Category: Lifestyle

The statistics following the 2010 U.S. Census are truly alarming. There is a sharp decline in the U.S. production of Prospective Husbands.

News of the decline in the current crop of Prospective Husbands caused the greatest trauma among single women. Upon hearing this dramatic news, the advocate group “Wimmin Who Ain’t Grinnin’” vowed to get to the bottom of the dilemma, launching an exacting study of the meager Prospective Husband crop. The following findings are the results of their exhaustive investigations:

• A significant number of Prospective Husbands have been discovered—weak, emaciated and nearly comatose–endlessly circling cities in mass-transit buses and subways while playing video games on portable electronic devices, zombie-like and apparently unaware of both passing time and of their surroundings.
• Entomologists hypothesize the viral popularity of young Justin Bieber may have spawned a widespread hormone imbalance such that Prospective Husbands are stuck in a larval state between childhood and manhood.
• Earth’s rising average temperature has reduced the willingness of Prospective Husbands to exercise, causing their already overextended waistlines to explode the elastic bands in their shorts and causing their once-comfortable belts to produce painful welts upon expanding bellies, driving Prospective Husbands into closets, far from potential physical contact with potential mates.

Therapists have suggested various treatments to combat this phenomenon, which scientists now call Husband Crop Decline. The most effective remedy appears to be widespread distribution of the most recent edition of the Peterson Field Guide to Humans, in which the social needs of the adult human female are described in detail.

A quick remedy for this dilemma is urgent. Sensing the decline of the Prospective Husband population, there have been multiple sightings of increasingly aggressive giant blue Smurfs, shopping for acceptable extra-large fashionable clothing to help them attract comely but lonely, disenfranchised human females.

If this sculpture were in a museum, it’s uncertain how it would be judged. Apart from its obvious automotive origin, how would we view it?

In some respects, this 1958 Oldsmobile, parked outside a grocery store, is laughable – too much chrome? Too overstated? Yup, maybe so. But also perhaps forgivable, in an age absorbed with rocket technology, fins and dreams of futuristic ideals.

As an overstatement, it’s a bit like Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral; there’s way too much going on here.

But maybe that’s why we find this treatment so fascinating. Unlike the ubiquitous boxes of today’s identical-DNA automotive generation (and, likewise, many standard-boxed non-Crystal Cathedral churches appearing in strip centers), it shouts “There is no other one like this!”

And, after all, isn’t that what we’re all wishing for?

It’s like nothing else. It soars. It’s unforgettable. Just what we’d want from a car and a cathedral.

And ourselves.

Where the ocean meets the shore, they wrestle for supremacy.

Day and night, in stealth maneuvers, they steal from each other; tides yield temporary victories, first to one, then to the other.

In storms, the sea makes power grabs for more sand and rock while the shore resists.

The ocean knows that, though it may be a long, long time in coming, it will prevail.

Note to self: Next time in Morro Bay, bring burdens to the shore where, like the sand and rock, they will wash away.

For seven of eight days in December, it rained every day in Morro Bay – not the sort of weather to be caught in. A person would surely not go camping in this weather – unless said person had planned a camping trip for months in advance, arranged time off work, and reserved tickets for the evening Hearst Castle tour.

In that case, such a person would obviously switch from lodging at a campground to a cheap motel – but not us. Instead, we made the best of our eight days of camping.

Here’s the countdown:

• 8 nights in the camper
• 7 days visiting the Black Horse Espresso and Bakery in San Luis Obispo
• 6 the number of those who played Chickenfoot dominoes in the camper
• 5 the number of the Hearst Castle evening tour we enjoyed
• 4 the number of our kids and their spouses who joined us for several days
• 3 movies at actual theaters (not Netflix!)
• 2 breakfast meals we enjoyed at The Coffee Pot in Morro Bay

     – and –

• 1 sunny day (pictured)

This 1959 Cadillac was in the parking lot of my local Best Buy store. I was 8 years old when these 2.5 ton, nearly 19 feet long vehicles rolled off Detroit’s assembly line and occasionally spilled onto the streets in Germany, where I lived. They were a shocking contrast to the tiny VWs, Goggomobils and Isettas that filled the streets.

The early automobile started out as a basic gadget to get folks from “here” to “there.” It seemed straightforward to Henry Ford, who in 1909 famously said of his Model T, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”

How did we get from “there,” when Ford uttered those words in 1909, to “here,” the 1959 Cadillac, 50 years later? Early, nimble and efficient vehicles had morphed into bloated gargantuan rocket ships resting on their sides, floating toward the horizon, spewing mega-doses of chemical toxins.

