Month: August 2011

Categories
business

Stupid on different subjects

Street lamp in Byrant Park, in NYC

Me: Niggardly is a Scottish word meaning “cheap.”
Him: Nope, it’s Scandinavian. (gets dictionary)
Me: Dammit! I hate being wrong…

The weather’s been great in the city since Irene. Calm, cool, dry – it actually feels a lot more like early fall than anything else. Suppose I should enjoy it.

No time to do that today, though. Gotta be in court – although this time it’s not for me but a client. When it comes to court cases and clients, I usually play a supporting role behind the scenes. This time, though, sitting front and center. For a guy that doesn’t litigate, this’s always interesting.

Dunno how people get anything done in hot climates; always feel lethargic and slow in the summertime. But the second it feels like fall, it’s like the year’s begun.

Like to teach myself something every year. Twain said that we are all stupid, just on different subjects. That’s true – I hate not knowing something.

Dunno if I told you but this year, I decided to learn calculus. No real reason except I never did. But then I thought I should do something a bit more practical so I turned back doing  my Mission real estate courses.

Funny isn’t it? The whole time I was in school, dreamed of being outta it. Now that I’m outta it, dream of being in it (especially in the fall). It’s the human condition to blunt the sharp points of our memories.

Enough armchair philosophy, got an important date with an adult in a robe.

Ed note: Niggardly is completely unrelated to the racial slur – which it merely sounds like – the pejorative comes from Spanish/Portuguese noun negro.

Location: heading downtown
Mood: busy
Music: hell ya blew trial and tha judge gave you 25 with an L
YASYCTAI: What are you learning this year? (two semesters/1.5 pts)
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Categories
personal

Me, Myself and Irene (and the wife)

NYC Broadway, right before Hurricane Irene

Tenant: Hi! I think I left my window open.
Me: You’re kidding me.

So Hurricane Irene came and went. Cause I live on the ground floor and manage my building, spent almost mosta Friday securing all the vacant apartments, helping clear the roof, checking the terraces, and directing all of the tenants on what to do. Some are brighter than others. Was exhausting.

My pad’s flooded in the past so I was filling out sandbags for my back yard  like I was living in Boise, Idaho. Actually, every place in NYC was outta sandbags but another tenant was throwing out potted plants and there was just enough dirt that I could fill several bags up and block off my door.

In the end, mosta the storm ended up being a whole lotta nuthin around me. Which is not to say it wouldn’t have been a whole lotta nuthin if people didn’t take the precautions they did.

Him: You filled up your bathtub? (smugly) Why don’t you buy bottled water like normal people?
Me: OK, you do realize that pre-1994 toilets require 13 gallons of water to flush and that most post-1994 toilets require six, yes? And that, should we lose clean drinking water, that also means that water likely isn’t clean enough to bathe in. So, while you’re stinky and backed-up, I’ll be fresh smelling and regular.
Him: (laughing) Good point. I only have a shower stall though.

When I was a kid, there was this massive blackout. My dad had candles, batteries, ice, and a tub fulla water. It was back during the Son of Sam days so I think my dad also had a baseball bat. Funny, I was only like four at the time, but I remember it. He told me not to play with the tub water cause we were gonna need it. Made me think that, while emergencies’re never fun, it was nice going through something like it with HG.

Surprised at how many people have a zero ability to properly prepare for stuff. Most times, thing end up fine, like it did this time. But some times it doesn’t. Figure that being prepped for that random chance is a good thing, regardless of outcome.

It’s the stuff that y’don’t see coming that should wreck you; at least there you got an excuse.

Ventured outside for just a bit before the storm. Was weird to see everything so quiet. According to FB, the local Chinese restaurant and Korean nail salon were open. We Asians’re nuthin if not industrious. Mosta the garbage bins had been overturned so they wouldn’t fill up with debris and rainwater. No buses, some taxis and a hand-full of delivery bikes along the roadways. Eerie.

The next day, HG and I woke up and took a walk where we met this chain-smoking blond whose boss said she had to come in and work. Also ran into two people from my church. Made me think of that quote, Fear is forward. No one is afraid of yesterday.

The sun’s out now and the air smells like fall.

Doesn’t matter what befalls the City. She just gets up, dust herself off and gets back to work. People live for predictability, and NYC’s nuthin if not crawling with people, so that makes sense.

