Are You the Inn Keeper at Christmas?

Let's face it, the Holidays are full.  They are full of hectic trips to the mall to get that perfect present for a loved one.  They're full of last minute runs to the grocery store for that ingredient you forget every year.  Then there's the wrapping, the decorating, the card sending, the cleaning to prepare for friends and family, and on and on.  Yes the holidays are full of alot of great things.  The question I'd like to pose is this: is your holiday also full of the most important good thing?
When Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem they found the local inn and were told that it was completely full.  In fairness to the inn keeper at that time it is doubtful that he knew who he was talking, so we can't blame him for providing them the manger as a last resort.  Unfortunately we can't give ourselves the same benefit of the doubt when we give Jesus the left over room of our holiday.
I am not trying to say that the gifts and the time with family isn't important.  To be sure, we give gifts to remember the wisemen came bearing gifts on the inaugural Christma, and I can only imagine the searching they did to find the right gifts for that occasion.  And family is one of the most vital institutions in our culture and it is important to connect and spend time with one another.  I only want to point out that when it comes to how and why we celebrate Christmas, those things should all be given their proper place and Jesus should be given the highest place and highest priority.  It should always be that way in our live, God first and everything else after Him, but it should be even more apparent on this Holiday.
So wake up early, unwrap the gifts and eat too much all day.  Pile into the car and visit all the stops you have meticulously scheduled to see everyone you should.  If you have a large family like I do, have patience when you give the same answer to a question you've been asked by ten different people.  But most of all keep Jesus first and remember that we give gifts to each other not only because of the wisemen but even more so because this event was the beginning of the greatest gift God ever gave to all of us.  Merry Christmas.

Who Really Builds A Business

Who Really Builds A Business?

Recently, our President made the comment that if you are an entrepreneur and own a small business, you didn't build it yourself.  He made the comment in an attempt to show the importance of infrastructure and other government services such as public schooling.  Instead, he gave us a revealing glimpse into his world-view and the role he believes our government plays in job creation and the private sector.
Mr. Obama argues that if it weren't for infrastructure like roads, rail, and ports, then private businesses would not be able to so easily transport goods and services and would therefore not exist.  He also puts forth the theory that teachers are a motivating force that spark the entrepreneurial spirit of kids that go on to become tomorrow's business owners.  I will show that Mr. Obama suffers from an inability to properly assign causality to these issues and how that effects his policy that has restrained growth while in office.
Let's start with the argument that teachers are the motivating force behind entrepreneurs and therefore the U.S. economy.  For the record, my dad is an eighth grade math teacher and I have the ultimate respect for what these public servants do on a daily basis.  However, it is a leap too far to say that teachers are the causal factor in an individual's decision to pursue a business venture of their own creation.  After all, entrepreneurs have existed long before public schooling, and many autodidacts have gone on to be fantastic titans of industry.  Andrew Carnegie did not have a teacher that showed him how to create steel and told him to use it to transform the history of our country and cities across the world.  Steve Jobs wrote to two other entrepreneurs, Hewlitt and Packard, to ask for the parts necessary to build his own computer without the poking or prodding of a teacher.  Don't get me wrong; teachers do a great deal to inspire children and young adults to pursue their dreams and expose them to dreams they may not have even thought of on their own, but they do not create entrepreneurs out of mindless drones.
Now let us move on to the idea that without infrastructure, industry would cease to exist.  Again Mr. Obama is putting the cart in front of the horse here.  Before there were ports, roads, electrical grids, or railways young enterprising men and women came to the new world for a chance to create their own destiny. Let's look at the flow of capital as further evidence of whether the government creates industry or industry supports government and infrastructure.  In order for the government to build infrastructure, they need revenue.  Where does this revenue come from?  It comes from a couple sources; individuals through the individual income tax and businesses through the corporate income tax.  If all the businesses in the U.S. were to board up their doors tomorrow and not employ a single person or sell a single good or service there would cease to be revenue for the government to function.  If the government instead were to tear up all the roads, rail, electrical grids and everything else under their complete control, businesses would adapt and continue to exist.  Would it be a difficult transition?  Yes.  Would it be the end of entrepreneurs?  No.
This doesn't even mention the fact that the government is using capital that was created and accumulated by the private sector in order to create the infrastructure that exists today.  Before the government built roads, pioneers cleared paths and used horses and other beasts of burden to transport goods.  Before airports were even dreamed of, the Wright brothers used their entrepreneurial spirit to claim the sky as their own.  The private sector has always found a way to meet demands that exist in the market, regardless of whether infrastructure existed or not.  Infrastructure and governments don't create businesses.  Businesses create the capital that allows a government to exist.
I'm a big fan of analogies so I want to give a few that I think show the error in Mr. Obama's line of thinking.  Without medicine, there would be no doctors.  Without machines, there would be no mechanics.  If it weren't for books, trees would disappear from our planet.  It doesn't work in any of these relationships, and it doesn't work the way Mr. Obama asserts no matter how loud he shouts it.
What does it mean for us that we have a President that believes the car drives the driver?  Perhaps the most obvious implication is the role the government plays in our lives.  If our leaders believe they exist only because we allow them to and they thrive because of our success, then individual freedoms, property rights, contract law and all the other necessities of a successful free market are protected.  When we have a President like our current one, we see things like the auto sector failed bailout where contract law is completely nullified in order to serve the interests of a particular group that helped the President gain office.  We see things like the individual mandate where the government says they know what's best for you much like a parent would for a three year old.  We see things like Solyndra where resources are taken from the free market and given to a special interest group that tries to create a product that isn't technologically efficable at a price that the free market wouldn't support.  Perhaps Solyndra would still be in business if every home owner with electricity was required to buy their product.
The issue isn't that Solyndra failed, it is that it failed with money that was given to them unilaterally by a government that took the money from those who created it in the first place.  The issue is that our President believes this is how advances are made in the private sector - only with the help of government subsidies and handouts will businesses succeed.  Only by taxing businesses in order to build more infrastructure will businesses be able to generate larger profits.  Only by exerting more goverment control will we all be free to prosper.
In four months we will choose who our President will be for the next four years.  We will also be selecting our congressmen and senators.  Perhaps more importantly, we will tell our government officials who we think we are and who they are in the causal relationship of society and government.  Do we believe we are subjects that exist because of the benevolence of the ruling government, or do believe that we are sovereign individuals who work, toil, sweat, and bleed to create a better life for ourselves and those we will leave behind and the government exists only because we say it does.

