I'm beginning to see clear patterns of how capitalism's blind pursuit of profits is bringing about the decline of civilization. Here's a proof point in just one area of interest. But one that should greatly concern everyone who's ever visited a hospital or plans to in the future - antibiotics.
http://www.superbugtheblog.com/2010/05/incentives-for-making-new-antibiotics.html
As you might know, ALL antibiotics eventually lose their effectiveness against the bugs they were designed to kill because of the evolution of those bugs (interestingly a clear proof of evolution which I've never seen used against the ridiculous creationist arguments). As this article (and others I've read) states, the use of any new antibiotic can expect to evolve resistant bugs after about a year of use. Today, some strains of bacteria (bugs) are resistant to just about every antibiotic ever developed. What that means is that it's becoming more likely every year that if you enter a hospital for some invasive procedure and contract a bacterial infection, an antibiotic to kill-off that infection will not exist. i.e. you might survive the surgery but you will die from an infection. Or at least have a very nasty time trying to fight it off for many months or years before you eventually die. Exactly what happened before the discovery of sulfa drugs and penicillin almost a century ago.
From the article:
Imagine that you're a major pharmaceutical company, a public company, with shareholders that you answer to, and market analysts looking over your shoulder to see whether this quarter's earnings are up to projections. Imagine that you want to make a new drug. Let's make it an antibiotic, because new antibiotics that can leapfrog over existing drug resistance are very needed. Thus, you imagine, a new antibiotic ought to sell well, even though any individual course of that antibiotic will only be a few weeks by mouth, or maybe a few months by IV if the patient is very sick. You know there's a big market out there.
But: Imagine — as is generally accepted to be true — that it will take about 10 years, and about $1 billion dollars, to get that novel antibiotic through the development pipeline and into the marketplace. And then imagine that — as has been shown for a number of drugs, most recently the new antibiotic daptomycin — bacteria begin developing resistance to your drug within a year of its deployment in patients. And after that, imagine — as has been cited in a number of papers — that once local resistance to your antibiotic appears in approximately 20% of isolates, physicians will cease prescribing your antibiotic, for fear their patient will be one of that 20%.
So, to recap: 10 years, $1 billion; short course; short market life; rapid obsolescence.
Would you make that investment?
Apparently few if any big pharma companies ARE making that investment. And when viewed through the profit-maximizing lens of a public company, who could blame them? And yet, for our civilization to continue, we need new and more effective antibiotics every few years.
Is this how capitalism, with it's focus on only profits, will bring civilization to a sad ending?
I believe a similar sad ending could be described for every large industry.
Energy - producing so much carbon dioxide that we change the climate of the planet.
Retail - importing so many cheap products from low-labor nations that we destroy our local manufacturing base, putting millions of people out of work or forcing them to migrate to much lower paying 'service industry' jobs which serve the few people left with high-paying jobs (which have yet to be exported to low-labor countries).
Banking - offering so much cheap credit that their customers can't keep up with the payments, bringing about the collapse of their own companies, requiring a bail-out with the tax payments from those same customers who couldn't afford to make their monthly debt payments.
Medical - offering such expensive life-saving treatments that people must choose between a life of monster debt to pay medical bills, or death.
Food - producing food that is so unhealthy that it kills off their customers (makes you wonder if the food industry is in cahoots with the medical industry).
Hmmmmm. Makes me wonder what the role of government really is. Clearly we can't leave the continuation of civilization to the 'invisible hand of the market'.
Ironically, I can foresee the executives and large stock holders who reap the profits from those industries becoming the most angry about having to abandon their beach-front properties when the sea level rises, and most angry about their family members dying from incurable bacterial infections. Of course by then, it will be too late for their millions to make a difference.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Waiting for a truck and excellent coffee
Got a call this afternoon from the C.R.England placement coordinator (who said yesterday morning at 9am that she would call me back within 30 minutes), giving me the name and number of my phase-2 trainer. I called him and left a message and continued down to my new favorite coffee shop - Jack Mormon coffee. Two hours later she called back saying that trainer is no longer training. Instead he's found a permanent 2nd seat driver. So now I'm again waiting. And unfortunately not making any money while doing so. A bit frustrating.
So here's my plug for Jack Mormon coffee.
As you might know, I've been very particular about my coffee for many years. Of the brands found in supermarkets Peets has been my favorite for years and I'll still go out of my way to stop at a Peets coffee shop when I can find one. But Jack Mormon is better. They have just one shop in the "avenues" neighborhood, dedicated mostly to roasting which they do on the spot, on demand, in four small single pound roasters from the collection of about thirty 'green' beans they keep on hand. Following through on the 'on demand' theme they have a "Clover" single cup brewer which makes the best cup of coffee I've ever had. Clover was purchased by Starbucks last year and taken off the market.
Friday Update: Got another truck and spoke with the driver this time. He's currently crawling through Nebraska in the snow on his way to Salt Lake sometime tomorrow (Saturday). We're heading to Washington State. He says he's been running with each driver taking ten hour driving shifts. That's what I was hoping to do once I go solo so this will be an interesting test to see if my body can handle it - ten hours of driving, ten hours of sleep/etc.. We'll certainly get lots of miles that way, in good weather more than 1200 every 24 hours depending on how long the load/unloads take.
So here's my plug for Jack Mormon coffee.
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Friday Update: Got another truck and spoke with the driver this time. He's currently crawling through Nebraska in the snow on his way to Salt Lake sometime tomorrow (Saturday). We're heading to Washington State. He says he's been running with each driver taking ten hour driving shifts. That's what I was hoping to do once I go solo so this will be an interesting test to see if my body can handle it - ten hours of driving, ten hours of sleep/etc.. We'll certainly get lots of miles that way, in good weather more than 1200 every 24 hours depending on how long the load/unloads take.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Apprentice driver horror stories
I've spent the last few days back in training in Salt Lake City and fortunately passed all my tests. I'm now waiting to be assigned to another driver and head back out on the road. Maybe today. Now that its 3pm, more likely tomorrow.
