Appreciate what you have when you have it.

My cousins are visiting from Australia. There are three childern, ages 9, 11, and 14. Their mother just died of breast cancer a few months ago. Their father is taking care of them. It is so sad for them not to have their mother. I tell you, the brief encounter I had with them over dinner tonight made me appreciate my wife and daughter even more. You never think this kind of thing will happen to you, but you never know. Cherish life and cherish those you cherish.

Politics: I'm going on the offensive

For a while now, I've found myself in the position of having to explain in a defensive manner why I'm voting for Bush.

These days, however, I'm changing my tactic. My question in response to "how can you vote for Bush?" is simply "How can you not?"

There's just too much at stake. Most people either don't recognize or more likely don't want to recognize that the war is not against terrorism, it's against radical Islam, an ideology that must be defeated because it poses an existential threat to Western civilization. What's more, that issue so far outweighs everything else, that it almost makes them irrelevant.

Don't get me wrong, things like healthcare, the economy, and Social Security are VERY important, but if we don't solve Problem #1, they don't matter.

The Republicans just understand the nature of the threat better. Yes, the implementation could be better, but as an entrepreneur, I've learned that it is important to act and figure it out as you go along instead of being stuck with analysis paralysis.

It's funny...I remember way back when I was single and started getting inundated with pictures from friends (Greg Teitel and Chuck Fox mostly) of their kids and saying "I'll never do that. It's too much." Well, I was wrong.


For pictures, see: http://jer979-calanit.buzznet.com/

Transform a "to-do" to an accomplishment:
for more: www.missioncontrol.com

Question 1
Say anything you want or need to do or handle
Sample Answer 1
Obtain a promotion

Question 2
Say why it is important to you
Sample Answer 2
It is part of my career advancement plan

Question 3
Say why the answer in #2 has a bearing on you
Sample Answer 3
I want to be a senior professional

Question 4
Say why the answer in #3 is relevant to you
Sample Answer 4
I want to be recognized in my organization


Question 5
Pick the statement in 2, 3, or 4 that is most meaningful to you Sample Answer 5
I want to be recognized in my organization

Question 6
Say the statement you picked as something already fulfilled or realized
Sample Answer 6
I am recognized in my organization

Question 7
Add to the end of the statement in #6 the words "because I" and the item from #1 written as something already fulfilled or realized
Sample Answer 7
I am recognized in my organization because I obtained a promotion

So my grandfather calls me on Wed. night and says, "you know, I'd like to go to lunch with you tomorrow."
'Ugh, pop, that's the one day I can't do it."
"What about next week?" he asks.
I start mumbling, "hmmmm, let me see. well, maybe I can move this..."
"You know, Jer, I'm at the age where I don't buy green bananas," he says. [Of course, he's been saying that for 15 years, but I get the idea]
"Ok, Pop, how about Tuesday."

And we're on...

Particularly apropos since I spoke with a colleague whose grandfather just passed away at 96. She said, "you know, we just got so used to having him around...that's what made it tough."

Take nothing for granted, right?

Birth of Eyden Liora Price

Our friends David and Daphne Price had a baby girl yesterday at Georgetown hospital. Mazal Tov. Even more amazing than that was the fact that David and I were trading emails the whole time Daphne was in labor. Then, we saw them today and Daphe said "I hope those emails don't make Jeremy's Blog." So, with that in mind, here's the entire chain of email, starting at 1am on Wed. morning and continuing throughout the day.

(Start at the bottom for the full effect)

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 3:22 PM
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Hey there. Thank you for all your kind words and wishes.

Our phone number is 202 444 6004. Visiting hours are ffrom 11am 9pm.

Have a great night and mazel tov.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 15:27:43 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Mazal Tov!!!!!! Can we bring you dinner? I already have stuff ready to go! If you guys are too tired for it today, I can bring it tomorrow as well. What works for you?