Evolution, God, and exclusive disjunction

All too often in this world we want to define things in a way that fits into a black or white, right or wrong, up or down definition.  When we do this we can fall victim to wrongly using exclusive disjunction in our arguments and decision making.  Exclusive disjunctions place constraints on arguments that may not always be true or necessary.  For example, if it is sunny outside it cannot be raining.  It is sunny, therefore it cannot be raining.  As anyone who has lived in Florida will tell you, it most certainly can be raining while you are getting a sun tan.

If all wrong-headed use of this argument structure were as trivial as the example I gave, there wouldn't be much se in this article.  However, I can't count the number of times I've come across this argument when discussing the existence of God or evolution with someone.  It shocks me how many times someone tries to use the existence of one to disprove the existence of the other, without the slightest concession that both could coexist.  The argument is either "God is real and therefore evolution cannot be real" or "evolution is real and therefore God cannot exist."  It saddens me that people have used this argument in such a way and cheapened the quest for truth of scientists or discarded the omnipotent power of God.

To give a little background on myself so you can judge my biases coming in to this article, I will say that I have been brought up in a christian home my entire life, I believe in God, and try to live my life according to His teachings in the Bible.  I also have a bachelor's degree in microbiology and cell science from the University of Florida and worked in two research labs while I attended the school in Gainesville.
I'm writing this article in the hopes that I can convince someone who has refused to believe in God because they believe in evolution that the two are not mutually exclusive.  And to convince someone who distrusts or refuses to believe scientists and evolution because they believe doing so will discredit the existence of God that they can broaden their horizons and allow God out of the box they've constructed for Him.  Hopefully, this will lead to more constructive conversations about the subject and create tolerance and a quest to know God better.

First, let's look at the evidence of evolution.  We have fossil records that go back tens of millions of years before any evidence of human existence.  The methods used to date these fossils have been designed, tested, and validated by the same process that allows us to harness the power of atoms into usable electricity.  I have no reason to doubt that dinosaurs walked the earth or that life on earth started as single-cell organisms.
Now let's look at how this information fits pretty conveniently into the creation story from Genesis.  We're told the universe was void and all that existed was God and He created the heavens and the earth - sounds like a symbolic rendering of the big bang to me.  Let there be light, separation of water and sky, development of land, vegetation, then animals, and then man - matches up pretty nicely with how scientist explain us coming to be here right?

So here's my point on not putting God into a box.  If you believe that God is truly all-powerful and that His will is greater than anything we can fathom and supersedes anything else, why couldn't God create us by using evolution as the mechanism?  If God is truly who we say He is, doesn't He get to choose His own methods?  Also, believing the Bible is true doesn't take away from our argument here either: nowhere in Genesis does it say "and then some chance mutations took place and God said 'whoops, guess I'll have to do something with that at some point'."  God is the creator, whether natural selection, genetic mutations, or magic potions were his tools, it does not take away from the fact that He is still God.

