Is Ben Ainslie just playing with us?
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008
Ben Ainslie has just won his fourth Finn European Championship after an extraordinary week of drama. Those words ‘drama’ and ‘Ben Ainslie’ just shouldn’t appear in the same sentence. This guy is so good, he should be winning these regattas at a stroll. Such is his superiority in the Finn class, it always makes me wonder if he’s really trying when he’s not winning with at least a race to spare.
A bit like his last gasp victory at the Olympic Test Regatta in Qingdao last year, Ainslie had it all to do, going into the Medal Race today. He was 8 points adrift of Guillaume Florent, the Frenchman who has been the surprise leader of this regatta for much of the week. Eight points, or four places (in the double-scoring Medal Race), in a 10-boat fleet is a lot to make up, but not the way Ainslie goes about things.
Ainslie said: “I had a game plan that I had discussed with my coach, Jez Fanstone, to have a bit of a match race with Florent in the pre-start and to try to put him off his game plan. I managed to force him into making a mistake and by halfway down the first beat I could see he wasn’t going so well so I decided to pull the throttle to try to get as big a lead as possible and hope he didn’t pull through.
“This does rank amongst one of my more satisfying victories; it is always nice to win when you have been behind going into the last race,” said Ainslie. I imagine one of the other satisfying aspects of this victory was in knocking Florent off the top of the podium. It was the Frenchman who controversially protested Ainslie in a port/starboard incident at the last Olympics in Athens. The Briton was disqualified, even though TV footage of the port/starboard cross showed more than a little daylight between Ainslie’s transom and Florent’s bow.
Don’t make Ben angry, you won’t like him when he’s angry. Suitably fired up, Ainslie went on to dominate the Olympic Regatta and took Gold in Athens.
So, almost four years later, Ainslie took his revenge in Italy today, while Croatia’s Ivan Gaspic took silver ahead of Florent who was forced to settle for bronze.
Five Gold Cups, four European Championships, three Olympic Medals, two of them Gold. One undeniable truth. Ben Ainslie is the clear, clear favourite for Gold in Qingdao this August.
Except that in each of the three Olympic Games he’s competed in, Ben has always had a terrible start to the regatta. He’s always left his chances of a medal hanging in the balance. Which means that today is unlikely to be the last time that we see those words ‘drama’ and ‘Ben Ainslie’ appear in the same sentence together this summer.
Photo courtesy of James Taylor
read comments (0)Whose Star will shine in China?
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008
What an awesome result for the Polish team Mateusz Kusnierewicz and Dominik Zycki winning the Star Worlds. But how relevant is beating a 104-boat fleet compared with the Olympic challenge of short course racing against a fleet of just 16? Iain Percy is hoping that the answer is “not very”. He and crew Bart Simpson (pictured mid-gybe by Fried Elliot) had a shocking week in Miami, albeit in a borrowed boat. They won one race, but the rest of the week was a catalogue of disaster – broken shroud, OCS, you name it.
“It’s just been one of those weeks where it’s all been decided with a throw of the dice – and we’ve thrown a lot of ones and not many sixes!” said Percy afterwards.
So where’s the silver lining for the Brits? Well, back in 2000 a certain Mateusz Kusnierewicz won the Finn Gold Cup just months before the Sydney Games. And the young Pole was the reigning Olympic Champion from Savannah four years previously. He was the man to beat. Meanwhile, still quite new to the fleet, Iain Percy had moments of brilliance at that Weymouth event, but ruined it with a clutch of OCSs and other unwanted letters on his score sheet. I can’t remember where he finished, but nor probably does he.
A few months later, who won the gold medal on the fluky waters of Sydney Harbour? Iain Percy, with Mateusz out of the medals. The Brit will take some comfort from that history lesson, and he drew a comparison with last week’s failed mission against the one that really matters in Qingdao. “I know it is easy to come up with excuses, but it has been one of those weeks where if it is going to happen it is going to happen to us, and with such big fleets at the Star Worlds, any mistake costs you dear. In that sense the racing here is really kind of irrelevant to the racing we’re going to be experiencing at the Games where it’s just 15 other boats, and it’s not so costly if you miss a windshift.”
