Old Times by *Healzo

Today was the graduation/promotion day for children of Armenian and Sunday schools at our church. I sat in the back enjoying the whole event and thinking about the difficult challenge of maintaining an Armenian community and culture far from Armenia. Some of the children have Armenian first and last names, others only have the last names, and some have neither. Some are bilingual, others speak English only and are getting introduced to Armenian through the Armenian school. This diversity also reflects the overall church parish with first, second, and even third generation Armenians, many with non-Armenian spouses or themselves children of mixed marriages. Thankfully, the church family has a wonderful accepting atmosphere of love, friendship and fellowship. But the question of survival of that which uniquely identifies us remains as relevant as ever.

Also this week I read an article about the oldest leather shoe discovery in Armenia. From the oldest shoe to often being an old-shoe, what do Armenians have and what can Armenians do to preserve and enhance what Armenians have? The basics are our religion, the spoken language, our cuisine, the annual habits and traditions. These we seem to maintain more or less. Unfortunately, it takes enormous efforts to maintain and pass along the basics. Many families do not have an Armenian church nearby and must travel miles to get to one. We speak Armenian at home but our son would rather answer in English (extremely painful for me personally). We cook Armenian foods but even those are under constant attack and argument about actual origin, the real recipe, etc. If the basics are challenging, conversation about the complexities is meaningless.

For example, how does an Armenian mother raise a daughter with the same strong family devotion and sacrifice qualities in this individualistic, self-centered culture where over half of marriages result in a divorce? What qualities would it require to raise children who not only spoke but also read and wrote freely in Armenian? What gargantuan effort would it take to teach these children enough of the language for them to actually understand the literature? And would it even be possible for them to contribute to that literature? So even if we are able to get through the simple and complex challenges, what do we do for our children to repeat the process for another generation? Is the problem completely hopeless when only one spouse is of Armenian descent? Each family struggles in its own ways with these issues. Unfortunately, the kids grow up to struggle themselves as they try to establish families in the context of their bi-cultural upbringing.

Perhaps the answer is in our struggle. While we may disagree how a word should be pronounced or what the right way to make խորոված (Armenian BBQ) is, we all share the burden of our historical struggles and sufferings. Why not unite around our current struggle to preserve and enhance our culture and use that as the single source of agreement even when we disagree about everything else. Second, we need to ask and learn from our Jewish friends who have persevered despite their distance from a homeland and despite their struggles. While books could be written about the differences between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, the struggle of survival after devastation of that magnitude with majority of people living outside the homeland is certainly something we have in common.

Do we (Armenians living outside Armenia) have more in common with other cultures (or the current host culture) than we do with one another? What about a generation later? It is fascinating to see a different struggle (whether a set of schools in Armenia should be converted to be completely foreign language based) evolve in the homeland where they seem to be oblivious to these issues.

Average Joe by ~weaponx263

Friday. Tired from a week of constant barrage of e-mail, calls, issues, and people. Finished the last call of the day. Completely finished, wasted, empty arrived at the dinner table. Across are sitting two beautiful children excited that I am theirs at last. But work got the best of me again leaving little for them. After dinner he wants to play with Lego characters, she wants to dance and be a princess. I can’t stop thinking about the dozens of projects, tasks, problems, things to do, things I forgot to do, the phone calls I couldn’t make, the calls I should have made. Another hour, they’re sleeping. I hear the Olympics on TV where the best of the best compete. Back to childhood and my mother where I was one day to be a best in something, in anything. I am not a best. I am not even good enough! Not a good enough father, not a good enough son, not good enough at work, not good enough in anything… Stop! Destructive thinking. I am a role model for them. I must find the energy to work harder, to be better. Maybe this is a phase, a difficult phase. I need some rest.

A Safe Flight Home by ~Ericana

Last week was devoted to Canada. Fairmont Château Laurier was impressive. The event was executed perfectly. My small piece went better than I had expected. In preparation, I learned a few things about the government in Canada. After the event, in a chat, I learned about a thought that could make everything we’re doing less relevant. I heard about a fear to remain relevant from my management earlier in the week. With these two tokens in place, I couldn’t get the word “relevant” out of my head.

What does it take to remain relevant? In free and advanced societies, these words seem to represent the essence of the battle. The quest to remain relevant brings out the best in us. We innovate, advance, improve and compete to obsolete the status quo. The worst sometimes comes out when we feel we are no longer important. A few weeks ago, someone special mentioned in a passing conversation that she wanted to live as long as she could be helpful. The challenge is that in our different roles as contributors, workers, parents, leaders, we must do everything possible to advance the current state of affairs but at the same time we know progress, innovation, advancement, money do not matter most. Some of us balance this by time division or by life division. Others don’t balance and focus on one set of priorities at the expense of others. Some fruits of labor remain relevant for centuries such as the Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #2 in F currently playing on my computer. Sometimes we are only relevant for a few minutes. For example, when we give a stranger directions on how to get to where they are heading (the GPS innovation has decreased these opportunities significantly).