This isn't post-modernism trying to diminish God.  This is an attempt to allow God to exist inside of science.  Galileo is quoted as saying "Mathematics is the language with which God wrote the universe."  I would argue that all of science - mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, etc. are all the language of God and as we learn more about the inner-workings of our universe it should not diminish our thoughts of God, but instead fill us with more awe and reverence for the being that created such perfect and intricate systems.

What will become of RIM?

Friday, RIM gave investors a triple dose of ad news - profits and revenues missed expectations, Blackberry 10 was delayed (again) and the company announced it will lay off 5000 employees.  Investors responded by hammering the stock price to the tune of a 19% drop.  That brought the company's market value to 3.8 billion dollars, approximately 5% of what it was at its peak in 2008.
There were two possible silver linings to all the bad news - the company still has $2.2 billion in cash and it has no debt.  The question becomes, are dry rooms on a sinking ship worth any price?
RIM told investors that the Blackberry 10 devices will begin to be sold sometime in 2013.  That could mean as early as January or as late as the Christmas shopping season, and if history has taught us anything about RIM's time lines I would expect it to be no earlier than late Q2.  What does that mean for the company?
In the time leading up to the release of BB10 it means the company is going to be hard-pressed to keep that cash cushion from deflating like a cheap air mattress.  The company has already said they expect to spend $350 million in order to layoff those 5,000 employees mentioned earlier.  They have also struggled to control inventory as they consistently overproduce the underselling Blackberry devices.  Revenues dropped 33% in Q2 as a result, and this will continue to worsen as companies become more willing to explore bring-your-own-device polices and even continue to make iOS, Android or Windows 8 their enterprise system of choice.  For a company that values cash-on-hand as much as RIM, they do not seem to have the tools necessary to turn the cash-flow pipeline back on in the short term.
If they do survive until they release Blackberry 10 (and I think they will), the technology may already be obsolete.  That is unless you buy into the thought that RIM would have released something that was an entire year ahead of anything Apple, Google, and Microsoft had they released it this year.  It has been a number of years since Apple has produced a big leap in their iOS (no Siri was not a significant leap no matter how many commercials it does with Samuel L. Jackson).  With reports pointing to a new 4" screen on what should be the iPhone 5, that leap may be on the way shortly.  Google has just released a tablet that runs their Jelly Bean operating system (click here to see my first walk through on my Galaxy Nexus), which builds on the ICS idea of integrating all of a user's devices while also providing a consistent user interface experience and feel.  Microsoft launched, with little fanfare, the Nokia Lumia which is scheduled to receive the Windows 8 update as soon as it is released (probably by Christmas) and is currently running a similar operating system known as Metro.  Windows 8 will be Microsoft's answer to Android's consistent user experience and mobile mentality.  Given that these devices will have at least 9 months to divvy-up the smartphone market, do we really expect that RIM will be able to make inroads where the idea of switching devices and learning a new OS is both cost and time prohibitive?
The other hurdle that RIM has is the trend of product/brand ecosystems started by Apple and copied by Android and Windows 8.  Recently, a Bank of America analyst said he predicts RIM will not be able to effectively create an ecosystem the way its competitors have.  RIM disagrees (as if they could say anything else) but the question is, with the company laying off 5000 employees and struggling t release an already delayed product, who is going to have the bandwidth to work on creating an ecosystem?  If they are unable to create a stand-alone ecosystem, the BlackBerry 10 won't be able to make any inroads in a market where ease-of-use and integration are valued much more than technical specs and features.  It took Google a few years to figure this out as their phones were based on open source coding that allowed limitless customization and functionality, but continued to be less popular than the easy-to-use iPhone and its simple out of the box setup and industrial form factor.  If RIM is slow to create this type of integration, it may be the final death knoll for the company as we know it.
So what is my prediction for the company over the next two years?  At a market cap of only $3.8 billion, and an inability to impress customers, investors, or anyone that isn't an employee's own mother,  I think RIM has two possible futures.
One is a dramatic sell-off of all their current assets such as production lines and patents and a departure to a completely different core competency.  The patents are valued somewhere between $5 and $8 billion which would re-inflate the air mattress for a long enough period that RIM could reinvent itself into a completely different company.  Before you say this is a crazy idea you may want to think back to HP deciding they were going to do this before realizing they were actually decent at their current core competencies.  If Kodak had shifted its focus, could they be a competitor of Corningware in making glass for these high-end devices or even making the cameras for them instead of trying to sell us stand alone cameras that were marginally better than the ones found on our phone+text+email+internet browsing+gaming+etc devices?  A dramatic sell and shift mentality may be exactly what is needed to keep RIM independent.
The other future is the one I personally think has the higher likelihood of happening.  This is the future where RIM is acquired for somewhere between $9-15 billion and is absorbed into another company.  The main mystery in this scenario is: who does the buying?  Apple already makes their own devices, and although they are sitting on an Everest of cash, it seems like a high price tag just to keep a competitor from the table.  I would say Google would make an interesting match since they are both relatively young companies and Google could gather some synergy from RIM and use their production skills to become an OEM.  Alas, Google recently bought a good portion of Motorola's mobile capability which I suspect is for the exact reasons mentioned above, so they're off the list as well.  That leaves us one possible suitor - Microsoft.  The software giant is trying to play catch up in the post-PC world and this acquisition would let them skip a few grades.  Microsoft also has a little experience of their own as a manufacturer with their Xbox devices, so they've already learned some of the difficult lessons from that process that could be applied here.
So there you have it - in 2014 we will have 3 companies, Microsoft, Apple, and Google, all making their own devices and running their own operating system with fully cooked-in ecosystems to house all your pictures, documents, emails, music, and whatever other information you deem to be so vital you can't be without it.  Check back in 2 years and see how accurate I was.

