Obama comparisons to FDR

I'm currently reading a book on FDR's first 100 days as president. This subject is all the rage due to our current economic pickle and Obama's bent toward having a plan and taking quick action. The comparisons of Obama and Bush to FDR and Hoover are jarringly similar. It reminds me of what Al Gore once said about George Bush: "He is a smart guy. He's just not a curious guy."

I get so much information from my Twitter feed. I know a lot of people don't get Twitter and I didn't at first, either. It takes awhile and a little patience and encouragement. It allows you to follow what interesting people are saying and doing as a kind of pulse on the world. I don't Tweet (the word for writing one of Twitter's 140-word or less posts) all that often, but I enjoy what others are Tweeting.

This morning I came across this Tweet link, to a guest column by a NYU economics professor doing the FDR-Obama comparison. It's flattering to Obama, of course, but also serves as a good primer on FDR's first 100 days. I highly recommend reading a book on the topic. There are many out there, but I happen to be reading Nothing to Fear, by Adam Cohen. The above link is to Amazon, but I picked it up at Costco.

Learning from our new president

On the eve of the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, I can't help but be amazed by his conduct already -- and he hasn't even taken the oath of office, yet. President-elect Obama has practically been on the job for the past nearly three months. That is partially because of our incredibly unusual circumstances. After all, the lame duck is the most unpopular president in history and the country is facing the most daunting challenges any president-elect has faced in more than 75 years. As much as George Bush has tried to burnish his image over the past month, well, it's a bit like trying to polish a you know what. I will say that President Bush has extended the welcome mat to the Obamas, but I suspect this is part of the rehab strategy.

President-elect Obama has been very careful not only to not criticize the outgoing leadership, but has gone out of his way to meet with what otherwise might be considered his enemies. This "bury the hatchet" mentality is almost unprecedented and reaches a level of civility in presidential politics not seen in decades. Obama held a black tie dinner tonight honoring John McCain. He has regularly consulted McCain about his cabinet appointees and is planning to push several of McCain's pet causes through Congress. Bush barely spoke to his two opponents, even months after the election. In 2000, he and McCain were at loggerheads for two years.

We as a country and as individuals must move beyond the pettiness of hating, belittling and punishing our enemies and detractors. The "them vs. us" mentality as the standard operating procedure has got to change. And our leaders have got to stop modeling this as desirable behavior. Barack Obama is teaching us all a valuable lesson in how to conduct ourselves as decent, respectful individuals. Don't let anger fester. Be the bigger person and extend a hand. I expect President Obama to be incredibly transparent and stick to this approach even when it hurts. That's the kind of presidency he plans to pursue. That's the change he has promised.

The first important lesson we may learn from our new president? Modeling for all of us how to act like grownups.

Walk?

Walking. It's pretty much a foreign word to most Americans. Walk? Are you kidding? Walk? Most Americans would sooner have a fist fight over a parking spot in front of the store than park 50 feet away and walk to the store.

Walking is one of life's little and free pleasures. And, how rewarding in today's tough economic times. Did I mention that it's free? It's healthy, can help curb your appetite and clear your head. Some of my most esteemed colleagues go on regular walks, some even using them as alternative venues for 1:1s with their direct reports.

I've long had this fascination with walking. And truth be known, I've prided myself as a somewhat more macho runner for many years. But our time spent overseas really changed our thinking about walking -- not as an exercise, but as a means to get from point A to point B. When we returned to the states, Lynne missed her long walks so much that she even walked from our house to a local shopping mall, which turns out is about three miles from the house. Also turns out that America is not a very friendly walking environment. That's mostly because it's ruled by cars and trucks. Little consideration is given to pedestrians. It's all about the roads and vehicles. As Lynne found out, there aren't even sidewalks or footpaths everywhere you need to go. Why isn't there a pedestrian only bridge over the Willamette in downtown Portland?

Since we had no car when we lived in London, we had to get everywhere on foot and with the help of public transportation. My commute there was about what it is here, but in the course of getting there and back every day, I put in about two miles walking. Here I put in about 50 yards. So, yesterday I took a hike and walked to an errand during my lunch hour. I felt great afterwards, it got me out of the office and cleared my head.

Now when I drive to a store with a large parking lot, I actually look for a spot farther away from the door. It's less contentious, you get a little more exercise in and probably save some wear and tear on your car doors.

Zupan's wine man

Dropped into Zupan's Market Sunday in Raleigh Hills to pick up some things for dinner and ran into "the wine man." I'm admitting that I don't know his name, but he runs the wine department there and knows everything. He's also so in touch with what I like. I would trust him to basically recommend anything.

I was surprised to see that he had some Cape Mentelle Margaret River Shiraz. We found this in London at the Wine Society and fell in love with it. When I picked up one bottle, he said he could make me a good deal on six or more. So for a 25% discount, I picked up six. It's juicy plum and blueberry fruit play against savory pepper, smoke and clove notes. If you can get this around $20 a bottle, that's a good deal. Makes a great winter warmer and a wonderful gift.

