Day Four

Snowing outside, temperatures falling, wind starting to gust a bit. A couple of inches on the ground with a couple more to come. It’s our third snowfall of the winter here in Short Pump, Virginia. Yesterday, my wife headed over to the new Publix mere hours before it was to begin and texted me: Publix is so quiet...either Richmonders have stopped freaking out about the snow, or this store is doomed...

I feel reasonably confident that my fellow Short Pumpians have not stopped freaking out about the snow.

Day Four at Shangri-La, Short Pump finds me getting more antsy by the minute. Our two bedroom, two bath suite seems to have shrunk considerably since Sunday. But, it’s the little things that are starting to annoy me. In case you’re wondering, we still have a blanket-covered stack of luggage in front of the vent to nowhere, having decided that our makeshift solution was preferable to having to pack up and move to a room with a more logical HVAC plan. I’ve moved on from the big things and started to obsess over the smaller annoyances...

- a coil top stove with burners that will not lay flat, leaving every pan deployed on them tilted manically 

- showers and sinks which feature dial turned spigots which go from arctic cold to scalding hot within a millimeter of each other

- trash cans so small, they are filled up halfway through the preparation of one meal

- a sofa which can’t decide if it’s a sofa, futon, or chaise lounge, but regardless of which it is, declares war on the spinal column of anyone sitting on it.

While all of these things are incredibly annoying to someone like me, I must admit that when you write them down and read back over what you’ve written, it practically screams back at you...First World Problems!!!  Here I am, four days into a stay in a hotel suite which is bigger, and more luxurious than the bedrooms of the world’s richest Kings two thousand years ago, and considerably more luxurious than the homes of over half of the world’s present population. I’m agitated about the scalding hot water while 2.5 billion people on this planet would give just about anything for clean running water at any temperature. So, yeah...I’m a spoiled American.

Something else has occurred to me during my stay at the Residence Inn...Network and cable television is doomed. Each night of our stay, we have had three televisions to choose from for the night’s entertainment. The standard cable package along with HBO is available, free of charge. Not once have we chosen to turn them on. Instead, we sit close together, huddled around my wife’s laptop to watch the latest episode of Black Mirror...on Netflix. We do so despite the tiny eleven inch screen and the inadequate speakers which require extreme concentration to hear. Sure, we watch Andrew Freiden in the morning, and we did watch the end of the Vikings / Saints game Sunday night, but that’s about it. I don’t think we’re alone. If I worked for one of the major networks or a cable television company, I would be looking to acquire a new skill set. Their days are numbered...

Day One in the Wilderness

Day one of our week in the wilderness has started well enough. Our suite here at the Residence Inn is at the lower end of the acceptable scale, but acceptable nonetheless. I have found nothing especially complimentary about the complimentary breakfast, except for the fact that it is, um...complimentary. Our quarters are a reasonable attempt to be like Homewood Suites. Of course, the attempt failed last night as we had finally settled in and noticed a cold draft pouring into our living room as if someone had left a door opened. Upon closer inspection we discovered the source of the freezing air...

To the untrained eye, this would appear to be a garden variety intake vent for heating and air. But when we felt frigid air rushing through the vent, we were perplexed. It was only when we removed the filter that we noticed...

...that it wasn’t attached to anything, sorta like a bridge to nowhere! That’s right, some genius decided that they would slap a vent opening on some random door, attach it to nothing, then allow the unheated crawl space to pass along freezing air directly from the great outdoors into our room. This is American mechanical expertise at its finest. Of course, both of us were too exhausted to call the front desk to report this outrage, since the prospect of having to haul all of our stuff to yet another room after so long a day seemed ridiculous. So, my wife brought another example of American expertise to bear...the jack-legged, jerryrigged solution...

Meanwhile, Lucy is adjusting quite well to her new surroundings. There have been a few low growls directed at other patrons walking past our door, an occasional bark that seems to startle her when the sound bounces off the walls, which is enough to make her stop. Having said this, I have to admit that the old girl is sleeping with one eye open...

Yesterday, someone made the observation that these next couple of weeks might give us a better understanding of what it must have been like for the Children of Israel when they were kicking around for forty years in the wilderness. Well, except for all the actual details of the story, this might be true on some warped scale. Yes, the Residence Inn is not our home, and yes, the promised land is so close we can taste it, but after that, everything falls apart. The complimentary breakfast is much tastier than manna, water comes out of the faucet, not a rock, and no animals will be sacrificed during our stay here if I have anything to say about it.