I was pleasantly surprised to walk into class Monday morning only to join a few of my favorite friends from our classroom time in January.
We had the opportunity to compare notes about our individual 30 day apprentice driving experiences. LOL Wow did I get lucky in having Victor.
Galen and Jay (the two guys with black shirts in the photo) are a couple of fifty-somethings from Colorado Springs who's previous decades in the construction business came to a grinding halt in 2010. They've been buddies for more than a decade and decided to become a driving team before even signing up for the school (which we discovered today means they don't have a Phase-2 trainer. Instead they're heading out with their own truck by themselves!). Their first trainer had anger management issues and was late for nearly every delivery, choosing to waste his time in truck stops rather than driving to the customer. His first response was to yell and swear, in response to everything. He was rude to wait-staff, angry with the people back in the England corporate office, abusive with the people working at the delivery docks, etc.
After three weeks Galen and Jay (who as a team were riding together with this trainer) finally couldn't take it anymore and got switched to another trainer. Fortunately, this guy was just the opposite. He was efficient, always early for deliveries, took time off to visit his favorite restaurants around the country (one of which is a place called Lamberts in Missouri where they literally throw bread rolls at the diners http://www.throwedrolls.com/), and was generally a jolly fellow and an excellent trainer. Galen said they even met the trainer's entire family at a restaurant in Missouri - nine kids. Jay said he gained fifteen pounds over those thirty days of driving all over the country.
At the other end of the spectrum is Zach (the guy between Galen and Jay in the photo) who lost ten pounds with a diet of mostly vegetables and fruit (just like what I've been eating - except for my daily pack of Hostess crumb donettes). Zach is an early-thirties ex-respiratory therapist from Fort Collins, Colorado who recently moved away from the South Dakota with his girlfriend and her two kids to escape her abusive ex-husband. His trainer had worked oil rigs on the Alaskan north slope, trapped crabs in the Bering Strait, skinned cats on construction sites all over America and finally settled on truck driving. Zach said after the abuse he suffered for the first week, he finally blew up at the trainer who then mellowed out and became a really good and helpful trainer. They'd go for runs during their down hours and lift weights in the truck stop parking lot. Though, one week, Zach realized he had 67 hours of drive time while his trainer had less than 20 hours. They made deliveries in twenty three states during his month on the road.
I was pleasantly surprised to walk into class Monday morning only to join a few of my favorite friends from our classroom time in January.
We had the opportunity to compare notes about our individual 30 day apprentice driving experiences. LOL Wow did I get lucky in having Victor.
Galen and Jay (the two guys with black shirts in the photo) are a couple of fifty-somethings from Colorado Springs who's previous decades in the construction business came to a grinding halt in 2010. They've been buddies for more than a decade and decided to become a driving team before even signing up for the school (which we discovered today means they don't have a Phase-2 trainer. Instead they're heading out with their own truck by themselves!). Their first trainer had anger management issues and was late for nearly every delivery, choosing to waste his time in truck stops rather than driving to the customer. His first response was to yell and swear, in response to everything. He was rude to wait-staff, angry with the people back in the England corporate office, abusive with the people working at the delivery docks, etc.
After three weeks Galen and Jay (who as a team were riding together with this trainer) finally couldn't take it anymore and got switched to another trainer. Fortunately, this guy was just the opposite. He was efficient, always early for deliveries, took time off to visit his favorite restaurants around the country (one of which is a place called Lamberts in Missouri where they literally throw bread rolls at the diners http://www.throwedrolls.com/), and was generally a jolly fellow and an excellent trainer. Galen said they even met the trainer's entire family at a restaurant in Missouri - nine kids. Jay said he gained fifteen pounds over those thirty days of driving all over the country.
At the other end of the spectrum is Zach (the guy between Galen and Jay in the photo) who lost ten pounds with a diet of mostly vegetables and fruit (just like what I've been eating - except for my daily pack of Hostess crumb donettes). Zach is an early-thirties ex-respiratory therapist from Fort Collins, Colorado who recently moved away from the South Dakota with his girlfriend and her two kids to escape her abusive ex-husband. His trainer had worked oil rigs on the Alaskan north slope, trapped crabs in the Bering Strait, skinned cats on construction sites all over America and finally settled on truck driving. Zach said after the abuse he suffered for the first week, he finally blew up at the trainer who then mellowed out and became a really good and helpful trainer. They'd go for runs during their down hours and lift weights in the truck stop parking lot. Though, one week, Zach realized he had 67 hours of drive time while his trainer had less than 20 hours. They made deliveries in twenty three states during his month on the road.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
My last day with Victor
Yesterday I got off Victor's truck and ended my phase-1 training period.
I now have the weekend off but must be in class at 6am Monday morning for my "upgrade" which, if I pass, will allow me to get on someone else's truck for the next two or so months, as their "2nd Seat" driver. Interestingly, most of these "phase-2" trainers have only been driving a couple of months on their own, with their own trucks. England discovered that pairing a newbie (like me) with only a month of driving experience with another newbie with about six months of experience makes both drivers better and safer. Go figure. The old-timers apparently have bad driving habits that we newbies don't.
We had a nice week, starting out going to Colorado Springs; then Henderson, Nevada - just south of Las Vegas; then Billings, Montana and Sheridan, Wyoming (see below);
and finally up to Logan, Utah.
Unfortunately for me, Victor is heading to Carson City, Nevada this Sunday evening. I had the best sushi of my life in Carson City last October from an Hispanic Sushi chef. Photo of him and one of his creations.
He said "sushi is rice", and to prove it he made us a desert sushi roll made of bananas and chocolate. Mmmmm
I woke up Thursday morning in Sheridan, Wyoming (after an exciting ten hours of driving through snow storms in Utah, Idaho and Montana the previous evening).
Sheridan - Wow. I think I've finally found America. A thriving small-town main street.
The J.C.Penney is just one of these little main street stores - a refreshing change from the monster shopping mall stores we've been going to. I fortunately found the one coffee shop in the town and it was damn good coffee. As we drove out of town I noticed a WalMart at the other end of town. Hmmmm. Makes me wonder how a small town like this has kept their downtown functioning while so many others haven't been able to.