Of course you have to cling to this type of thinking when things are against you, but there is some truth to it. Qingdao is a very different task to Miami. The one constant in the Star fleet, however, is the irrepressible ability of Robert Scheidt and Bruno Prada to keep themselves in the chocoloates no matter what the challenge. The Brazilians took the bronze last week in Miami. In the past three Star Worlds, they have recorded results of 2,1,3. Torben Grael may not be in China to defend his Olympic title from Athens, but at the moment all the signs are that the gold medal is still most likely headed towards Brazil again.
Chanel “Quilted jersey shoulder bag”
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008Chanel “Black quilted jersey shoulder bag”Black soft quilted jersey knit fabric with antiqued silver-tone hardware, patch pocket at front and rear, exterior front flap with turn-lock closure and zip pocket on underside, interior front flap with inset mirror and snap closure, fabric lining with dual patch pockets, 24” dual jersey and chain straps with 12” dropsize : 9½” at widest x 6” tall at center x 2¼” deepcurrently retails for $3,450.00 and on sale at bluefly for $2,760.00seen at : www.bluefly.com Chanel “Black quilted jersey shoulder bag”Black soft quilted jersey knit fabric with antiqued silver-tone hardware, patch pocket at front and rear, exterior front flap with turn-lock closure and zip pocket on underside, interior front flap with inset mirror and snap closure, fabric lining with dual patch pockets, 24” dual jersey and chain straps with 12” dropsize : 12½” at widest x 8” tall at center x 2½” deep; weighs 2 lbscurrently retails for $3,850.00 and on sale at bluefly for $3,080.00seen at : www.bluefly.com Chanel “Pink quilted jersey shoulder bag”Pink soft quilted jersey knit fabric with antiqued hold-tone hardware, patch pocket at front and rear, exterior front flap with turn-lock closure and zip pocket on underside, interior front flap with inset mirror and snap closure, fabric lining with dual patch pockets, 24” dual jersey and chain straps with 12” dropsize : 9½” at widest x 6” tall at center x 2¼” deepcurrently retails for $3,450.00 and on sale at bluefly for $2,760.00seen at : www.bluefly.com Chanel “Red quilted jersey shoulder bag”Red soft quilted jersey knit fabric with antiqued hold-tone hardware, patch pocket at front and rear, exterior front flap with turn-lock closure and zip pocket on underside, interior front flap with inset mirror and snap closure, fabric lining with dual patch pockets, 24” dual jersey and chain straps with 12” dropsize : 9½” at widest x 6” tall at center x 2¼” deepcurrently retails for $3,450.00 and on sale at bluefly for $2,760.00seen at : www.bluefly.com
Resilience Test - Round I
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 200816 to 17 Jun. Back in Singapore, I had a sudden thought that Singapore is very beautiful as the Merc cab sped its way through the highways. Trees lined all around; I had not seen so much greenery in the past 5 months! Nothing much had changed it seems. It didn’t feel like I been away from home for so many months.T3 Arrival Hall wasn’t as nice as I expected. Ion is still building. Orchard Scotts has finally been torn down. Pacific Apartments are open. Nothing much has changed in the area I live, except my room. I was in utter shock when I looked into my room. There are foreign objects on my table, my earrings hung on sushi rattan net are no longer there, all my clothes are gone from my closet, folded and kept in the lower compartment and another closet. Nobody touches my clothes, not even my mum. How audacious my cousin was to remove my clothes from the hangers!I had so many things to do upon reaching so it was really annoying to have to search the whole closet for the belongings I need to bring along to Hong Kong. Singapore was so hot and humid (I forgot how the weather in Singapore felt like), so when I was dying to take a shower, I couldn’t find my usual towels and underwear.My usual pillows and comforter are no longer on my bed, and my room just looks like a storeroom now. I mean usually I’m not such a petty person, so I told myself to get on with life and forgive her for taking the initiative to attempt to neaten up my room which kinda failed. But when I lay in bed in the guest room (since there were no pillows, bedsheets and comforters on my bed), tears rolled down my cheeks as I sniffed at the pillow. I knew it mattered no matter how I told myself to forget about it since it was only going to be 2 days at home, after a long time away from