Aisle 11

Paper Pulp-Based Items

Big Picture People

Although I am genetically mandated to deconstruct concepts in order to understand them, I am a "big picture" kind of gal. I think it's important to see the whole in order to make good decisions about the parts.
That said, I think "big picture" thinking has a fatal flaw, and it's critical that us BPs be closely monitored by detailed types. You know - accountants, attorneys, and others who review such minutia as footnotes and whether the electrical outlets are in the right place. To rebel against the monitoring, or to scare the voice of their findings is to periodically look like an idiot.
Our little coastal town used to have a creepy little Safeway that sold perishables perilously close to their expiration date. The interior was shabby and ill conceived, but employees overpowered that with their terminally sunny dispositions. "How ARE you today?" they'd shriek just as the automatic door creaked open. "Are you FINDING everything okay?" you'd hear, as you pulled your mangled card from its rusty union.
It was a great place to go in a hateful mood, because of the myriad of smart-ass retorts that danced gleefully in your head. My personal favorite discourse was asking where incense was, when inevitably asked if I needed help. "Insects? Why would we carry insects?" Why, indeed.
Better yet, you are always asked if you need help with your merchandise. Yeah, ask that 80 year old woman if she'll help me lug my dental floss to the car. I don't think I can make it.
Well, all good things come to an end. They tore down the dingy little Safeway and built a great, big, huge Safeway down the street. This bad boy was gigantic. We walked by on the river walk watching it rise from the ground, wondering how far past the opening date on the banner it would finally open.
When the shell was complete, little by little the store took shape. Aisle after aisle, we peeked in anticipation.
Then, the fatal flaw. Those bigwigs in Safewayland, driving up in their rented luxury cars, were either all big picture people, or beat their detail oriented minions into submission.
Aisle 11 - Greeting Cards and Incontinence.
God bless them, every one.

Mad Dog Kitty

Heart vs. Life

In my heart, I am a philanthropist.
In my life, non-profit organizations, with their circuitous operating style, endless meetings, ridiculous committees, lack of focus and volunteer mentality, remind me of organized religion. At least they produce similar chest pounding, fist clenching, teeth grinding fury.
I can practice Vodou because it's very honest with the vodouissant. Their belief system has a horizontal business chart. It's entertaining, relevant, does not require attendance, and if you do go, there's lots of dancing, music (well, drums) and revelrie. They like their saints, and they believe their saints like them, too. It's disorganized religion at its finest, but it gets the job done. Hougnans and mambos (their clergy) answer to no one, run their peristyle (church) any way they want, and behave like more like neighborhood grandparents than fire and brimstone spouting holy rollers. It doesn't pretend to be organized. Life is messy.
For the last five years, I've lived in a beautiful little community on the Oregon coast. There were two warnings I ignored before getting mixed up with three non-profits: one, from a local (who no longer speaks to me) who warned against joining anything for at least a year; and two, there are seven different kinds of Lutheran churches here. Under ten thousand people, and seven kinds of Lutherans.
Like I said, I ignored two big fat signs.
Most people who work or volunteer for non-profits are basically good souls with good intentions. That ends the plus side of the ledger.
None had a mission statement that was worth a shit. Most didn't know why it was important to have a mission statement at all, nor did they think it was an important thing to spend time working on. They knew why they were there. The problem was, they all knew something different.
The Boards of Directors had between four and thirteen members, but four people always did all the work. Those four people made sure everyone knew how hard they worked. It was not relevant whether the work was critical to the mission of the organization. It was hard work and they spent a lot of time on it, whatever the hell it was.
Finances were always a disaster. No one knew, or cared, what dual control was. Conflict of interest was rampant, funds (if there were any) were managed badly, and no one gave a damn. Thanks for your hard work.
Meetings were torture. If there were an agenda, it was passed out seconds before the meeting. People blathered on about nothing in particular, and were miffed if asked what agenda item was being blathered about. It was very, very important to be nice. These people were working hard, and were underpaid, if they were paid at all. Consensus was king. Did we all AGREE? Well, allrighty then.
There was constant actionable behavior. By actionable, I mean there could have been a lawsuit that even Johnny O (a local sleaze-ball attorney) could have won against the organization. Breach of contract, inappropriate physical contact, conflict of interest, and more.
Further, the most Officer and Director Liability Insurance coverage for any of these three places was an aggregate amount of $1 million. On that board, that was a whole $100,000 apiece. Yikes! Bye!
Nothing, of course, happened. Lots of money was badly spent, with no competitive bidding (hey Dick! Let's give this contract to Halliburton!). Competent people were fired or left in disgust, and the status quo reins supreme.
My friend, Dr. Tessa Warshaw, used to teach "Financial Planning for Women" with me. Her book, titled Rich is Better (after the old Sophie Tucker quote, "I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is better.") encouraged people to dump the "poverty mentality." Her theory was, in short, that somewhere along the way, some people learned that money was evil. With this knowledge, they behaved in a way to ensure that evil would not permeate their lives. She spent her life attempting to debunk that myth.
I was very unsuccessful as a board member for non-profits. I am an unashamed capitalist, have been a business person for the majority of my life, and have little patience for misrepresentation. Non-profit organizations and organized religion have an evil commonality.
They're not organized.
My man, an insightful writer with a quick wit and sharp eye, summed up my frustration in dealing with people who were constantly fund raising to make their measly little payroll. "Watch it, Kitty," he warned. "They're going bake sale on you."
Therein lies the rub. You can't mix a girl who goes ballistic with an organization that goes bake sale.
You can bank on that.

