Personal Introductions: Not What They Do, but Who They Are

What if instead of introducing your friend as Jennifer the nurse, you started introducing her as Jennifer, one of most thoughtful people you know, or Jennifer the friend who helped you move in when you didn’t know a soul in this city.

Introducing your friends for who they are rather than focusing on what they do will remind them they are loved before and beyond their titles. It’s an easy way to remind them that you see them for their hearts instead of their accomplishments.

Great advice.

Jihad vs. the Crusades

Only because our President brought up the comparison of the current world to what Christianity did centuries ago, I decided to take it up and learn a little bit more. Dr. Bill Warner, PhD does a fabulous video on showing the many different battles between the two religious groups and explains the differences. Ultimately, Dr. Warner points out, yes, the crusades were years ago, but jihad is constant and ongoing as in today’s world.

Visit his website PoliticalIslam for more info. Also, diving further into the Crusades, check out a book by Steve Weidonkopf, The Glory of the Crusades.

SNL Does Serial Right!

It's been a while since I've actually laughed at an SNL skit but I think that they did a wonderful Christmas spoof off of NPR's latest and greatest Serial Podcast.  

I just finished the podcast yesterday and will post my thoughts on another day. Did I enjoy it, yes. I also loved listening to it using Overcast.

Lowering Your Expectation of the Cuban Cigar

With the potential influx of Cuban Cigars, maybe they aren't that great anyways.

In the view of some experts, the appeal of Cuban cigar tobacco has been overtaken in recent years by stogies from Nicaragua, as well as the Dominican Republic and Honduras, many made by Cuban exiles.

In fact, the best cigar of 2014, revealed on Thursday by Cigar Aficionado magazine, is Nicaraguan, the Oliva Serie V Melanio Figurado.

via NYTimes

On top of that, this month's Cigar Aficionado is loaded with some great articles. Check it out!

Worst Restaurant Best Ever

By now, if you haven't heard about the restaurant Botto Bistro  you have to head over and read their Yelp Reviews. Trying to achieve the opposite of the highest rating via Yelp!, owner David Cerretini is arguing that it's the best business move he's made in years. If you give it a 1-star rating, you get 25% off your meal to boot!

Here's a favorite review of mine.

Also, here's a pic of the board that they have up in the restaurant.

The whole story here via SFGate.

'More Filipino Women are Employed Than Any Other Community'

Just some highlights from the latest data that the United States Department of Labor recently published on how different Asian - American groups are fairing economically. Here are some good bullet points from the recent NPR's Codeswitch:

"Overall, 53.4 percent of Asians over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree or higher — the highest percentage by far among the major race groups."

"More Filipino women are employed (57.1 percent) than any other community; Indians had the smallest share of employed women (36.8 percent.)"

That's not surprising being that many of the women I know who came from the Philippines in the 70s are nurses who still work to this day; my mother and mother-in-law included. A lot of the men who came over enlisted in the Navy or another military branch, continued their service till retirement then continued to work. Don't get me wrong, my heritage stems from the Philippines so this is only one nation in the many Asians and Pacific Islanders that immigrated here.

One bullet point that I have a little contention with is:

"The AAPI community has the second highest share of unemployed workers who are long-term unemployed (41.7 percent) ... Asian Americans who are unemployed, are without work for longer than whites and Hispanics."

They don't mention that it's because of how our network at home really is: from my personal observation within my network, we tend to take care of grand children more often thus electing to stay home. We also are a hot headed people who won't necessarily volunteer for a lesser paying job than the one that we might have gotten laid of from. Pride, especially in the Filipino community runs a little high sometimes leading to longer droughts without a job. Just my thoughts.

Judge Rules IN FAVOR of Commercial Drone Pilot

"I view the decision as a victory for technology," said Mr. Schulman, a New York-based attorney with Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and a recreational drone user. "For seven years our federal government has told business people and entrepreneurs that they must stop using drones for commercial purposes, and I think that's had a very negative effect on this really exciting emerging high-tech industry."

Where does the line get drawn especially if it's a hobbyist who loves to fly helis, quads and planes who discovered that they could make awesome videos when attaching a GoPro HERO3+, iPhone or any other camera? We aren't talking about Predator UAVs here but simple quadcopters such as DJI Phantom or the just released DJI Phantom 2 Vision+.

In any case, commercial drone laws aren't slated to be finalized until 2015 so until then, fly safely but more so, responsibly. Hey, let's start doing more real estate videos too!

via WSJ

Major Airlines Creating Their Own Pilot Shortages

This is one of the most comprehensive views on the current state of the airlines in the United States. Read the article in its entirety. I'm living it along with some of my best friends and it's getting rather ugly.

The nation's big airlines want you to know that there's a dreadful pilot shortage and they apologize profusely if their commuter-carrier partners cancel flights to your hometown airport due to the debilitating shortfall.

The nation's big airlines don't want you to know that their commuter carriers, which operate half of all the nation's commercial flights, often pay pilots so little that it's often financially wiser to drive a truck or flip fast-food burgers than fly a plane.

