It Happened 30 Years Ago This Summer

CD Player

 What were you doing in the summer of 1982?  Here are few things that I found on Wikipedia.  See the entire list by clicking here.  Of course I will start a little early by using the Cal Ripken item from May 30^th.  That is too historically significant to leave off the list.

• May 30 – Cal Ripken, Jr. plays the first of what eventually becomes his record-breaking streak of 2,632 consecutive Major League Baseball games.
• June 12 – A rally against nuclear weapons draws 750,000 to New York City’s Central Park. Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, and Linda Ronstadt attend.
• June 14 – The Falklands War ends: Formal surrender of Argentine forces, and liberation of the Falkland Islanders.
• June 21 – Prince William is born at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, West London.
• June 30 – The Equal Rights Amendment falls short of the 38 states needed to pass.
• July 2 – Larry Walters, a.k.a. Lawn Chair Larry, flies 16,000 feet (4,900 m) above Long Beach, California in a lawn chair with weather balloons attached.
• July 9 – Intruder Michael Fagan visits Elizabeth II in her bedroom for a chat.
• July 11 – Italy beats West Germany 3–1 to win the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain.
• July 12 – Checker Motors Corporation ceases production of automobiles.
• August 12 – Mexico announces it is unable to pay its large foreign debt, triggering a debt crisis that quickly spread throughout Latin America.
• August 13 – In Hong Kong, health warnings on cigarette packets are made statutory.
• August 17 – The first compact discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany.

These 4 songs were stayed at number one in the charts throughout the summer starting with:

1. Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder – Ebony and Ivory
2. Human League – Don’t You Want Me
3. Survivor – Eye of the Tiger
4. Steve Miller Band – Abracadabra

Have a great week, and guys get your Members Only jackets out of moth balls and ladies get your leg warmers ready for a workout.

My 10 Watershed Events Of The Last 20 Years (1992-2012)

1992-2012

(In chronological order)

1)      1992 — Sid Bream (if you are a Pittsburgh Pirates fan you know what I mean)

2)      1994 — Buying my first house

3)      1999 — My wedding day

4)      2000 — Y2K

5)      2000 — Moving to the snow belt

6)      2001 — 9/11/01

7)      2003 — Northeast power outage of 2003 (8/13/2003)

8)      2006 — Starting Paceline Business Consulting, LLC

9)      2008 – The great recession

10)  2011 — Moving to Georgia (out of the snow belt)

These are the first 10 things that came to mind and some of them are really not that important but have left a lasting impression for one reason or another.  Y2K was really a dud as far as the event itself but the months leading up to it and the turning of a century was still significant.  Some events like my wedding day will last forever as well as the starting of my business.  The great recession is also leaving a big impact as it is now approaching 4 years later and unfortunately we are far from out of it.  Items 1, 2 and 7 were big for the day and left lasting memories but did not change my life all that much.  Items 5 and 10 are similar and have and will leave many memories as they affected my life every day in both good and bad ways.  Item 6, September 11, 2001 is my “John Kennedy” moment.  I suppose it also is for any one older than about 17 or 18 and younger than 53 or 54.  That is a large segment of our population that has the same “moment” that they can recall what they were doing when…

I know I left some items out like Hurricane Katrina and other disasters but I kept my list to things that affected me personally.  I am sure some of you may have a few items that are the same as mine.  What are your other watershed events in your life?  I would be happy to hear from you.  Have a great week.

Questions That Need Answers

So many questions, so few answers…

• Why did you hate to sit still when you were young and took every chance you had to run around non-stop and now the reverse is true?
• Why are things which are considered undesirable called cheesy yet companies advertise cheesy breadsticks and cheesy cheddar burgers etc? 
• Why are traffic lanes with a left, green arrow a red arrow the entire time that the light in the other lanes remain green?  Do the people in charge think I can’t judge if I can make a left across traffic?  Many times that arrow is red but no traffic is coming towards me.  Can someone explain that?
• Why is pork (sausage, bacon and ham) so overwhelmingly popular for breakfast?  Did the beef and chicken industry drop the ball?
• Is this a rhetorical question?
• If you stick your hand in the dirt it is said to get dirty.  Does the dirt get “handy”?
• Is it good advice from your Doctor if you ask him what to do if it hurts when you walk and he says “limp”.
• If lemonade is made from lemons, why isn’t Gatorade made from Alligators?
• If 3M made millions from post it notes which were nothing more than glue not working very well why didn’t GM have success with the Chevy Vega – it didn’t work very well either?
• If a dog is man’s best friend, does he need to get better friends?  I mean the dog.
• When I was younger, the express lane in the grocery store was 8 items or less and it is now sometimes 15 or 20.  Is this the result of inflation?
• Do they call it “weather” because it doesn’t matter whether it rains or shines you can’t do anything about it?
• If your wife catches you checking out another woman is it a good idea to tell her you were using your hindsight?
• Why is the other side of the pillow so cool?
• If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it why do I inevitably get stuck in the slowest line at the bank?
• Is it true that recently released Colorado Rockies Pitcher Jamie Moyer is so old (nearly 50) that when he started pitching he wore “young” spice aftershave?

Have a great week pondering these questions.  I will be happy to hear your answers.

Facebook Fizzles

What were they thinking?

A few weeks ago the much anticipated Facebook IPO (Ticker symbol FB) hit the market and the stock has disappointed so far in trading action.  As I write this, it is down about 25% from its first day closing price.  The stock performance is really not what I wanted to talk about today.  I want to talk about what was going on inside of the heads of those at the company and the underwriters who rolled this out. 

How can so much anticipation and excitement before the IPO turn into such a flop once going public?  First of all I want to acknowledge that it has been less than a month since the IPO and no one can say what the long term performance of the company or the stock will be.  That being said, how is it that after the stock was issued all sorts of problems with the company were identified?  A few big contributors of the stock price falling are the ineffectiveness of its advertising and the difficulty to take advantage of the mobile internet space.  Weren’t these issues present before the IPO?  I believe so.  What were they thinking?

Right before the IPO, General Motors announced it was going to stop advertising on Facebook because they said it proved to be ineffective.  The growth of the internet is largely coming from the use of smart phones and tablets.  This fact has been known for some time. In fact, many computer companies and chip makers have been under pressure to justify their stock prices since it is anticipated that they will lose market share to companies that make these new devices that are being used more and more for internet browsing.

I am not a user of Facebook and have always had a hard time to see the value of the company – 900 million users or not.  Yes, they do have billions of revenue from advertising but this is coming from a medium – traditional computer internet usage that appears to be losing share for an up and comer – mobile browsing.  If Facebook can’t figure out how to take advantage of this newer technology their chances of success will diminish.  See newspapers and other print advertising media for an example.

Before we write off Facebook we also need to understand there is value with all those users and all that information that they share such as demographics and their “likes”.  Maybe they can figure out a way to use that data from those 900 million users to become the next new search engine and knock Google off their throne.  For stockholders of Facebook I hope they can turn the fad of the last decade into a viable business for the future. 

Have a good week.  I know I will by actually talking face to face with my friends.