On the flight back, exhausted, I put on a set of noise canceling headphones to tune out the jet, and rest the restless mind a bit. The iPhone shuffle played this song:

In that near-perfect silence, this powerful melody somehow transported the tired mind back to what mattered most. My beautiful wife and little ones were waiting for me.

Yarmouth Boardwalk by *lutke45

Despite the many negatives, business travel has an amazing way of refocusing the mind on what really matters. In my case, coming home to my beautiful wife and the kids was all I needed to feel normal again. Without realizing, they have a wonderful way of supporting me through my long days of work… days like yesterday (I worked from the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until I went to bed late at night). A hug, a smile, even just their presence can give tremendous amount of energy. This energy was not there in California. Consequently, the concept of base of operations has been front and center for me recently.

I cannot even begin to imagine what it may be like to destroy this unique and powerful “base” during a divorce. Where do people living in broken families get their energy? What about the excruciating pain of a natural disaster tearing up the ground in which we grow? Maybe I came one small step closer in understanding my father who lost his half exactly two years ago. Perhaps it is the coincidence of all these events with the anniversary of my half and I becoming whole that is stirring up all these thoughts.

It is late at night, but I feel like a child who wants to go to bed early on Christmas Eve with great anticipation for the next morning. Tomorrow we get to go on vacation. I get to spend an entire week with people who matter most. Cape Cod is beautiful but only because we will be together.

Footsteps Into The Sky by ~oruwu

Friday night is finally here. As usual, I am exhausted and completely drained and feel the need to write a few words to get my energy back. First, earlier this week my son taught me another lesson already learned many times. After much thought he decided to spend his entire savings of almost $100 on a Lego Star Wars kit with over 900 pieces. The cashier at the store counted quite a few pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters before handing over the kit to him. On the way home, I asked him how long he had been saving this money. “Three years!” he answered without hesitation. He had built many kits but this one had more pieces than all others. With fascination and excitement he started on this new project just as soon as he could but not long after displayed much frustration and stress from being unable to find the right pieces in the oddly shaped multicolored piles in front of him. I “helped” him by sorting the pieces in piles by color but that helped little and he grew even more frustrated in the process. I checked today and he had completed three quarters of the project. Stress and discomfort are relative to our capabilities and the complexity of the challenges we face. I remind myself – that which was a challenge yesterday is no longer a challenge today and that which is a challenge today will not be a challenge tomorrow.

The second thought I wanted to share is the total frustration I sometimes feel regarding many world events, American and Armenian politics, history and the present but the discomfort and the stress come from my inability to fix the problems and worst of all my inability in some cases to determine the best solution as in most cases all the solutions along a spectrum have been tried throughout history and have failed for different reasons. This is an issue from global politics, to local town and workplace issues, to family issues, and internal conflicts. The chess game is known, has been played before but one is unable to come up with a new creative set of moves and even if s/he can make the game changer move someone will invariably lose. I find that there is urge to give up or care less just because I cannot fix the problem. I also notice that sometimes the problem doesn’t bother me so much for me to drop all else and devote a life to it which is what I believe it would take in most cases. Multiply these personal views by hundreds, thousands, and millions of people and you have the true nature of our problems. One person’s contribution or lack of contribution makes little difference but when we all feel unable to make a meaningful difference, we end up watching TV or writing a blog post instead. I admire people who despite the above challenges wake up in the morning and devote their days to making this world a better place for the rest of us. In the roles given to me I do my best.

The third thought I wanted to share is that of the final outcome always being determined by the series of very small insignificant unimportant decisions and steps along the way. We tend to want to find one collosal mistake or one great step that changes the course of history of one life or the world. We want to place blame on one person or a group of people or one of the decisions or one set of actions which we label as the crucial ones. Even in making/losing money, we are more excited by big bangs and get-rich-quick thoughts rather than by pennies saved and earned and not lost in our daily lives. The great news is that aside from major accidents and other environmental issues, most missteps can be corrected, most issues can be overcome with small incremental steps in the right direction. Failed products and projects do not fail overnight. Booms and busts are not overnight events. Children do not excel or fail because of one thing we did or didn’t do. It is that constant steam of decisions, actions, events, stimuli and responses that determines what we have, what we do, and what we are.

White Mountain River 1 by *ellensama

After spending a few days in the mountains of the neighboring state with the distinguished motto “Live Free or Die,” we are back to our daily routines. The mountains and the fresh air seem to have certain healing powers… well at least for the mind and the spirit. Spending time with the family was definitely a treat forcing me to count my blessings more than once during the trip. Upon our return, I found the usual giant stack of blog posts, hundreds of e-mails, news articles and the never-ending list of projects waiting for me. One step at a time, one task and project at a time, I’ll get these completed as usual. But why is vacation time so different from non-vacation time?

