Alan A. Taylor (see #4)

      I listen to a lot of podcasts, on a very wide variety of subjects. Some are mundane behavioral economics stuff, some profane; I like the witty and irreverent podcasts that educate and provide a laugh, but I’ll give any recommendation a listen. One I listened to recently on my old person morning walk was titled, 'Things we learned in 2019' by a consultant named Tom Whitwell at Fluxx, it was a Planet Money podcast. He’s been making a list of 52 factoids since 2014, one for each week in a year. Some made me laugh uproariously, some made me think, others shocked me. Here's a few of my random favorites, the hyperlink takes you to the research just to show you this shit isn’t made up, the only thing original in this blog are my comments in parenthesis. 

1. 28% of people like the smell of (their own) urine after eating asparagus.[Rolf Degen] (I had to listen to that twice to make sure I heard that right. Guess I’m in the 72% that doesn’t sniff their pee.)
2. Advertisers place a single brown pixel on a bright background in a mobile ad. It looks like dust, so users try to wipe it off. That registers as a click, and the user is taken to the homepage. [Lauren Johnson] (Okay, that’s evil. Extraordinarily clever, but still evil.)
3. Peppa Pig tattoos are big in China. [Kenrick Davis] (I have no tattoos, but I’d consider a temporary Peppa Pig tat to freak my wife out.)
4. Using a middle initial makes people think you’re clever. [Wijnand A. P. Van Tilburg & Eric R. Igou] (Hey Wijnand A. P. And Eric R.  - I get it! - Alan A. Taylor)

   

   Alan A. Taylor on the right. Gwyne, about to be freaked out by my Peppa Pig  tramp stamp tat on the left.

5. 54 percent of Chinese born after 1995 chose “influencer” as their most desired occupation. [Charlie Gu] (I take this as meaning they want to be beautiful, get free things and not work. A large fraction of that 54% will not end up being influencers, so I hope they have a good back up plan.)
6. In the UK, marriages between couples over 65 have risen 46% over the last decade. [Cassie Werber] (Hip hip hurrah for hope! My parents once met two 90+ year olds who were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. That's one of the best stories I ever heard.) 
7. In a mixed-gender group, when women talk 25% of the time or less, it’s seen as being “equally balanced”. If women talk 25–50% of the time, they’re seen as “dominating the conversation” [Caitlin Moran] (Note to men: shut the fuck up.)
8. A Dutch bike manufacturer reduced shipping damage by 70–80% by printing a flatscreen TV on their boxes. [May Bulman] (I want my next bike shipped in a box that says it’s plate glass. And I’m a serial bicycle buyer and seller.)
9. Every day, WhatsApp handles twice as many messages as the entire global SMS system — around 40bn messages [Benedict Evans] (I love WhatsApp. I got my family on it and communication is so much easier and that’s the best way in the world to get in touch with me. But I react to that ping like a rat being run through a maze.)
10. The web is less than 8,000 days old. [Danny Quick] (8,000 days seems like a smaller number than almost 22 years, but still. So much, so far, so fast. I used to have to talk to people. I’m glad that’s over with.)
11. Amazon customers spend an average of $529 a year. Amazon Prime customers spend $1,340. [David Holmes] (We have Prime. Amazon owns us.)

Kwajalein - 7th tour

     I was traveling in Vietnam sometime in April/May looking for a warm weather winter get away for Gwyne and I when an e-mail popped up asking if I'd consider going to Kwajalein and helping out for few months. Gwyne gave me the okay and this four months turned into seven, but that's the way these gigs almost always work. I briefly considered staying a full year for the tax break, but 'please stay' just can't compete with 'please come home.' It was wonderful to see old friends who I've known for 50+ years and good friends I worked with in Afghanistan. I'm glad I came. I’m also glad I’m leaving. The world is such a big, interesting place. I didn't find the right warm weather place to escape winter last year, so I'm ready to go back and start exploring again. At least that’s the story I’m selling Gwyne.
     It was also fantastic to reconnect with my Marshallese friends. There are very few Marshallese who work on Kwajalein who don’t know me, and that seemed to be a problem for some people. There was a view that I favored Marshallese employees or that they could come to me and I would magically make their troubles go away. Not at all true and my boss knew that. Then one of the three Kwajalein Senators went to her to attempt to get an employment decision reversed. She politely and professionally said all the right things to him, employment actions are confidential and we're contractually obligated to follow all local laws and regulations. He paused and said something that didn't help the perception. At all. When he realized he wasn't getting the result he wanted from her, he abruptly said, "Where's Alan?" Again, not helpful at all.