Hawaiian Nightmare

Yesterday, the fine people of Hawaii heard the wail of first alert sirens and for fifteen horrifying minutes, prepared for incoming ballistic missiles from North Korea. It was a false alarm, brought on by a series of inexcusable mistakes that boiled down to some idiot somewhere actually pushing the wrong button. Unfortunately, this hamfisted blunder had the citizens of Hawaii thinking that they had fifteen minutes to live before the fiery death of a nuclear attack. Their responses are/were fascinating.

Stories have filtered out of mothers huddled in closets with their children, of fathers trying to shield their children with their own bodies from the impending flash, of frantic calls and text messages speaking of deep love and affection...along with stories of copious consumption of whiskey, all very human reactions. As I have read these accounts the thought occurs to me...If I suddenly had fifteen minutes left, what would I do? What would you do?

Nobody can say with certainty what they would do under such circumstances. Our reactions are merely hypothetical approximations...what we think or hope we would do in a crisis is often at odds with what we actually would do. All of us would like to think that we would be calm, steadfast and heroic. No one wants to imagine themselves gulping Jack Daniels and cowering in a corner like a child. But, here is what I would probably do...

- Text or call my children to tell them that I love them.

- Hold on tight to Pam while awaiting the end.

- Confess my sins before Almighty God.

Then, if I had any time left....

- Lament the fact that I didn’t take the family on a month long European vacation, since I could have stiffed Capital One with the bill.

- Since it turned out that I shouldn’t have bothered, I would kick myself for putting so much money in my SEP.

- Enjoy a nice laugh realizing that all of those insufferable Bitcoin know-it-alls won’t be able to spend any of their new money.

- Take comfort in the fact that the coming nuclear apocalypse will also destroy Twitter.

- Delight in the realization that despite being, at best, an infrequent flosser, I will die with a full set of teeth.

- I would probably ask Alexa to play something by Sinatra.

- I might consider cooking up the last of the bacon, assuring that my last smell would be the very best smell.

Anyway, my heart goes out to the citizens of Hawaii. What a nightmare to have to endure because of a false alarm. I’m hoping that when they find the guy(or girl) responsible, he or she is punished to the fullest extent of the law. 

A Word About Shitholes

Yesterday, with sudden and mighty force, a new word entered the American vocabulary...shithole. While it might be argued that this isn’t really a new word, or even a word at all, because it came from the mouth of a sitting President, it has been thrust into the limelight by a news media suddenly aghast at foul language coming from the Oval Office. But, with this word, like all others, context is important. Our president used this term to describe a country, or countries, from which he didn’t wish any more immigration. The specific countries in question were, depending on which news account you prefer...Haiti or any country from the African continent. In some quarters the use of the epithet “shithole” to describe countries populated predominantly by black people is clear evidence of racism. Others point out that a healthy immigration policy should begin and end with skills-based requirements, the unlimited entry of unskilled poor people from countries that can be described as shitholes not being the kinds of places where one finds highly skilled professionals. What to make of all this?

First, I think that most reasonable people would be willing to acknowledge that this world does in fact contain many shitholes. Anyone who has ever wandered off the grounds of their luxury hotels in Jamaica would soon be confronted with conditions that closely resemble something fairly described as shithole-like. There are vast regions of this planet where shitholery abounds. Indeed, if some of the journalists who are catawauling the loudest at the moment were dropped in the middle of a Haitian shantytown, the word shithole would fairly leap from their lips. But, does the existence of shitholes mean that we should not allow immigration from such shitholes? This is a different question that deserves greater attention.

The words of the President yesterday ignited a firestorm on Twitter. One particular thread I read was instructive. Someone with a vowel-heavy last name proclaimed...The Mayflower didn’t come from Haiti!!!...to which someone else, who has my undying admiration, replied...It didn’t come from Poland either! 

When the first wave of immigration surged into this country from Ireland after the great potato famine, I feel confident that conditions in Ireland at that time could fairly be described as shitholeish. The conditions in Dickensian London that propelled people across the Atlantic were certainly at least close to shithole territory. The truth is that throughout our history, the people who have fled to this country have all pretty much been fleeing something horrible, whether from European horribleness or Asian horribleness or, yes, African horribleness. During periods of great inflows, our government has passed laws that sought to limit one sort of immigrant over another. I believe that this is perfectly fine. It is the responsibility of any government to control its border. The question becomes, are the rules we propose designed to limit people bases solely on their race, regardless of their qualifications? With regards to Haiti, it appears that our President is neck deep in racist intent, especially when you consider the fact that the average immigrant from Haiti is more educated than the average American. Is it merely a coincidence that our chief executive used the modifier shithole only to refer to African nations? While Jerry Falwell Jr. could probably come up with a way to justify this latest rhetorical bomb, the rest of us, probably not. 

