This is a post related to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) issue, although not directly. Let me simply say that I hope that everyone is taking the necessary precautions and stays safe. There probably is a long road ahead, so please be careful and be patient. This too will pass, hopefully without too much loss of life.

So where am I going with this? Well, for obvious reasons, as many people as possible have been told to work from home until the spread abates. This makes obvious sense. What doesn’t make obvious sense is why more companies haven’t let their employees who work essentially with a laptop do this for years. It is obvious to me that many jobs can be done remotely for the most part, but there are few positions like this available in the US (and I know because I have been trying to get one of these for a few years). In fact (and some of you know this), I was released from my last job because the condition for keeping it was relocating to the location where my boss sat (which was different from the location where I sat and was totally unfeasible for me). The sad part of this was that I had been at a different location that my bosses for over 10 years and had performed my jobs more than adequately (if performance appraisals are to be believed). Besides, in most medium and large companies (especially ones which have multiple sites), the majority of meetings are teleconferences. Sorry for the rant, but I didn’t write this post to vent (OK, maybe a little). I wrote this to point out the many benefits of having many a lot more remote positions (I’d say they were obvious except for the fact that if they were, I wouldn’t be writing this). The benefits as I see them:

– potentially a lot less congestion on the roads. And theoretically, the reduced time on the road could lead to more time for work and less stress (not having to fight the traffic).

– it would be beneficial to the environment due to the reduced combustion of fossil fuels

– would allow for flexibility for child care. Companies may not believe this, but it is possible to perform you job at home if there are kids in the house, especially if the kids are not babies

– likely, many more people with disabilities and /or handicaps could be significantly more productive

– if we had been implementing this practice for the last 5 – 10 years, business would certainly be interrupted less during crises like this one.

So my question is the following; will we learn from this with regard to remote working? Generally, once we recover from situations like these, we go back to business as it was before the situation/crisis. We often don’t seem to learn very much of anything. For example, after the financial crisis in 2007-2009, we placed some rules on big banks to rein in predatory loans and risky investments. Since then, many of these rules have been reversed. We haven’t seemed to have much of a reaction to the extreme weather events which are likely to have some connection to global warming. At most, some people acknowledge it, and we move on. I am hoping that we learn many things from this unfortunate crisis. One thing I hope we do learn is the value of working remotely. It’s time the American workplace enters the 21st century, and this would be one step in the right direction.

What happened? My legions of readers (which often number more than zero) must be worried. I haven’t posted in over 6 months. I mean, I don’t have a job, so I should have all the time in the world, right. Actually, not so right. Over the last 6+ months, I have been doing the following things:

– Got heavily into golf during the summer and early fall. I joined a league, played every week, and practiced 2-3 times per week. I wasn’t very good, but I sure as hell had a good time.

– Continued trying to become somewhat competent in French. Was part of a group that met once per week, took a class in the fall, and am taking another one now (can’t get away from homework, even at my age). Also spent 3 days participating in a French immersion exercise. I have a ways to go still, but I have improved, which tells me that my brain is still functioning.

– Joined a book group. I have been reading a fair amount for a couple of decades, but by participating in this group, I have read books that I normally wouldn’t read, which has opened my eyes a bit, plus we discuss each book at the monthly meeting, so you have to read actively.

– Went on a great trip to Europe. It was a cruise that left from Stockholm, stopped in Helsinki, St. Petersburg (for 2 days), Tallin (Estonia), and Germany, and then ended in Copenhagen. We stayed over in both Stockholm and Copenhagen to spend some time in those cities. It was one of the best trips of my life. However, it was the beginning of my blogging issues in 2 ways; 1) I was planning to live blog the trip, but the internet signal on the ship was too weak for me to be able to do it, 2) I did take notes and planned to make a post after I returned home, but somehow I lost the notebook that had all of the notes (and a number of other potential blog posts). This both depressed and derailed me since I lost a lot of important information., and this started the blog slump.

– Fall was, of course, football season, and I was pleasantly surprised by the success of the Ravens. Amazingly, they kept getting better and better as the season progressed until, unfortunately, it all came crashing down in the playoff loss to Tennessee. But one of the net results was to divert my attention away from blogging.

