tales from the rock

it’s amazing what happens when you blog everyday. all 3 of my readers sent in a comment! that’s 100% participation - fuck you NYT! Tombo doesn’t count, since his response to everyone is to blog about how they aren’t right about something.

2/3rds of the comments had to do with the middle class though (as was Tom’s skeptic analysis post), so I thought I’d clarify my point. now, a true hardcore blogger would just keep yapping about whatever else comes to mind, and not revisit old topics to address varying comments, but since the purpose of this whole exercise was to help me communicate better, and not to improve the world by sharing my knowledge (like Tom), I thought it ok to come back to this, to practice adding definition to ambiguity.

so anyway, the middle class - I said it was growing. this is the kind of statement you can never rebuke, or unfortunately, truly support. the reason, is because there exists no objective definition of the term. even wikipedia starts it’s entry by calling it an ambiguous definition. income sounds like it should be an easy indicator, but it’s really not, since in a global economy, your purchasing power is in constant flux, and then there is inflation, taxes, etc. social position and education can be inserted into the analysis, but even that quickly snowballs into a horrible discussion of regional culture, and relative impact (literary PhD in the ghetto probably doesn’t get a lot of respect). ultimately, you end up have to paint the population with a wide brush, and significant overlap occurs.

my definition, while just as loose and ambiguous, is a little easier to apply. if you aren’t worried about how you are getting your next meal, paying your rent/mortgage, and have reasonably stable employment, then you aren’t poor. if you have to make choices about what types of indulgences you entertain, then you aren’t rich. if you are one of the 50% of the population who fall between these lines, welcome to the middle class.

I do believe that there is a mental component to this as well. especially when it comes to climbing out of the ‘poor’ label. assuming that you aren’t encumbered by unreasonable load (3 kids, no legs, etc.), a big part of going from poor to middle should be a matter of choice. if you are an army of one, you should be able to move to where you add value, then work enough jobs to not be poor (which as defined above, means you can eat lunch at work, then go home to sleep for an hour before you head off for job #3). once you train your mind to accept this punishment, it’s hard to slip back into poor territory. being rich takes a little more of everything - you can only work so many minimum wage jobs, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to get rich that way. even guys that make serious cash like the G can still be classified middle class, since it takes all his hours to make his money, and his only entertainment is online dating, and beer drinking - hardly aristocratic. no, being rich is retraining yourself to get over the self serving attitude of ‘learning to fish,’ and somehow getting other people to fish for you - the serve me attitude.  because this turns class into more of a lifestyle, once you achieve a rung on the ladder, it’s pretty hard to go back down.
so, where is the growth?  well, it’s all a matter of applying labels.  who wants to turn poor people into middle class people?  anyone who wants to convince you that you are better off than you really are.  government, big business (walmart, costco, kmart and all their psuedo-luxury goods).  who doesn’t want to be identified as rich?  people just crossing over who don’t want to leave their family behind, or don’t want the burden of carrying their family with them for one.  another group are the ones that just quit while they are ahead - uppper middle class that are ready to be comfortable.  and of course, those that choose to spend their time in other ways - stop to have a family, take care of others, etc.  the growth comes from expanding the coverage of the label for propaganda, and from those that just aren’t leaving the middle due to choice.  also, if you are making a lot of money, but through traditional means, you end up carrying a larger tax burden (such as AMT).  it you are earning money but just paying more taxes, you aren’t rich.

**interestingly, Tom debates my assertion, by pointing out that the gap between rich and poor is growing. coincidentally, that which lies in between 2 things, is often referred to a, “the middle.”

