas and solutions rather than just critical rants, then maybe, just maybe, the Blog brand would develop a brand attribute that help would drive loyalty.

These new Blog brand attributes would include terms like "value add", "resource for ideas", "innovative solutions", and "time well spent". Obviously these attributes would compare favorably to current Blog brand attributes that I have seen in multiple studies which include, "waste of time", "lack of substance", and the worst one, "a bunch of complaining". With the new Blog brand attributes perhaps brand loyalty would increase, people would stick to blogging due to its value, and healthy and constructive debate on blogs would become the norm rather than the exception.