Same same...but different

     But it didn’t stop there. A few in the upper echelons of management wanted to know why the Marshallese came to me instead of their respective managers.  I listened. I tried to be patient. I failed, and patience is one of my strong suits. Because bluntness is too, I said, “They come to me because they've gone to their managers and they're not getting the answers/resolution they are looking for. I speak Marshallese. I work in Employee Relations. This is not complicated.” I was in fine fettle. When you are a few days away from retirement (again), and you have zero f**** left to give, it's so much easier to speak freely. They said the Marshallese see me as their savior, that I can help them get out of trouble. I said now, now, that's a bit too much, even for me. Like I said, I was feeling cheekier than usual that day. They asked why our conversations had to be in Marshallese and I replied they don't, but most people feel more comfortable talking in their first language. And then remember, I was in fine fettle and feeling very cheeky, I delivered the next line with an absolutely straight face as I stood and was halfway out the door. It's (mostly) not true, but I said, “Well, sometimes we talk about you in Marshallese.  That way you won't know what we’re saying.” I waited for a moment to see their expression, which included a dropped jaw. As you may imagine, it was just the reaction I was going for. 

Triggers

     We all have triggers in life, moments that can revive memories, sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I had two chuckle worthy memories that were triggered a few days ago. I was video chatting with my younger brother Andy on WhatsApp, laughing about our past foibles. Then I went to have lunch at the Pacific Dining Room (PDR). Those were the two triggers and they're related. Here are the memories.
     After I graduated High School on Kwajalein, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I still don't, although I’ve sure ferreted out a bunch of things I don't want to do. In order to avoid adulting, I worked construction for Martin Zachary with a bunch of Hawaiians. Everyone called me Haole boy and that was okay, because that's obviously what I was. Chige Sakamoto was my boss. Chige was Japanese/Hawaiian, he had a wispy mustache, wore green tinted aviator style glasses and always, always wore a white V-neck t-shirt. Chige seemed to take particular pleasure in barking out orders to me which, without variation began with, "Haole boy, COME!"  I was a General Laborer and if you're a General Laborer, you get all the shit jobs and that was okay too, that's just where I was in life. The job paid an hourly rate of $4.50/hour (Chige said I was overpaid), came with a room in the Pacific Bachelor's Quarters (PBQ) which included about 5 roommates and a meal card. That meal card entitled me to three square meals a day. The room at the PBQ ended up being a storage space for my road bike, I moved back in with my parents because well, it was more inviting than living with 5 roommates. That's right, I was a boomerang kid before it was a thing. I set up a fruit dehydrator on the roof of the house. It was a simple affair, a raised wooden box, wire mesh bottom and plexiglass cover to keep the flies and other vermin at bay. It also sat in 4 bowls of water - that was the only way I could keep the ants out. I shamelessly liberated a lot of apples and papayas every day to dry; papaya spears took about 3 - 4 days to dry, apples shriveled up in a day and those who know me well know just how shameless I can be. Andy and I shared a room, and I always had a huge bowl of dried apples sitting on my dresser.  I came back one day and it was empty. Andy said he had a few handfuls. Then he had some more. There's no denying they were quite tasty. Maybe he took a break, maybe not, but he had some more. At that point, the bowl was less than half full, and it was a really big bowl. A few more handfuls, because he was hungry and they were fantastic. He decided he was past the point of no return. He finished the entire bowl, which probably represented 30 apples. Don't judge, we Taylor's have fast metabolisms. We laugh about it today, but I wasn't a happy camper when I came home from work looking for a fruit snack.
     Working construction doing all the shit jobs that Chige liked to give me helped me burn a lot of calories and I ate a lot of food. One day at lunch, they had teriyaki steak - I piled it on, about 4 pieces and cut into it, put it in my mouth, started to chew and then spit it out. Chige laughed so hard he nearly spit his food out. Because I was Haole boy and I was overpaid, but also because it was just funny. Chige slapped his hand down on the table and yelled, “What, Haole boy, you no like liver?” When you are expecting the taste of teriyaki steak and get liver, well, not one of my favorite food memories.
     I had lunch at the PDR a few days ago. The menu at the PDR is mind numbingly boring. The food isn't that bad, it's just repetitive. Taco Tuesday is inexorably followed by Wings Wednesday (full disclosure: I like both). But when I went into the PDR that day there was something new on the menu - Teriyaki Steak. I laughed so hard when I saw that, I snorted. I don't remember them having signs above the food back in the 70's and 80's, maybe I just didn't look. Entirely possible. But now I'm older and sometimes wiser. I looked at the sign, then looked at the meat.  You can bet your bottom dollar I looked at the sign again before asking for a piece, then laughed and laughed some more, all at myself but hey, laughter is good.