my point of course wasn’t that a middle class exists, or that it’s growing or shrinking.  I was simply stating that while existing in the middle, your life can go stagnant.  this can be a matter of being born in the middle and not doing any climbing of your own (most of the rock - the mob mentality), running out of gas climbing the ladder (the middle is pretty long section of ladder) and just settling in, or simply just not having what it takes, or getting lucky enough to break through to the next level (rich - it’s not for everyone.)  when you stop climbing (or have never climbed), it’s easy to forget that getting to where you were involved choice and sacrifice.  if you want to continue to climb, you have be ready to have that as part of your life again - what are you willing to give up to get more?  especially on the rock, where you have 30 somethings who live with mom & dad, work decent jobs, but spend all their money on cars, beers, and trips to vegas.  instead of using their shortcut to the middle as a tactical advantage to climbing higher, they live with a sense of entitlement, and make choices that cement their position in the middle class.  when they become adults and parents, this warped sense of value turns into a misconstrued view of right and wrong, and they start to draw new class lines (us and them).  this self segregation by the middle is what builds the walls!  while the P is the current target of the middle class rage, you better believe the the Sons of I are also a target - it doesn’t matter what the upper thinks about the middle.  this is some Booker T. Washington shit now - you can’t hold a man down unless you stay down with him!  Booker T., born a half breed slave, who worked his way up to become first leader of Tuskegee University (too much work though - died of exhaustion at 59 - climbing the ladder is tough!)

here’s another interesting way to look at it - for all these people in the middle who see the upper class as elitist or snobbish, how many of them are reaching back to help their low income cousins?  how many of them are acting in a way they feel these upper income snobs should be treating them?

in any case, the thickness of the middle ensures there will be all types.  I’m in the middle, and probably going to stay there unless we leave the rock, I decide to not be an active parent, and treat my wife like a slave - so mostly by choice.  others will stay there because it’s all they are capable of, but the ones I would just like to tone it down a bit, are those that can’t figure out who in their right mind would pay $17,000/ yr for a world class education for their kids, when vegas is just a jackpot away from putting them on easy street!

and just to get back to some numbers,  according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of families in the statistical middle of the income distribution tables has gone down, but so has the number of people in the poor bracket - so looking at earnings alone shows that the upper class is actually doing the growing.

my horse beating opinion however remains, that just making money doesn’t make you rich, just like nice rims on your honda doesn’t make your mom disappear from the master bedroom you are waiting to move into.

as happy as I am with Sprint mobile, paying my bill every month annoys me to death.  the reason is, they have a form with those little boxes to fill in - 1 digit per box - to tell you how much you are paying, and for some reason, they have 9 boxes!  I can totally understand 5 boxes, and 6 is not unreasonable I suppose, but 9?!?  who is paying a million dollar cell phone bill, and why are they paying it through the same means I am?  sure, I suppose some corp account could be ringing up a mill a month - at that point, you may want to shop around for a better deal though - but if 1 million is in range, why stop there?

the problem for me of course - the only person that matters - is that I want to fill in my boxes left to right, and each month, I have to figure out where to start.  I have to count the digits in my payment (usually 4), count back from the right, then fill in my amount, which I have since forgotten, so I look away, and have to start all over again.

if there was some kind of math involved, I would probably fill it in from right to left, but there is no math, and no lines or numbers above the boxes to indicate anyone would be doing math.

other bills handle this issue a lot better.  a checkbox to pay full amount.  my amex bill paints the correct number of boxes to handle the full amount owed - if you are in the 1ks, it paints 6 boxes, under 1 k, 5 boxes, etc.  most of my bills that ask me to fill in the amount don’t even have boxes.

this is a perfect example of the design process gone bad - too many factors considered, and no one sane enough to just say - we don’t have to be prepared for EVERY bill, we just need to be able to handle MOST of them this way.  now they are prepared for all their bills, and annoying ALL their customers.

well, me at least, and i’m the only one that matters.

now that I work at the P (especially in IT, where I can see ALL), my view of this place has definitely changed.  before I was an insider, I think I recognized it mostly as a place of privilege, with academic accomplishment being sometime little more than symptomatic of that.  in retrospect, I never really stopped to formulate a view or opinion, and so the one I carried was built on ignorance, and reflected the opinion of the herd - who probably put as much effort into their view as well.

as an outsider, it’s much easier to deal with something that appears unattainable by casting it in a negative light, and pushing it away.

so let me give you the short version of my new, informed opinion - this place is great, and greatness is very expensive.

the cost becomes an interesting factor, because so many of the uninformed see it as a barrier to entry.  now, maybe you can’t afford to send your kids here, but that’s only a problem if your kids can get in!  if you truly want your kids to be at a place like this, you don’t turn away until the door is shut in your face.  this means, you prepare them, you apply them, and when faced with a  bill, you have to figure out if you can pay it, or not.

