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August 27, 2006

Happy Birthday Tiffany

Tiffany turns 24 today. The ship is in the Port of Dover, just outside London. It has been 79 days, with 105 to go. She’s been to Iceland, the Faroes, Ireland, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Finland, St. Petersburg, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Germany, Denmark, the Nederlands, and Belgium. From here, the ship heads down to the Mediterranean and ultimately on to South America.

This makes two of her birthdays in a row that we’re not together. Last year, I was on a school trip in Hong Kong and Macau, where we lost everything playing the slots. (We bet HK$2, or about a quarter.) Macau also has a McDonald’s that doesn’t serve hamburgers, which I find completely offensive. It’s like a French restaurant with no baguettes.

Tiffany made her debut on this blog with this post, made shortly after we discovered Bello Sguardo, which has since become one of our favorite restaurants. Shortly after she appeared again when I quoted a Bill Safire column that introduced us to the word “muffin top,” a word that we found useful for describing when one's girth overspills his/her tight jeans like a muffin.

Her photo first appeared here 1/1/06, after we watched the New Year’s Ball drop over Times Square.

Shortly thereafter, we left for 10 days in Ireland, which I reported on here.


Giant’s Causeway, Ulster, UK

Then there was this famous picture from Spring Fling:

Here's to many more. Happy birthday, baby!

Posted by adrianjo at 11:59 PM

August 26, 2006

Happy 10th birthday

There are still liberals here in New York who complain about the 1996 welfare reform, which reduced the welfare ranks from 5M to 2M people, even while the poverty rate has fallen. (Go see them at Teachers' College.) Even in 2000, some intelligent liberals still complained about wefare reform. Now-Governor of Pennsylvania (then a professor at Penn) Ed Rendell complained bitterly with the same garbage liberals said about welfare reform, including how it was a disaster for cities that people should be forced off their duffs and into work.

This week, welfare reform turns 10, and the Wall St. Journal summarizes well:

The late Senator Moynihan is famous for having said that culture, not politics, is the key to changing most human behavior, and that the job of politics is to help nudge the culture in the right direction. Welfare reform worked because it was rooted in that wisdom, and in a basic understanding of human incentives. Support life on the dole, or reward having multiple children without a husband, and any society will develop a culture of dependency. That is where the U.S. was headed under the liberal ethos that compassion means sparing Americans of their individual responsibility to work and provide for their families.

Welfare reform was not a utopian project that promised to radically change human nature. It sought to make Americans more responsible by altering the incentives to remain dependent on the state. If only government were always so modest.

UPDATE: Chris over at Harlem Fur writes:

In response to your last post, which I read out loud to Cheryl, she asked, "where was that written?"

"The Wall Street Journal."

"Oh, that's nice. The people who read the Wall Street Journal are not the ones who need to hear it. They already know."

Meanwhile, Chris writes that Harlem is slouching towards becoming another Paramus, NJ. A Chuck-E-Cheese is opening on 124th St. While I've always been a supporter of redevelopment in Harlem, the neighborhood can't become a dumping ground for every sort of suburban chain restaurant and amusement center that can't afford the rent in Times Square or the Village. I put up with urban blight because I prefer it to suburban blight.

Posted by adrianjo at 10:37 AM

August 25, 2006

Those poor teachers, only making $70K/yr

My school-teacher mother won't like this, but one of the most persistant myths in America is that public school teachers are underpaid. It's almost as persistant as the myth that teachers' unions care about kids. Really, they're the same myth.

When they're being honest and think nobody's listening, teachers' union leaders will admit that they exist as collective bargaining units whose goal is the same as any other union: to maximize wages, minimize working hours, and make working conditions such that those who don't wish to work don't have to. (OK, maybe not in these words.) Hence their opposition to merit pay, where good teachers would make more. Hence the tenure system, which makes it impossible to fire bad teachers. In New York, even teachers accused of inappropriate sexual advances on students remain in the system for years because "their due process rights have to be respected," according to union officials.

Last year I attended a back-to-back lecture by two old women. One was a rather haughty buzzard, trailed around by a clumsy lackey who took her picture from every possible angle as she spoke. She was the head of the CSA, the principals' union in New York. She discussed how important the union is because it "protects principals' due process rights" and how Bloomberg's wildly successful reforms have "created an unbearable, hostile work environment for principals." She went on and on about how the principals' job is so tough, largely because of Gates-backed reforms, low pay (many make 6 figures), and new demands for accountability. She went on to describe how the New York Schools Chancellor wants her out, how they think she's an old relic, a dinosaur.

One person asked if the union feels any need to help weed-out bad principals. "No, if they hire a bad principal, that's their fault. It's our job to ensure that their due process rights are respected."