Clint, Roxy and Perry

Ogu

Vodou Deity of Technology

Glimpses

Don't you just love those little glimpses of truth you get when you are trying to solve a problem? Those little peeps into the big answer, that flash like a feather dancer for a split second, teasing you into believing that you might actually get it if you stick with it for an eternity or so?
Me, too.
I've been spending the last decade and a half playing with macroeconomics. It's big, messy, and not very many people do it well. I love it.
Not one to take anyone's word for anything, I had to take it apart. Why do so many so-called smart people come to such radically different conclusions? What are they looking at? What weight do they allot which pieces of data? Why? Who's right most of the time? Who's not? What are they doing differently?
First glance went to Elaine Garzarelli. She wore short skirts, got busted for DUI, and was always talking about her indicators. Like a little tease, though, she'd just give you a hint at what she was doing. Rumor was, she predicted the 1987 correction, although the specifics are sketchy.
After subscribing to her ridiculously pricey newsletter for a year, I was able to replicate parts of her model. It failed to predict any subsequent correction, however, and Elaine looked more and more addled. Lehman Brothers canned her and I moved on, too.
During this period, I had completed UCLA's Financial Planning program, and was asked to teach Security Analysis. Fun at first, it became more and more tedious. A financial statement is a financial statement. Cash flow is cash flow. Once mastered, the only hope of rising above the crowd is to lie creatively. Enron's cash flow went to vague footnotes. WorldCom just plain lied. Point - Enron. Yawn.
Then, I was asked to teach Managing Investment Portfolios. Prerequisite - Differential calculus. Whee!
For this, you had to understand the positive and negative corrolation of stocks, bonds, real estate and commodities, and enough macroeconomics to determine the correct mix of asset classes at any particular point in time for people of varying risk tolerances. Electrical engineers, software engineers and other assorted geeks piled in. I tried to deconstruct each component both for myself, and for the engineers, who are going to take it apart anyway. We argued about which indicator gave most information about what, and which was most important. Our class, 6PM to 9PM, often lasted until the janitorial staff glared at us from the halls.
Together, we put together a pretty good construct. When the class was ending, they asked, "What shall we read?" Barron's, I said. Read the Economics Editor of Barron's and put together your own data. Don't listen to anyone. Do it yourself.
Next, I looked at Value Line, the best performing long range investment portfolio for the last 25 years. How did they do it?
They don't give a clue what their system is, so I tested and tested and tested my own to see if my conclusion (percentage of equity vs. debt investments) was similar. Voila!
After only two and one-half years, we matched conclusions consistently.
Much of the basis for tweeking data came from the Economics Editor of Barron's, the brilliant Gene Epstein. Brilliant is not a word I use frequently. I think most people's economic research is spotty, short-term, and incomplete. Not Gene.
Anyhow, Gene just wrote a book called Econospinning. It's the book I wish I'd had when I was teaching. It's Economics without some schmuck's opinion being passed off as a fact. It's the concept of the show I wanted to do at my local community radio station, but on a scale of one to ten, those tie-die wearing, patchouli smelling, folk song singing hippies cared about it about point zero zero zero one. And that's with rounding.
So, if you want a glimpse of heaven, buy this book.
If not, at least subscribe to The Economist, so we'll have something interesting to argue about.