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 3:22 PM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Emergency c sect. Baby girl 7lbs 9oz

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 3:22 PM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Pissed

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 11:25:19 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Does daphne think it's funny that we've been emailing all morning or is she pissed? I think Tamar would've been pissed.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 11:17 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Tears now are ok.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 11:05:54 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Man, I'm so excited. I was on the verge of tears. Then, I realized you wouldn't appreciate that, so I stopped.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 10:50 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Could be. Will keep you posted.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 10:41:06 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Tamar predicted a delivery by noon about 2 hours ago. Nice. -----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 10:31 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Starting to push in about 40min.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 10:25:43 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Ok, update needed. Inquiring minds want to know :-)


-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 9:30 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Thank you.
Jumping into the shower will call you soon.

David

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 09:19:59 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Also, Tamar and I have VERY open schedules today and she remembers being very hungry w/no food. Just say the word and we'll be down there (whenever you want) with food (for both of you!)


-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 9:09 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Ok. Doc is here cheecking her out.



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 09:07:26 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Dude...what an honor! This is so exciting, it's better than the Super Bowl. We're calling in 1 minute (I'm yelling at Tamar to get out of the
shower!!!)


-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 9:03 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


Thank you. She is a real trooper and you are the only ones getting the email updates. Please feel free to callif you want. We will answer if we can.

We love you!!!!

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 09:00:06 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Tell her that Tamar and I are sitting here at the computer pushing "send/receive" every few minutes loving the drama of it. How many people are getting the by the minute details? She's probably feeling good now. I want to call, but I know better than to interrupt this moment! We love you guys.


-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 8:57 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


She got pitocin @ 2am and was agonizing pain @ 5am and got the epidural @ 5:15am


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 08:54:31 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Love the updates. Is she going naturally?

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 4:57 AM
To:
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.


We are 6-7cm dilated.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Epstein [mailto: ]
Sent: Wed Jun 23 01:30:19 2004
To: David Price
Subject: RE: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.

Awesome baby. Won't be too long now, I suspect. Enjoy every moment, bud. Thanks for the update.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Price [mailto: ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2004 12:39 AM
To:
Subject: We are at the hospital and all is well. 5cm dilated.



Sent from my GoodLink synchronized handheld (www.good.com)

I took my dad to the O's-Yankees game on Tuesday night. It was a deliberate father-son bonding event. I figured that since I am now in the fatherhood category we could go and share the moment with some newfound perspective. Had a great time and cherished the quintessential Americana moment, particularly since the Yankees walloped the O's 10-4. A-rod had 2 HR's and Derek Jeter had one. It was the largest crowd ever at Camden Yards. Very neat.

So today was my first Father's Day ever. An interesting experience and a nice club to join. I'll tell you, it sure is a special feeling to have a little person who just smiles so wide and bright when she sees you. Tamar gave me two cards and a nice photo flipbook of me with the "Pooka" as she's known doing different things, like pullups, davening, and reading, etc. and each one had a caption about how I taught her something from the experience.

I read an article that said how when people graduate college (and perhaps this is true during the rest of Life as well) that they are generally overly optimistic that so-called "bads" won't happen to them. Someone else will get cancer or have a failed business or get divorced, rarely is it supposed to happen to you. Perhaps that's why some people get so angry when these things do happen.

Anyway, I was sitting on a delayed plane the other day @BWI and just looking around when it dawned on me, just in one of those big perception moments, that when other people figure "someone else will get X," that I'm the other guy.

Nothing earth shattering here, but just a second to remind us of the little shell we live in called our own world.

Good Advocacy Site

http://www.ajcadvocacy.net/

I am a passionate believer in the transformative power of technology on multiple levels. It makes economic sense often times and the geek in me just loves it. However, I have got to say that I cannot believe how it seems like every day there is just something that doesn't work properly. My cell phone connection, my printer, my mouse, a driver on my hard drive...you name it.

All I want...during my waking hours that is...is 6 hours where everything just works perfectly. Is that too much to ask?

Hyundai's Customer Service

Over the past few weeks, I've called a number of companies of which I'm a customer, including Comcast, T-mobile, Hyundai, United Airlines, USAir, and a few others. I am blown away by how difficult most companies make it for customers to give feedback and offer ideas about how they can improve their product or services.

