Sully's Stuff

Education City

2008-02-11T11:55:00.000-05:00

The New York Times features a write-up on Qatar's Education City, which houses Carnegie Mellon's business and computer science programs in Qatar.

Our former Regent Square neighbors (we left, they didn't) just returned from a fall semester of living and working in Qatar that they captured in their blog Monroes Abroad. (Wait until you check out the house that they lived in!) It is an interesting read that captures some of the culture clash that you read about in the article.

I find the Education City model, and the participation of American Universities very interesting. It is kind of like the food court at your local mall. You know, the Orange Julius, a chinese place, a mexican place, a cheese steakery, a pretzel shop, but with universities and majors:

Carnegie Mellon offers business and computer science
Virginia Commonwealth offers fine arts (including fashion design, can't wait for Project Runway Qatar)
Georgetown offers foreign service
Cornell offers medical related majors
and Texas A&M offers engineering fields, including petroleum.

Commodity Knowledge In Your Food Section

2008-02-07T19:22:00.000-05:00

The "Food & Flavor" section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is usually the last place you expect to find coverage of global supply coverage, but today, Gretchen McKay brings together environmental sustainability, farm raised fish and the high protein diet in the closing paragraphs of her early-lent homage to fish:

"...because fish is an excellent source of protein, and also a good source of omega-3 fatty acids that benefit heart health, groups such as the American Heart Association still recommend eating up to 8 ounces at least once a week.
The government and other groups track fish with highest levels of mercury, a list that includes swordfish, tilefish, shark, orange roughy and king mackerel. (For a complete list, visit www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html)

"As with anything, you just need to do it with moderation," says Ms. Liu. "The benefits still outweigh the dangers."

Then again, with fish prices going the way of gasoline, it's probably not too hard to cut back to acceptable levels.

A boom in ethanol production has caused many farmers to plant fewer soybeans -- a key feed for many species of fish -- in favor of more corn. That, in turn, has sharply increased the cost of raising fish. Fuel costs for fishermen and product that is flown or trucked in has also increased. Cod, by way of example, has nearly doubled in price since the late '80s."

There you have it. Higher demand for ethanol, higher demand for corn, higher production of corn, lower production of soybeans, higher soybean prices, higher fish food prices, more expensive fish.

Post Gazette: "Caught in a rut? Lent doesn't have to be the same old cod and tuna"

The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd

2008-02-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

Received this by e-mail from a friend today, and it resonated a little bit more than I would like, especially as I look at my hummus eating, DVR watching, "wet wipe" using kids...

If you are 30 or older, you will think this is hilarious!!!! If not, send it to your parents! They'll think it's funny!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... Uphill BOTH ways ..Yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in heck I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to
my childhood, you live in a dang Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

1. When I was a kid, we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dang library and look it up ourselves... In the card catalog!! (Do you even know what a card catalog is? Didn't think so!)

2. There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter... With a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

3. There were no MP3's or Napsters! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dang record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and mess it all up!

4. We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

5. And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

6. We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics were horrible! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

7. When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

9. And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire ... Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing or a pan with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove forever like an idiot.

10. When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely had enough length to sit on the floor and still be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do..... Hang up and talk to them later.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled!!

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980! But before you go running your mouth or making fun of us, just remember......We are the ones that invented all of these things for you guys!!!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

By the way there are 15,400 links to "The Spoiled Over 30 Crowd" on Google, including:

A Day in The Life of a Houston Social Butterfly
Living Life Abundantly

Ambushed in the parking lot...

2008-02-06T00:14:00.001-05:00

If you watch the local news in Pittsburgh (and if you live in Pittsburgh you know you can't pass up the steady diet of fires, urban and rural shootings, threatening weather and sports reports approximately 25% of which include at least one person wearing one item of Steelers attire) you may have seen gsully on Channel 11.

To respect her privacy, I will not go out and find a link to the video to the report where she expressed a deep sense of fear about the contents of our hand lotions.

