Inbox frequency...

Saw a friend of mine today at the Darfur rally and told him that I missed his quarterly updates. He responded that when he sat down to write it he felt very self-centered.

I told him..."look, I need these updates on a semi-frequent basis otherwise, we lose touch. If you're out of my inbox, you're out of my mind."

The digital age version of "out of sight, out of mind."

Darfur...

In about an hour, I'm taking the kids to a rally on the National Mall to raise awareness and demand action that the US government do something to stop the genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

What's particularly striking, at least to me, is how much attention the atrocities there have gotten within the Jewish world, across all of the denominations. There seems to be a tremendous desire to live the Holocaust mantra of "Never Again" and do our part to help the lesson be learned.

There are a few things that I haven't seen yet and I am curious if it will change after the rally.

In Darfur, the atrocities are being committed by Arab Muslims against Black Muslims. I haven't heard anything about the Arab-American or Muslim-American communities reacting and demanding a cessation.

I also am struck by the irony that the Jews (who I am confident will be overrepresented at the rally today) are going out to protest the slaughter of Muslims by other Muslims. I wonder if the Muslim community would feel this strongly if Jews (or anyone else for that matter) were perpetrating the slaughter of Jews. I think we know the answer there.

I also haven't heard much from the African-American community and will be looking for signs of awareness/participation there. This is a racial genocide on a massive scale.

Regardless, having spent 1 year living in Germany and studying the Holocaust, I am proud of the fact that my family (extended as well) and I have made this a priority for today.

Walmart...

When Tamar and I drove cross country, we stopped at Walmart in Cody, Wyoming. It was the first one we had ever visited. Land is cheap in Wyoming and the place was GI-NORMOUS!!

We bought a ton-for not a lot of money. I got a pair $19 hiking boots which I still have and are great.

There aren't any Walmart's in my area, really, but the past two days, I've been to two of them due to the location of some of my customers.

I know that Walmart takes a lot of heat for a lot of things, but man, it is impressive and frankly, I'm in favor of it. They drive prices down and that translates into value for the average consumer. Of course there are many side effects, but as a believer in the market, you've got to give some credence to the fact that so many people buy so much there every single day.

I controlled myself and only got $30 worth of things, which would have cost at least 1.5 to 2 times that at the regular stores. I'm happy with that.

Pay more to commute less...

Tokyo is notorious for ridiculously long commute times.

When I lived there, I didn't have a lot of extra cash and rents are ridiculously expensive. Nonetheless, my philosophy was to pay for a higher quality of life and avoid the daily grind of long commutes.

That came to mind today as I came back to Silver Spring from Frederick, MD and saw the miles upon miles of cars at a standstill, sitting in traffic on a gorgeous Spring day.

I was thankful that we were in a position to live where we do and avoid a VERY long commute (at least in our minds.)

Calanit knows how to spell her own name...

Tonight, we sat down in front of a keyboard and as we spelled it, she looked for and found (without any prompting) the correct letters. The original essay (copied from Notepad) is below [unabridged and unedited]

callllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa nnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttt
cccccccccccccccccaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttttt

ccccccccccccccaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllaaaaaannnnnnniiiiiiiiiiitttttttttttttttt
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIITTTTTTT
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKIIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

First tricycle...

Thanks to freecycle.org, Calanit got her first tri-cycle. It's a used, plastic one, but it does the job. We cleaned it up. I gave her a lecture about wearing a helmet (when outside) and then let her loose on the carpet in the basement.

Another milestone in parenting passed.

Home erosion...

I spend a fair amount of time trying to keep the house in top operational efficiency shape.

It's kind of like keeping a ship seaworthy so that you can complete the voyage around Cape of Good Hope.

Running up and down the stairs this morning, chasing Calanit, and holding Erez in one hand, I opened one door which bumped, ever so slightly into the open closet door behind it. Normally, nothing to think about, but for some reason, I thought about that same bump 100 or 1000 times down the road. It's one of those battles, like erosion, that is hard to win.