– And more recently, relocation became my biggest passion. My wife, younger daughter, and I are moving about 90 miles to be closer to my older daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter. This involves (in our case) a major cleanup job dealing with tons of clutter in my house. We’ve been working on this for about 2 months now. We also began looking for and have found a new house to move into. All we need now is to be able to figure out how to finance all of this.

And of course, there’s lots of day-to-day stuff (we have 2 dogs, for example as well as a yard that needed to be tended to and lots of other stuff we all have to do).

Clearly, there is nothing profound here, so why did I write this? Well, first of all, one mess has been disentangles, that being my inability to work at this blog for the last 6 months. And there is also another point; any chance of me being bored or having not enough to do is absolutely moot. There may not be as much pressure on me as there was when I was working, but I have been as busy as I have ever been. I still have a decent list of things to get to that I haven’t have enough time to tackle. And I am as happy as I’ve been in a long time. So don’t be afraid of the future. And expect to see more posts from me in the very near future. I have things I want to say, and I hope at least a few folks who want to read about them

To those few that follow this blog, yes it’s been too long since my last post. But this is actually a good thing. Please read below.

So, I have hit two months since I stopped working. And I can honestly say that mostly it’s been a blast. I’m doing all kinds of things that I didn’t have time for in the past (like playing golf regularly (and I’m really getting into it), learning about meteorology, writing, etc.) in addition to the things I have to do. I’ve been so busy lately that one of the things that is suffering is this blog, but I’ll try to write more often. There are so many things I want to do that sometimes I think I need to start making a daily schedule. In other words, I am anything but bored, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. But I am not complaining.

We spent this past weekend with our 2 year old granddaughter. It’s been great to be able to watch her grow and learn and be able to participate in it (even more so now that I’m not working). It’s easier to watch her develop than it was with my own kids because I don’t have so many responsibilities like I did when my daughters were growing up, so I can pay more attention (apologies to my daughters; I did the best I could, and I did notice your development and growth, too). It also helps not being the primary caregiver, though my wife and I hope to do more of that next year when we plan to move close to where my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter live). Just sitting back and watching her figure things out is quite enjoyable. Her brainpower must be growing exponentially by the day. But her best feature is her unconditional love of her parents, her family, and (of course) Elmo. As you get older and see the craziness of the world today, it’s very refreshing to see that she (and most humans before the age of 4 or 5) love people and things for who and what they are. So what happens to kids between age 4 and adulthood? Well they change an awful lot. Part of it is probably natural and simply due to an aging brain and the need to survive. Part of it has to do with interactions with other kids, and kids can be rough on each other. But mainly ,IMO, it is once the adults start planting their worldviews into kids’ brains that they lose the capacity to love and think like they did as kids. In essence, we start (and then continue) the process of closing their once completely open minds. And it doesn’t help that many school curricula are light on teaching critical thinking skills. We need to do better. Maybe if we treat our kids better, there will be a lot less close-mindedness and division in the world. I know I will do my best (without overdoing) to help my daughters teach their kids (assuming there will be others someday) to be caring, loving, and thinking adults.

And I was wondering if I would have enough to do once I stopped working? I’ve been so busy that I haven’t been able to keep up with everything I wanted to, including writing in this blog. But now, it’s time for a new entry.

Most of us listened to a lot of music when we were growing up (or if you’re young enough, listen). And most of heard (repeatedly) things like “turn it down!’ and “how can you listen to that noise!” from our parents. And maybe those of us who became parents have said those things to our kids (I probably did, but I don’t think it was too often). Anyway, where I’m going with this is that a lot of the music most of us listen to is the same music we listened to when we were young. My favorite music types are as follows (not necessarily in order):

• R&B from the mid ’60s to the mid ’70s, including Motown (ending with the introduction of disco)
• Jazz from the mid ’50s to the mid to late ’60s (mostly mainstream, I can’t deal with avant-garde).
• Classic rock (’60s to about mid ’80s)
• A fair number of ’50s and early ’60s oldies

Broad strokes, but you get the picture.