Ten years ago when we went on vacation, we’d somehow always manage to stay at a place that seemed nicer than our house. It seemed that bringing those amenities or that environment back home would bring the vacation feeling with it. I can confirm that is not the case. We have 26 acres of conservation land with trails in our back yard not unlike the mountains yet we go for walks in the woods maybe half dozen times per year. While my wife and children go to the beach a few times a week during the summer, I somehow end up there maybe once or twice a month. After building everything the way we wanted, we find little time to enjoy everything we have built.

Ten years ago, on the road to Hana I remember pulling over to use a payphone to check on the status of an important client project. Last week free wi-fi and the iPhone made it a challenge to restrain myself from carrying on with daily routines. Ten years ago in St. Thomas, I was reading Ben Franklin’s autobiography, printed book borrowed from our library. This time I was reading the same downloaded for free to the Kindle on the iPhone. Ten years ago we took pictures on regular film while past weekend we took pictures on digital film. Technology has improved so much in the past 10 years. However, somehow it has evolved toward giving us access to non-vacation activities while on vacation. One could say that bringing home digital pictures that we can browse at any time helps remind us of the vacation times during non-vacation times. Overall, I sense that technology has made our vacation and non-vacation times more hectic. This reminds me of the great state’s motto. Is there life these days free from constant interruption, full of serenity, peace, in a place that is relaxing and enjoyable?

I remember really struggling with stress a few years ago to the point I could not fall asleep at night. My wife would gently remind me of a really nice day on one of our trips and somehow those memories would magically transport me from the reality of the day to a time and place that was nothing but happiness. Perhaps the change of routine and scenery is what vacations are all about and by definition vacation time must be different from non-vacation time so we can understand the difference. Maybe vacations are the weekends of our years. Maybe they’re God’s way of lifting and holding onto the crosses we carry for a brief moment to help us rest a bit. Whatever the case may be, even a long weekend away is a good idea once in a while.

Perhaps some day I will have the courage and the language skills to write their stories and my impressions.

I implemented a few systems in the past and although my work was done in months, the result of my work has remained in use for many years. In some cases, the system manager has spent the last decade working with the result of what I created in months. If we translate that time into a new unit called “lifetime” (1 lifetime = 80 years), s/he has spent 1/8th lifetime with something I created in 0.00625 lifetime. To parallel this, a senator can make enough changes in 0.025 lifetime to affect 4 lifetime or more. Multiply that by the number of people affected and you have the true impact of a change. Time is the key ingredient that every life shares on this earth.

father time by AJ Frena

While driving around a few days ago, an old colonial house caught my eye. I think it was built sometime in the mid-19th century. How many children has that house seen? How many happy and unhappy couples have lived in it? I wonder if hundred eighty years from now someone will similarly wonder what we must have gone through when building our house. They would have no idea how we thought through every last detail. They would have discussions about our intentions. What if the third owner abused this house and the fourth owner added a new room and got an electrician to rewire the whole house. Would the fifth owner even be able to see beyond the two prior owners? Would the electrician consider the impact of his work on generations and families? Would anything remain from our original design? Would they question our intentions? Would they be slaves to the house or would they make the house a slave to them? Sometimes I see America as that house from years gone by.

A 30-year mortgage is paid off in 37.5% of 1 lifetime. First 25% of 1 lifetime is spent in early basic education. 33% of 1 lifetime is spent sleeping. These affected me much less when I thought lifetime was an eternity. We often hear that what we are about to decide depends on our time horizon. Or we hear that we have plenty of time to get to something. Or we have warranties or guarantees for life (whose life?). Any time a comment is made about time, I convert it into this new unit called lifetime and get a different perspective of the issue.

On the opposite end of a lifetime, we find seconds (milliseconds, microseconds…). Our brains can detect delays of microseconds to localize sound in space (triangulate the location of the sound based on the distance between our two ears). It takes little time for us to respond to someone else. Although the brain can process at such amazing speeds, that does not mean we always avoid making mistakes of a lifetime in a split second? Why is it sometimes difficult for us to insert a time lag between stimulus and response when needed and respond immediately in situations requiring quick action? It takes a second to ruin trust built over a lifetime (consider the recent financial criminal’s split second decisions converted to lifetime impact on victims). On the scale of eternity (or from God’s perspective) 1 lifetime is only a microsecond but that we cannot understand. Second by second, we must fill up our lifetime with the choices we make.