We had a nice week, starting out going to Colorado Springs; then Henderson, Nevada - just south of Las Vegas; then Billings, Montana and Sheridan, Wyoming (see below);
Unfortunately for me, Victor is heading to Carson City, Nevada this Sunday evening. I had the best sushi of my life in Carson City last October from an Hispanic Sushi chef. Photo of him and one of his creations.
I woke up Thursday morning in Sheridan, Wyoming (after an exciting ten hours of driving through snow storms in Utah, Idaho and Montana the previous evening).
Sheridan - Wow. I think I've finally found America. A thriving small-town main street.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Buying and Owning Stuff
Now that I've divested myself of just about everything I've ever owned, I have a different perspective on buying and owning stuff. First, I'm in the fortunate position to not have a container for all my stuff. Not having the container forces me to examine every desire for new stuff against the reality of my current life - can I hump it into and out of the truck?
Last Friday about noon, we'd finished our deliveries for the week so Victor drove the truck through downtown and dropped me off a few blocks from the couch I'm crashing on during my weekends in Salt Lake City. Years ago I'd bought a rolling duffle bag for very cheap while on a trip to Shanghai that fortunately is just about big enough to hold everything I take on the truck - with the addition of a couple of those nice insulated cloth grocery bags for stuff that I need more constant access to. However, with a seven block walk 'home' along the sidewalks of Salt Lake, I finally recognized what people are talking about regarding the poor workmanship of some Chinese products. One of the two very nice little rollerblade wheels on the duffle bag slowed, bent the axle and finally locked up after only four blocks. So now I really NEED a new and better duffle bag.
I also think I NEED a folding bicycle so I can explore other cities on my off-duty hours without having to get the truck in dangerous positions. But then I'll have to make sure my rolling duffle bag can attach to the back of the bike somehow, allowing me full mobility with all my possessions wherever I might be. I test drove one of these little bikes yesterday and found myself laughing like a crazy person as I rode it up and down the sidewalk. Wow. How much fun and freedom bikes provide. I'd completely forgotten.
I also NEED a new set of lenses for my eyeglasses. My vision has continued to decline with age and it's been almost eight years since I last had my prescription adjusted.
I also NEED a better set of headphones with a built-in noise-reducing microphone so I can listen to audio books while driving, and answer the occasional phone call on my Droid without switching headsets.
Once I get on my own truck, I will also NEED a harmonica. Not functional while someone else is sleeping on the bunk behind me.
Other than those things, I think I have every other physical possession I need for my life the way it now is. Thinking.... ....Yup. At least until summer comes and brings new situations that my current stuff can't handle.
Yet, walking around Salt Lake City today, I find myself desiring other stuff. I still look at men's clothing. Suits, shoes, ties etc. still suck me in even though I can't imagine a situation in the near future in which I'll need any more 'dress-up' clothing than the sports jacket, gabardine pants and ties I now have in a tiny storage closet on the west side of Salt Lake (for $20/month). And cars still draw my attention - saw a Porsche today with very cool headlights. And many of these nice little cottage homes with fine woodwork and cute little front yards in downtown Salt Lake make me desire a soft leather comfy chair and a good set of cookware.
If a guy with absolutely no need for such stuff finds it difficult to curb his materialistic consumerism urges, how difficult must it be for people with lots of money and ever growing boxes to hold more stuff?
Yup. It's a big problem. Here's a guy I found struggling with the same problem who's come up with a pretty good solution.
http://guynameddave.com/100-thing-challenge/
I'm well below 100 things. Hopefully not into the ascetic and mentally unstable range. Yet.
Last Friday about noon, we'd finished our deliveries for the week so Victor drove the truck through downtown and dropped me off a few blocks from the couch I'm crashing on during my weekends in Salt Lake City. Years ago I'd bought a rolling duffle bag for very cheap while on a trip to Shanghai that fortunately is just about big enough to hold everything I take on the truck - with the addition of a couple of those nice insulated cloth grocery bags for stuff that I need more constant access to. However, with a seven block walk 'home' along the sidewalks of Salt Lake, I finally recognized what people are talking about regarding the poor workmanship of some Chinese products. One of the two very nice little rollerblade wheels on the duffle bag slowed, bent the axle and finally locked up after only four blocks. So now I really NEED a new and better duffle bag.
I also think I NEED a folding bicycle so I can explore other cities on my off-duty hours without having to get the truck in dangerous positions. But then I'll have to make sure my rolling duffle bag can attach to the back of the bike somehow, allowing me full mobility with all my possessions wherever I might be. I test drove one of these little bikes yesterday and found myself laughing like a crazy person as I rode it up and down the sidewalk. Wow. How much fun and freedom bikes provide. I'd completely forgotten.
I also NEED a new set of lenses for my eyeglasses. My vision has continued to decline with age and it's been almost eight years since I last had my prescription adjusted.
I also NEED a better set of headphones with a built-in noise-reducing microphone so I can listen to audio books while driving, and answer the occasional phone call on my Droid without switching headsets.
Once I get on my own truck, I will also NEED a harmonica. Not functional while someone else is sleeping on the bunk behind me.
Other than those things, I think I have every other physical possession I need for my life the way it now is. Thinking.... ....Yup. At least until summer comes and brings new situations that my current stuff can't handle.
Yet, walking around Salt Lake City today, I find myself desiring other stuff. I still look at men's clothing. Suits, shoes, ties etc. still suck me in even though I can't imagine a situation in the near future in which I'll need any more 'dress-up' clothing than the sports jacket, gabardine pants and ties I now have in a tiny storage closet on the west side of Salt Lake (for $20/month). And cars still draw my attention - saw a Porsche today with very cool headlights. And many of these nice little cottage homes with fine woodwork and cute little front yards in downtown Salt Lake make me desire a soft leather comfy chair and a good set of cookware.
If a guy with absolutely no need for such stuff finds it difficult to curb his materialistic consumerism urges, how difficult must it be for people with lots of money and ever growing boxes to hold more stuff?