Another asked if the union helps train principals. "No."

One of my friends was growing increasingly frustrated. Her degree is in Education, and she asked, "So what does the principals' union do?"

The reply: "Our job is to bargain collectively on behalf of our members and ensure that their due process rights are respected by management."

Friend: "So you don't train principals, you protect bad principals, and you don't see any responsibility to help reform the system? Why haven't you said anything about your duty to help improve childrens' educations?"

Touche. (She felt bad for saying this, but I wanted to get up and cheer.)

After the old principals union buzzard left, another elderly woman stood up. She wore tastefully stylish clothes for a 70-something woman and looked a bit like Betty White, without that ditzy Golden Girls air. The union boss hadn't noticed her, or at least didn't recognize her. She looked every bit the distinguished lady, but she was clearly straining to hold in her frustration. Whenever a grandmotherly woman starts out by saying, "Let me tell you something," you know you're in for a ride. If anyone had any doubt that the principals union boss was exactly as Chancellor Klein might describe her, this septigenarian removed all doubt.

Before us was an old retired executive who spends her time and leverages her network to pair inner-city principals with business leaders. No lackey, no photos for the newsletter, certainly no six-figure salary. She's fabulously wealthy and doesn't have to spend her retirement in crumbling New York public schools. She proceeded to tell us how her organization pairs-up principals and executives and the things that had been learned along the way about small ways to make schools better.

It became abundantly clear who was part of the problem and who was part of the solution. When an educational union boss gives a lecture that mentioned almost nothing of improving kids' lives, and lots of things that detract from a good education (like protecting bad principals), and when a union boss sees her raison d'etre as "collective bargaining," unions can't be part of the solution.

So are teachers underpaid? They get a government salary paid by taxpayers, work 9 months a year, have 2 weeks at Christmas and a week in spring, have jobs for life (tenure), can't be fired if they do a half-assed job, and need only minimal college qualifications. But having all that, it's easy to demand so much more.

Teachers in Gary have recently decided to walk off the job, leaving the classrooms empty for poor kids who need teachers most. Their demands? Nothing that would improve education (smaller class sizes don't count). The sticking point is pay. Indeed, programming and building improvements are being cut to pay teachers more:

“Certainly all schools are experiencing challenges with their budgets and Gary is no different,” said [Superintendent] Mary Steele. “And we have offered them more than what we had available for teacher raises. So we’ve made some sacrifices even with some additional programming and renovations that we had set money aside to ensure that we put on the table that that we’ve put on already.” [source]

So how much does a Gary teacher make? $52,433, and a 3.5% increase over two years is "insulting," says one union member.

Given that teachers only work 9 months a year, $52K is the equivalent of $70K annually, plus gold-plated benefits. Underpaid? Whatever it is, it's not enough; it'll never be enough, they'll always be "underpaid." And this is why teachers unions are detrimental to public education.

Posted by adrianjo at 08:49 PM

August 23, 2006

More floorplan pr0n

More interesting real estate for sale in this new listing. It's not often that one can buy any space in New York that's 46 feet wide. At the $55M asking price, it's just over $1M per foot of street frontage for this mansion just off Fifth Ave. Check out the provenance of the house. Check the listing for some floorplan porn too. [HT: Curbed]

Posted by adrianjo at 11:04 PM

August 19, 2006

Disconnected by Boeing, part II

Boeing today announced that they're cancelling Conexxion by Boeing, the in-flight internet service. No big surprise, really, as I wrote here. It's nice to have in-flight internet on trans-pac or trans-atlantic services, but when the carriers don't provide power plugs for laptops in coach, 80% of the market is pretty-well eliminated. Nice idea, but try offering in-flight laptop juice first.

Posted by adrianjo at 01:52 AM

August 18, 2006

Removing annoying foreign things

I caught two girls staring at me on the subway this morning, and one was quite hot. As long as they're not staring because my fly is open, their looks make me feel good. And without the girlfriend here to give me a nightly rundown of who has hit on her today, I'll take what I can get.

I got a lot of looks going home today too, but it was for a different reason. After lunch, I went for an eye checkup, the first in two years, and the doctor found a "foreign body" in my right eye. I think the guy's been in the same office just off Fifth Avenue since the 1960s, and all that has changed is the Filippina receptionists. He managed to poke a needle-like device in my eye and pull out the "foreign body", which was so small that it was only visible under magnification. He said it was about as small as he's ever removed, and he seemed proud of his work. Why is it that my family so often give doctors things to be impressed about?

This left me with one eye so dialated that I look like I came from a horror movie. I decided to go home and sit here with that eye closed. And looking like such a psycho got me a lot of looks on the subway.