There's a Chinese proverb: It isn't the mountains ahead that wear you out, it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

Each of those bumps is kind of like a grain of sand. Ok, maybe not, but I heard that proverb on the radio the other day and really liked it and now am jamming it into the blog post for today :-)

Hey, I've been up since 2.45am, completely wired, for reasons that I don't understand and it's now 8.36am. I was supposed to go to the dentist at 7.10am, but I gave that slot up to Tamar so she could have it and now I am on double child care duty.

Maybe the fatigue is the sand in my shoe and the bumping of one door against another is the erosion that wears down parts of the house.

My basic point is...no matter how much effort I put into upkeep, I will NEVER be on top of it all.

speaking of batteries...

My friend Shira Stutman astutely asks: “why is it that almost every children’s toy these days comes with a battery?”

It’s true, even some of Calanit’s books have battery requirements.

Dora the Explorer...

One of Calanit's favorite programs is "Dora the Explorer," which is generally described as "the adventures of a 7 year old Latina girl and her friend Boots, the monkey."

 

It's a very educational show and Calanit has learned a lot from it. It's also quite profitable as we have most products within the Dora merchandising pantheon (pillow, shoes, blanket, toothbrush, backback, cup, plate, books, videos...man, that's a lot of dineros).

 

They make a big point in the show of stressing safety. When they get in a car, they say “Seatbelts!! So we can be safe.” Same idea for boats, etc.

 

This is great.

 

Then, the premise on the show fully dawned on me.

 

Here is a 7 year old girl, running around with a friend that is a monkey by herself, jumping over cliffs, going across lakes, avoiding crocodiles, trolls, and other unsavory characters such as Swiper the Fox, and who relies on her other friends, a squirrel, a bull, and an iguana.

 

What message are we sending to Calanit?

 

Sure, it’s ok to run around by yourself (as long as you have your trusty backpack, of course), rely on your map reading skills to get you wherever you are going, and associate with semi-domesticated animals, but gosh darn it, you’d better wear a seatbelt!

Batteries...

Where are the "A" and "B" batteries?

We have AA and AAA and C and D. I'm sure if we look around the Net,
we'll find the answer, but I am curious.

my current investment philosophy....

I’m breaking my investment efforts into three “big bet” areas. We’ll see if it pans out.

 

1. Index funds.
   Following the Random Walk on Wall Street theory of “it’s difficult to beat the market so let it ride on the Index funds.” 

 

2. The Asher Epstein Big Three.
   My brother, Asher, is an evangelist for three companies in particular. Echelon Networks (ELON), CheckFree (CKFR), and Wind River (WIND). If you know my brother, you’ll know he studies these things like very few people (he knows the CEO of CKFR and the leadership team and participates in quarterly con calls with Wall St. analysts as well having deep relationships with the Investor Relations folks at all of them).

 

There are a few others in here (Blackboard.com, for example) but the Big Three is all you need.

 

3. The Energy Doomsday Scenario. Oil goes at least to $100/barrel and maybe higher.
   Read a book called “The Coming Economic Collapse” which helped to quantify and flush out main of the ideas that I’d had in my head. These were around
1. Rising oil prices due to increased Chinese/Indian/world demand
2. Vulnerability of supply due to oil’s location in volatile regions (Middle East, Russia, Venezuela)
3. Lack of truly viable alternatives (yet)
4. America’s addiction to oil
5. And, the biggie, militant Islam’s focus on castrating the West through disruptions of supply

 

The play here is in, to varying degrees, energy companies, Gold, inflation protected assets, real estate (maybe), China/India (maybe).

Confronting mortality...

My grandmother and I were talking the other day. She was lamenting her physical state due to her illness and the stress she is feeling due to my grandfather's illness.

She said, "if the Doctor I see tomorrow can't tell me what's wrong, I'm going to take a gun to my head. I don't want to live like this. I'm used to being active."

I paused for a moment and remembered a conversation I had with Tamar's now deceased paternal grandmother.

We were sitting in the den and Tamar's grandmother says, "you know, I think my time is up."

Tamar got very quiet, not knowing how to respond.

I figured, "she's just as scared as we are. It's not like she's ever been here before either," so I say to her grandmother:

"How do you know? Is there some internal alarm clock that is going off?"

It opened us all up to a very good conversation and relieved some of the tension.

So this past Sunday night, I took the same approach.