He told me that Stag Hallow is the best pinot noir in Oregon. He's also a big fan of Abacela's Tempranillo Reserve (only made in years when they deem the grapes worthy).

I intend to make another trip back to see the wine guy and participate in some of Zupan's Thursday night tastings. This is the kind of guy that you can just give a budget to, describe what you like and have him go at it. You could do a lot worse joining some of these goofy wine clubs. I'm intending to have him make up a case sampler and will report back.

GEEK WARNING! The latest mobile update

Some people have a car, clothes or house (not so much anymore) fetish. Well, I have a phone fetish. That's right. I'm forever in search of the perfect mobile phone. And the search goes on . . and on . . . and on . . .

Let me begin by saying, there is no "perfect" mobile phone for everyone. That's because everyone uses theirs in a different way and has different needs/expectations. Lynne is perfectly happy with her new white flip phone from AT&T. For her, it gets the job done and she's very happy. But, then again, she doesn't have a phone fetish. I'll save a discussion of her fetishes for another time.

With that intro, I'm admitting that I got my third new phone in three months. No, I don't still have the other two. They have been either sold on Craig's List or exchanged. My most recent phone was via exchange with AT&T and I have to admit it was the easiest phone exchange I've ever experienced. Used to be you piratically had to practically threaten legal action to get them to take back a phone. Happy to see we've progressed from there.

The new buy is the HTC Touch Pro, known by AT&T as the Fuze. It is the state of art in Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. It used a technology called TouchFlow, not to be confused with Multi touch (what the iPhone uses). And, it's definitely not to be confused with an iPhone. But, it does get the job done with some sweet benefits. For starters, the display is simply amazing and possibly better than the iPhone's. Crisp, clear and bright. Like that a lot. It has a slide out keyboard that is roomy and full featured with dedicated keys to many of the symbols and punctuation marks we all use. That makes it a little more chunky than a front facing qwerty phone, but so be it. Still fits in my jeans pocket.

You can either touch the screen or use the stylus, which is held in place with a cool magnet. The animated weather feature is cool and lets you save as many cities as you want for quick access. So I can quickly check the weather in London, St. Louis and Sydney. Touch scrolling is nice and works. Some of the other touch features are more fiddly and prone to drive you nuts. I find myself using the stylus quite a lot.

As for the phone itself, that part is very good. It has a feature called sidetone that I really like. It lets you hear your own voice through the phone's ear speaker, like a land line phone. My bluetooth headset (Plantronics 925) does this as well. Some people don't like it, but I do. Also, the bluetooth connection in my car is superb. It's loud and clear and better than either of the other two phones I have used in the car. If you don't have one of these hands free devices in your car, it's a must. You'll not only have a much better chance of avoiding a crash, but you'll find yourself using your phone a lot more to stay in touch with people.

The email (my main reason for not just having a phone phone) works well and I quickly set up my work email, Yahoo! and Hotmail accounts. It has a nifty graphical preview feature though to use it you have to master the anomalies of the TouchFlow system.

I think (hope) I'm set with this phone for some time. Palm has just announced a cool new phone that does use MultiTouch technology like the iPhone. It looks tempting, but for now is only available on Sprint and likely won't be available on AT&T given it's exclusive deal with Apple.

Wine club

We got back in the swing of thngs with Wine Club last night for the first time since coming back. Lynne was the hit of the night as she couldn’t make the Christmas dinner back in December.

Wendy put together a nice tasting of Italian reds under $20. I liked three of them best:

2006 Ambra Carmignano
2004 Secco Bertani
2006 Giusti Lacrima di Morro d'Alba

All were purchased from Liner & Elsen in Portland. Particularly take note of the Giusti Lacrima. Though it was a red, it had some amazing muscat and gewürztraminer notes. Very strong blueberry and rose petal flavors come through as well. I also liked the Ambra Carmignano. Lots of dark cherry fruit in that one.

These are nice Italians that will grow on you. None will knock your socks off initially, but like a lot of European wines are meant to be enjoyed with a meal.

International standards

As we (mostly my wife) work our way through the boxes stacked in our garage, we discover more projects that require some additional assembly in order to work in America. Over there, they’d call all of this “kit.” I rather like that word and it’s one of the pieces of language I hope to retain, along with “bits” and “bespoke.”

Whenever we bought things of any significant value (more than £100 or $200 US at the time), the rule was we had to find it usable or useful when we moved back to the US. So, that meant with electronics, it needed to run on both US 120v power as well as UK 240v power. Anything with a light or a motor in was likely not going to work. For instance our close American friends sent us home with a Cuisinart coffee maker they’d received as a wedding present and taken with them to London. They plugged it in once, but thought it might work for us in the US. No chance. Dead as a doornail. Perhaps Good Will can fix it.