Posted by adrianjo at 05:11 PM

August 16, 2006

All shot-up

The guys are really fired-up to go see a Wild West Show, a roadside attraction over in Jersey. Here's a recent news item:

An actor at New Jersey's Wild West City, shot in the head during a fake gunfight on July 7th, came out of a medically-induced coma on Friday. According to local news reports, Scott Harris, 37, was said to be responding to some stimuli and was able to keep his eyes open. He remains hospitalized.

The shooting incident occurred two weeks ago Friday, during the Sundance show, one of the several scheduled simulated gun battles on the main street of the tourist attraction. Performer Harris was injured and later found to have an object lodged in his forehead that had been tentatively identified as a small caliber "bullet."

Oh really? The "object" has been "tentatively identified" as a "bullet"? Ya don't say? Why not just say the guy was shot in the head? How else did the bullet get there?

Local authorities initially had trouble determining exactly which state agency has jurisdiction in fake gunfight safety procedures (this is New Jersey's sole Wild West town).

Doesn't seem like it was a fake gunfight, does it?

Posted by adrianjo at 09:15 PM

August 12, 2006

The profile is obvious

The latest terrorist plan, for which some Muslim kid named Osama and his cohorts are in jail, involves a plan to blow-up the Mackinac Bridge, the 5-mile span that marks the fronteir between Lakes Huron and Michigan. They had a bunch of pre-paid cell phones, favorites of terrorists because they're hard to track and make nice detonaters. The Wall St Journal reports:

Defense lawyers said Messrs Houssaiky and Abulhassan planned to resell the phones simply to make money. They say the men were targeted only because they are of Arab descent.

Would that they were! 80-year-old American grannies from Iowa don't blow-up bridges. In fact, in every single terrorist incident in the last decade, the perpetrators have been young Muslim men. The most notorious terrorists before that (the Unabomber and the OKC bombers) were crazy recluses. Ordinary people don't blow-up big things. So forgive me when it becomes tempting to single-out likely terrorists based on certain factors that increase one's likelihood of being a terrorist. As the Examiner editorializes:

There is no room left for the blind politically correct procedures that ignore this reality — our enemy is nearly always a young to middle-aged man from a Muslim nation or culture, and it is madness not to focus mainly on those who most readily match the known profile.

Hat tip to Powerline, who also report this funny incident that shows what a joke airport security screening is:

This is a true story.

Two weeks ago I was flying back to NYC from WDC with a business colleague on the Delta Shuttle. We purchased our tickets at the gate 45 minutes before flight time. On our ticket was a code ssss. When we pulled up to the security check point, my friend and I were escorted into a holding area, a 10 by five foot plexi-glass box. We were told to wait because we had been tagged for additional screening. About a minute later, two more individuals were put in our box, a fully uniformed US Marine Colonel and Dan Rather. We were all put through extensive screening and then allowed to leave. While I can understand why my friend and I were put to additional screening, we fit a profile of two male on site buyers of one way tickets, the other two seemed like a complete waste of valuable time.

I do appreciate the irony of Dan Rather being searched, but still think it is a colossal waste of resources.

Posted by adrianjo at 11:20 PM

August 11, 2006

World's most expensive city: New York

Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) has a "most expensive places" survey that finally makes sense. The last survey I saw put Moscow atop the list, but it's possible to live there very cheaply. UBS's new survey gives the title to Oslo, the Scandinavian capital where even a cheap hotel is $200 and the train from the airport costs three times as much as a cab from the airport in Moscow. A short round-trip train from Oslo to Lillehammer put me back almost $100, which would get you a first-class sleeping berth on the overnight train from Moscow to St. Pete. And a simple cafe meal ordered at a counter in downtown Oslo was $19, which would get you nearly unlimited borscht in Moscow.

But where UBS tells us what we already know is this: the world's most expensive city including rent "by a wide margin" is New York, followed by London. With a typical New Yorker spending half his income on rent, it's nice to see that we can claim some distinction for all the hours we put into finding, securing, and paying for a place to live.

Posted by adrianjo at 09:57 AM

August 08, 2006

Why Indians don't flirt with the Marketing chicks

The Rants & Raves section of Craigslist is not the best place to go for enlightend conversation, but this one is actually pretty good:

I work @ AIG offices in Jersey City, NJ and have noted this interesting observation: Indian guys RARELY go out for lunch.

Noon rolls around and everyone is headed for the local eateries but the Indian guys have their Tupperware and head right for the microwave.

So I asked one of the many IT Indian guys, don't you guys go out to lunch? They were like.. no.. our wives prepare our lunch for us every day. Every day! Damn. These are some lucky f---ers. The last person who made lunch for me was my MOM.