Seems like just yesterday I read an incredible story about some guy who raced into a burning building to rescue five strangers. On his second trip into the inferno he died in the flames. The hero in question was a private in the National Guard, and an immigrant from the African nation of Ghana. When the President famously asks, “Why do we want all these people from shithole countries coming here?” The answer is, because that’s what America is, a place created by people great and small, fleeing shithole countries for a chance at a better life. I don’t object to having rules for entry. I don’t care how oppressed you are, if you have tuberculosis, you ain’t getting in, pal.

But, if our reasons for denying someone entry into this country are based on racist assumptions of your value as a human being because of where you come from, or what color your skin is, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Planned Obsolescence

It is 6:12 am and I am sitting at my desk at the office, clean shaven, showered and ready for my day. After a fitful night of half sleep, I finally gave up at 4:15, so here I sit. I blame this all on my empty house. 

Yesterday, the furniture movers arrived and cleared out everything except the refrigerator from downstairs. This morning they come for that. After a late appointment yesterday, I met my wife over at a friends house for dinner, so I didn’t get home until about 9. I can’t tell you how disconcerting it was to walk into a dark and empty house, and hear your voice echoing off the bare walls. By 10:30 or so I was exhausted by a long and rigorous 10 hour business day. I collapsed into bed and was asleep practically before my head hit the pillow. But within a couple of hours I was wide awake. A couple of hours ago I read my twelve pages from Numbers. Now, I’m alone in my office a full two hours before my first appointment is due to arrive. This place is creepy quiet at this hour.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re up super early, every detail of your environment comes into sharper focus? For example, I don’t think I have ever noticed this before, but my desk chair has started to list a bit towards port. How did I never notice this before? It is definitely leaning to the left, irritatingly so. Upon closer examination, the left side of the seat cushion is more worn, reflecting this unequal weight distribution. All of a sudden, my chair is intolerably uncomfortable. This stupid chair can’t be more than five years old and I paid good money for it. Now it’s tilting to one side? 

This is an outrage. Office chairs are only good for half a decade now? The big shots at the chair factory are cooking planned obsolescence into office furniture now? What the heck ever happened to the reliable, comfy chair? A couple of days ago I walk into the office and notice that there was a furniture truck outside and six sleek new conference room chairs were being carried into our office while the old ones were headed out the back door to Goodwill. This, despite the fact that the old chairs didn’t have a mark on them and had given us 8 years of faithful service without a single chair-related fatality. What in the world was going on? My partner informed me that these new ones were more modern and stylish, and would contribute to a more 21st century look. They actually are more modern and stylish looking, I had to admit, while being about as uncomfortable as the old ones. But still...conference room chairs only have an eight year lifespan? When did this happen? When in the world did basic business environment furniture start either falling apart or becoming hopelessly unhip in less than a freaking decade?? 

I need a good night’s sleep...

How Much Is Enough?

How much is enough? This is one of the weightiest questions that this world asks of us. If you gathered all of the world’s bounty into one place and stood on a high place to survey it, how much of it would satisfy you? How much would be your fair share? The arguments that flow out of this central question have been the source of intense, often violent debate over the course of human history, indeed most wars have been fought over variations of the question of who is the rightful owner of what. I bring this up for a couple of reasons, the first being my lifelong quest to discover the answer and second, the news yesterday that the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos’ personal net worth had exceeded 100 billion dollars.

The fact that one human being could possibly be worth that much money is repulsive to a lot of people. I noticed several people on Facebook venting their disgust at Bezos for his hoarding of so much money. Their argument goes something like this: Why, if he weren’t so greedy, he could solve the world’s poverty problem by giving it away to charity! Someone even attempted to do the math and incorrectly declared that he could give every person in the world like a million dollars and still have billions left over!! (Fabulously wrong) Never mind the fact that much of Mr. Bezos’ wealth consists of the value of his shares of Amazon stock, an entirely paper number. It’s not like the man sits, Scrooge-like, in the basement of one of his mansions running his hands through 100 billion dollars of gold coins every night. Still, 100 billion dollars is an unfathomable number. Put it perspective, if Bezos were to decide that he was tired of the rat race and just wanted to retire and live the rest of his life in leisure, he would have to run through about 10 million dollars a day for the rest his actuarial life to spend it all! Surely, he has enough...right? So why is he still so driven?