I will tell you that she felt ambushed by a Channel 11 reporter (who did not appear in the story as it aired) who approached her in the parking lot of Waterworks Mall as she was loading groceries into the car. She was asked if she was concerned about a report she knew nothing about and really had no opinion on. They then took her reaction and edited it into the report as if she had been made aware of the whole thing, and used her natural expression of concern as a mother to tease the story promising potential fear.

I guess we feel a little exploited, which makes sense because we watch the local news because of the way it's put together is often like The Daily Show without intentional comedy writers, presenting news that is often literally not fit to print since many of the stories don't even make the newspaper the next day.

By the way gSully was not wearing ANY Steeler gear, and in my very partial opinion, looked fantastic. I was creeped out a little by a woman in a parka who seemed to lurk behind her left soldier.

P.S. It's been an interesting couple of months for Sully's and the local media, more on that later.
P.S.S. I have not been in China since early October. I've just been busy.

Shanghai

2007-10-11T19:20:00.001-04:00

Riding to work in yet another VW Vanagon yesterday, while talking to G on the phone, our drive nearly hit a bicyclyst at an intersection. It should be said that we were in the middle of the block, the bicyclyst and some pedestrians were crossing in traffic, and the vanagon was inching along through traffic.

The bicyclyst was angry and proceeded from glaring, to standing in front of the windshield yelling, to coming over to the driver's side window. The driver shut off the engine and proceeded to have a heated argument with the cyclist for ten minutes in the middle of the road with cars and pedestrians, including a few police officer proceeding by us.

Then suddenly we were on our way again. By the way, I ate duck stomach last night.

Lady Liberty Guarding The Entrance To New York Mall in Taipei

2007-10-11T19:16:00.000-04:00

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to drink a double venti, sugar-free hazelnut, non-fat latte.

Home to McDonald's, Mr. Donut, Cold Stone Creamery and, of course, Starbuck's.

Little Mister Sunshine

2007-10-11T03:45:00.000-04:00

I spent 3 hours yesterday riding in VW Vans, the slightly newer version than the microbus featured in Little Miss Sunshine. The time spent "en bus" was part of a 12 hour odyssey to travel from the Grand Hyatt in Taipei to the Sheraton in Shanghai.

After leaving the hotel at 7:30 AM our 10:10 Cathay Pacific flight was delayed by Taiwan's "Double Tenth" day celebration show of military might.

Because of certain...let's call them tensions, one can not travel from Taiwan to mainland China directly without first going "someplace else." In our case the someplace else was a connection in Honk Kong for a 2 hour layover.

After landing in Shanghai, the fun really began, a 2 hour 20 minute, 45 mile drive to the hotel in excruciating traffic in a hot and uncomfortable VW Van, just in time to throw our bags down and keep our 8:30 PM dinner reservation at The Grill on the 56th Floor of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai, where mercifully we missed the fire drill.

Is this hotel haunted?

2007-10-11T03:23:00.001-04:00

This is The Grand Hyatt Taipei, located in Taipei adjacent to the World Trade Center, Taipei 101, and the Taipei City Hall. It has over 800 rooms of luxurious accomodations, including a 5th floor swimming pool with an underwater audio system.

This hotel was built on the site where they executed and buried military prisoners, and many locals consider it to be haunted. You can find some discussion of this is on TripAdvisor, where a guest from Tokyo claims to have checked out in a hurry after his wife had some mysterious encounters. I also found a couple of references here and here.

The strangest thing that happened to me? I watched the 1986 Kevin Bacon stockbroker/bike messenger flick QuickSilver on HBO after I went to bed at 10PM and woke up at midnight.

Happy Double Tenth Day

2007-10-09T19:03:00.000-04:00

Happy double tenth day, national day of Taiwan, Republic of China. Double tenth day comemorates the Wuchang Uprising of October 10, 1911 which started the Xinhai Revolution which ended the Qing Dynasty and led to the founding of the Republic of China.

