Rio de Janeiro Beach Shots
The beach scene in Rio de Janeiro is awesome. Lots of activity. Never a dull moment. People playing sports, enjoying the surf, and lots of people selling things.
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Hilton Head Vacation
Had a great time visiting Hilton Head for Thanksgiving break.
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10 Years of Running
It was November 2005, that I celebrated my first year of running. Now, November 2014, I am proud to say that I have been running for 10 years. A lot has changed in my life in the last 10 years. I married, have two wonderful children, and I have built my business from a small start up into a thriving medium sized business. Throughout all the change, there has been one constant – running.
After my first year of running, I established a routine which I still abide today. My normal run is file miles and it takes me slightlly less than an hour to complete. By any standard, I am a slow runner. I am not trying to run slow nor fast. I just start and go at a velocity that my body dictates. My mind is normally wandering through the clouds and flowing with whatever thoughts that will eventually drive my day. The good news is that in all my time in running, I have never sustained any major injuries. I did have a few falls but nothing that ever stopped the routine. I am happy to say as I turned 55 years old this year, that I still maintain the same routine with a goal of at least 3 runs of 5 miles each week.
In the last 5 years, I have been traveling extensively and that has not deterred my running schedule that much. Google Maps is a huge help when traveling. My run is normally somewhere between 5 and 6 miles, and I can plot a good course, and it helps me find the parks near by. I am proud to say that I have run Central Park in NY, and Hyde Park in London numerous times throughout my travels. There is also the treadmill option but for me that is solution of last resort. I like to explore the city and enjoy the outdoors.
Nothing really deters me from running. In Rio de Janeiro, I like running in the rain, because it never is really cold, and the rain is quite soothing. This year, it was less than 20 degrees in Myrtle Beach, and I just had to see if I could run. Running in the cold in the beginning is quite difficult, but after about 10 minutes, your body heat keeps you warrm, and you don’t have to worry about losing fluids.
In the last 10 years, I have run three half marathons. Running a race, for me, is a great challenge and highly rewarding. I love the feeling before the race begins, and then running among so many fellow runners. My goal is never to set a personal record, or run faster. I just want to finish and feel good after I am done.
I sweat profusely while running. I think that sweating is a very natural part of our body’s function and should be embraced rather than avoided. One time, I weighed myself before and after, and I lose about 4 pounds of liquids when running. The struggle for me lately has been how to rehydrate in the best possible way. In Brazil, I had the perfect solution in coconut water. It is 100% natural, with no sugar or calories, yet still high in potassium and sodium. Now that I am back in the US, it is very hard to find something that is not chock full of sugar or high fructose corn syrup, that also contains sodium and pottasium. I am always experimenting with what I should rehydrate.
There is no doubt that my life is better after 10 years of running. My relationships at work and at home are all better because I have time to reflect on my life and my actions while running. My business is just starting to blossom and I hope that it will continue too.
I am now 55 years old and it is my sincere hope that I can run for another 10 years. I view running like my thermometer. As long as I can run 5 miles without stopping, my health must be OK.
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Divided We Fall
In my lifetime, I have never seen the United States as divided as it is right now. And also in my lifetime, the country has never been in as bad a shape as right now. The two are related, correlated and even causal. I believe that the more divide the country, the less prosperous the country we will be. We as a country must focus on the issues that unite us and run away from the special interests and lobbyists that attempt to divide us.
America is the greatest nation in the history of the world. American ingenuity ushered many of the most important developments of mankind including the television, the car, the airplane, the radio, the computer and the internet. There are many others as well, but suffice it to say that many of these innovations greatly increased the productivity of the world creating enormous economic profits to one nation. Behind all of this are two key tenants of America. Capitalism and Democracy.
The problem in the United States and we are watching it fade right before our eyes, is that we no longer have Capitalism nor Democracy. It is sad to see capitalism fade in the United States. It has transformed itself into what is called crony capitalism. Success is not defined by how hard you work nor the quality of your innovations, but access to the right people in our federal government. This is defined by plowing money into the myriad of lobby organizations that pollute Washington DC. To be successful in American society today is to run a company that has a lobby organization in Washington DC. So American business is dominated by telecomunications, pharmaceuticals, banking, and the military industrial complex. Perhaps the most egregious of all is our banking system. The government as well all know is highly in debt and growing larger and more in debt every year. But there is nothing to be done because all of the moneyed interest want a large yet weak government that is afraid to regulate the very industries it must control.