Still not sane

      Sorry for the lack of posts last week - work got pretty crazy and I wasn't able to get in any time to write a post.  With that apology out of the way let's start to catch up.  I have continued the isanity program and results are still pretty tepid.  I'm sure my stamina is up and all kinds of cardio metrics have probably increased.  However, as far as how I look in the mirror, my measurements when I use the tape measure haven't really improved in any visible way, and I have to admit that is a little disheartening.  I probably have not followed the diet plan as exactly as possible but I also haven't been eating anything crazy like fast food or candy every day.  I'm hoping that after this is over I can write that all these things have improved in a big way.    
     To make sure I do everything I can to make this a reality, I have recommitted to making sure that I am only eatig healthy foods and have started to substitute one meal a day with a shake.  I know that it takes a long time for a body to change and I'm just trying to keep that in mind as this journey continues.  I constantly remind myself with trite sayings like "a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step" and "Decide. Commit. Succeed."  I'm also considering adding weight-lifting into my workout plan because I've noticed that there is a serious lack of upper-body strength building.  The plan would be to do the insanity workout in the morning and the weight-lifting after work.  I will keep you all posted on how this works.

For now though - I need to get some sleep and try to get ready for another long day of work tomorrow.  Thanks for checking in on the post and if you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see a post on send me an email or leave a comment on this one.

Fitness Test 2

Well tonight was my second round of the fitness test in my insanity journey, and the proof is in the proverbial pudding.  There was not a single exercise in the eight exercise fitness test that I did not improve in over the course of two weeks.  The first move in the test is switch kicks which is basically hopping from foot to foot and kicking your leg out for sixty seconds.  In my first test I had 85 reps and tonight I finished with 120.  More than just the increased reps I can say that I felt a difference in my breathing and heart rate.  The first time I did the fitness test I was gasping for air at the end of every session and wanted to just die on the spot.  Tonight I still felt winded at the end of every minute, but I was able to quickly level my breathing back to a normal level.  Also, aftwer weighing myself tonight, I have lost two pounds since last week.  So hopefully you have been able to concentrate on how you feel and how your clothes fit and this will give you some hope that the weight loss is just around the corner.

Insanity continue

My journey has continued over the past few days.  Ever since the rest day on Sunday I have gone through 3 sets of exercises.  The good news is, it seems to be getting easier and I seem to be able to stick with Shaun T and his insane moves longer and longer.  The bad news is I still have 6 and a half weeks left of it.

In the spirit of full disclosure I want to share that I have not lost any weight while doing the workouts.  It has only been a week and a half and I didn't expect to see anything drastic, but the fact of the matter is that I weigh exactly the same today as I did when I started.  Earlier this year, I started training for a 15k which I ran in March.  I only mention this because I had a similar experience when I was training for that run.  Over the first couple weeks I actually gained 5 pounds.  I researched it and found that it was normal when you are starting an intense traininng program because your body starts to store glycogen which causes your body to also store more water.
I wanted to bring this up so that you don't lose your motivation if you decide to take on the insanity challenge yourself.  By the time I was done training for the 15k I had lost 6 pounds from my original weight and had dropped a minute and fifteen seconds off my mile pace.  A much better gauge of how you are progressing through the training is to keep a journal of how you feel.  Monitor your energy levels, how your clothes are fitting, how your mood was throughout the workout and throughout the day.  I can tell you that using those metrics has helped me to keep my motivation level high throughout training.  I hope this helps you in your journey as well.