Taiwan's city hall is in the shape of this Double Tenth symbol, which is essentially two Chinese ten characters joined together.

Unfortunately, I won't be participating in any Double Tenth celbebrations as I'm off to Shanghai today.

Taipei Food Court Lunch

2007-10-09T03:41:00.000-04:00

Today in Taipei, I found myself on my own for lunch. So I did what office workers all over do, I walked over to the food court to grab some grub. At the foodcourt at the mall in Taipei 101, the world's tallest completed building, I was able to grab this lunch of pork steamed dumplings, vegetables and soup for $170 TWD (about $5.35 -- Taipei's not really much of a bargain). For fast food counter service, it was delicious. It was served up in the nice bamboo basket and bowls. The big empty bowl at the top is someone else's lunch leftovers -- the foodcourt was really busy and I had to take the seat I could get.

I could not read the menu, I could only point at the picture. This is extra value meal #4. I don't know what kind of soup it was, but I didn't like it very much. I don't know what the vegetables were either, but they tasted good -- cold and crunchy. The dumplings were devine. I didn't drop anything on myself or get dirty eating with the chopsticks, a small victory.

My other choices at the foodcourt included McDonald's, Subway, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. There were a couple of bakeries and ice cream shops for desert, but the bulk of the counters were for meals like this one.

The mall at Taipei 101 puts all of the malls in Pittsburgh to shame if you like high end goods. Prada, Coach, Dolce and Gabana, Cartier, Sony, Nike, Mont Blanc, F.C.U.K, Ralph Lauren, are just some of the high end retailers in the huge mall. Of course, if you are more casual, there's a Wrangler store too.

Taipei Typing

2007-10-07T19:39:00.000-04:00

After almost a year, I find myself back in Taipei this morning. While the top story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette was the firing of Jim Tracy when I left Pittsburgh on Saturday morning, the top story here is Typhoon Krosha, which battered Taipei on Saturday -- here's a link to the AP account.

The typhoon triggered landslides and power outages here, and caused the cancellations of several flights, including that of my colleague who will now be forced to travel directly to Shanghai.

Seems like it could be a rainy trip...

Salt in the wound for Pirates fans...

2007-10-02T06:14:00.000-04:00

Josh Fogg started a game which ended up putting his team, the Colorado Rockies into the playoffs last night. According to Thomas Harding of MLB.com, Fogg "might have won had it not been for a tough third inning that saw him yield five runs, including an Adrian Gonzalez grand slam." That's kind of like saying someone would have lived through a car accident if they hadn't hit the other car head on.

Well, at least he didn't magically pitch better in black 'n purple, even if they do call him the dragon slayer.

My Near Biopsy Experience

2007-09-25T13:59:00.000-04:00

The world of Spend Management (or at least Supply chain Management) and my health collided yesterday at Allegheny General Hospital.

Those of you that know me personally know that for the past 18 months I have had abnormally high results from liver function tests. Otherwise asymptomatic, we have not been able to figure out what is causing these high levels. With some diabetes in the family it is better to figure out what is happening than not. The last avenue we have to do this was a liver biopsy.

So I block my calendar, GSully lines up some great care for the kids, and we show up at AGH at the appointed time. We check in, I get my "red light district length" hospital gown on and wait. The scheduled time of 11:15 comes and goes. Fifteen minutes my Doctor comes in.

"I am embarrased to say that the needle necessary for your biopsy is on backorder, so I can not perform the biopsy today."

GSully thought he was joking. I was just to shocked to even be mad at this my first personal encounter with our "3rd world" healthcare system.

It turns our that there are 3 types of liver biopsy needles: suction, cutting an spring loaded. Just as a jet pilot is certified to fly a CRJ, a 737 or a 747, but not all three, if you use one type of needle, you are not able to use the other 2 types. (I don't know what type of needle my doctor uses.)