home, sleeping on a bed without comforters in Germany for 4 months and not having a home or own bed to sleep in and constantly on the move for 1.5 months, and after looking forward to having my old room and bed for just 2 nights before heading off solo for my internship.My mum appeared to have aged a lot since 5 months ago, and I don’t know if it’s my imagination or if it’s true.18 Jun. God is indeed trying to test my resilience as my search for a printer in my area was in vain. The printer was spoilt, of all days! So I was looking forward to the flight with SIA on a 747-400, but turned out there was a technical problem, nopes, technical problems. The first technical problem was that the PA system was not working on my side of the plane so we could not hear any announcements at all, not a big problem unless there was a delay in the flight of maybe 2 hours due to a second technical problem, which I wasn’t sure was what. This meant that instead of reaching at 9plus I reached at 11plus and reached my apartment at 12plus in the night. Honestly my experience with Qatar was much better, despite it being such an awfully long 15-hour flight. The flight attendants were much more sincere, gentler and sweeter. The flights were smooth, with little turbulence, though it was on a smaller plane - Airbus 320. Flights to Europe are well-known to cause bad jet lags or turbulence, due to the odd time difference and bad weather conditions in Europe, but all turned out well for me. Even with 3 hours of sleep on the flight, I managed to stay up to do some packing till late at night.But the departure hall was pretty awesome.Waited from 1750h…till 1950h…And so I reached HK in the middle of the night, with no idea how to get to the apartment and I had a 25kg load to lug with me. The problem was that the cab driver was not very nice to me as I couldn’t even speak Canto in complete sentences or pronounce correctly, and kept asking me where Wo On Lane was. I could only tell him roughly where but not how to get there. So in the end he passed by Wo On Lane and instead of getting to the right location, he dropped me off somewhere down the hill on Wellington St which meant I had to backtrack, uphill, to get back to Wo On Lane, lugging the load behind me, and walking antitraffic-direction in the middle of the road. My area turned out to be in Lan Kwai Fong, so there was a lot of nightlife in the area, and much noise heard from my room too. I knew my room would be small, but it was really small! The shower area is the size of a toilet cubicle so I had to shower in front of the toilet bowl and leave my clothes and towel outside. Anyway, it’s not like I’m going to spend much time in my room when I start work.Small table and a comfortable bed.I’m pretty good with the closet size. Kitchenette was almost complete, but toilet was pretty small for my expectations.Just when I thought I could enjoy my internet after a warm shower and enjoy the aircon, the internet failed me! It really irked me because I specially mentioned that I need the internet urgently to finish up my work (which is in fact like 32 modules more to complete) and hoped that it would work well!All these was just a bad start to my experience in Hong Kong, which made me feel pretty miserable for a first day in a foreign place, alone. But I refuse to give in to these; to me, these are merely tests of my resilience, which I would need a lot to cope with the supposed long hours at the bank.19 Jun. The next day turned out to be slightly better, with the helper fixing my internet and thus saving my life. Took a tour around my area and was pretty satisfied with what I found - 5 min walk to my workplace, 3 min walk to MTR station, 2 min walk to H&M, Esprit and supermarket, Ben&Jerry’s, Haagen Daz, Pret A Manger, Sasa, 7-11, Delifrance, Pacific Coffee, Starbuck, all at my doorstep. Please feel what I want you to feel - jealous.What I see on my way home. 20 to 21 Jun. I had like 39 online modules to finish up, clothes to iron and a presentation to prepare for my training, so most of the time I spent indoors completing the online tests, which was kinda boring. Now that I’ve settled in pretty well, familiarised with the area, and making myself comfortable in my own apartment, life is good when you get to socialise over dinner or drinks, which I did with Thor, Mich and her mum, as well as the ML interns on another night.Hong Kong is fantastic! Words simply can’t explain the excitement I am feeling right now. So far so good. I have a lot of backlog for my blog, so I’ll be back backdating my blog entries whenever I have the time!