So I’m pretty consistent with my profile. However, there is a lot of music outside of the above list that I like and listen to, just not as consistently. So you might catch me listening to Peaceful by Helen Reddy or In My House, by Mary Jane Girls, or What’s My Name Again by Blink 182, or I’m not Dead Yet from Spamalot, or The Trial by Roy Hargrove. I continued to listen to music as I aged and expanded my horizons. For one thing, I was a DJ for about 2 years (1984-1986, I worked in bars and at parties for a cousin of mine to make so extra cash), so I was able to keep current for a while after I stopped listening to the radio (more on that later). When my kids were growing up, they would watch music videos, which were probably at peak popularity in the ’90s. I often watched as well, mostly to make sure they weren’t watching videos that were too explicit. But at the same time, I did get to know some of the music of the ’90s, and some of it is very good (some not so much). And my younger daughter has occasionally turned on the car radio to listen to more recent pop music. I don’t think much of that stuff (too much techno and not enough instrumentation), but I occasionally hear one that’s I like. And my younger daughter also introduced me to Broadway music. I don’t love all of it, but again, some of it is great, especially live. That’s kind of same way I feel about classical; I enjoy listening to it live much more than hearing it on a CD or the radio.

With Jazz, it was a little different. I began listening to Jazz as a teenager but really got into in my 30s. We moved to New England, and I had consistently long commutes. Combine this with the proliferation of CDs and CD players and a store, Newberry Comics, which had a great CD collection, and I began rapidly collecting Jazz CDs. I would listen to one CD on the way to work and one on the way beck. I have over 100 of them now from many different artists. I don’t listen as much as I used to, but it’s nice to have a relatively comprehensive collection.

I also think that me sharing my music with my daughters exposed them to a lot of music from the past that they now like. Each of them are big Beatles fans, they both like Motown a lot. I went to see the Temptations with one daughter and Billy Joel with the other. We’ve always bonded through music. FYI, I saw Jethro Tull last year with my sister and brother-in-law (they introduced me to lots of music, and I grew up listening to my sister’s 45s). Great show. And I have a new friend who wants to share his favorite music with me (and me with him). I can’t wait to get together.

Sadly, radio ain’t close to what it used to be. When I was young, many radio stations played a good mix of Top 40 (and beyond) music. In a given hour, you might hear songs by the Grass Roots, Wilson Pickett, and the Who. Nowadays, almost every station (including those on Sirius XM or cable TV) is specialized for a single genre of music. And lots of stations have pretty short playlists which you get tired of within a few hours (there are a few, but only a few exceptions). Some people want it that way, but I would never have been exposed to the music I love now with today’s format. My dream job, if I could get it, would be to have a 4 hour radio show every day where I could play whatever I wanted. In my dream, people would actually listen to it. Maybe in future entries, I’ll post some playlists.

Suffice it to say that music has been a very important and critical part of my life. I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels that way.

This is a pretty long post and probably a bit unexpected, but this is some of what has been in my mind lately, so I thought I’d post about it.

If you happened to read my first 2 posts, then you know that I am not an economist (nor do I play one on TV). In fact, when I was growing up, I frankly could have cared less. I’ll never forget one morning when I was riding to school with my great friend (his pop owned a gas station, so he had a car). He usually had an all-news station going on the radio. When the business report came up that morning, he declared that he intended to major in economics (I don’t remember if I prompted him by saying something like, “Who cares about this stuff?”). We were probably 16 or 17 at the time, and it was the first time I recall him revealing his intended major, and I was surprised since almost all we ever talked about was sports and sometimes girls. And while me, the meteorologist to be, changed course, he went on to achieve a Masters degree in economics and used that knowledge to work as an economist for a while, then go on to have a long career in the world of sports. I gradually began to become interested at least generally in the economy, mostly due to my interest in politics and in job security. As time moved on, my interest included investing to be able to get my kids through college. And more recently, I my interest has continued to grow as I tried to prepare for life after work. In addition to my great friend the economist, I have become friends with another economist who works as a financial advisor, and I now have a (different) financial advisor my wife and I work with. I have conversations with all of these smart folks, I read anything they give me, and I pepper them with questions and some of my own comments/views. And every so often, they tell me that my thoughts/views/opinions aren’t totally bizarre. They even occasionally agree with me. I also think that my investment strategy has set us up for a comfortable retirement. I’m even reading books like The Undercover Economist (Tim Harford), The Courage to Act (Ben Bernanke), Too Big to Fail (Andrew Ross Sorkin), and several of Tom Friedman’s books and liking them (and understanding some of what they’re saying). And there’s more; I’ve been watching a lot of CNBC recently. It’s been a real education for me. Now, given all of that verbiage, here’s this pseudo-economist’s view of parts of the current economy:

The positive:

• Overall, the unemployment numbers continue to look really positive (now at ~3.6%; the chart’s a bit dated). We appear to be at, or nearly at, all-time lows in unemployment. Yes, I know there are many ways to measure this value, but the trend has been positive for almost a decade. Practically every place I shop continues to be in hiring mode, I am constantly hearing from recruiters and getting messages about job fairs, and there also appear to be lots of job openings on sites like Linked In. I’m not looking for work at the moment, but I’m pretty confident that if I either suddenly wanted to get a job in my field or just have some extra spending money in my pocket, I would be able to get employed pretty quickly. This is a good feeling to have.
• Inflation is very low, despite the strong economy. According to what I have heard many economists say, this is surprising given the recent GDP numbers. In fact, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates thrice (I love that word) last year at least partly in anticipation of an increase in inflation that hasn’t materialized. At least that’s my understanding. The President and some pundits think they should roll it back a bit. Hell, even gas prices haven’t moved too much despite expectations that they were on the verge of a serious uptick.
• The stock market (despite the US-China trade war jitters of the past few days) has been quite good overall since 2009. As someone who was pretty heavily invested in the market during the last 10 years, this has worked out quite well for me. Now that we have to live off the income I generated this way, we’re backing off some to help assure that our money lasts, but I still am keeping a potion of our money invested because I agree with those who say, “you can’t beat the S&P.”
• The recession that has been predicted by a fairly large number of experts to have arrived by now still hasn’t. Many are predicting it for 2020. Maybe thy are right, and nothing lasts forever, but it’s hard for me to believe that we’re on the precipice of a serious downturn.

Having said all of this, I still am pretty uneasy about this economy, especially toward those who are middle class and/or young. Here’s why:

• Even now, many of the jobs being created are fairly low paying jobs. While certainly better than nothing, these jobs are not going to raise large numbers of people out of poverty or debt. And though it hurts to say this, for many of the newly crated high tech positions, there are not a lot of US citizens that can perform them due either to lack of education and/or desire to achieve the necessary level of education/training.
• Although unemployment and inflation levels are both very low, wages have struggled to outpace inflation. When you achieve a certain income level, a 2-3% raise might not seem so bad (like for me in the last half-dozen years). But when you’re making, let’s say, $50,000, that kind of raise doesn’t buy you a whole lot.
• While the tax cuts may have created some jobs, it is now clear to those of us making less than $250,000 that this legislation in fact raised our income taxes. This was intended largely for the wealthy and big business, and as with other tax cuts targeted to those groups, they will keep much more than they spend on job creation.
• Both the US government and most of the citizens living under it are in deep debt. If my wife and I did one thing right financially, we stayed out of debt and bought what we could afford. The current pattern is not sustainable, and at some point we will have to pay the piper or risk going into deep recession (remember 2009?). Belts need to be tightened, and that includes the runaway military spending that is taking place. I don’t see it happening, nor do I see any politician with the will to realistically address it.
• Although I agree with President Trump (something I don’t often say) with regard to the issues with China, especially pertaining to intellectual property, I don’t think we can win a trade war with them for several reason; 1) China can hold out longer than us. Because it is a dictatorship, the government can much more easily pass the pain onto the citizens, who have no power to fight back. At some point, even Trump’s most loyal supporters will lose patience if they can’t afford to buy cell phones, 2) Because of point 1, China has more time to look elsewhere and find other trade partners, who will give in to the cheaper goods. The current Administration is pissing off a lot of our usual allies, and they might not side with us if we levy tariffs on them (as we are threatening), 3) Many of those “Made in China” goods (clothes and sneakers, for example) are made in (relatively) low tech factories using cheap labor. Can we bring back those types of jobs and get US workers to do them, especially if the wages are low?
• I won’t get into Social Security, health care, or the potential effects of global warming now.