There is a lot to talk about when it comes to time but one more point for now is reference to it in analysis. How long is a century and can we really understand what it represents if we haven’t experienced it? Or when we hear that something has a particular attribute (“Joe is a nice guy.”, “Toyota makes good cars.”, “Lehman is a solid company.”), do we remember the time dimension? How long has this been the case? How has the definition of the attribute changed over time? Based on these changes over time, is the initial statement still valid? It was fascinating to hear all kinds of analysis and predictions flying around about presidential elections not too long ago based on past elections. It is also funny to hear all kinds of predictions about the current recession, the prices of gold, and the status of the dollar as a reserve currency.

Time is that constant companion of ours that either gets no attention or the wrong attention. Perhaps our perspective, our decisions and, as a result, our lives would improve from a simple recognition of the place of everything along that critical time dimension. I’ll finish with a quote from Ecclesiastes 3:

“1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, 6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. “

Federal Reserve by ~Venar

After years of focusing on nano-economics (too small to call it micro) of my little family, I went on a pleasant trip down the macro-economics lane today. At the end of it I realized that I must have slept through the undergraduate class on Federal Reserve monetizing the nation’s debt because I was “surprised” to see almost a trillion dollars of Treasury obligations on the asset side of the Fed’s balance sheet. Its Annual Report is about 400 pages but the numbers on page 315 are fascinating when contrasted with the numbers on page 322. This video provides a very basic overview of what money is, how it’s created and destroyed.

These are some simple observations:

1. The dollar is backed by debt obligation of our government – no debt > no dollars.
2. Gold mining could not produce enough gold to sustain the growth we needed giving way to the current system.
3. I understand the home mortgage deduction (and why it’s not a home mortgage full repayment deduction). Mortgages are good things as far as our system is concerned. The bank does not need a foreclosed house because that cannot be used as collateral with the Fed to meet the reserve requirements.
4. All other governments are married to the almighty dollar. For example, Russia had to spend billions of dollars in foreign currency reserves to defend its Ruble.
5. We pay thin air for the natural resources and efforts of other countries (oil from middle east, for example).
6. Our current troubles are in part from bad loans getting in the way of the money multiplier.
7. I would need another lifetime to begin to understand the current and past monetary systems, let alone make recommendations for changes.

In the meantime, I made the following comment in an e-mail yesterday:

I have come to think of money as some kind of a complex score in a game – and not much more. The higher the score, the better the player is at the game. Since the game rules are far out of my reach, I try to waste as few cycles as possible on changes I cannot implement but at least two elements bother me:

1. The devastation brought upon many people who fail in the game (real suffering from game “score” issues)
2. The incredible amounts of time (of our life – the real value which we cannot increase in any way) spent in playing the game for maintaining or increasing our scores

One more element bothers me but I did not mention it. People who are not the best at the game (myself in the list) sometimes feel that they are not good for anything. That could not be farther from the truth. My mother never had or paid attention to money and she was …. again searching for words to represent her true greatness.

When others say that time is money, I think the reverse. Money is time, actually. It’s the effort spent every day on earning a living. Here I have to say I feel bad for seniors who after decades of work got 50% cuts in their retirement accounts in the past year and are considering to continue working longer. They have every right to be mad at the system, the government, the brokers, the cheaters, the fund managers, and everyone else because time is what they have lost. Money can be created, but time cannot be created.

Unfortunately, time cannot be taxed (it would be a form of slavery). Therefore, it is converted to money which is then taxed. As a citizen of this great country, I actually like to pay taxes at all levels of government. The higher the tax bills, the higher our score and the better we’re playing the game. My earlier observation is not about the country but for the world as a whole.

Around the same topic, I must remember my uncles living in a small village where my father grew up. There was one little non-functioning store there at the time. Their basic existence revolved around the bounty of the land and their animals which were loved like family members – no money, no tax, no government, hardly a road, no shopping malls, no technological innovation, no Internet, no computer, no indoor plumbing (in the earlier years), no gym memberships, no stocks or bonds, no fancy cars or elaborate houses, but still a pretty happy life.

Chess by =leonard-ART

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” ~ Albert Einstein

If you have something important to convey, just say Einstein said it or it’s one of Franklin’s quotes. I don’t know for sure who said the above but it made sense to me especially given this little experience yesterday.

My six-year-old knows how to play chess and recently has started making me think harder. I’m not a particularly strong player but always enjoy the game. So, the two of us sometimes gang up on the computer to see if we can beat the Windows Chess program at its lowest levels and quite often we beat it. Yesterday was one of those times when we were winning against the computer. Toward the end of the game I noticed that my son wanted to get 4 queens. I reminded him that the objective of the game was to capture the king and not just accumulate multiple queens. He knew this already but he could not break his focus from accumulating more power.

This was a very powerful lesson and reminder for me. What is the objective of the game? I’ll stop here.