Syrian Insight in mud
I hope that you are well and happy. Nazy and I are looking forward to a trip to Washington, DC for the Thanksgiving holidays. The (globally dispersed) Martin Family had an eventful week:
SOUTH AFRICA
As a visiting expert, Darius is scheduled to present a series of lectures in Marburg, Germany next week. With a Ph.D. in economics, he is imminently qualified.
“But,” I thought, “Dar also has a planetary top-ten rating in procrastination. I bet he’s stressed.” I decided to ask about the seminars.
“What exactly are you going to talk about?”
“Economies in the Middle East.”
“Who’s coming?”
“I wish it wasn’t me.”
“I mean who will be attending the seminar?”
“A mix of Syrian and German students.”
“Hmmm. You could refer to economic studies showing: Governments that shoot citizens don’t do well economically.”
“At least they moved the seminar from Damascus.”
“Good.” I said. “I bet Dar signed up so that he could go to Damascus,” I thought. “Do you know anything about economies in the Middle East?”
“I live in Beirut, Dad.”
“I know. Do you know anything about...”
“They want me to teach the European way. No equations, no math.”
“You can befuddle people for a long time with equations.”
“I know,” Darius, clearly dismayed, replied. “Now I’ll have to do something different.”
“So how’s it going? Are you ready?”
“It’s a train wreck, Dad. I keep thinking about driving on the I-405 about four years ago. I saw red lights in front of me. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop in time. Dispassionately, I just waited for the collision. That’s how I feel now...”
“Yes, but you weren’t hurt,” I said, thinking about the train wreck scene in The Fugitive.
“My pride was hurt. Have you ever gone to a meeting sure of impending doom?”
“Actually, I have.” [It was a meeting between the CEO’s of HP and Deutsche Bank. I had tried to coach Deutsche Bank, but when that failed, I told my team to buy welder’s goggles. If they looked toward Palo Alto, they’d see a flash when the meeting began - hence the welder’s goggles. The team saw the meeting. I felt the meeting.]
“How did your meeting go, Dad?” Darius asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“I came out alive.” I mumbled. “Wishing I was dead,” I thought. “You’ll do fine.”
“I should have started preparing earlier.”
“That wouldn’t have been you, Dar,” I replied. “That would have been a miracle,” I thought, “But things always work out for Dar. He’ll be great!”
Somewhere between San Francisco and Los Angeles (Or on the way to the moon)
Several years ago, Mitra acquired a used Honda Insight. It looked like it could fly out of the cargo bay of the Starship Enterprise, but it had provided reliable and extremely fuel-efficient (circa 70mpg) for many years. I asked Mitra for more information.
“What broke?”
“The Clutch, Dad.”
“Can’t you, eh, can’t Stefan fix it?”
“The parts cost more than the car is worth. And the battery needs to be replaced.”
“The battery on a hybrid is a big deal. How many miles did it have on the odometer?”
“Odometer?”
“The little window with numbers. Probably in the middle of the speedometer.”
“Ah! 150,000 miles.”
“It’s a good thing that you weren’t on the way to the moon - that’s ¼ million miles away.”
“At least it broke down right next to a Honda dealership.”
“Yep. But you live in Los Angeles. How will you get around without your car?”
“We’ll use Stefan’s van.”
“The Toyota with 400,000 miles?”
“Right.”
“I hope it doesn’t break on the way back from the Moon,” I thought.
“A 5 kilometer obstacle course? In the mud Melika?” I asked. “Are you out of your mind?” I thought.
“That’s right, Dad. It’ll be great. It builds strength and endurance.”
“It sells soap and shampoo.”
“You laugh, but...”
“... I’m not running through slug-infested mud.”
“Yuck. You don’t think...”
“Who’s idea was this, Melika?”
“Tom said it would be fun.”
“Didn’t Tom take you golfing? And didn’t he get sick climbing Kilimanjaro?”
“Do you have a point, Dad?”
“Our species, Melika, has spent the last 15,000 years climbing out of the mud. Why would we want to climb over obstacles to get back in?”