Yup. It's a big problem. Here's a guy I found struggling with the same problem who's come up with a pretty good solution.
http://guynameddave.com/100-thing-challenge/
I'm well below 100 things. Hopefully not into the ascetic and mentally unstable range. Yet.
Capitalism: A Love Story
I just watched Michael Moore's latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" (released in 2009)and was surprised by plenty of his research but by nothing more than President Jimmy Carter's televised speech from the oval office on July 15th, 1979 which became known as the "Crisis of Confidence" speech. (I was working nights in the IBM memory chip manufacturing line clean room that summer between years in college and somehow missed the entire experience.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOd-qWZB_g&feature=related
Here's the backstory from one of the speech writers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/opinion/15stewart.html
What a missed opportunity for America. The Reagan years ensured that, which the movie goes into in plenty of depth.
In general, another thought-provoking masterpiece from Moore. It makes me feel a bit guilty about wanting to cut and run to New Zealand or China if none of Highest Wind's grant opportunities come through this year. But just a little. I think the majority of Americans will require a disaster of World War Z proportions to shake them out of their comfortable but non-sustainable lives.
Very interestingly, on that YouTube page is this video farewell speech from President Eisenhower in 1961 warning America about the rise of the "Military Industrial Complex". As someone hoping for some of the funding from that complex, I understand the importance of the DoD to innovative startup companies, (if the f**kers fund us), but feel Ike may have been on to something considering the current US military budget.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/01/information-is-beautiful-military-spending
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOd-qWZB_g&feature=related
Here's the backstory from one of the speech writers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/opinion/15stewart.html
What a missed opportunity for America. The Reagan years ensured that, which the movie goes into in plenty of depth.
In general, another thought-provoking masterpiece from Moore. It makes me feel a bit guilty about wanting to cut and run to New Zealand or China if none of Highest Wind's grant opportunities come through this year. But just a little. I think the majority of Americans will require a disaster of World War Z proportions to shake them out of their comfortable but non-sustainable lives.
Very interestingly, on that YouTube page is this video farewell speech from President Eisenhower in 1961 warning America about the rise of the "Military Industrial Complex". As someone hoping for some of the funding from that complex, I understand the importance of the DoD to innovative startup companies, (if the f**kers fund us), but feel Ike may have been on to something considering the current US military budget.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/01/information-is-beautiful-military-spending
Living Simply - the starting point?
As perhaps you've noticed, I'm wrestling with the ills of western consumerism society, the apparent failures of democracy, the inequity brought about by capitalism, and global climate change brought about by all of the above. I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not that I now have at least ten hours a day to think about nothing else. Because of my engineering temperament - the world is a series of problems looking for solutions - I'll either come up with some solutions to these problems or drive myself mad in the process.
When I find other people concerned about the same things, I feel extra hope that humanity will come out of these crises - eventually. I just found another blog that takes on these issues in a personal way.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/shannon-hayes/live-dangerously-10-easy-steps
and her website http://radicalhomemakers.com/
Shannon's recommendations may be an excellent starting point for anyone feeling powerless to impact the changes we feel must be made. This article in particular rings home for me as I'd found myself in exactly the situation she describes of her audience - living in a neighborhood with covenants against hanging out laundry.
When I find other people concerned about the same things, I feel extra hope that humanity will come out of these crises - eventually. I just found another blog that takes on these issues in a personal way.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/shannon-hayes/live-dangerously-10-easy-steps
and her website http://radicalhomemakers.com/
Shannon's recommendations may be an excellent starting point for anyone feeling powerless to impact the changes we feel must be made. This article in particular rings home for me as I'd found myself in exactly the situation she describes of her audience - living in a neighborhood with covenants against hanging out laundry.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Mark Twain's up and coming cities
In his book "Life on the Mississippi", Twain describes a number of newly formed cities on the banks of the upper Mississippi river.
FROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of the presence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical nineteenth-century populations. The people don't dream, they work. The happy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside aspect of things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort that everywhere appear.
Quincy is a notable example--a brisk, handsome, well-ordered city; and now, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high things.
In the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model New England town: and these she has yet: broad, clean streets, trim, neat dwellings and lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. And there are ample fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractive drives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome and costly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds which occupy a square. The population of the city is thirty thousand. There are some large factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on a great scale.
He described Quincy so glowingly that I just needed to see what has happened to the town in the intervening 120 years. It happens to be just up the river from Twain's hometown of Hannibal Missouri. From Wikipedia;
Quincy, known as the "Gem City", is a city on the Mississippi River and county seat of Adams County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 census the city had 40,366 people. . . . In the fall of 2010 Quincy was listed as eighth in the top fifteen small cities to raise a family in the United States by Forbes magazine for its commute times, high school graduation rate, median household income, home ownership rate and cost of living.
Very interesting that over 120 years, the population grew by only 33%. It peaked at almost 44,000 in 1960. Fortunately manufacturing is still one of the largest sources of employment (wheels, compressors and some other industrial products) topped only by the local health care industry - a hospital, the physicians for that hospital, and the local VA hospital (I've discovered health care is the number one or two source of employment is most medium sized American cities - hmmmm). Walmart is the eleventh largest employer. The local US Post Office is the fifteenth.
Explaining Twain's description of Quincy as a "model New England town" is this history;
Quincy’s earliest 19th century settlers were primarily from New England, Yankees who moved west in a continuing search for good land. They brought a culture of progressive values, such as support for public education. In the 1840s they were joined by a wave of German immigrants, who left Europe after the Revolutions in German provinces. The new residents brought with them much needed skills for the expanding community.
Makes me wonder why a town like Quincy stayed small, while a town like St.Paul, which Twain also describes glowingly, has grown by a factor of seven in population and become part of the much larger Minn/St.Paul Metro area with millions of people. Both had good locations on bluffs above the river, good rail connections, good starts and local resources. I wonder where their paths diverged.
FROM St. Louis northward there are all the enlivening signs of the presence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, practical nineteenth-century populations. The people don't dream, they work. The happy result is manifest all around in the substantial outside aspect of things, and the suggestions of wholesome life and comfort that everywhere appear.