Herna Jibwa, - every time she sees me she says, “Hello Alan Taylor!”

Food feels

     The tastes, textures and smells of certain food can transport you right back to the place and setting of when and where you had that memorable food/meal. Does for me at least. Like the first time I had durian. I took a trip from Sumatra to the Riau Islands on a Pelni Line vessel, deck class. A few of us bought a durian and a deckhand opened it for us. If you’ve had durian, you either love it or hate it - there is no in between. I loved it. Whenever I eat durian, I’m right back there, sleeping on the deck on that ill planned trip. Sometimes the memories are wonderful, other times not so much. 'Cause food can be emotional like that.
     I’ve got LOTS of good food feels from when we lived on Saipan. We lived in a village where we were part of the community. Whenever there was some work to be done, we’d do our part which would almost always end with a communal meal. Red rice, which is colored with achiote, but the flavor comes from the bacon drippings mixed in with the rice. Barbecue cooked over tangantangan wood. Kelaguen, which is partially cooked meat, usually chicken and then the added lemon finishes cooking the meat with the acidity. Add some fresh grated coconut and spices and you get...happiness. Lechon (roasted pig) for the bigger occasions. Coco, which is pickled mango/papaya/cucumber. Whatever fruit was in season was mostly in abundance, except after a typhoon. I can eat any one of those items and be instantly transported back to Saipan in my very fertile mind. Perhaps you have noticed there aren’t any Chamorro restaurants in your neighborhood. Mine either, so I don’t get those happy food feels often.
     I had to go to Hawaii to get an MRI on my knee in a very tight window of time and contacted a few old friends, one of whom told me about an event he was going to an event called Off the Eaten Path: Chamorro Cuisine with some hoity toity chef from Guam. Messaged my daughter who lives on Maui. Wanna go gorge on Chamorro food? Anyone who has met my daughter knows the answer. Boom! We're in! Serendipity. Family. Good friends. A couple of wicked smart professors who were riotously witty and irreverent - my kind of people. Good food which brought ALL the good food feels and many good memories back.

     I did have two unusual food memories on Saipan though. Once, I was served a bowl of soup with a cows hoof in it. The soup was just broth, I don’t recall any vegetables or anything else than the big old cow’s hoof in the bowl. And there are sometimes when you just can’t say no. I sipped the broth, I nibbled on the hoof and pretended to like it. But I didn’t.
      My most amusing Saipan food experience? My landlord called me over to eat which happened pretty every time he saw me, but that’s Chamorro culture. He had a bowl of much more palatable soup, vegetables, some kind of meat and it was really good. He watched me for a while with a wry grin on his face. Then he asked how I liked it. I said it was really good and then he laughed and said, “That’s Marianas Fruit Dove and... it’s endangered!” But his response sounded soooooooo much better in a Chamorro accent. 