Dresden + Prague + Budapest
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 200814 to 19 May.Fourteen. Dresden. In a matter of 2 days, the city was devastated, and the palace narrowly escaped it. Much restoration and rebuilding work had to be done, so compared to the rest of Germany, Dresden has much more new and modern buildings.says Old Market, but not old at all.Pretty futuristic-looking tram stationZwinger Restoration work in progress.Reconstruction still ongoing.Our VW tour at the Gläserne Manufaktur was unfortunately in German, but since we came all the way just to see the only transparent factory in the world, which assembles Phaeton cars, the lady gave us a private English tour. Contrary to our preconceived notion of the futuristic-looking factory, much of the assembly is by hand, with only 3 robots in the entire 3 storeys of assembly plant. Much of the transparency and cleanliness must really be for the reputation and ‘wayang’ as all other manufacture work is done is Würzburg, and it must be such a hassle to ship necessary parts all the way to Dresden.Sphere in the futuristic Gläserne ManufakturCan you believe this is the Store for the FGs?Fifteen. Prague.View of Mala Stranda (Lesser Town) from Prague castlethe famous Golden Lane, which had nothing much to make a big fuss about.Charles Bridge was beautiful, but very touristed, and most ridiculously littered with stalls selling souvenirs and drawing portraits. Honestly, I expected the view from Charles Bridge and at the Old town square to be nicer, but the weather was kinda too hot, and later on rainy, packed with tourists and therefore not as mystical and romantic as I would have imagined it to be, though the architecture of the city is still beautiful.The world is so small. We met Natalie during our trip to the Arctic, some ah lian and beng Singaporeans on the train from Luxembourg to Brussels, Singaporean tour group at the cheese factory in Amsterdam and more Singaporeans at our hostel in Prague. They were on their grad trip and intended to visit the Kostnice the next day.Sixteen. Prague. Kostnice ossuary at Kutna Hora was slightly more than 1 hour away from Prague by train, and is better known as the bone-chilling chapel. What happened was that a plague killed many people and due to a lack of space in the cemetery grounds, a rather crazy/ creative monk came up with a plan to decorate the chapel with the bones, using every single part of the bodies, e.g. a chandelier, coat of arms and pyramids.Some friendly Americans we met on the train.A visit to the Jewish quarters in Prague showed us countless names of Jewish who died in the Holocaust, with their places of origin and date of birth written all over the walls of the synagogue. The highlight of the tour was the Old Jewish Cemetery dating back to 15th century. The Jews believed that the dead should be buried to await resurrection, and so their bodies will be cleansed and buried, and not cremated. However, due to discrimination of the Jews since time immemorial, they were forced to live in the small Jewish ghettoes, and thus had very little space for burial. This meant that they had to bury bodies on top of one another, in total 12 layers, leaving a space of 55cm of soil in between tombs. This is why the cemetery is filled with tombstones of different designs (indicating different eras), shapes and sizes (depending on affluence) and different heights, with some completely or partially buried.Stones, in place of flowers, as they are forever.It was such a gloomy day; we had to run in the rain to seek the nearest shelter before heading to Charles’ Bridge for a second view of the Vlatava river, St Vitus Cathedral, Prague castle and the old town. After the rain, a thin layer of mist shrouded the bridge and the castle. The setting sun, too, casted long shadows everywhere, and that was what I imagined the view to be like (except the crowded part of it all). The beauty of this bridge lies in the vast feeling the river gives. Rarely is a river ever so wide like that. It lies in the towering castle and St Vitus cathedral on the hilltop. It lies in the old town that was left untouched by the war. It lies in the original sculptures that lined the bridge. The long shadows cast, mist that shrouded the towers and reflection of the buildings in the river.For some reason, I like Wencesla Square.Despite the beauty of this city, somehow I have mixed feelings about the place. I guess I don’t have to elaborate further on the touristy part, but the Czech people was part of the reason for such mixed feelings too. Perhaps if I were a Czech who lived in Prague, I might feel irritated by the tourists and be rude to them too. I mean, tourists are kind of a nuisance – loud, noisy, stupid, break rules, etc. Those I met are seriously damn rude. Worse still, train conductors at the metro refuse to accept any valid reasons for not having a ticket – even if it’s your first time on the train and do not know where the ticket machine is – and take bribes readily. Souvenirs shops are everywhere. Czech is supposed to be a cheap place, but because it’s so touristy, everything is expensive. You even have to pay a hell lot of money to visit a cemetery because it comes in a package. Souvenirs stalls sell souvenirs related to religion, e.g. earrings