Quincy is a notable example--a brisk, handsome, well-ordered city; and now, as formerly, interested in art, letters, and other high things.
In the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a model New England town: and these she has yet: broad, clean streets, trim, neat dwellings and lawns, fine mansions, stately blocks of commercial buildings. And there are ample fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractive drives; library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome and costly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds which occupy a square. The population of the city is thirty thousand. There are some large factories here, and manufacturing, of many sorts, is done on a great scale.
He described Quincy so glowingly that I just needed to see what has happened to the town in the intervening 120 years. It happens to be just up the river from Twain's hometown of Hannibal Missouri. From Wikipedia;
Quincy, known as the "Gem City", is a city on the Mississippi River and county seat of Adams County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 census the city had 40,366 people. . . . In the fall of 2010 Quincy was listed as eighth in the top fifteen small cities to raise a family in the United States by Forbes magazine for its commute times, high school graduation rate, median household income, home ownership rate and cost of living.
Very interesting that over 120 years, the population grew by only 33%. It peaked at almost 44,000 in 1960. Fortunately manufacturing is still one of the largest sources of employment (wheels, compressors and some other industrial products) topped only by the local health care industry - a hospital, the physicians for that hospital, and the local VA hospital (I've discovered health care is the number one or two source of employment is most medium sized American cities - hmmmm). Walmart is the eleventh largest employer. The local US Post Office is the fifteenth.
Explaining Twain's description of Quincy as a "model New England town" is this history;
Quincy’s earliest 19th century settlers were primarily from New England, Yankees who moved west in a continuing search for good land. They brought a culture of progressive values, such as support for public education. In the 1840s they were joined by a wave of German immigrants, who left Europe after the Revolutions in German provinces. The new residents brought with them much needed skills for the expanding community.
Makes me wonder why a town like Quincy stayed small, while a town like St.Paul, which Twain also describes glowingly, has grown by a factor of seven in population and become part of the much larger Minn/St.Paul Metro area with millions of people. Both had good locations on bluffs above the river, good rail connections, good starts and local resources. I wonder where their paths diverged.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The British Anti-Tea Party
Wow. This needs to happen here in the US.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-uks-progressive-tea-party?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+yes/most-recent-articles+(Most+Recent+Articles+and+Blogs+-+YES!+magazine)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Please pass this link on.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-uks-progressive-tea-party?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+yes/most-recent-articles+(Most+Recent+Articles+and+Blogs+-+YES!+magazine)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
Please pass this link on.
World War Z and America's reliance on diesel fuel
Victor and I listened to the audiobook version of "World War Z" today for about eight hours of driving through New Mexico on our way to El Paso, again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z
(Compared to last Tuesday, the weather today was much better - sunny - and the temperature was 75 degrees warmer - 60 degrees instead of -15.)
I'm not much of a Zombie fan, but this story goes well beyond the "Night of the Living Dead" stories. It's a future account of a recently completed world-wide decade-long war against Zombies who over a number of years had wiped out about 90% of the human population (or more accurately, had converted 90% of the world population into Zombies).
The story was written by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks, creator of such classic movies as "Young Frankenstein", "Blazing Saddles" and my personal favorite (not) "Space Balls" (one of the only movies I ever felt compelled to walk out on). What's most interesting about Max's story is the depth of research he went through on how an actual war like this would be best conducted, including the reconstruction of civilization afterwards. What primarily caught my attention was the initial collapse of society due to wide-spread panic when people realized what was actually happening.
It got me wondering about how quickly American society really COULD collapse with the right pressure points attacked. Shutting off electricity to the entire country - most likely not possible - would be pretty effective. Another method would be to simply stop the supply of diesel fuel to American truckers.
Victor recounted how he's occasionally run into winter storm areas in which thousands of truckers have been stranded for a day or more. When they finally leave, they literally drain every gallon of diesel from the area which then takes a few more days of tanker truck arrivals to replenish. His recommendation for me was to never drive into a storm area with anything less than a full tank (which would allow us to drive another 1000 miles or more). The bigger lesson is that most regions of the country have at best only a couple days supply of diesel.
Consider what is reliant on that diesel fuel, starting with J.C.Penney, Home Depot, WalMart, grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, home heating fuel and propane suppliers, etc. Most retailers have at-most a week's supply of merchandise. In an emergency and the ensuing panic, grocery store shelves will be cleaned off in only hours.
If I were Al Qaeda and wanted to bring America to it's knees, I'd hit the fewer than one hundred refineries producing diesel fuel - more than half of them in Texas and Lousiana (and easily identified http://www.energysupplylogistics.com/map/. Which makes me think Al-Qaeda is considerably stupider than we give them credit for (or the refineries are considerably better protected than I think).
Bottom line, if you want to get a very realistic and well thought-out vision of how America and the world might react to a catastrophic halt of the economy, and get some hints on how to best survive such an event, I highly recommend World War Z.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z
(Compared to last Tuesday, the weather today was much better - sunny - and the temperature was 75 degrees warmer - 60 degrees instead of -15.)
I'm not much of a Zombie fan, but this story goes well beyond the "Night of the Living Dead" stories. It's a future account of a recently completed world-wide decade-long war against Zombies who over a number of years had wiped out about 90% of the human population (or more accurately, had converted 90% of the world population into Zombies).
The story was written by Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks, creator of such classic movies as "Young Frankenstein", "Blazing Saddles" and my personal favorite (not) "Space Balls" (one of the only movies I ever felt compelled to walk out on). What's most interesting about Max's story is the depth of research he went through on how an actual war like this would be best conducted, including the reconstruction of civilization afterwards. What primarily caught my attention was the initial collapse of society due to wide-spread panic when people realized what was actually happening.
It got me wondering about how quickly American society really COULD collapse with the right pressure points attacked. Shutting off electricity to the entire country - most likely not possible - would be pretty effective. Another method would be to simply stop the supply of diesel fuel to American truckers.