My own grappling with this question has been a contentious personal battle. In many ways I’m no different than anyone else. I like nice stuff. I enjoy a fine car, a beautiful and comfortable house, and nice clothes. I enjoy taking long and expensive vacations and shorter, more frequent weekend getaways. Nothing gives me more pleasure than being able to spoil my kids. All of these things require money. So, I pursue the acquisition of money with relative gusto. But, is there a point beyond which this pursuit is counter productive? When does the pursuit of wealth become an exercise in vanity? That’s the essential struggle of the thing...how much is enough. 

One of the problems lies with the fact that the answer to this question cannot be found in a vacuum. The reason the answer is elusive is because we aren’t alone in the pursuit. How much I have will always and forever be compared with how much my neighbor has. Wealth is basically how this world keeps score. It’s a store of value, a means of ranking one thing against another. When I walk into someone’s home for the first time, my mind seems to always start comparing the house and everything in it to my own. If the house is larger, the furnishings more ornate and grand, I conclude that the owner is wealthier than I am. As long as this conclusion doesn’t result in me coveting my friends house and stuff, I suppose I’m ok. But, sometimes I have to admit, I succumb to a creeping resentment. Why is this? Why should I begrudge anyone else their stuff?? It makes no sense to me. And yet...there it is. 

I have made much progress over the years in this regard. When I was younger, envy of the prosperity of others was a much more powerful emotion. It served as a great motivator. As I’ve gotten older, envy has faded from me, but for reasons that I don’t entirely understand, envy has never completely disappeared. It’s like it’s hardwired into my soul, this desire for...more. Which brings me back to Bezos.

What would I do if I were worth 100 billion? It’s easy for me to say that I would keep, say, 20 million for myself, and give the rest away to the poor. Frankly, having that much money would be an embarrassment to me. It’s also easy for me to have an opinion about what Jeff Bezos should be doing with his money, since I’m not the one who earned it. Nothing is quite so easy or sublime, after all, than spending somebody else’s money. Maybe if I was worth 100 billion, I would be an entirely different person, in fact, I’m sure of it. That’s because at some point on the scale, wealth changes a person. I’ve seen it in my business a thousand times. Someone inherits a bunch of money from a relative and they go nuts. There is a reason they call it life changing money. But, is the change that comes with wealth a good or bad thing? I don’t know. I guess it depends on the person.

I’ve reached an uneasy agreement with this question over the past couple of years. I know what my number is. It’s not that I would turn down a higher number, but I’m done chasing. I have discovered that the value of something isn’t the same thing as its price. Often in life, enjoying what you have is more valuable than chasing won’t you don’t have. A happier house is more valuable than a bigger one. My number is one that leaves me room to be generous to those who struggle. I think this is the point of that scripture verse that says...to whom much is given, much is required. If I am fortunate enough to have accumulated enough wealth to live a full, unrestricted life, then I’m in a position to help others along the way who might need a break. That has to be the purpose of wealth, right? Otherwise, if all money is for is a bigger car, bigger house and fancier stuff, then it’s meaningless and empty.

Unsettled

Behold the uninspired condition of my library. This is a result of the work of just two highly skilled women, employed by my insurance company, who showed up here a couple of days ago to pack up every thing in the downstairs of our house. Earlier today, two not so highly skilled piano movers arrived to load up our piano for safe keeping during next week’s hardwood floor refurbish job. In the short time the dudes from Richmond Piano were here, we heard a vaguely musical thud which produced this:

No worries, the moving guy said. I have taken a photograph and someone from the company will call you in a couple of weeks to set a time to come fix the hole. Lovely.

This Friday I’m told that yet another crew will arrive and transport all furniture and boxes from the downstairs of our house into our garage. Shortly thereafter, on Sunday, Pam and I along with poor, unsuspecting Lucy will move into a two bedroom suite at a local Hotel for seven days and seven nights,(more reading the Bible in 90 Days humor). All of this is happening during the very busiest month of my business year, leaving me with a very unsettled feeling, made infinitely more so by a series of financial obligations which are all competing for my attention, each making pushy, petulant demands...me first, me first!!!

Once all this house repair work is done and we are moved back into our house, I will be fine. I’m just not very good at dealing with disruptions to my routine. I am a creature of habit, and while I love having those habits rearranged during vacations and what not, when I’m home and at work...not so much. That’s the best thing about home, truth be told...predictability, reliability, and comforting routine. 

So, the theme for these next three weeks or so will have to be...flexibility. My goal will be to deal with one catastrophe at a time, and if something horrible and unplanned happens, I will do my best Ted Kennedy impression and drive off that bridge when I get to it.