with the star of david. I honestly feel that places of religion shouldn’t accept hefty sums for entrance; I mean, isn’t the house of god supposed to be free for all, regardless of rich or poor?Seventeen. Budapest. The capital of Hungary is in fact made up of 2 parts separated by the Danube River – Buda, the hilly side, and Pest, the flatter and more inhabited side. What was interesting was that Hungary is called Magyarorszag in Hungarian, totally different from its English or German name. It’s the world’s biggest exporter of paprika, and has a totally different language from its neighbours like Austria, Slovakia and Czech. Its language has a resemblance to Turkish, as they used to be occupied by them.A chat with the owner of the hostel tells us that we had to be careful with our train ride to Greece as we have to pass by countries like Serbia and FYROM. A quick check then assures us that we do not need visa to enter Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. However, we will need one even to pass by FYROM, and will be deported back if we even pass by the country without getting off the train. Yet, it was impossible to get a train that goes to Greece without passing by FYROM, unless we get a train to Sofia and get another from there to Thessaloniki. After weighing the travel time and costs, we realized that traveling to Bucharest or Sofia to get another train to Greece might not be time-effective and dangerous. As such, we decided on Italy and later on Greece, and then to Switzerland by plane.On the night train to Budapest.Budapest is dusty dusty dusty! On our way to the market hall, I breathed in and probably swallowed several floating, hairy seeds from the air and plenty of dirt that needs heavy rain to get rid of. Unfortunately, due to much time spent confirming our itinerary in the hostel, we set out late for the market hall, only to witness the closing of some shops and to eat some unsatisfying Hungarian food at the stall that was about to close.It is a land of pretty few sights compared to many other countries, which was fine, as I was satisfied with a relaxed tour. We headed to the national museum to be greeted by a weekend street market and mini-concert.Weekend street marketDinner was with David and his girlfriend, who whipped up a Hungarian dish from onions, paprika, tomatoes and sausages, and tasted yummy! The night was spent on Citadel enjoying some German beer, and a wonderful view of the city, castle and Chain bridge.View from atop the Citadel.Beautiful Budapest.Buda castle and Chain Bridge.That’s Citadel.Eighteen. Budapest.Heroes’ Square. Whatever ceremony that was, it was quite impressive.We heard that we could take a mineral bath with some positive health effects in BudapestSzechenyi.We then headed to the Great Synagogue, biggest after the one in New York, and the Sz Istvan Bazilika, before meeting David at the Chain Bridge to head up to the castle at Buda together. Very unfortunately, the labyrinth was closed.Great SynagogueSee the holes caused by the bulletsFrom Fishermen’s Bastion.Interesting waterspouts spotted.Nineteen. Budapest. Somehow, Budapest is the place we kept staying in the wonderful hostel settling our itinerary to Italy and Greece, and not getting to do what we initially set out to do. We, once again, set out late for the market hall, and forgot to queue for a ticket to the parliament in the morning. So, by the time we headed back to the parliament, it was closed for entry without any tickets.So, in Budapest, the market hall was closed when we reached, synagogue was closed, did not have time to enter Sz Istvan Bazilika, labyrinth in the castle was closed, only caught the last 5 minutes of the music fest and we could not get a ticket to the parliament. At least we got to (finally!) cut our hair in the hair salon, which turned out not too cheap as compared to the other western Europe countries we have seen so far.The beautiful parliament we never got to enter.Market HallPaprika!
Planes, Trains and Advertising
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008
Airlines and transit agencies such as Metro are struggling to make ends meet. Yes, their budgets are based on different assumptions but in each case the amount of revenue or funding coming in isn’t enough. The high price of fuel has recently made things worse. One of the solutions is to increase the amount of advertising revenue that can be obtained by making more and more space available for those hoping to reach the passengers. Airlines for example have a very desirable audience in that they carry those who are traveling on vacation and therefore seem to have disposable income or those who are traveling on business and can potentially be making buying decisions for their companies on a number of levels. On transit systems the advantage to advertisers is that they can reach the same audience with their message over and over again as passengers take the same route ten or more times a week. The need to raise additional revenue has gotten so bad that even the Ride-On bus system in Montgomery County, Maryland caved in and ended its ban on slapping ads to the sides of its buses. Of course, in this economic climate, many of the ads now on the sides of Ride-On buses are those trying to solicit advertisers to buy space.