Turns out it was not the Doctor's fault, or the nurse's fault, or operations fault -- it was of course the suppliers fault. The supplier had switched manufacturers and was now having trouble meeting their production schedule. They knew on Friday that they didn't have it. They thought they would get it on Monday. They were not due to receive it until after I was due to check it. Blah Blah Blah...whatever.

For my 3 hours of time, I did receive 2 free lunches in the AGH cafeteria, 2 free cups of coffee from the cart in the main lobby, free parking, some graham crackers and a few apologies. A "You've got to be kidding me" story for the blog, and some free time on one of the 5 best weather days Pittsburgh will have all year. And I get to go back and try to do it all again soon.

I Guess I'm Not The Only Blogger at Ariba Anymore...

2007-09-20T10:34:00.000-04:00

Welcome Tim Minahan.

Ariba announced a definitive agreement to purchase Procuri today...well 10 minutes ago. Press Release.

The Last Lecture of Randy Pausch

2007-09-20T09:32:00.000-04:00

As a young family with young children, hopes, and dreams, GSully and I were both moved to tears by Mark Roth of the Post-Gazette's coverage of Randy Pausch's last lecture at CMU. Now the inspirational lecture is posted in several parts on YouTube. Start by watching part 1...

Do ya Doha? Tom Friedman Does

2007-09-19T12:57:00.000-04:00

Unshackled from the walls of NY Times Select, Tom Friedman comes back to the free web surfer world with an article highlighting the carbon consuming sky lines of Doha and Dalian, which he somewhat condescendingly assumes that most of us have never heard of.

Well Tom, I have heard of Doha and if you want to see some great pics of the rising skyline visit monroesabroad.blogspot.com where you'll also be able to read about how readily accessible pornography is there too.

:-) Invented Here

2007-09-19T12:50:00.001-04:00

To the Ferris Wheel, the Big Mac and modern organized labor add the emoticon to things invented in Pittsburgh. It's been 25 years since Scott Fahlman, a rather distinguished professor of at Carnegie Mellon decide that jokes should be designated by the now famous colon dash close parens combo. On his CMU website you can catch up with the other things he's actually accomplished in his life, or you can skip to his history of the Smiley and even peruse the mother thread where the first Smiley appeared.

United Untied

2007-08-21T01:26:00.001-04:00

I hate traveling on Monday.

My reward for getting up at 4:10 Eastern to make a 6 AM to ORD? An "indefinite" mechanical delay that would cause my 7:10 AM connection to SFO to take off at....well, maybe we'll know more at 8.

So I go to the C Concourse Red Carpet Club and call the 1K desk to rebook. An 8 AM 1 stopper through Phoenix that will get me in at 12:30. Walk over to B. Long line at gate B5. Go to B Concourse Red Carpet Club, get boarding pass.

7:40 comes...no plane at B5. Announcement -- my original flight will leave at 8:10. Back to RCC. Get back on original flight. Now have middle seat. Go to C15. Finally board for 8:20 departure. Push back from gate...sit on the tarmac for more than an hour.

Finally get in the air...foot odor...nasty foot odor, can't find the source foot odor for 3+ hours.

Arrive SFO. Go to Avis. My name's not on the board. Line at the preferred counter more than 15 deep.

Tell me why I don't like to travel on Monday's again?

Bare handed grab..

2007-08-14T11:04:00.000-04:00

After 34 years, and scores of games, a couple of near misses, I made a bare handed grab of a foul ball at last night's Barry Bonds tribute double-header at PNC Park. Matt Cain, the Giants pitcher, popped the first pitch he saw from Paul Maholm in the top of the 3rd about 25 rows behind the 1st base on deck circle. I stood up with cracker jacks in my left hand and snatched it out of the air cleanly with my right to a smattering of applause from the few hundred fans around our section. It was about as easy a play as you're ever going to have on a foul ball.

I turned to my right and handed it to my son, called my wife and my dad and settled in for the rest of the game.