Well, there you have it. I hope I didn’t bore you. It’s high level and simplistic, but I suspect that many politicians don’t know a lot more. And I’d love to hear from some of you, especially if you think I’m off-base.

Everyone who knows me even a little more than casually is aware of the fact that I like sports. Like many kids in the USA in the ’60s and ’70s, I was a full-fledged sports fanatic, following all major sports closely. Luckily for me, having grown up in Baltimore during that period, we had successful baseball and football teams (Orioles and Colts (yes, young people, they originated in Baltimore)). We also had the NBA until 1973, and the Bullets (now Washington Wizards) of the late ’60s and early ’70s were also pretty good. We had the Baltimore Clippers of the AHL (top minor league hockey) and even had a very brief (half a season) trial in the WHA, where I got to see Gordie Howe play. Anyway, nowadays, though I live elsewhere, I follow the Baltimore Ravens closely and U. of Maryland Terps basketball fairly closely. I am aware of what’s going on in the other major sports, but I don’t know most of the players and rarely watch the games (maybe I’ll discuss that later). However, my interest in 2 sports has grown, those being golf (which I’ve always liked and occasionally play) and of all things, curling.

I knew of the existence of curling as early as the 1970s (thanks to a book entitled The Sports Book, which has a brief writeup about curling). Anyway, I do remember seeing curling matches during the 2014 Winter Olympics on NBCSN and being intrigued by it, although I had no idea about the rules and how it was scored. There did appear to be a lot of strategy involved, which is probably why when I saw it again in 2017, I leaned in a bit. By 2018, I was beginning to understand the game somewhat, and I watched quite a bit of it during the 2018 Winter Olympics. And I was rewarded when the US men’s team won its first ever Gold medal. I have been following it closely ever since. There is another NBC-sponsored station called The Olympic Channel which shows a good number of curling matches, both on TV and online.

I’ll try not to go too deeply into the guts of the sport, but I do believe that some information about the sport is warranted. Men’s and women’s curling matches consist of 2 four person teams competing against each other, whereas mixed doubles teams consist of 1 man and 1 woman working together. There are “ends” in curling (10 for men’s and women’s matches, 8 for mixed doubles matches) which are somewhat similar to innings in baseball. Each teams throws all of its curling stones (42 pound granite circular blocks) over the ice in each inning. The stones “curl” for 3 reasons; 1) there is a handle on each stone which allows the thrower to put spin on the stone, 2) the ice ahead of the stone is “swept” by teammates which can control both the speed and lateral movement of the stone, 3) small bumps are placed on the ice sheet which affect the movement of the stone. The objective is to place your teams stone closest to the center of 3 concentric rings, called the house (see image below). In a good end, the team with “hammer (throwing second)” will have 2 or more stones closest to the center at the end of the end. Of course, while one team tries to place its stones into the best position in the house, the other tries to prevent it and potentially score with its own stones. Thus, each end is a combination of offense and defense. In my view, curling is a lot like chess with a bit of athleticism and physical skill.

A few closing thoughts

• One of the most surprising things I discovered is that curling was invented in Scotland, not Canada. The Canadians dominated the sport for a long time (a lot more ice there than in Scotland), but now the sport is popular in many parts of Europe as well as East Asian countries (China/Japan/South Korea).
• I have never participated in curling, though I have been interested in doing so. The nearest curling sheet to me is an hour away. But I just found out that someone I know does play the sport, so I am hoping that she will take me to play. I am sure that it’s much harder than it looks when the “pros” do it.
• I’m not trying to convert anyone who reads this into a curling fan. But it does go to show you that sometimes when you’re not expecting it, you stumble onto something totally by accident that you become interested in. So please keep an open mind as you go through life.
• If by chance anyone reading this wants to explore the world of curling, there is a tournament taking place this week (08 – 12 May). You can view some of the matches on The Olympic Channel or website.