if you are rich, then you don’t consider the cost.  you prepare your kids, you apply them, and if they get in, you pay the bill -simple.  oddly enough, if you are dirt poor, and truly value the best education for your kids, then you do the same thing - except when it comes to paying the bill, instead of writing a check, you might ask for a break, ask for some aid, get a second job, etc.  there is little shame in any of this because the objective was perfectly clear all along.

it’s the middle class that tends to scoff at the idea of this place, and ignorantly turns away from it.  why apply my kid if I can’t pay?  that’s the attitude.  I think it’s a common middle class trap that applies in all kinds of situations.  there is a certain level of comfort you have attained, and you can choose to keep working hard to take another step up the ladder, or you can choose to enjoy what you have.  the ignorant part occurs when you forget that you consciously have made that choice, and pretend that those things that are out of reach, are now held out of reach by someone else, and not within reach if you are willing to stop watching TV for a while.

kids on the outside (like I was) learn the prejudice of their family and peers.  it’s certainly not dire like the trap of poverty is, but I think this middle class trap is just as dangerous to the health of the country, because the size of the middle continues to grow, and thus the segment of complacency grows with it.

you know what the kids here think of the kids on the outside - nothing.  not nothing meaning ‘they are nothing’, I mean it doesn’t even cross their  minds.  why waste that kind of time - their parents certainly don’t.  this is the only world they know, so it’s not very special to them.  as an observer, you can recognize how special it is that you can turn out hundreds of kids who believe it a world larger than this island, believe in achieving HUGE things, and are taught that anything is within reach - you just have to find out how to get it.  not a single minute is spent contemplating the kids in the public high school down the street, and how they must be poor to have to go there, or can’t play football so they have to go there, etc.

the P had a huge kindergarten application pool this year, rumored to be about 700 apps for 150 spots.  consider though that while the DOE here ranks 47th out of 50 states in K-12 student achievement (really bad, not really good), and that there are about 13,000 new K students every year (representing between 70% and 75% of eligible children), how can you not choose to explore other options, especially one where a presidential candidate has called for every type of child in the nation to have the type of education he enjoyed there.  with only 150 spots, you can view it as impossible to attain, or, you can recognize how valuable each one of those seats would be.

an article Tom posted states, “In a state that defines people by the high school they attended, Hawaii’s public school students often view Punahou graduates as elitist and scoff at them even into adulthood.”  I think the direction of the emotions described say a lot about what is not written - that individuals and achievers on the rock are culturally shunned for being different than the mob.

who’s snobbing who?

hawaiian holiday today - one of the benefits of working at a school.  I thought I was going to have all kinds of time to finish some chores and projects, but the baby is out of school this week also, so I was super dad today.

we ended up going to Sea Life Park to watch the dolphin show.  it’s amazing how crowded this place is again, and can you believe they charge tourists $30/person to get in!!  kama’aina only pay $14, but when you consider this place is just a glorified aquarium, it seems pretty steep.

the place has also changed into more of an interactive experience - where they can charge you another $5-$10 every chance they get to feed some lettuce to a turtle, or throw a fish to a sea lion.  and of course, $150 gets you into the pool with the dolphins.

I’m not sure how cool I am with this.  on one hand, this place was a dump on the verge of closing for so many years, I’m glad they found a way to revitalize, and take care of their animals.  they do scientific research also, but I’m pretty sure most of that involves research into crowd pleasing tricks.

on the other hand though, now that they are doing well, it seems like they are adding animals to their collection!  they aren’t catching wild animals anymore, but still, I wonder if it’s still ok to watch animals living in a strange environment jump over poles.