BTW -- the ratio of standing ovations to boos for the Barry Bonds tribute last night was probably 4:1 ovations.

It takes a Giant to make life simple...

2007-08-13T09:09:00.000-04:00

The complexity of pricing schemes seem to increase daily with the advent of technology. As companies are better able to track your purchases, they are able to develop programs and promotions that would have been impossible to manage in the past.

Giant Eagle, who has used it's Advantage Card program to launch a regional juggernaut of Get Go gas station/convenience store through it's "Fuel Perks" program, which in turn launched them into the gift card business is a great example of this. (If your outside the area that the Giant Eagle flies in, Fuel Perks essentially refund 1-2% of your grocery purchases back to you in gasoline depending upon the size of your personal vehicles gas tank.)

I was the victim of a promotion gone wrong on Saturday. The requirement was to buy $25 of various products, primarily General Mills cereals. In return, you would receive a $10 coupon, printed at the register for your next Get Go purchase. I have 3 kids, eating $25 in cereal is maybe a 60 day proposition, so this made sense.

The coupon did not print at the register, which triggered a 30 minute odyssey to get my $10. First stop, the customer service desk. Second stop, the chief cashiers desk. Third stop, lane 16, where we twice tried to ring up the promotion to receive the coupon. It turns out that they did not have another way to produce the coupon, so the next step was a debate about how to give me $10. Should I get a refund? a Giant Eagle gift card? a Get Go Gift Card?

Finally they decided to give me a $10 refund, because it required the least amount of paper work on their end, but led to my 4th stop, a repeat visit to the customer service desk, and after 30 minutes I was out the door $10 less poor.

To their credit the staff at the Edgewood Towne Centre Giant Eagle was very friendly and did nothing but try to give me my $10, and found a solution even when they could not create the original coupon. They did, however, prove that complex promotions like this are virtually impossible to manage when the IT doesn't work as planned.

Qatar -- The North Hills of the Middle East

2007-08-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

Good luck toour friends, the Monroes, who are off for a 4 month stint living and working in Doha, Qatar.

Ever wanted to know what life is like for an American family in the Middle East? Bob Monroe is the co-coordinator of the Technology Leadership track at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business, and will be teaching on the University's Doha Campus this fall.

Mrs. Monroe is keeping a blog so we can follow their journey on monroes abroad.

Bonds Away

2007-08-08T00:23:00.001-04:00

Last night I was in section 106 row 41. Bonds was 0-3 with a foul out
a k and a 6-5-3 dp (thanks to the wicked shift.)

Tonight I was in the front row OF THE GO BISTRO ASIAN FUSION BAR AND
GRILL in Concourse A of the San Francisco International Airport and
Barry Bonds was 3 for 3 with a double, a single, an HR his 756.

Of course the punchline is still the same. By the 7th inning Rajai
Davis is the best former Pirate on the field.

BTW - Hank Aaron's gracious scoreboard message proves once and for all
that he's a bigger man than Bud.

K

2007-08-07T00:34:00.001-04:00

Bottom 7. The mighty Barry has struck out. Now the only former Pirate
in the lineup is Rajai Davis.

The National League and it's double switches.

Section 106 Row 41 Seat 7.

2007-08-06T23:57:00.001-04:00

That's where I'm seated tonight at AT&T Park where Barry Bonds just
grounded into a 4-6-3 double play in the bottom of the 6th. He fouled
out to the 3rd baseman in the 1st and walked in the 3rd.

I'm not surprised. I never saw Barry Bonds do anything clutch in
person when he was a Pirate either.

Dead Ducks

2007-08-06T07:31:00.001-04:00

I'm back on the road after a 2 week hiatus, and my trip is off to an
"fowl" start.

As my plane approached O'Hare the Captain came on and said,

"I expected to be on the ground already, but the plane in front of us
flew through a flock of birds. Now we'll be another 10 minutes while
we switch runways so the can clean the dead birds off the runway."

A little much before breakfast if you ask me.