Victor recounted how he's occasionally run into winter storm areas in which thousands of truckers have been stranded for a day or more. When they finally leave, they literally drain every gallon of diesel from the area which then takes a few more days of tanker truck arrivals to replenish. His recommendation for me was to never drive into a storm area with anything less than a full tank (which would allow us to drive another 1000 miles or more). The bigger lesson is that most regions of the country have at best only a couple days supply of diesel.
Consider what is reliant on that diesel fuel, starting with J.C.Penney, Home Depot, WalMart, grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations, home heating fuel and propane suppliers, etc. Most retailers have at-most a week's supply of merchandise. In an emergency and the ensuing panic, grocery store shelves will be cleaned off in only hours.
If I were Al Qaeda and wanted to bring America to it's knees, I'd hit the fewer than one hundred refineries producing diesel fuel - more than half of them in Texas and Lousiana (and easily identified http://www.energysupplylogistics.com/map/. Which makes me think Al-Qaeda is considerably stupider than we give them credit for (or the refineries are considerably better protected than I think).
Bottom line, if you want to get a very realistic and well thought-out vision of how America and the world might react to a catastrophic halt of the economy, and get some hints on how to best survive such an event, I highly recommend World War Z.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Living in the present
Forming a startup company in 2008 has made my life an emotional and financial roller coaster. I admit, entirely self-induced. My initial hope in 2009 that we'd get the big funding we needed in 2010 was dashed by both the lack of winning any of the grants we'd submitted proposals for and the lack of interest from any big investors.
We sent proposals for four more grants in 2010 of which we've been turned down for one so far in 2011, but we're still hopeful about the other three.
In the meanwhile, for mental survival purposes, I've had to adopt an attitude of living in the present and taking each day and week as it comes - the entire 'river of destiny' idea - because one day one of these weeks may change my entire life again and I honestly have no way to influence when or if that may happen. It's an interesting situation to be in. I wouldn't call what I'm doing as 'living with hopelessness' but this article has some pretty good advice about doing so.
http://www.utne.com/Spirituality/Ten-Things-Feeling-Hopeless-Dave-Pollard.aspx
From a big-picture perspective, if you don't think America and all of human civilization is in a pretty hopeless situation, please let me know what gives you that optimism. Seriously.
We sent proposals for four more grants in 2010 of which we've been turned down for one so far in 2011, but we're still hopeful about the other three.
In the meanwhile, for mental survival purposes, I've had to adopt an attitude of living in the present and taking each day and week as it comes - the entire 'river of destiny' idea - because one day one of these weeks may change my entire life again and I honestly have no way to influence when or if that may happen. It's an interesting situation to be in. I wouldn't call what I'm doing as 'living with hopelessness' but this article has some pretty good advice about doing so.
http://www.utne.com/Spirituality/Ten-Things-Feeling-Hopeless-Dave-Pollard.aspx
From a big-picture perspective, if you don't think America and all of human civilization is in a pretty hopeless situation, please let me know what gives you that optimism. Seriously.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Old guy dancing
I'm sitting in the Salt Lake pub I've become something of a regular at - the Green Pig - and there's a band playing a nice mix of blues, rockabilly, zydeco and rocking country, complete with female fiddle player.
A guy who looks like he must be 80 years old, no taller than 5'2" with his bent back, white hair and rumpled cardigan is up there dancing with chicks young enough to be his great granddaughters. And doing a good job of it.
I spoke with him. He's actually turning 69 this week. He's had Parkinson's for the past twelve years.
Inspiring. I can't stop smiling. What a day.
A guy who looks like he must be 80 years old, no taller than 5'2" with his bent back, white hair and rumpled cardigan is up there dancing with chicks young enough to be his great granddaughters. And doing a good job of it.
I spoke with him. He's actually turning 69 this week. He's had Parkinson's for the past twelve years.
Inspiring. I can't stop smiling. What a day.
Economic Measurements or Gross National Happiness?
In chapter 30 of “Life on the Mississippi”, Mark Twain describes a town on the banks of the river –
Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population- which is placed at five thousand. The country about it is exceptionally productive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixty thousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and grain commerce; has a foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has $1,000,000 invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways, and is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region. Her gross receipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4,000,000.
It got me thinking about our current methods of economic measurement with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) leading the pack. Back in Twain’s day (1882), I’d argue that economic measurements would be good indicators of the prosperity and happiness of the population. However, today many people are making a cogent argument that GDP is not the number we should all be watching to track prosperity and that GDP has nothing to do with the happiness of a population in western societies.
Bill McKibben’s book “Deep Economy” first clued me in to this idea – apparently, once people rise above the poverty level, economic improvements have little to do with the happiness of a population. (My recent personal experience – now that I’m again earning a paycheck and just can’t stop smiling - would corroborate that data.) The argument is that once a person has the basics taken care of – food, shelter, health, companionship, family, security, justice, etc. – every additional dollar of income contributes little to personal happiness. Donald Trump may be able to fly off to Paris or Hong Kong whenever he wants (though I bet he doesn’t), but statistically he’s no happier than a potato farmer in a small village in Bhutan.
Bhutan is an interesting country because they’ve been measuring and reporting “Gross National Happiness” for some years now and using it to guide all their economic developments. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1016266,00.html
My buddy Nic Sarkozy recently had a couple nobel laureates perform a study on happiness for France, http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/01/happiness_is_a_warm_baguette (despite the Economist magazine’s disdain for the effort – ever since I thought I was a neo-con and then went to India to see how well democracy works in developing countries, I think the Economist magazine frankly doesn’t know shit about the real world) and now the UK is following suit http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/14/happiness-index-britain-national-mood
The core question behind these movements is the effort to address this question – "does the economy serve the population, or does the population serve the economy?". Do we go to work, produce and purchase simply to help the economy (as George W. told us in 2006 “I encourage you all to go shopping more”) or is the economy just another thing to measure that has little correlation to our happiness?