 

Location: back at work
Mood: relieved
Music: the sun can come back another day, rain please stay
YASYCTAI: Get back to work. (8 hours/0.5 pt)
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Categories
business

Why I bought the HP Touchpad; Doing the Opposite Thing

HP Touchpad review pictures

Spent the last couple of days trying to land the HP Touchpad. In fact, immediately upon returning from my trip, started the process – that’s how we dorks roll. For those of you that don’t know/have a real life, HP spent $1.8 billion to buy the operating system for the Touchpad, started selling it like three months ago, and then abruptly dropped the whole thing.

Ended up ordering like 18 of them knowing that most would get cancelled, which they did; right now, I’m scheduled to get about three of them and this may change.

The question, of course, is Why would I buy the HP Touchpad when I already have an iPad?

The answer is that, as a $599 iPad competitor, there’s no question that it’s simply not as good and not worth the money. As a $150 colour eBook reader, that’s a completely different story. Since I use my iPad 99.9999% of the time as a PDF and ebook reader, most of it’s functionality is wasted.

So I’m thinking of just selling the iPad and using the HP Touchpad as a stopgap device until the iPad 3, or even the iPad 4, comes out.

The other reason to get it, however, is to hack it to run the Android operating system in a year or so. From everything I’ve read the OS on the tablet (webOS) is excellent. The problem is that there just aren’t enough apps for it. For the next year, the built in Kindle App and Facebook app – the only tablet Facebook app from what I’ve read – coupled with the built in ebook reader and 50GB of cloud storage for life, should make it a worthwhile stopgap device for me for the next 18 and by then, a stable Android os hack should be floating around.

It’s coming in a week or so, so I’ll post details as it comes about.

End unabashed dweeb.

Red plastic down near Canal Street, NYC

Me: OK, I’m ready.
Her: Do you have your swim trunks?
Me: No.
Her: Do you have your hat?
Me: No.
Her: Do you have your sunglasses?
Me: No.
Her: (Shakes head)
Me: I’ll go pack those right now.

Now that the vacation’s over, it’s back to work.

Met up with my old business buddy for some good Irish stout. He owns Cruisedirect.com, which just got listed in the Inc 5000 as one of the fastest growing companies in America. That puts his biz in the top 1% of all businesses in the country.

Did y’know that the Empire State Building was built in the middle of the great depression? There’s this saying that Any company can be good in good times, only great companies can be good in bad times. Sometimes, doing the opposite thing of the rest of the world’s the way to go.

Getting itch to start something up again and I’ve got a few ideas percolating.

We’ll see how it goes.

———-

Just for laughs, Google the words “Intellectual Property NYC” and then click “videos” on the left-hand side.

What do you see where you are?

Location: prepping for some business
Mood: ambitious
Music: don’t you worry, it could be so sweet
YASYCTAI: Be brave when others are wary; wary when others are brave. (lifetime/3 pts)
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Categories
personal

Bermuda 2011

Cloudy day in Bermuda

Me: Do you wanna…?
Her: It’s Monday, Logan.
Me: Television it is.

Went with the wife for a quick trip to Bermuda last week. Normally when I go someplace, there’s usually some travelogue to go with it.

This time, however, the entirety of the excursion can be summed up as follows:

      • sleep
      • eat
      • beach
      • read
      • watch Dexter
      • watch Game of Thrones
      • rum

Repeat. It was pretty cloudy and rainy the whole time but that was fine with me as it gave me an excuse to just sit inside with a drink and read.

Parta what makes the trip so relaxing is the forced lack of net access. Have to remember that.

Going to the Caribbean is like going to the Mecca of rum. Came back with almost half a suitcase worth of the stuff. Gonna need it with the way the economy’s heading.

Piña colada in Bermuda

A few days before going, met up with Hazel and Gio for some drinks – it was like back when we were all single. To prep for my trip, ordered a Piña colada and the bartender insisted on putting a pink umbrella in it.

Him: That’s a manly pink umbrella.
Me: It’s not complete until I drink it with my pinky out.

Now it’s Monday and I’m back to work. Still got sand in my bag. Dunno if that’s a good or bad thing.