And you can see the love in that moment.. the sauces are in one tupperware, the rice is in another tupperware, the dipping breads are wrapped in alimimum foil.. the silverware.. it's very clear that these guys have it together. They look meek and lanky and wussy, but their women cook for them every day! And you know they're getting dinner and breakfast and consistent sex.

No wonder you never see an Indian guy flirting with the hot chicks in Martketing.

Now I find myself VERY attracted to Indian females and see a lot of beauty in them where I didn't really notice them before.

You Indian guys had me fooled.. you guys are cool..

Posted by adrianjo at 10:52 PM

August 06, 2006

W is my middle initial (and has been since the 2000 election)

It was an eventful weekend, including three visits to the W Times Square in four days, probably eclipsing the previous record set when Alexander lived there for 6 months last year.

My brother Kyle arrived in town on Thursday night, his first visit to New York. I didn’t want him to think that Times Square is entirely a tacky tourist trap for gawking goobers, so we swung by the W’s Blue Fin restaurant for dinner. Kyle also learned how much it sucks not having air conditioning when the high is 98 degrees; certainly I am looking forward to such modern conveniences when my new condo is finished.

Friday after work we ended up back at the W, this time among the lounge lizards in the Living Room, though they’re not quite as obnoxious on Fridays compared to the weekends. While there, I got a call that dad had been hospitalized for emergency surgery. (If you’re not familiar with this long story, read the short version in this press account.) Apparently his knee had become infected after surgery late last month. America’s health system isn’t big on preventative care, so it took a week to get him into the doctor, and by then it was so bad that the doctor performed surgery right away. We think he’ll be fine, but it’s another set-back on the road to running the Chicago marathon this fall.

Saturday we had a surprise Chicago office reunion. I called JW to tell him that RF had just moved to town and invited him to join us for Sunday Brunch (at the W—where else?). He did me one better: “Actually, RF and I are doing dinner tonight with a bunch of others from Chicago.”

Sunday was the third trip to the W, where the Sunday brunch is perhaps the best kept secret in New York hotel dining. For $28, including drinks, tax, tip, and toll, it’s really a steal. RF recently left the Firm and found herself the *perfect* job—strategy associate at Coach, the big handbag concern whose CEO once told me that I “had no vision.” (That’s because I turned down the opportunity to participate in Coach’s IPO, and the stock has since gone up to 11 times its IPO price.) The only downside of working at Coach: you can’t be seen in public with Louis Vuitton! There’s no word on whether Coach employees can drink Moet or Hennessey.

Meanwhile Tiffany continues in her second month on the ship, mostly in the Baltic Sea right about now. Although she says she’s paid to “look pretty,” the working conditions aren’t always ideal. The singers are randomly assigned jobs not related to singing, including assisting with embarkation, something that’s clearly not in the employment contract. But when your employment contract is governed by the law of the Marshall Islands, it’s not much different from martial law. (Among the clauses in the contract: the ship can throw overboard the body of any crew member who dies at sea.) The singers and social hostesses do have a bit better job than the other crew members: today Tiffany hosted the Captain and some of the corporate bigwigs for a big dinner in the private dining room. Her job was to look pretty, eat lobster, and make pleasant conversation. (If this whole singing/acting thing doesn't work out, she might have a future as a consultant.)

Posted by adrianjo at 10:14 PM

August 04, 2006

Sounds tasty

I got so hungry in the office this morning that I proposed catching lunch hunter/gatherer style. Among the dishes I imagined:

Posted by adrianjo at 03:11 PM

Going up in smoke

Germans once paid $100M to buy a "death-trap" nuclear power plant in a city called Springfield without ever inspecting or seeing the place. The ended up losing half their money in a matter of weeks, though they still had enough money left over to buy the Cleveland Browns.

Now a German businessman thinks he can make money off the legions of people addicted to burning tobacco by making an airline that allows smoking. Ordinarly I'd expect a new airline to go out of business within two years, especially one that appeals to only about 20% of the population. (And many smokers like clean air, too.) But addictions are strong, and perhaps smokers will be willing to cough up $8300 to fly from Dusseldorf (a relatively small but new airport) to Tokyo-Narita. I just don't know which is stronger: the awful economics of the airline industry or addictions.

The Onion couldn't make this stuff up:

Non-smokers will also be encouraged to fly with Smintair.

"Allowing our guests to smoke is one of the freedoms we are happily prepared to grant," says the company's Web site.

"Non-smokers will find the cabin air more refreshing than on any other flight with any other airline, as Smintair adds fresh outside air to the conditioning system."

The website adds a rant about the Nazi Party, comparing those who favor clean air to Germany's best-known politicians:

Airlines are money pits and so is politics. This crazy German would be far better-off buying the Cleveland Browns.

Posted by adrianjo at 08:25 AM