Airlines are considering selling space on the sides of planes although that would seem to reach a rather limited audience. They are also considering things like slapping ads on the sides of carry-on bins, onto the napkins that come with soft drinks and cocktails and even onto the backs of seats utilizing those little cloth or paper doily things. In short, anything that can have a logo or slogan stamped onto it is fair game.
I am not a big fan of advertising… I was very unhappy when the American Movie Classics channel on cable began chopping up perfectly good flicks in order to sell advertising time. They always seem to cut into the movies at the worst time. There’s nothing worse than watching a key scene in Cool Hand Luke that ends up like this: (Strother Martin): “What we have here is a failure to…” (Ad for erectile disfunction drug): “Call your doctor if the effects last longer than four hours.”
At the same time I guess I would rather be subjected to a few unwanted ads than to have to dig into my wallet for more money. If Metro can figure out a way to get advertisers to pay for some of the infrastructure improvements that are necessary instead of raising fares then I would have to support it. Please, though, find some companies other than those selling software to the government or adult education classes at local colleges/universities. How about some video ads for vacation packages to Aruba or the Cayman Islands?
+++++++++
Metro is rolling out–literally–new buses this coming Monday, the 27th. The red and silver buses will include 60-foot long articulated or accordion buses and will be used on the U8 line, which runs from the Capitol Heights Metrorail station in Prince George’s County, Md., to Benning Heights in Southeast Washington. In the first week of November the system will begin testing a couple compressed natural gas (CNG) buses on the 5A route that runs from the L’Enfant Plaza rail station to Dulles Airport. The thing that really impresses me is that the CNG buses can carry as many as 103 passengers, including passengers who stand. There is nothing like seeing shiny new transit buses out on the roads to make you feel like things are good and right in this crazy world.Steve Eldridge is a long-time reporter,
observer and commentator on the Washington region’s transportation
issues. You can contact him directly by writing to: Steve@SprawlandCrawl.com.
Unless otherwise requested, letters or portions of letters can be used
within future columns. Letter writers will be identified by their first
name and city/neighborhood.
Melodies & Desires
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008Don’t we all purchase those certain things, that, yes we may never find the chance to wear them, but we buy them anyways so we can look at them? Headwear (hats, fun crazy headbands) are my guilty purchases. Its not that I never wear them, I do, its just I cant wear a vintage feathery cocktail hat everyday… although I wish I could. I don’t know when people stopped wearing hats day to day. When you look at old movies or TV shows, a hat was as common of an accessory as earrings. Recently I came across a website called ban.do. Two LA stylists created this wonderful little online store where they sell one of a kind headpieces. Clicking through all the designs I had a hard time choosing my favorites to feature on Modern Marie (as you can tell, I favored most all of them). Some are very simple, some more ornate, but the possibilities on where and when to wear these are endless: a costume party, for cocktails, a substitute for a birthday hat, the feather ones with a tank and jeans (a la Kenley from Project Runway), when you want to be a fairy, on your wedding! They will custom make them especially for you too, what ever colors you want, etc. They are just so whimsical and pixie like I had to share with you, plus doesn’t it look like something Marie Antoinette would have worn with one of her beautiful dresses?and did I mention that each one comes with a little haiku that represents the hairpiece?