I think what we’ll have to do is supplement the experience of the park, with some real life ocean information, or some beach cleanup service or something.

all part of the grooming of the superchild, so I will be well taken care of in the future.

happy Kuhio day.

so my mom just returned from a trip to Japan, and on behalf of America, I’d like to apologize to Japan.  I have no specific examples of bad american behavior, but based on her explaining what her version of Japan is like, I’m sure there is plenty to apologize for.  on top of all that, she’s a teacher - I’ve gone into that before.

having worked in a large, international company, and actually spending time with people from other countries, I think I have a good feel for how to behave when there may be some cultural clash.  the first lesson of course, is learning when to recognize a different culture is present!  hint #1 - when you go to another country, there is a chance things will be different!

this applies to industrialized countries of course - if you go to some 3rd world hellhole, survival should be your first priority - being offensive is excusable.

anyway, having traveled the world, I’m sure I’ve made my share of errors, but I’ve witnessed much more horrible examples than I am capable of, and the vast majority are by ignorant americans.

anyway, here are a couple examples of why I’m sure mom embarrased us:

1)  for some reason, she wanted to buy a kimono.  her guided tour took her from Tokyo, to Kyoto - that’s 2 major cities, on a single island, on the same line of train track.  mom’s version of the story says she shopped ‘ALL OVER JAPAN’.  You don’t shop in SF and LA and proclaim that America is out of Hellman’s mayo.

2)  again for the kimono (realize she is on a guided bus tour), for some reason she expected the roadside crap stands that exist wherever tour busses stop to be selling high quality kimono, because of course, they are only made by 100 yr old ladies, stitching them by hand, in between selling a plastic model of Mt. Fuji.  “They only make them out of polyester these days,” mom reports back from Japan.  that’s what ‘They’ told her.

(the kimono she ended up bringing home was a cheap knockoff of an offensive halloween costume.  the obi was a clashing pink strip of ribbon)

3)   “that’s what they are known for,” was the line attached to every piece of whatever mom bought in Japan.  first consider that it’s impossible to attach that label to something from say, Tokyo, but also just as ridiculous to attach it to a specific piece of handmade anything from say, Hakone (which has as part of it’s community, and active artist population.)

I’m kind of sorry she didn’t get to see the real Japan - although going on a guided bus tour should set a certain expectation.   it’s a little annoying to have to listen to her version of Japan, since it’s so comically wrong at times.  but man, I just cringe thinking about the uneasiness she inflicted on people while over there.

so, note to American’s traveling the world: there is practically no case where they weren’t there first - you’re the different one.

damn, nothing posted in forever.  it’s funny how low a priority this is when I really need to work on my writing.  I thought that by stating I would do this, then I would do this, but my life is interrupt driven, and the blog never issues a break!  I will not attempt to resolve this by using my GTD skills and booking a reminder every day to blog.  I also picked up one of Scott Adams non-comic book books, which is basically a printed version of his blog - clearly, you don’t need to have anything profound to say to blog daily.

what has been going on?  work is busy.  fulfilling, yet busy.  since I don’t work at a tech company anymore, it’s hard to really get a feel for what my skills are like, or where my current competence lies.  like the G, I often wish that I could do some hard core shit, and force my brain to move into that 15% activity range.  unlike the G, real life wakes me up every morning at 6:00am wanting to watch Dora the Explorer.  I can say that on the rock, I have come to accept that I will always be closer to the top of the mountain than the bottom.  the candidate pool here sucks.  I actually managed to hire a dude to work with me, but he only lasted 3 weeks!  can you believe that shit?!?  it is most definitely not rocket science here - not even computer science for that matter.  web development - that’s what it is.  lot’s of curve balls, but still, basic skillz will get you through the day.  after 8 months of searching, we found a guy that was tolerable, and after 3 weeks, he had had enough!

something else I have been meaning to do, is copy the blog entries of the King of the Court.  for some reason, our lives have been strangely parallel lately.  he had posted an eerie picture of himself sitting at his dining room table, with his computer, with some framed wedding cranes behind him.  when I looked at the pic, I was sitting at MY dining room table, using my laptop, which is the EXACT SAME COMPUTER, sitting in front of our framed wedding cranes. unlike the King, I was shirtless, because on the rock, that’s just how I roll.

the other similarity is trenching.  what an odd thing to be doing at the same time.  I had to finish my backyard projects so the baby could finally play outside, so I dug a few hundred feet of irrigation and drainage trench, installed a sprinkle system and drain, brought in some topsoil, sod, and also ordered 2000 pounds of rubber playground mulch for the swingset.  backyard is decent now - only 85% more outdoor projects to go before my house is not embarrassing.

tons of horriblenes going on as usual, but I don’t want to get too far into it lest I abandon yet another post, so I will leave it at this.  see you tomorrow.