A first-year co-pilot at a commuter airline may earn as little as $19 per flying hour. After five years with a commuter airline, the average salary is just $40 an hour. For the lowest-paid pilots at a carrier such as Mesa Air Group, which operates flights for both United and US Airways, a 60-hour work week means an effective pay rate of just $8.50 an hour. That's barely above the national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and below the more than 10 bucks President Barack Obama is making federal contractors pay their workers.

At American Airlines, senior management that came from US Airways to run AA netted $79 million in stock sales during the last month. At the same time, however, American pressed for another concessionary contract at American Eagle, its wholly owned commuter airline.

Inside a Wall Street Dinner

From the inside it rains foie gras and rack of lamb. These are the people our government now depends on and bails out during time of crisis'. Don't get me wrong, I have no personal qualms, but that's just how it is these days. Below is just an excerpt but you can read Kevin Roose's new book, "Young Money: Inside the Hidden World of Wall Street's Post-Crash Recruits" out today on Kindle or Hardback for more juicy tidbits.

The last thought I had, and the saddest, was that many of these self-righteous Kappa Beta Phi members had surely been first-year bankers once. And in the 20, 30, or 40 years since, something fundamental about them had changed. Their pursuit of money and power had removed them from the larger world to the sad extent that, now, in the primes of their careers, the only people with whom they could be truly themselves were a handful of other prominent financiers.

Perhaps, I realized, this social isolation is why despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary, one-percenters like Ross keep saying how badly persecuted they are. When you’re a member of the fraternity of money, it can be hard to see past the foie gras to the real world.

Here's a full list of all Kappa Beta Phi members as well that was just published two days ago.

via NYMag

37% Unemployed?

Just some of the real statistics that are, most of the time, left out from the "unemployment rate" numbers. More shockingly, why are there people who think that they don't need to have a job? It's definitely one of my pet peeves.

Many Americans just aren't looking for jobs. In fact, about 91 million adult Americans don't work, and aren't looking for jobs. They make up 37% of the population -- the highest level on record since 1978.

via CNN

What's the Real Unemployment Rate

What are the real numbers? I like to see "participation" go up as I'm all for everyone contributing to the greater good.

"For forty years, I have decried the reliance upon the non-farm payrolls number as anything other than a number pulled from thin air. The revisions have been higher or lower in absolute terms by 40-50,000 per month, and there's no consistency to it," Gartman, the founder of the closely-watched "Gartman Letter" told CNBC Europe's "Squawk Box."

The data showed that the labor force participation rate tumbled to 62.8 percent, its worst level since January 1978. Gartman said the younger generation were looking for jobs less and less.

"In the cohort of 15-25 year olds, the number keeps falling every single month and it has since 1994. When the youngsters are asked would they take a job even if they could find one, the answer now is overwhelmingly 'no.' Meanwhile, the [participation rate] among the 55-65 cohort keeps going up."

"The young don't want to work and the elders are continuing to work," Gartman said.

via CNBC

New Flight Time Duty and You, The Flying Public

Come this January 4th, your commercial airline pilot operating under Part 121, me, will be flying under newly implemented rest rules. Created two years ago and finally being put into play, these rest rules allow for a STRICT, non reducible, 10 hrs of rest with a mandatory 8 hrs for sleep opportunity. With today's rules, I sometimes can find myself down to 6 from a given overnight time of 8 hrs and that's a good night. Unfortunately, there have been less in rare instances but I never deemed myself unfit to fly. Have I called out fatigued before, yes. I wrote a small PDF document that I included in a post over four years ago and if you never checked it out, here the link again. I also did a "Part 2" which you should check out as well.

But anyways, here's a great post of how it'll affect you, the flying public. Who knows how it'll really play out, but airlines have been gearing up for this in the last few months. Some have even said that it could cost them more than $25 million annually!

So what does this mean to you? Well, don't go and travel on bad weather days especially in the afternoon. Fly in the mornings. In the afternoon or night on bad weather days at large airports, there will be flight crews all timed out being sent to hotels at airports they weren't supposed to be at in the first place and planes and passengers stuck there until morning or until they get another crew in place.

Here's a link to the actual new FAA Final Rule and ALPA comparative literature on the difference between the current and pending rest rules.

The Verge Outs Vanity Fair's Scare Tactics

Anyone read Vanity Fair's absurd blame on social media for teens promiscuities? It's a bunch of craptastic scare tactics aimed at parents who know nothing. Here's an amazing takedown by The Verge's own Adi Robertson.

In fact, the article is mostly a series of salacious stories and broad warnings that could have been written at any time in the last 20 years — just swap in Britney Spears for Miley Cyrus. It quotes a counselor and a researcher, but cites only three pieces of non-anecdotal data: the percentage of teens using social media, the hours a day they spend on electronic devices, and the percentage of adolescents who've seen internet porn. Notably absent: how much sex teens are actually having, and whether that number is going up.

via The Verge