Beach sand in Bermuda
Logan Lo

 

Location: back in my apartment
Mood: content
Music: don’t have time I’ve still got sand in my shoes
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Categories
business personal

Good salesmanship is the conveyance of enthusiasm

Singer sewing machine parts

Salespeople get a bad rap. Which sucks cause every business has three parts:

  1. Research and development
  2. Operations
  3. Sales and marketing

Two outta three of those spend money but only one of them makes money. That’s why its so important. The other two can slide at times but sales can never slide.

Did I ever tell you that I taught sales? Did it for a while at the Fortune 500 company where I learned that good salesmanship is the conveyance of enthusiasm.

Take my Mac computer.

Was against the mac for years until my brother and Rain – neither of whom worked for Apple nor owned Apple stock – each individually spent days (days!) espousing all the benefits of the mac. They were excited. They got me excited. Next thing you know, I’m plunking down twice what I’d spend on a PC for some shiny.

That’s good salesmanship. That’s the kinda salesman my dad was. That’s the kinda salesman I am at heart. Those are the kinds that don’t need to lie or puff, they just get you hyped up about how this product or service can make your life better cause it actually can.

When you truly believe that your product/service will make people’s lives better, you cannot stop that.

So I went to see Rain with an idea I have for a show.

Him: Man, the best thing you and I did were those commercials.
Me: I know. We should do something else.

Admin note: No posts next week. Got a thingy to do and my injuries are driving me up the wall. See you in a week?

 

Location: still sitting with an ice pack
Mood: still in pain
Music: bring me home to Hadestown way down to Hadestown
YASYCTAI: Do something artistic, it’s good for the soul. (7 days/1 pt)
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Categories
personal

Everything is obvious once you accept the answer

A bar in Midtown NYC

This lawyer from Spain came by with her fella the other day for a three week holiday in the States. Man, those Europeans know how to take a vacation. Brought them over to onea my fave hidden spots in the UWS, which is a bistro that’s hidden on the second floor of a supermarket. They loved it.

We were gonna meet up earlier in the week but HG got sick. Not doing that hot myself cause my old injuries’re flaring up again. Something about the humidity amps up the pain.

Went to wrestle the other day despite the pain. This new girl was there and I was tasked to roll with her. The coach told her before we wrestled, Don’t touch his neck, he’s got a really bad neck. And I reminded her of this. Three minutes inna rolling, where I’m treating her with kid gloves, of course she goes straight for my neck.

She’s not a bad kid, it’s just that she wants “win,” whatever that means. It’s a signa youth, to wanna win at all costs. She didn’t learn a thing and “won” but left me sitting with a bucket of ice for the weekend. It’s just stupid.

Speakinga learning things, that buddy of mine learned the exact same lesson as another buddy of ours, which is that when a relationship’s damaged, it just needs time to heal. And the only way someone can get that time is by erasing one’s map.

Both times with both friends, the stories played out exactly as I said they would, not cause I’m particularly bright, but cause I’d seen this movie before. Many, many times. And it always ends the same way cause no one wants that which clings.

There’s this book on my reading list called Everything Is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer; think that’s kinda true but in relationships it’s more “Everything is obvious once you accept the answer.”

D’you remember that cop from the OJ Simpson trial, Mark Fuhrman? He’s that cop that apparently said “N_____r” a buncha times and was a general tool.

He wrote this book called Murder in Greenwich where he figured out this decades old murder. Took a while for people to pay attention to him but the fact that he’s a racist tool has nuthin to do with the fact that he was also a good detective.

Think that’s the problem when I give friends advice, they look at me and just think, Oh that’s just Logan, what does he know?

But I’m not giving advice advice on baseball, derivatives, or Iranian politics – issues I know nuthin about – I’m giving advice on relationships.

On that topic, I know a few things. Moreover, got an unfair advantage cause I already know the ending.

People wanna win, no matter what, but what’s really winning? That girl I rolled with won, but not with any skill and I’m injured now. My buddies got a few extra (miserable) weeks with women the loved but those relationships’re in tatters.

What’s winning?

I’d rather be better.

———-

Never told you that Rain and I had a falling out a few years back. Stupid stuff as these things go. Plus few can be as vicious with the mouth as me cause I’m the skillest with my sharp objects, The killest with my blunt instruments.

I’ll add that to my list of ten thousand regrets.

Be seeing him this Tuesday. If I end up floating in the East River, you’ll know who to blame.

Location: sitting with an ice pack
Mood: in pain
Music: kept my distance so you would be free
YASYCTAI: RICE: Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate (5 days/1 pt)
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Categories
personal

What you think is true, what you hope is true, and what is actually true

An apartment in the UWS, NYC

Had a really interesting few days.

