I am old enough to remember Hank Aaron’s drive for Babe Ruth’s record in 1973-74. It was a special day when he finally did it.
Today ….. not so much.
I console myself with the thought that if A-Rod stays healthy, there’s a good chance he’ll top 756 in the not too distant future.
A New York Times article on the millionaires of Silicon Valley is garnering mostly negative feedback today. And it’s easy to see why. It’s hard to have sympathy for people like this:
“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” [Gary] Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar
I can’t say I’m all that sympathetic to people who got themselves onto a money treadmill and now feel that they can’t get off it. You always have a choice, and if you think you don’t, it’s because you’re not looking in the right places for options. If your role models are the folks with a net worth of $50 million, then yeah, you’re a schlub for only having $5 million. Perhaps you might try spending a little time with people whose net worth is only $500 thousand instead? Is that too demeaning for you? Those people, after all, can’t afford a nanny for the toddlers and new Acuras for the teenagers. They might even — dare I say it? — rent their homes and join the Y instead of a country club.
Is that too much like “admitting defeat”?
Cry me a freaking river.
Here’s where I come from on this: I went to a very exclusive private school when I was growing up, and my family was on the lower end of the income spectrum for the school. Kids didn’t have ipods and multi-function cellphones and $200 Gucci sunglasses back then, but some things were the same; many of my classmates had brand-new cars, designer jeans, shopping sprees at Bloomingdales, and spring break skiing trips to Aspen. I didn’t. I’d like to say that it didn’t matter, but that would be a lie. Of course you’re going to feel bad if some people in your peer group have stuff you don’t. What’s important is how you deal with it.
If you’re lucky, you take away the lesson that ‘stuff’ doesn’t necessarily make you happy, that somebody is always going to have more stuff than you, and to be happy with the stuff you do have. If you’re less lucky, you walk away with the ambition to get all that stuff, and then some, when it comes time for you to raise your own kids. And thus, a new generation of overworked treadmill-walkers is born.
Any accusations of sour grapes aside, there’s also a business lesson to be drawn here. I was interested to see that one of the subjects of the article earned much of her wealth from being an early member of the team at Handspring (and later a senior staffer at Palm). One wonders if that company’s ever-increasing inability to deliver products that people wanted might be linked to their own staff’s disconnection from what life for “normal” people is like.
Most people who move to the suburbs do so in order to raise a family in a “good” school district.
Not us. We moved to San Mateo to get more bang for our housing buck, better commuting options, and more walkability. Our address scores 77 out of 100 in the “Walk Score” at this fun mashup site I found tonight.
Our last apartment in San Francisco? It had a Walk Score of 55.
I got home after midnight yesterday and am too pooped to make it back up to the city today for the 2nd half of WordCamp.
I did have a great time, though. Got some stickers to bling out my ancient laptop, a way-too-small t-shirt (Damn you, American Apparel!) and I even got to meet the inimitable Cheezburger, who’s quite a nice guy.
UPDATE: Photos on Flickr.
Sports gambling — and the NBA in general — isn’t something that normally crosses my radar screen. However, if this NY Post column is accurate, even I know that an accusation of fixed games in the NBA is a very big deal indeed. The last thing any professional sports league needs is allegations of fixed games.
That said, the article makes it pretty clear than only one referee is under investigation, and if that’s the case, then one bad ref should not tank the whole system.
We spent last night down on Stanford campus with some friends, picnicking, enjoying a concert, and finally, a fireworks display. Great weather, good friends, good food, and a good time.
Except at the end. The soundtrack for the fireworks was a standard Boston Pops set of classic American war music. The glorification of war and of American armed might in the music struck me as both ironic and sad, given how badly the war in Iraq is going. Usually, when I see fireworks, I find myself thinking about John Adams and how he though the 4th should be celebrated, and wondering what he would think of the America of today. This year, though, I mostly though about the soldiers over in Iraq, and what they might be thinking of today.
The sooner they all come home, the better.