"Nana, I'm not going to argue with you that living like that would be easy, but you've got to reconsider the gun. I mean, first of all, it's so messy. It's also a lot of hassle...you've got to get a permit, background check in some cases, it just seems like a lot of work. Maybe you could do something cleaner?"

"What do you suggest?" she asked.

"I don't know, I'll leave that up to you, but I just think the gun is not the best way to go."

She laughed a hearty, solid laugh and the conversation moved on.

I guess my approach on these things is to think about how I would respond to someone who didn't think s/he was going to die any day or at least some time in the very near future and respond accordingly. That's living, when you treat the person as if s/he's fine and not as if s/he's already in the grave.

Bomb Iran...

I've come to the conclusion that we need to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities. The risks are too great to see a diplomatic initiative run its course and ultimately fail.

A Tale of Two Cities...

Spent part of Passover in DC with my family and part of it in Albany with Tamar's family.

My family has 2 grandchildren, both mine. The result is that all of my siblings devote a nice chunk of their time to entertaining my kids. I was on vacation for 3 days.

Tamar's parents have 14 (going on 15) grandchildren.

In Albany, we had 12 adults and 12 kids 7 and under. Not only was I watching my kids, I was watching other people's kids. It was pandemonium...all the time, or as I said to one friend, "this is what I think a British soccer riot must be like."

Of course, there's a beauty in the madness and seeing the pure joy of my kids' faces as they played with their cousins made it all worthwhile.

Dealing with death...

The Dalai Lama wrote in his book "The Art of Happiness" that you are supposed to envision unpleasant scenarios and how you will deal with them should they occur. This, he states, makes it easier to handle them if/when they do arrive.

I just returned from a memorial service for the 58 year old mother of one of my longest-standing friends (since Kindergarten). She died of cancer and the tributes were truly beautiful. It's sad to see these types of things happen.

Last week, I was shocked to hear that one of my classmates from Japan, of whom I was quite fond, had died in an auto accident, leaving a widow and a 6 year old daughter.

And now I am faced with the illnesses of my beloved grandparents. One has cancer, the other lung-related issues.

Intellectually I know they (no one) lives forever. I just wonder if the Dalai Lama is right about this one.

Measurements....

Went for a run with Erez today. He's been a bit cranky lately and was crying a lot. Tamar and Calanit were sleeping so I figured I'd get him out of the house.

We picked up a jogging stroller, which I love, and combined with my new running shoes, I've had opportunities to take the kids out with me. It's nice bonding time....except for when your son is screaming his head off the whole time.

I had tried holding, feeding, and playing with him. Nothing worked.

All that was left was to make like Forrest Gump and just run. It became a contest of stamina and willpower. Who would outlast whom?

All I can say is that my son has an impressive set of lungs and has great stamina.

I started measuring the time of my run in terms of how long Erez was screaming. No watch and no objective other than have him cry it out.

It was a fresh perspective on measurement.

This made me think about the time I was spending with him (and had spent with him over the course of the day). We had really bonded the night before. It was 11pm and Calanit and Tamar were asleep (no, that's not all they do :-) and Erez and I were playing. I was teaching him colors, explaining women to him-well just explaining that women can't be understood--just kidding, sort of-and wrestling.

There's a saying in Pirkei Avot-Ethics of the Fathers: "Who is rich? He who is satisfied with his portion." I started thinking that I am rich because of the quality time I have with my kids and the fact that I am getting better and better at making them the priority. I still have moments of self-centeredness, but they are less frequent than before.

Measuring time in cries and wealth in time....I guess by the distributive property (I think) that means that wealth is measured by cries, which could be true. If I'm around to hear my kids cry (and hopefully make them feel better) perhaps I am richer than I realized (and this coming from a guy who is chock full of money neuroses).

What's in a name?

As a welcome gesture to my brother's new girlfriend, my two sisters and I thought it would be funny to post a list of 50 potential nicknames on the front door for her to consider.

We warned her that the final decision rested with us though we would take her opinion into consideration.

The subsequent brainstorming, ranking, and judging process led to a long debate about the characteristics of a nickname.

Some background: When I lived in Japan, I led a team of American students responsible for educating local Japanese citizens about America.