I should mention, however, that Hyundai's response has been incredible. No less than 4 people have responded to my email, they've asked for my input on some new ideas and even asked me to consider being on an "Owners Panel."

This is a company that knows how to listen. It makes me more excited to own my Elantra and optimistic about the type of products/service they will deliver in the future.

Tamar and I have an ongoing discussion about the value of sports. I tell her that sports offer more drama than any episode of Law and Order ever could. My point has always been...the unscripted drama is better than scripted drama since it's better than imagination and NO ONE knows what is going to happen.

She's never been a true believer. Last night, however, when Kobe Bryant made the shot w/2 seconds left to tie the game and send it into overtime, Tamar said, "you know, I've got to say, this is pretty dramatic."

Islam's marked woman

Islam's marked woman

Friends of Jer: On Responsibility

When Calanit was born, my mother said to Tamar and me, "the days are long, but the years are short."

 

[Note: You can read this entire email (and many other thoughts) online at my Blog

http://jer979.blogspot.com/ Plus, you can add your comments there as well.]

 

Now, on with it…

 

You know how when you are at weddings or other lifecycle events and the parents inevitably say something along the lines of "I don’t know where all of the years went." Well, the other day, I had to adjust the straps on the car seat because Calanit has become too big for the smallest size and I started to get pretty emotional. OK, I admit it, I had tears in my eyes and crazy as it may sound, I said to Tamar, "our little girl is growing up."

 

She doesn’t fit into her first set of clothes anymore; She’s double her birth weight; and she’s more alert now, recognizes people (at least us), and is doing a pretty good job standing up. (Pictures available, of course.) Every day, it seems to us, she gets more and more cute and we work to savor and cherish each moment since we see that, though there are times when it is challenging being a parent (I had to change her on the floor of a Starbucks in Manhattan after she peed and pooped all over herself and there was-gasp-no changing station, now that I care about such things), it is oh so worth it and it’s going to fly by in ways that we can’t even imagine.

 

It’s weird, since I want her to grow up and I want to see what kind of person she is going to be, but at the same time, I don’t want to wish away any of the time, since it is becoming more and more clear how precious that time is. What’s more, in a cosmic sense, as she ages and moves towards adulthood, that is also a symbolic passing of the torch to her generation and Tamar and I move on towards the end of our lives. Yes, it’s easy to say that that is far away and hopefully, it is, but in the great span of history, it’s really not.

 

Not to be morbid, but mortality is something that is on my mind. It comes at me as a result of one key word: RESPONSBILITY.

 

You hear the word a lot as a kid and it’s part of your maturation process, but man, until you have someone whose entire existence relies upon you (and your teammate, of course, lest you think I do most of the work, when it is really Tamar), you don’t know nothin’.

 

Not only that tremendous daunting feeling of having to provide for a child financially, but beyond that to instill the values you hold dear, to educate, to teach her how to think, to challenge assumptions, to ask questions, to be kind and considerate. That’s intense.

 

But it is even beyond that. It’s how every aspect of your life now carries that weight with you. For example, I was walking home the other night from a social event and I got caught in a MASSIVE thunderstorm. We’re talking major thunder and lightning. I had no cover. I had no choice but to make a mad dash for home and I realized, that for the first time in a long time, I was really afraid of dying. I know the chances of getting struck by lightning aren’t too high, but they sure are higher when you are outside, soaking wet, with no cover, running in an open parking lot.  I kept thinking about Team Epstein at home and how they depended on me.

 

Then, I thought about the reverse. What would I do if something terrible happened to them? These thoughts also plague me on a day-to-day basis. I used to see news stories about random, freak accidents that took the lives of parts of families and kind of say, "yes, that’s a tragedy," but it is only within the past 6 months that I have started to feel the pain of other people in this respect.