Stained Glass Lamp

'N' More

'n' More is a ubiquitous Northwest concept. Mattress 'n' More, Vacuums 'n' More, Print Quick 'n' More signs dominate what passes for this rural coastal community's business district.
I had my stained glass lamp repaired at Vacuums 'n' More, and she did an excellent job at a reasonable price. In a mere four months, my shattered lamp was nearly new again. She was polite, chatty and helpful.
I also had my clock repaired at a local jeweler. Grouchy, overweight staff took the clock and said it, too, would be completed in four months. It was. The mysterious only-clock-repairman-on-the-north-coast did a fine job at a reasonable price.
Statistically, of course, this is far too small an 'n' More sample from which to draw a conclusion, but that little detail doesn't stop news services and drug companies, so I'll ignore it, too.
Why does everything take four months?
I have a couple of theories.
One is weather. People learn to appreciate beautiful weather here. It's not pervasive, like in Southern California. If it's over 50 degrees and the sun is out, young girls are in flip-flops, tube tops and shorts. Men are fishing and hunting. Staff is cut to a minimum at businesses that do bother to open. Tradesmen cancel appointments (usually by not showing up. You either figure it out, or harass it out of their clueless skeleton staff). Restaurant service grinds to an even slower than usual pace, and huge mommies lumber through store aisles with their twinkies, cheetos and bologna and stall check-out lines with a plethora of coupons. Enjoy this BEAUTIFUL day!
There's really no competition here. If a competent person is found, he is elevated to rock star status. He books up weeks in advance. Only your best friends will tell you about him. You take what he gives you, both in timeframe and price. He has you by the short hairs, and knows it. The four month wait is worth it.
Then, there's education. Some of this laissez faire attitude is cultural. A high school education seems to be just fine here in Astoria. It's a deep, dark secret how many graduates of CCCC (Clatsop County Community College) go on to a four-year university, or graduate at all, for that matter. The English language, never safe with a 19 year old in any American city, is cheerfully mutilated here. Not slang. Simple, grammatical stuff, that you learned in the third grade, is mangled, e.g., Do ya want these 'uns or those 'uns?
There's more. While the Port of Astoria should be a bustling enterprise, it's run by yahoos that recently tried to go into business with very obviously bankrupt Calpine. With full support of the local accountant on their board, their rationale to partner with this debt-riddled bohemoth was 75 living wage jobs. Bet they would have been fired for spotty attendance, if they passed the drug test.
So, I've cracked the code for you. 'n'More means whatever the business offers in addition to their main enterprise, will take four months.
You're welcome.

Audience

Fan-fucking-tabulous

It was the most incredibly awesome of times. It was the most amazingly horrific of times.
Welcome to the time of the stretchy descriptor, and we're pulling it to the breaking point.
How am I? Not fine, thank you. I'm FABULOUS. I'm not smart. I'm BRILLIANT.
We've lost the middle class of emotion, either elated or suicidal.
I used to be groovy. That was kind of a laid back, go with the flow, everything's cool kind of time. That word was killed by extremists, the fabu-faction of contemporary big feelers that tachs in the red line every minute. Guzzling Red Bull, drug of choicing meth, extreme sporting, loud talking emotional bullies are taking over the airwaves. Singers scream at me, with tears pouring down their faces. Dancers flail at me with their bruised, but determined bodies.
There are worse Type A's than I. Not much worse, but I'm not teetering on that extreme. I will say, however, that if I think you're wired, you'd be well advised to back off.
And I think Gen Y is amped. Full boar. Going to the brink. And I wonder.
Why are they so fat?
Maybe it's not big feeling at all. Maybe it's a big, fat feeling audience.
Cheetos, anyone? There's a train wreck on.

Genius Nephew in Training