Detours

     If you had told me 40 years ago I’d be with an ex-Mormon with 4 children, I would have been excited. But I would have tried - very hard - to hide my excitement as I casually suggested a wager against that scenario. You never want to appear to too excited to make a bet you are nearly certain of winning so you try to control your emotions until the bet is consummated. I'd have offered whatever odds you thought reasonable. 100 to 1? Sure. I would have bet big too, because I like a flutter now and again when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor. Because I have no game, she stalked me. She was a pretty good stalker for an ex-Mormon without, I presume, much stalking experience and now I'm with that ex-Mormon with 4 kids. Didn't expect that detour.
    Some of the biggest detours in life have nothing to do with you. Like this one. My dad went to an interview with the MITRE Corporation down in DC when we were living in Florham Park, NJ in the late 60's. The interview went swimmingly and then they went to lunch. He knew he was going to get an offer, the job was his. Back in the 60's, it was okay to have a tipple along with whatever you were noshing on and they all had something to drink at the restaurant. My dad gave one of the interviewers a ride back to the workplace in his rental car and on the way back, he kicked something underneath the drivers seat. He picked it up, and it was an empty bottle of gin. As he was holding the bottle by the neck, he looked at his potential boss and said, "What the hell is this?" The interviewer looked at the bottle, looked at my dad, raised his eyebrows and then looked straight ahead. And just like that, the job was not his. I talked to my dad the other day and asked him about this, he said if he was the hiring manager, he would have made the same decision. And to whoever drank that bottle of gin, left it in the rental car and to whatever employee that didn't clean the car I say thank you.
     That's right, my dad didn't get that job and we didn't end up moving to the DC area. He moved our family back to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands a few years later. And just like that, my trajectory was changed. My life has taken all kinds of  unexpected twists and turns, some of them wonderful and serendipitous, some of them tragic. But here's a shout out to my Mom and Dad who had the courage to move to Kwajalein with two small kids in 1964 for the first time and thanks to Gwyne for stalking me...on Kwajalein.

     
   
   
   
     

coherently.orangey.worries

     Ever gone somewhere with someone and gotten separated? How do you find them? Call, ask where they are, walk towards them until you see each other, most likely. But coherently.orangey.worries - 3 words, changes all that. That’s where I am right now, literally.

     I was reading the letters to the editor in The Economist and someone wrote that the archaic address system used in rural France could be replaced by what3words. I had heard of this before, but didn’t look into it at all, I didn’t understand the potential usefulness.
     What is it? An app that’s mapped every place on the Earth into unique, 3 x 3 meter squares. The uniqueness is that every three meter square, in the world, is identified by 3 words. Where I am right now is coherently.orangey.worries. There are some useful components to this - when we lived in Arlington, VA, our apartment had an entrance that was separate from the actual address. 1220 N. Fillmore takes you to a side of the building where there is no entrance. But wipes.metals.flies takes you right to the entrance, where we could buzz you up. When we lived on Saipan, there were no street addresses. You used landmarks to give directions. One of my favorites was the breadfruit tree in the middle of the street - and yes, they built a street that branched out on either side of a breadfruit tree. To get to where we lived in As-teo? strung.outshines.predictive would take you right to our front door. Get lost from family or friends in a large event? What3words will tell them where you are. They can put the three words in the app, tap on navigate to and they’ll find you. My daughter could have used this when she got lost on Khao San Road in Bangkok to find the Internet cafe I was in way back in Internet cafe days. What3words is used in Mongolia for postal deliveries because they have such a nomadic population. Delivery drivers use it in Nigeria. Technology. I’m a fan. What are your 3 words?

Hopeful much?

     We're hardwired to hope. We all hope for different things and plan for all the things we want out of life.  We make those plans because we are hopeful that we don't get sick, that a tragic accident doesn't happen, after we go to school there is a good job waiting for us and we find someone to love and someone to love us in return. If we didn't have hope, we wouldn't plan too much for the future. I listened to a podcast a while ago that asked the question if you knew when you were going to die, how would that affect how you lived? My answer is it would affect how I saved (either squander it all or save more), how I ate (bacon three times a day or muesli for breakfast and salad for lunch), really, it would change everything. But I don't know the answer to that question. So I have hope and I plan.
     Iron Mike Tyson famously said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face." And we've all been punched in the face before because well, life. Sometimes, those punches can knock you down and it takes a long, long time to get up, find that hope and start planning again. Life kind of forces you to put one foot in front of the other because the day after you get punched in the face, the mf sun comes up again. Not cool sun, not cool. Sometimes those steps may seem to shuffle along for a few seasons before you find the spring in your step. I haven't been punched in the face for a while (metaphorically), and that's a good thing.
     All of those punches, the face hits, the body shots and the glancing blows form the emotional scars we all carry around with us and hopefully (there's that hope and change again) as we get older, those punches become love taps and all the hope and planning, muesli and salad eating, saving and exercising pay off in the long run.
     Because I'm a hopeful mf, I'm still planning and looking forward to spending time with my daughter and brother on Maui, time with Gwyne, family and friends, near and far as I try to solve the retirement formula. How about you - what are you planning for?