Great Advice For Talking To Relatives
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008There are so many things I want to tell you about the HSC Learning Without Limits Conference but I’m going to pace myself and tell you about it a little at a time. I will tell you that I was buzzing with excitement the entire weekend. I made some new friends, learned some new things, and my feeling that unschooling is the right path for us was absolutely, 100% confirmed (again and again).Now I’m going to share the most important nugget of wisdom I found amidst the gold mine of information at the conference. It came from Pam Sorooshian.On the last day of the conference I cornered Pam in the hallway outside the ballroom where we’d just watched a fabulous slide show of photos from the weekend. I’d been dying to ask here one particular question and hadn’t found the opportunity yet.What I wanted to know was this: “How should I respond to my mother-in-law when she says that if Jerry doesn’t have to do some things he doesn’t want to do now, he’ll never learn to do the things in life that none of us really want to do, but need to get done nonetheless?”Warren’s mom has mentioned her concern about this a few times and I could never really answer her because I guess a small part of me wondered the same thing. I suspected that, just like the rest of us, he would do some things he didn’t really want to do because he’d have a conflicting need that would trump his desire to avoid the unappealing chore. For example, even though I hate washing dishes, I do wash them because I hate having dishes piled on my counter even more than I hate washing dishes. Pam confirmed that this was true.Then she asked, “Do you really want him doing things he doesn’t want to do?”Wow. When you put it that way I guess I’d have to say no. Not at all. Pam pointed out that she has three girls and she definitely does not want her girls feeling obliged to do things they aren’t comfortable with. That put a whole new twist on the question.She suggested asking my mother-in-law, “What is your real concern?”"Not being capable of doing things he doesn’t want to do” is very general. Is she worried that he won’t wash his dishes or clean his house as an adult? That one I can handle.Or is she worried that he won’t have the tenacity to reach his goals? I have to admit, I’ve asked myself this question, too.Pam pointed out that most of us want our children to find meaningful work that they love so they won’t have to do things they don’t want to do–like go to a job they hate. Yes, they may need to, say, take a job they aren’t crazy about as a stepping stone to the job of their dreams, but that’s about seeing the big picture and goal setting–it’s not being able to do unappealing activities.Does Jerry see the big picture? Yes, he does. Most of the time. And when he’s unable to see the whole thing Warren and I are there to fill in the gaps. Is he able to set goals? Pam said he probably does it all the time with video games. And he does. That’s what video games are, right? You set a goal to beat the game and you work at each level, beating them one by one, until you’ve reached it. Are video game goals the only goals he’s interested in at the moment? No, but video games do feature prominently in most of them. He wants to design video games and thanks to a program we discovered this weekend (more about that later!) he’s well on his way. He wants to build a gaming computer and we’re darn close to reaching that one (we’ll start as soon as we get back home). He wants to beat all four Guitar Heroes. He does know how to reach goals but they’re his own goals for himself. Not mine.So that tidbit was one of the best things about the conference. I’ll get to the rest later.On the homecoming front, Jerry and I were supposed to be driving home today but Weird Al Yankovic is playing tonight at the State Fair so it looks like we’ll be staying one more night–Jerry can’t stand the thought of missing it.I never in my life expected to find myself at a Weird Al concert. Ever.
Be careful of who you work for
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008
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The single most important marketing decision most people make is also the one we spend precious little time on: where you work.
Think about this for a second. Your boss and your job determine not only what you do all day, but what you learn and who you interact with. Where you work is what you market. Work in a high stress place and you’re likely to become a highly stressed person, and your interactions will display that. Work for a narcissist and you’ll develop into someone who’s good at shining a light on someone else, not into someone who can lead. Work for someone who plays the fads and you’ll discover that instead of building a steadily improving brand, you’re jumping from one thing to another, enduring layoffs in-between gold rushes. Work for a bully and be prepared to be bullied.
And yet, there are plenty of books about getting a job, but no books I know of about choosing a job. There are hundreds of sites where job seekers can go to find a new job, and virtually none where you can find reviews of bosses or companies or jobs.
Ted Zoromski really needed a job, so he took one doing human spam (outbound telemarketing). That’s his first mistake. This isn’t a stepping stone to something better, it doesn’t teach you much, it grinds you down and it doesn’t make you more marketable. When he found he was also making calls he found offensive, he quit.
Years ago, when I had ten people working for me at my book packaging company, one client accounted for about half our revenue. They were difficult, constantly threatening litigation, sending lawyers to otherwise productive meetings, questioning our ethics and more. It was clearly the culture of their organization to be at war. So I fired them. I gave them the rights and walked away, even though it meant a huge hit to our organization. Why do it? Because if we had stuck with them, it would have changed who we were, who we hired and how we marketed ourselves going forward. We would have had a lifetime of this.
How many job offers with good pay have you turned down in your lifetime? How many clients? Compare that to how many times you’ve been rejected. That’s totally out of whack. Great marketing involves having a great product, and not every job (or every client) is worth your time or attention or love.
If you want to become the kind of person that any company would kill to have as an employee, you need to be the kind of employee that’s really picky about who you align with.
Welcome Back I Say!