Students from other countries (Malaysia, Phillipines, Indonesia, etc.) took a fairly straightforward approach to their seminars, relying on maps, information, and history to tell their stories.

I figured that most Japanese could locate the US on a map (the reverse of course may not be true) and that they knew some of the basics. It was their perceptions that I needed to address.

Our seminar began, as baseball games do, with the Star-Spangled banner. We had a session on individuality, using Dennis Rodman as our case study, Blues and Jazz, with live guitar and dancing, and a session on nicknames.

We defaulted to using common suffixes like, -rino, and -ator, etc. and made name tags for the Japanese to wear proudly all day. We did have some creative ones and our guests enjoyed the looks on their friends' faces as they walked around proudly wearing tags such as "Yujinator,"
"Megumarino," and the like. We did make it clear that there were other ways of evolving nicknames.

When I married Tamar, I was introduced to her family's system of adding the letter "I" to pretty much every one's name. Tamar is either "Tamari" or "Mari." Akiva is "Kivi."

Coming from a family where my nickname is "Mirsky," I have one brother who is "Snead," a sister who is "Dunam" and one who is "Nerd" and a cousin named "Wefke," I didn't hold this art form of nicknames in high regard.

I've come to the conclusion that there are names of endearment and then there nicknames.

A name of endearment includes the original name. In other words, if you hear the name of endearment (NOE) you'd have a pretty reasonable chance of guessing the person's actual name.

A nickname, however, could have its origin in an NOE or be a character trait that is associated with the individual, e.g. "Slim", but when put to the reverse engineering test, it would be close to impossible to figure out the original name. There's an evolutionary process that can take you from an NOE to an actual nickname as well as a good story.

A good example of this is: Magic Johnson. There is no way to figure out from "Magic" that his real name is "Earvin."

When reviewing our list of 50 potential nicknames, we realized that many of them, though quite clever, witty and funny, were not actually nicknames, rather NOE's.

Using the new criteria we've settled on two candidates for the long term. Market forces will determine the winner and there's a good likelihood that they will further evolve so it's hard to say how it will end. In fact, it's an organism all its own.

The candidates are: Taco and Gatsby.

Her name is Rebecca.

How you expect things to turn out...

I'm in the middle of a good book now called "The Outside World" by Tova Mirvis. The basic plot involves a young Jewish boy who becomes extremely religious and his parents have to confront the challenge of their son not growing up as they had imagined.

It's made me think about my own expectations for my kids and at the same time made me think about what, if any, expectations I should have.

I wonder if, instead of creating a fantasized path they will follow, I should focus more on the type of character traits I want them to have. Then, they can use those traits on a path they choose. Clearly, some paths they choose would be more painful to me than others and hopefully, they will see merit in some of the paths I value more highly than others, but in the end, I can't control them. Seeking to control them defeats the end goal of my role as a father. It's almost contradictory.

On the one hand, give them the traits, education, and goals that you value, but at the same time, be prepared for them to interpret everything differently.

Airport security...

Got caught going through security with a Swiss Army knife. It was unintentional, the result of a series of unintended steps. Nevertheless, had a choice to face.

Either give up the knife or go back and figure out how to check it through and risk missing the flight.

I had received the knife as a bar mitzvah gift from my Dad. The thought of leaving it at the security gate of BWI was not the glamorous end I would have envisioned, so I took option 2.

The whole episode fomented the anger in me that I feel for the Arab terrorists who have changed the way we live.

On top of that, I was upset that all knife owners are viewed in the same light, when profiling-the way the Israelis do it-just seems to overlay some intelligence and analysis on top of otherwise banal facts.

Resistance is Futile...

There have been two times to date where I have had to forcibly hold Calanit down in order to compel her to sleep. I know that I am going to win the battle in terms of strength. I also know that I am doing what is best for her. It's still tough.

I don't want her to view me as someone who is holding her back, literally or figuratively. It's painful when she says, "Abba, don't snuggle me," which I suppose is about the nicest way you could say "get the hell off of me" that I can imagine.

Nevertheless, it's another one of those uncomfortable positions as a parent where your child doesn't necessarily understand or appreciate why you are doing what you are doing and there may be relationship damage as a result, but you still have to do it.