This comparison belongs to the world of Reverse Evolution. Instead of evolution’s survival of the fittest axiom, Reverse Evolution yields to the flourishing of the un-fittest – succumbing to the allure of gratuitous pleasure, dysfunctional ambition and wasted resources.

Of course, 1959 was a long time ago. We have now passed nearly 60 more years since then. Certainly we have learned our lessons well. Society has evolved – no more big-finned Caddys. No more squandering of resources on real or virtual pleasures.

Maybe we’re not quite all the way there yet. Bug-eyed fins are replaced by today’s version of ostentatious gadgetry, the microchip, powering a digital generations of self-serving, hedonistic electronic games, gizmos and apps. On the iPhone alone, at least 65 percent of the 2 billion downloaded apps are games. Add to that the smorgasbord of fatuous gaming choices on the PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Wii, and the combined capacity for gaming self-indulgence melts the brain.

Another 50 years will further morph the culture of extravagance. By then, today’s electronic playthings will be quaint museum relics. We don’t yet know what the next iteration of the Cadillac fins will be. But we can be quite confident that, whatever they are, they will have the capacity to fully absorb the avalanche of wasted resources and mental energies we will throw their way.

On Sunday I tried to purchase a portable cooking grill at a local hardware store. The floor sample was priced incorrectly. I was looking at the higher-end model, but the sample’s mismatched price tag was for its smaller, fewer-frills sibling. Hoping the adage that “the customer is never wrong” held true in this case, I decided to push back and ask to be awarded the lower price. The salesman dug in his heels. He advised me that I would have to take it up with the manager, which I did. After I explained my quandary to him, he fell silent; I knew not why. He pulled out a calculator, and after a few minutes, he came up for air. “I believe in compromises,” he said. How about if we take a percentage off the price of the higher-priced grill–say, twenty percent?” Ah, 20%! The magic number! “Sold, Bill!” sez I, seizing upon the opportunity to make a life-long friend out of the situation. I felt like latching onto him with a bear hug, like a contestant from The Price Is Right putting the death squeeze on Bob Barker. My final price was within $10 of the cost of the cheaper, far-fewer frills grill, and we both came out looking like winners.

Researchers tell us that 20% is a significant number in some management rules of thumb. For example, that’s the average percentage of participants who “buy in” to a particular enterprise or vision. And the efforts of those 20% provide 80% of the effective results of the enterprise.

A case in point. I used to work as a consultant for non-profit organizations. As I helped them strategize how they would meet their budgets, I knew my main task was to identify and target the top 20% of the constituents–those who were most highly involved in the organization. They were already often the top financial supporters. Ironically, we would craft ways for these very active givers to help provide even more financial support. The other 80% of supporters most probably would not significantly increase their efforts, no matter how much they were encouraged, coerced, or “stick-and-carroted.” It’s a waste of energy.

This phenomenon is appropriately known as the “vital few and trivial many” principle. Participants in many enterprises are passive (that’s the 80%); while they may count in the census of those who attend or consider themselves a part of an organization, they mostly go along for the ride, contributing little “value added.”

Some folks have turned fretting into an art form. Fretting about how one person can’t change much about life’s injustices. Fretting about famous folks that get all the attention. Fretting about having so little ability to influence. Fretting about lots of people involved in a cause or an organization, so why am I needed?

In a crowd of 100 folks, I might see myself as insignificant. Against such numbers, what do I have to offer? But wait! That doesn’t factor in the 80/20 percent principle. Only about 20 of those 100 people might have any sort of significant measurable impact. If I become one of those 20, now my efforts have been quintupled! Suddenly, of the original 100 participants, I find myself among only 20 significant “players.” And that gives me the opportunity to become an important 80% contributing member. Maybe I’m the person who can offer just the right “missing piece” of effort. By choosing to be significantly involved, I have just multiplied my formerly-measly efforts by five-fold.

Let’s take it to a personal level. I’m guessing that the average individual has far fewer than 100 significant relationships. Maybe 20? Maybe 10? But if we truly care about those persons that we know casually, and we invest quality time into each other’s lives, could we eventually enter into the top influencers in one another’s lives?

And I thought that all I accomplished today was getting a good deal on a gas grill.

To read more about Pareto’s Principle, visit:

http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Pareto081202.htm

My friend of 50 years, Anh-Tuan, took me for a walking tour of Little Saigon, in Los Angeles. To the untrained eye, this population of several hundred thousand Vietnamese—looks to be a culture that is thriving in Los Angeles. Then he began unraveling the challenges for such a community: inadequate parking, poor mass transit infrastructure, a thorough lack of city planning in general. And there is a lack of cultural sensitivity. This picture, taken in the heart of Little Saigon, displays Chinese, not Vietnamese-themed statuary.