We took no lamps with us and disposed of the few we bought there before coming home (the IKEA floor lamp lasted just weeks short of  our return). Likewise the LCD TV had to be sold and the Bose radio. (I’m a huge Bose fan. One of the reasons is their customer service. Bose gave me an unsolicited $200 credit on my 10-year-old Bose radio that I left in the US when we returned!)

But, we did buy this barbeque. It’s a Weber Q – a lightweight, portable model perfect for tailgate parties, picnics or camping. Knowing this was a popular brand sold in the US, we figured there was little to no risk even though it was priced about 70% higher than the same model in the US. It worked perfectly for us and even perched on our second story kitchen window sill. We enjoyed grilled steaks and hamburgers just as we had at home.

When we got it home, however, I quickly realized that the disposable propane bottles sold here have a different connection that those sold in Europe. Argh! Called Weber who refused to help.  (I’m assuming liability issues are just too high.) Went online without luck. Then I mentioned it at a cocktail party and was steered to a propane supplier near our home. We were fixed up with a simple converter for $10.

The other one was the Tivoli table radio. Also sold in the US, the Tivoli is a wonderful, compact, simple AM/FM radio. Drat! It runs only on 240v. Called Tivoli. Very helpful. They knew exactly the problem and steered me to Radio Shack for a small power plug like you’d use to charge a mobile phone. Bingo! Working fine. How refreshing to get that kind of customer service from both Tivoli and Radio Shack. I suspect it’s people like me who are keeping RS in business.

I really feel like we dodged a couple of bullets here in converting our kit with minimal problems. We have one more piece of electronics we brought back – a Fatman iTube iPod player and speakers. It, however, runs on 120v, which I made sure of before purchase. Called the US distributor this week and they’re sending me a new power cord free. So, we’re now 3-for-3. Can’t do a lot better than that.

I did get a new phone

The Palm Treo Pro lasted all of two months. I did get a new phone – the Samsung Epix – about a week ago. I was trying to avoid signing a contract with AT&T, but gave up and took the bait in order to get a new phone.

No phone is ever going to be perfect for me, but the Epix is an improvement over the Treo Pro. Mainly, I like the bigger battery and the less crowded keyboard. The quality of the phone itself is also excellent. The optical mouse is interesting and debatable, but I’ve taken a shine to it. It’s kind of like learning to use the touchpad on your notebook for the first time. The screen is excellent, it’s fast enough for me and seems to have no connection/rebooting issues. I’ve not had to do a reset on it yet.

The Samsung Today screen is interesting, but so far I’ve not decided to make that my default,  but keep playing with it. This seems to be a more solid phone than the Treo. It’s a little beyond your standard front facing qwerty keyboard phone, but not in the same zoomy category as the iPhone or the BlackBerry Storm. Bluetooth works awesomely with both cars I pair it with. I was not able to get connected via my Linksys N wireless router, but I think that’s a Linksys problem and I’m not willing to do surgery on my home network just to connect my phone to WiFi when I’d rarely us it anyhow.

Will do a progress report in a couple of months as that’s about the time I’d normally be getting very fed up with any phone.

A day at a time

First day back at work and it feels good after being away via vacation, holidays and work from home during the snow for about three weeks.

The Christmas post-partum is never something I relish. After all, there’s that big build-up for Christmas, all the football games, food, festiveness, family. All good stuff. This year’s Christmas, however, was one of the weirdest in my memory. Firstly, we got what we wished for – a truly White Christmas. Actually, a little too much of the white stuff. I can still see piles of snow in the parking lot outside my office even though the sun is out today. That kind of put a damper on a lot of family activities.

New Year’s Day football was disappointing. Really no great games and fewer than normal because the TV Gods have ruined the impact of that one single day when you could gorge yourself on food, drink and football.  We did fine with the food and drink. But, the games are all strung out now and therefore lose their specialness IMO.

Then, there’s the economy. Christmas was a time when we could kind of put it aside for a bit. But it’s still there. The Christmas shopping season – especially here – was dismal. But, perhaps no worse than was predicted. At least the online guys seemed to do well and that turned out to be my major source of gifts. I didn’t go Christmas shopping other than with my fingertips once. I’m a traditional late shopper and the weather put a kibosh on that.

Our household goods finally arrived and we were able to get somewhat settled before Christmas. But, we’re still digging through several dozen boxes in the garage. Most of them will go into storage. We are still purging and have vowed to keep things trim and under control. On our last trip to the Good Will, we did some shopping though. Sign of the times.

Lots of speculation about when we hit the bottom. And no one really knows. Many are predicting that we’ll get a lift – if not only temporarily – from the change in administration later this month. We’ll have to wait and see on that one. It’s probably awhile before the bad news subsides, however, and we start seeing some good news.

On a final note, one of our dear friends came by yesterday and told us her cancer that had been in remission for 10 years was back and not in a good way. Still more to learn and lots of hope, but she will be No. 1 on our prayer list from now on.