Firstly, randomly walked by a buncha workers and tossed them few hundred to paint my apartment. Totally spur of the moment. Looks great.

Anywho, dunno if I ever told you but I’ve had a real estate broker’s license since I was like 19. Some years, used it a lot; other years, not at all. Just rented a place less than 24 hours after the first showing. About half the people I showed it to said that the unit looked just like the pictures in my ad and that it was accurately described.

Which brings me to my other occupation; I work for a litigator who recently told me that, A Few Good Men jokes aside, the truth is the most powerful thing in a courtroom.

If all of my random dating has taught me anything, it’s that people sense and want truth. They crave it.

They know, on some level, what’s true and what’s for sale.

Which then brings me to an issue I’m having with one of my oldest and dearest friends. He’s got two email addresses, one personal, one work. He’s asked that I use one over the other for work related matters, which I’ve obliged.

However, the issue’s that emails to that address are never answered in a timely manner – in fact there have been several times where he’s dropped the ball completely. So another email has to be sent saying, “Did you get my email?” which also goes unread resulting in a phone call. Thus a one-minute question becomes a long drawn out affair.

After the very last time he promised me that he’d set up a forward to make sure he gets emails. And again it happens. So I told him that I’d never send another email to that address.

Now he’s upset with me.

Which’s odd, cause he takes no responsibility for failing to follow-through, it’s my fault that I now, a year later, refuse to write him there any more. He’s essentially saying, “All those other times I said that I’d read them? I was totally not being honest with myself or you. But this time? This time, I’m gonna read them.”

But there’s a difference between the lies you tell yourself, wishful thinking without action, and the truth.

Put another way: there’s a difference between what you think is true, what you hope is true, and what is actually true.

The three are not the same.

———-

My oldest and closest friend turns 40 today. I wish you courage.

Cause with courage, coupled with hope and a dash of empathy, you’ve got mosta what you need to get through this life unbroken.

Friends, cold hard cash, and rum do not hurt either.

So I guess what I’m really saying is that I wish you courage, hope, empathy, friends, cold-hard cash and rum.

Actually, rum will help with most of the above.

Lemme revise my thought then; I wish you rum.

Happy getting one-year-older-but-also-one-year-better day!

 

Location: sitting next to Diego
Mood: less busy, finally
Music: Come listen to my truest thoughts, my truest feelings
YASYCTAI: Pick up a new book; how are you on your reading schedule? (2 days/1 pt)
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Categories
personal

Proprioception / Do we have more than five senses?

Everyone thinks we have just five senses – we have a lot more than that

Bar in midtown, NYC

Her: Well, every human has the same five senses, so…
Me: Actually, humans have a lot more than five senses, we have like 24.
Her: Why do you have to be that guy, Logan?
Me: (shrugging) You got a lotta time to read and think when no one wants to hang out with you.

As you read this, think of the tip of your right pinky finger.

You know which one that is, without looking at it. In fact, you know that your right pinky finger is not, by any means, your left index finger. You can know this without looking at either or touching either. This is called proprioception and is our ability to sense the different parts of our body in relation to each other.

Think that what causes mosta the brokenness around us is the inability for people to be empathetic; that is to say, to know the relation of ourselves to others around us.

I’ve got like a dozen friends that have birthdays coming up. Came to the realization that the ones that’re the happiest’re the ones that have that strong sense of empathy; the miserable ones’re the ones that look from the inside, out versus from the outside, in.

It’s the bendy versus the broken.

Said it before, one does good things not to save the world but to save ourselves.

———-

Just for kicks, here are some more of the many other senses we have:

  • Spatial perception due to sound – If you hear a sound in the distance, you know if it’s near or far. This is different than hearing sine you can tell is a the growl of a lion is right next to you or several yards away – a useful trick when we were all hunter/gatherers.
  • Hunger and thirst – two more senses separate from all the others
  • Time – you know, without looking at your watch/mobile, that I’ve just wasted some five minutes of your life you’ll never get back.

For that last one, you’re quite welcome.

Location: waiting for new tenants in the UWS
Mood: melting
Music: with the restoration I’m running on my feet, I never stumble as I’m falling
YASYCTAI: Pick up a new book; how are you on your reading schedule? (2 days/1 pt)
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