GDP has recently shown little correlation to the general happiness of the American population. While officially almost 10% of us are out of work (and the Europeans suspect the number is much higher http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12364507), the GDP today, at $13 Trillion is roughly at the same level it was in 2005. http://www.data360.org/graph_group.aspx?Graph_Group_Id=149 Interestingly, because GDP measures all economic transactions, events like national disasters, wars, outbreaks of disease – anything which requires the production and/or purchase of more goods whether they be guns, sand bags, rebuilding of destroyed buildings, medications, etc, adds to the GDP.
In light of that fact, it seems a little naive to have our elected officials looking so closely at GDP as a measure of the health of the country. As so many managers know, people watch (and try to impact) what is measured. Incent a CEO to raise the company’s stock price and guess what he’ll spend most of his time and effort doing (whether his actions to bring about that stock increase eventually help or hurt the company in the long run). I think the American people have unwittingly let our elected officials focus too long on just the economy.
This is a hot subject for me. More later.
Helena is the second town in Arkansas, in point of population- which is placed at five thousand. The country about it is exceptionally productive. Helena has a good cotton trade; handles from forty to sixty thousand bales annually; she has a large lumber and grain commerce; has a foundry, oil mills, machine shops and wagon factories--in brief has $1,000,000 invested in manufacturing industries. She has two railways, and is the commercial center of a broad and prosperous region. Her gross receipts of money, annually, from all sources, are placed by the New Orleans 'Times-Democrat' at $4,000,000.
It got me thinking about our current methods of economic measurement with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) leading the pack. Back in Twain’s day (1882), I’d argue that economic measurements would be good indicators of the prosperity and happiness of the population. However, today many people are making a cogent argument that GDP is not the number we should all be watching to track prosperity and that GDP has nothing to do with the happiness of a population in western societies.
Bill McKibben’s book “Deep Economy” first clued me in to this idea – apparently, once people rise above the poverty level, economic improvements have little to do with the happiness of a population. (My recent personal experience – now that I’m again earning a paycheck and just can’t stop smiling - would corroborate that data.) The argument is that once a person has the basics taken care of – food, shelter, health, companionship, family, security, justice, etc. – every additional dollar of income contributes little to personal happiness. Donald Trump may be able to fly off to Paris or Hong Kong whenever he wants (though I bet he doesn’t), but statistically he’s no happier than a potato farmer in a small village in Bhutan.
Bhutan is an interesting country because they’ve been measuring and reporting “Gross National Happiness” for some years now and using it to guide all their economic developments. http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1016266,00.html
My buddy Nic Sarkozy recently had a couple nobel laureates perform a study on happiness for France, http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2008/01/happiness_is_a_warm_baguette (despite the Economist magazine’s disdain for the effort – ever since I thought I was a neo-con and then went to India to see how well democracy works in developing countries, I think the Economist magazine frankly doesn’t know shit about the real world) and now the UK is following suit http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/14/happiness-index-britain-national-mood
The core question behind these movements is the effort to address this question – "does the economy serve the population, or does the population serve the economy?". Do we go to work, produce and purchase simply to help the economy (as George W. told us in 2006 “I encourage you all to go shopping more”) or is the economy just another thing to measure that has little correlation to our happiness?
GDP has recently shown little correlation to the general happiness of the American population. While officially almost 10% of us are out of work (and the Europeans suspect the number is much higher http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12364507), the GDP today, at $13 Trillion is roughly at the same level it was in 2005. http://www.data360.org/graph_group.aspx?Graph_Group_Id=149 Interestingly, because GDP measures all economic transactions, events like national disasters, wars, outbreaks of disease – anything which requires the production and/or purchase of more goods whether they be guns, sand bags, rebuilding of destroyed buildings, medications, etc, adds to the GDP.
In light of that fact, it seems a little naive to have our elected officials looking so closely at GDP as a measure of the health of the country. As so many managers know, people watch (and try to impact) what is measured. Incent a CEO to raise the company’s stock price and guess what he’ll spend most of his time and effort doing (whether his actions to bring about that stock increase eventually help or hurt the company in the long run). I think the American people have unwittingly let our elected officials focus too long on just the economy.
This is a hot subject for me. More later.
Team Work and Danger - I love this job.
There’s a scene in the movie “The Matrix” where Neo, Trinity and Link are walking away from the Nebuchadnezzar with their duffle bags, back from a successful mission. I think there’s something in (just?) men that leads us to seek out team efforts heading out on short dangerous missions. It must have started with our ancestors roaming the savannah in small teams hunting for dinner. Put any two men together with a clearly defined mission to accomplish and we’ll quietly and (hopefully) competently bring home dinner.
Strangely, that’s how this trucking gig feels. Every day we’re assigned a new ‘mission’ taking us off on a new life or death adventure – which is only a little exaggerated with the very slick and low-visibility driving conditions over the past few days. Thursday I got to experience the anti-locking braking system (ABS) on the rig – three times. Once as two four-wheelers had spun out on the highway about a quarter mile ahead of me, but at the bottom of a hill. Fortunately I was traveling at only 45mph and I got the rig stopped with about 20 feet to spare – feeling the wheels locking up and repeatedly releasing. But still, I wasn’t sure I’d get it stopped in time. I hate that feeling in the pit of my stomach. Keeping an adequate following-distance, driving conditions dependent, is critical to survival in this business.
Wednesday morning, I-25 between Albuquerque and Los Cruces, New Mexico was closed – after I’d driven those same 200-odd miles just hours before, albeit in pretty scary conditions. We parked in a truck stop with a hundred other trucks waiting for the road to open. By 2pm it was opened and I got to drive and see New Mexico in the daylight – spectacular (but I’ll use that word often describing deserts and mountains).
I crossed the Rio Grande river a few times, got to see Williamsburg, NM – “America’s Spaceport” (http://www.spaceportamerica.com/) and saw very interesting ancient lava flows solidified into basalt and buckled and split like giant sidewalks with tree roots beneath them.
Victor took over at 1am Thursday morning just outside Monticello, Utah and got us back to Spanish Fork just before sunrise. I woke about 11am in the rest area in Glenwood canyon in Colorado and couldn’t stop smiling.