Posted by admin in Silver Earrings on 11 13th, 2008Thank you for patiently awaiting the wonderful post I’m about to unveil for my day trading, option scavenging, investment guru audience! (ok so maybe some of you just started putting a couple bucks in the market like I did 2 years back…)I’ve been doing some serious soul searching lately and I’m going to make this the personal part of this post. I’ve been trying to be the best trader I can be, a scavenger of information as soon as it hits the wire, an alert….all out hacker of the market, no limit hold em….die till I win with the money in my account and not yours mindset. I’ve been searching, testing, studying, reading, and taking on the most challenging battle I’ve ever fought. I believe this to be the best and most informing venture I’ve ever ridden. When I got into this mindset, I knew I wanted to form an all out blitzkrieg on the market…a self fulfilling adventure to turn my mind into a stone wall of psychological strength.Now on to market stuff….My Caterpillar Inc. (Public, NYSE:CAT) call on January 12th, 2007 is now up 231% on the FEB $60 Call Option. Remember Me? I called for long term support, and it bounced nicely. Seems as though cyclicals are definately back in the groove..My long term Energy & Oil positions are boding well. In this post Here I said it would be a great idea to start buying up energy stocks as we all know oil wouldn’t go any lower than $50 a barrel, come on Saudi Arabia loses billions each day oil goes down $1 buck..Some random quips that have been on my mind lately:The Metals sector is hot! (one of my first daytrade fetishes, Titanium Metals.Corn which is eventually made into Ethanol has been on a tear, scalp! (ADM, ANDE, PEIX)Stay away from Apple Inc., at this point in time you will get burned like a hot day in Miami while wearing baby oil..RIMM options are a daytraders dream come true..30% a day is my forteQQQQ options move slower than your grandmother’s driving..Follow oil & gas inventories, they make for easy money on the stock trading side…(BTU, CHK, DVN, CNX)Make the best $69 a month investment of your life and follow Phil over at, Phils Stock World, he teaches me about trading the markets, how oil really works, and even manipulation in the market is easy to catch when you know what to look for..He only trades options, and always hedges them to even out the risk/reward, plays on momentum and sells into the rallies…don’t we wish we all traded like that..?*-Some of my favorite insights are:”If I own $100Bn worth of energy stocks in my fund, what do I care if my energy trader loses 10% buying $1Bn worth of NYMEX barrels this month if it boosts my portfolio 5%? There are hundreds of funds with the motive means and opportunity to do this - all it takes is one dishonest fund manager - thank goodness there are none of those!”"Don’t forget when I sell a contract, I buy it back when I feel like it (in a virtual sense). So If I sold 1,000,000 shares of $500 calls (10K contracts) for $22 yesterday to pick up an extra $22M against my $500M position, all I have to do is sell off 10 or 20,000 shares here and there to drive the price down so I can buy you out for $7, a $15M gain for me. If I shave $10 off Googles price in the process, what does that really cost me? At most $10M. And if I know the sell-off is BS because I’m causing it, all I have to do is wait for the other suckers to panic and then buy back my shares and cause a buying frenzy the other way.Not that anyone would ever actually manipulated the markets for personal gain of course…”I would like to say that this is one of the toughest businesses in the world. You fight for every dollar. Anyone who ever says playing the stock market is easy and money just flows like wine should be smacked. Wall Street is vicious, and there are hungry hedge fund managers ready to eat you alive. A great story of success goes to Steve Cohen, ever heard of SAC Capital? Baidu.com? Yea well he owns a large percentage of the companies shares for himself. A self made billionaire. His first day as a junior options trader in the Arbitrage Dept. he made an $8,000 profit, and eventually was making around $100,000 a day for the company.Well if you want to know what arbitrage is, it’s one of the greatest things one can ever get involved with…why you ask? No RISK! No way, a no risk trade in the stock market you say, yes well you have to be set up to do it, like a firm on Wall Street. 1 Option gives a great example of what Market Making Firms do in ARBITRAGE Plays. I found it to be very very informative & interesting…because it’s for the big boys.Trades today included scalping RIMM & QQQQ options, and buying the dips in the Dow Jones Futures (YM), and boy did that pay off today, whew!! New All Time High!I shorted TIE near the top for 2500 shares and covered for a couple of nickels as it came down….More to Come…CalTrader