As I stated in my first post, I spent over 30 years in the biotech industry. OK, 2 of those 30+ years were spent at an academic institution (U Mass Lowell), but even then, most of the work I did was for biotech clients (I also taught classes as an Adjunct Professor). The funny thing is that, had I stuck with my original choice, none of this would have happened. Starting at about age 7, I became fascinated with weather, winter weather in particular. In fact, my friend and I would get on the phone pretty much every time it snowed (which isn’t all that common in Baltimore) and watch and describe it for hours (we were nerdy kids). We would also draw weather maps to try and describe various storms (especially the one that brought rain instead of snow, much to our chagrin). Our knowledge was crude, but we understood that winter storms that passed west and north of Baltimore ushered in warmer air and rain, while storms that passed south and east of Baltimore allowed colder air to flow in, and the result was snow. Yes, we were nuts, but I was mesmerized. I was convinced that I was destined to be a meteorologist. However, as I stated in my last post and the beginning of this one, it was not meant to be. Why? There were 3 main reasons that I can think of; 1) my folks (my father in particular) were vehemently opposed to it, mainly because they had no understanding of what I might do with a meteorology degree (other than become a TV weatherman), 2) as a senior in high school, the chemistry class I was taking had a semester which covered biochemistry and organic chemistry, and I found it very interesting, 3) when I saw the college course load for obtaining a BS in mete0rology (physics, geology, and astronomy with lots of complicated math, remember this was the late ’70s, pre PC age), I was very intimidated and wasn’t sure if I could do it. So I decided to try biochemistry (certainly not simple, but much lass math). And a career was born.

So what do I think about this now? Well, if I had ended up sticking with meteorology, my life of course would have been totally different. I would never have met my wife (whom I met in grad school), so my family (if I ended up having one) would have been completely different. Hey, you can’t look back though. You make your choice and move ahead. Things turned out pretty well, so I surely can’t complain. Also, I don’t feel like I settled. I enjoyed much of my work life, made some contributions, and was paid well for my services. But it does beg the question about whether I made the right career choice. I still am very interested in weather. And now that global warming is front and center (and my biotech career either on hold or over, don’t know yet), I would love to find a way to be involved with it (other than making phone calls asking for donations and licking stamps, no offense to those that do this for the cause). Having no experience, I don’t know if there is a way for me to make a contribution to the debate or the science. Something to investigate in the future.

In closing, I guess I would tell you to follow your passion if you have one. I tried to convey that message to my daughters as they were growing up. If you’re not sure what you want to do, try to get as much exposure as you can (be that in work situations, college, or both) and find something that you think you will enjoy doing. And there’s no reason to stick with something if you’re not happy. It’s a big world out there. Don’t fear moving around and trying new challenges. Most of us spend a significant portion of our time on the job, so do the most you can to make it as happy (or at least pleasant) as possible.

Like millions of others, I have decided to start a blog. Big news! So let’s start with an introduction (many of you will recognize this, but hopefully some new folks won’t).

Personal bio: I’m approaching 60 years old, am married to a fantastic person, have 2 awesome (and grown) daughters, one amazing granddaughter, and 2 terrific pugs. I am very lucky indeed in this regard.

I earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and worked in the biopharmaceutical industry for 30+ years. About a year ago, I was presented with a choice; either work at least 3 days a week in another state (or move there), or take a severance package. I chose option 2. My last day of work at that company (which I won’t identify here, though again many will know) was April 05. Possibly more on this topic later. But it does leave me with time to write.

I love to read. I’m learning le francais. I like sports, meteorology, economics and economic issues, politics, music (mostly old stuff), and I hope to write a book or books eventually.

I’ll have more substantive posts in the coming days. Anything and everything is in play. Many of them will be opinions. I don’t mean to offend, so please feel free to respond and to disagree, but do it in a reasonably civil way. Let’s talk and not argue.

More to come soon.