Incredible. I finally got to drive in the daylight the curvy mountain section of I-70 I’d driven almost a dozen times in the other direction but always in the dark. Spectacular!
By the time we got to Denver and had refueled - see the photo - we burn a lot of fuel -
the weather had changed back to snowing and it took us more than an hour to go just eight miles on I-25 with everyone else trying to go south. After the ABS braking excitement described above, I finally pulled us in to the JCPenney parking lot in Pueblo at about 10pm to wait for our 4:30am unloading. I got a cheap steak (I believe my first since July) and a beer at an Applebees about a half mile walk away through five inches of fresh snow. Another high-intensity day, but well worth the effort to see western Colorado in such excellent weather conditions.
It’s now Friday night and I’m back in Salt Lake after waking this morning to yet another glorious day near Loveland pass. For the first time in more than a decade and the first time in my life from ten feet above the road, I got to see in the daylight the entire drive back to Salt Lake from central Colorado. Incredible. Too big for photos. The Colorado River, the Manti La Sal mountains near Moab, the Henries south of the San Rafael Swell, the Price valley, the drive up Price Canyon and over the top of Soldier’s Summit and down Spanish Fork Canyon. Absolutely incredibly spectacular. I was grinning like a crazy person the entire day and it hasn’t worn off yet. And I get paid to do this. I laugh every time I think of it.
Strangely, that’s how this trucking gig feels. Every day we’re assigned a new ‘mission’ taking us off on a new life or death adventure – which is only a little exaggerated with the very slick and low-visibility driving conditions over the past few days. Thursday I got to experience the anti-locking braking system (ABS) on the rig – three times. Once as two four-wheelers had spun out on the highway about a quarter mile ahead of me, but at the bottom of a hill. Fortunately I was traveling at only 45mph and I got the rig stopped with about 20 feet to spare – feeling the wheels locking up and repeatedly releasing. But still, I wasn’t sure I’d get it stopped in time. I hate that feeling in the pit of my stomach. Keeping an adequate following-distance, driving conditions dependent, is critical to survival in this business.
Wednesday morning, I-25 between Albuquerque and Los Cruces, New Mexico was closed – after I’d driven those same 200-odd miles just hours before, albeit in pretty scary conditions. We parked in a truck stop with a hundred other trucks waiting for the road to open. By 2pm it was opened and I got to drive and see New Mexico in the daylight – spectacular (but I’ll use that word often describing deserts and mountains).
By the time we got to Denver and had refueled - see the photo - we burn a lot of fuel -
It’s now Friday night and I’m back in Salt Lake after waking this morning to yet another glorious day near Loveland pass. For the first time in more than a decade and the first time in my life from ten feet above the road, I got to see in the daylight the entire drive back to Salt Lake from central Colorado. Incredible. Too big for photos. The Colorado River, the Manti La Sal mountains near Moab, the Henries south of the San Rafael Swell, the Price valley, the drive up Price Canyon and over the top of Soldier’s Summit and down Spanish Fork Canyon. Absolutely incredibly spectacular. I was grinning like a crazy person the entire day and it hasn’t worn off yet. And I get paid to do this. I laugh every time I think of it.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
El Paso, Texas
About sixteen hours after leaving Spanish Fork after 1am Tuesday morning (is it still Tuesday?), we arrived in El Paso, Texas. Fortunately the drive was mostly flat because the driving conditions were sketchy at best. I awoke to this . . .
. . . in Jamestown, New Mexico after Victor had driven nine hours.
I then took the wheel for the next nine hours and an almost continuous snow. I saw three pickup trucks spin off the road in front of me, one police SUV after it had impacted a guard rail, another pickup truck on it's roof in the ditch, a greyhound bus sized RV on its side blocking two lanes of traffic, a little tiny car with it's trunk crushed up against another guard rail, and a few other more forgettable accidents.
As we arrived in Los Cruces, I thought the 35 mph cross-winds were going to knock us over. Strangely, they completely stopped as we crossed the border into Texas. Unfortunately, the snow didn't stop at the border.
I'm now sitting in the local Hooters restaurant attached to the Mall containing our JCPenney, at which I backed the truck up to the loading dock for a 4:30 AM unloading. It's now 11:23pm and the place has cleared out. And fortunately quieted down. Not where I would have preferred to go for dinner, but other than Red Lobster, Hooters is the only place within walking distance on this very cold and blizzardy night. (I was hoping for classic Tex-Mex.) The girls are cute but the outfits are stupid.
I asked the manager what the weather was like yesterday - 70 degrees. Just my luck that we'd arrive on the only blizzard night of the year. Victor is catching as much sleep as he can until he has to help unload at 4:30am. I'm sipping cheap tequila.
Back to Spanish Fork tomorrow. I'll drive through Monticello and Moab. Hopefully get some good photos.
I then took the wheel for the next nine hours and an almost continuous snow. I saw three pickup trucks spin off the road in front of me, one police SUV after it had impacted a guard rail, another pickup truck on it's roof in the ditch, a greyhound bus sized RV on its side blocking two lanes of traffic, a little tiny car with it's trunk crushed up against another guard rail, and a few other more forgettable accidents.
As we arrived in Los Cruces, I thought the 35 mph cross-winds were going to knock us over. Strangely, they completely stopped as we crossed the border into Texas. Unfortunately, the snow didn't stop at the border.
I'm now sitting in the local Hooters restaurant attached to the Mall containing our JCPenney, at which I backed the truck up to the loading dock for a 4:30 AM unloading. It's now 11:23pm and the place has cleared out. And fortunately quieted down. Not where I would have preferred to go for dinner, but other than Red Lobster, Hooters is the only place within walking distance on this very cold and blizzardy night. (I was hoping for classic Tex-Mex.) The girls are cute but the outfits are stupid.
I asked the manager what the weather was like yesterday - 70 degrees. Just my luck that we'd arrive on the only blizzard night of the year. Victor is catching as much sleep as he can until he has to help unload at 4:30am. I'm sipping cheap tequila.
Back to Spanish Fork tomorrow. I'll drive through Monticello and Moab. Hopefully get some good photos.
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