Worse yet, the United States is no longer a true democracy on the federal level. Both parties Republican and Democrat have been seduced by all the money. Elections have become a high priced show where the outcome is irrelevant. Perhaps the largest hypocrisy was the election of Barack Obama who ran on a platform of Hope and Change. The sad reality is that Obama has done almost nothing to change the trajectory of our country. In fact, most would agree, he has accelerated the downfall.
We must unite behind the principles of free markets and democracy. We must restore these two fundamentals of our great country. The government must play an active role in promoted free markets but right now they are doing the opposite. The government picks the winners in back rooms rather than letting the market decide. Worse yet, the government allows large companies to merge without regard to we the people whom they represent. We must restore democracy so that the federal government represents the joint desires of the people who elect them and not the money that filled their campaign coffers.
The federal government must be reinvented under the original principles that made it great in the first place.
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Promote Competition
As I get older, I am truly fearing for the future of the United States of America. One of the key reasons is that the federal government has been derelict in its responsibilities to promote competition. In fact, in recent years, it has been doing the opposite and doing everything in its power to reduce competition.
We can remember as little as 15 years ago, that Clinton went after Microsoft because of its dominant position in the market place. Then about 30 years ago, Ronand Reagan succeeded in breaking up AT&T into what was known at the time as the Baby Bells. Whether you agree with these federal actions or not, it is clear that government should play a role in promoting competition in the market place. In fact, going back well over 100 years, Teddy Roosevelt ran and won the presidency with the singular message to Bust the Trusts. Some of the most important federal anti trust regulations still in effect today came from that era.
Competition is essential for capitalism. Competition lower prices for goods and services and gives consumers a multitude of choices for their purchasing dollar. Furthermore, competition creates jobs. The sad fact however is that the federal government is doing absolutely nothing to promote competition. In fact, the federal government is playing a role in stifling competition to the detriment of the very people they supposedly represent.
A good example is the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner. From a consumer perspective, there is absolutely no benefit to this merger. Both Comcast and Time Warner are considered to be among the worst in customer satisfaction. As a Time Warner customer, I am stunned on how bad their services, billing, and customer support are and their utter disregard for customer satisfaction. Of course, Time Warner has a monopoly in my area so there are no options.
The reason that Time Warner and Comcast can justify this merger is because the reduced company will enjoy economies of scale. Which is their fancy way of saying that they will start cutting heads. For every head they cut, their stock price will go up another $.01, so they have every incentive to cut as many “redundant” resources as possible. It would have been awesome if Comcast had come into my area and competed with Time Warner, but our federal government is essentially taking that outcome off the table.
Another example are the airlines. It makes me sad that American Airlines has now merged with US Airways. The reality that virtually every frequent flyer knows is that airline travel has turned from a pleasant experience into a mind numbing exercise in greed and stupidity. It was only 10 years ago before all the airlines began to merge, that meals were included in flights, blankets and pillows were available in all classes of services, no change fees, no baggage fees and on and on. When they merged, the airlines promised the government they wouldn’t raise price, so instead they reduced services. There is no good for the anyone except for the stock holders of these airlines and they don’t care since they all fly private airplanes anyhow.
This is not a Republican or Democrat thing. The trend started under George W Bush and has beome even more severe under Obama. Both the Democrat and Republican parties have become slaves to corporate interest and their mega lobbies and the concept of democracy has been temporarily suspended.
Democrat, or Republican, the real problem is a law passed under duress, the Pendleton Act. Following President Garfield’s assassination, congress hastily passed the Pendleton Act. Of course there existed excesses of nepotism, and political patronage, but when balanced against legacy federal employees, previously hired by opposing political parties, and political philosophies, the bureaucracy develops it’s own culture. When the unfortunate unionization of the federal workforce, and the politicization of the civil service commission came about, the very same politicians elected as supervisors of the government became beholden to the monetary contributions, and votes of those unions representing government workers. Much of government is now ran by statutes written by unelected bureaucrats within agencies of the government. Many of the political decisions are made under the influence of the inertia of rest that has evolved from a stagnate federal workforce. The federal workforce is an entity resistant to change, so things tend to be done “the way they always have been done”. Competition means change, and is frowned upon, or not tolerated at all. Thus there is a “shadow government” oppressing the marketplace of ideas, and products. An unelected government increasingly becomes tyrannical.