 

Tamar and I have made a large investment of time and energy to put together an infrastructure that will support each other or Calanit in the event of the unthinkable (well, not really, since we have thought about it) in terms of Wills, Life Insurance, Guardians, etc., since to not do so would be the height of irresponsibility in my book, but after all that is said and done, there’s no amount of planning or money that could possibly prepare you for that type of loss.

 

I remember when I first started dating Tamar and we were moving up the scale of seriousness, we talked about how when you open yourself up to feel love, you simultaneously open yourself up to tremendous pain.

 

My brother-in-law, Akiva, said to me during Tamar’s pregnancy. "You can’t imagine the love you are going to feel for your child. Yes, you love your spouse, but your own child, that’s something entirely different."

 

I used that as a basis for my comment to Tamar before my first multi-day business trip after Calanit’s birth, when I said to Tamar, "I’m going to miss you, but I’m REALLY going to miss the Pook."

 

(Note: my current nickname for her is "the Pooka." Common usage is: 'can you check on the Pook?" or "Hey, Pooka, how are you doing today?")

 

So, yes, I do drive a bit slower now, don’t rush through every yellow light, and start seeing household hazards well before they materialized (maybe a bit neurotic, but not too much) and in some ways, I’m turning into my dad, which is a topic for another time and another email.

 

But in spite of all of that pressure and concern that responsibility brings with it and no matter how rough my day has been, when I come home and she sees me and gives me a billion dollar smile, it’s impossible not to feel good. When I make a silly face and she breaks out laughing, that is the "priceless" feeling of parenting. I love seeing how she tries to fight off sleep and keep her eyes open (what a contrast to later in Life, right?) and those quiet moments when she's preoccupied with a book or something and I'm just holding her, feeling her little body expand and contract with each breath. And watching this little human experiment of mine (my dad says that for Tamar, Calanit is a baby, for me, Calanit is a prop) unfold with each passing day and the slow changes to her body and personality, that's a miracle in progress.

 

We're also blessed because the Pook is incredibly low maintenance. She's been sleeping through the night since she was 6 weeks old, only cries for the absolute basics, and in general, doesn't ask for too much.  I've said that she's going to "con us into another one" (no announcement) and the downside is that other parents hate us for it J

 

But, when she does cry for something (for example she's been a bit sick this week) and we don't know what's bothering her, it's just the worst. I hate it. There's a beautiful, but helpless girl here and all I want to do is make things better for her, but I don't know what to do. That's the toughest. Well, that and trying to balance between wanting to spend all of the time I can possibly with her and recognizing that the business of life needs to continue, such as earning a living.

 

And now for a few other interesting pieces of information.

 

1. My phone bill is going down

Over the past year, I've received an email from my phone company on two different occasions telling me that my monthly bill was going down. I use www.vonage.com which, if you have high-speed Internet at home, is a very appealing way to get UNLIMITED LOCAL AND LONG DISTANCE plus all of the features for about $30/month.

 

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, AS A REFERRAL FROM ME WILL GET EACH OF US 1 FREE MONTH.

 

2. How well does your favorite charity do?

If you are in the habit of giving charitable donations, I'd recommend a visit to www.charitynavigator.com It's a great site with rankings for how effectively each charity makes use of the money it solicits (versus how much goes to overhead). If a charity solicits me and it is in the bottom 50% of its peer group, I will email them and tell them that I won't donate until their rating goes up. I want more of my money going to the cause.

 

3. My mother's business got a nice mention in the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45776-2004Mar10?language=printer

 

 

4. Try this Left brain, right brain trick. It's pretty neat.

While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and  make clockwise circles.  Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.  Your foot will change direction and there's  nothing you can do about it.

 

5. I've been taking an online course at Capella University, www.capella.edu

It's amazing to think how the delivery of education has changed so rapidly and will continue to do so. I've never spoken to or met my classmates, but we're reading the same texts, having discussions about them, and learning, all on our own time and from anywhere there's a computer and Internet connection.

 

 

Until next time,

 

Jer (on behalf of Tamar and Calanit)

 

Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS)
Energy Security

In support of higher Gas Taxes
www.AndrewSullivan.com - Latest Posts