A disturbing dream

This one really has me puzzled--and embarrassed.

I dreamed that a service department employee at a Ford dealership insisted on bringing in an obnoxious salesperson who wanted me to sign up for a life long e-mail account on which I could store important information. It would work fifty or even hundred years from now.

What really doesn't jive with my self image as a kind and compassionate individual is that, as the salesperson made a long and rambling introduction, I kept hitting the salesperson's knuckles on one hand with my keys--not just car keys, but a large keyring with other keys. The salesperson apparently never tried to pull his hand away.

Just for the record, I have never actually engaged in this behavior while awake. I did once yell at a crooked car salesman, even in this case of a rotten psychopath who lied with impunity, I did not resort to physical violence. And I did not even succeed in getting him fired. Also for the record, that bozo was not with Ford.

Rain in Spain, Southern California, and Tokyo

Two days after making my last blog entry, I did receive conformation that it does rain in Central Japan, at least some of the time. Smaller stores usually feature umbrella racks outside the stores. Larger stores, where too many umbrellas would accumulate outside the store, have umbrella wrapping machines that wrap the umbrella in plastic covers.

Ironically, it turns out that the song "It Never Rains in Southern California" was actually written before the two co-authors ever came here. Unlike the two writers of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (which was written in Maryland), the co-authors of the rain song were anticipating their trip to Los Angeles. The story is based on the experiences of Albert Hammond of severe cash flow problems in Spain. Some interesting details are at http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3137 . Somehow, no allusions to snails made it into the song's lyrics.

By the way, if any of you are looking for Julio Iglesias' version, there is actually independent song. It is part of the song "Moonlight Lady."

Got onboard an eastbound 747...

So far, I have not seen any evidence that it ever does rain in Central Japan, but I am told it does.

Seven habits of highly ineffective F-students

1. Ditch or arrive late for class
2. Engage in personal conversations during class
3. Fail to follow instructions and pay attention
4. Use the term “etc.” in their assignments and exam answers
5. Study insufficiently for exams and put inadequate effort into assignments
6. Fail to think logically and/or make their reasoning clear
7. Overestimate their own performance, insight, and competence

Marketing Fundamentals (BUAD 307) course podcasts now online!

The audio from my Marketing Fundamentals (BUAD 307) course lecture sessions is now available as podcasts at http://buad307cast.com/audio/ .

My River

In Birkerod, Denmark--the town in which I was born--there was a river that passed through. It wasn't a big river, and the water level certainly would not have high enough to sustain a yellow submarine, but I was not at all too proud to call it "my river."

My memories of this are very vague, but back when I was something like 2-3 years old, my mother, my little sister, and I would, almost every day, walk down to the road to my great grandparents who lived on a farm, most of which had been converted into leased factory space and, later, a kindergarten. When we arrived, my great grandmother would usually boil an egg for me. On the way, we could see the river. Somewhere--whether it was at home or at the homes of relatives--I was apparently exposed frequently to the classical piece The Moldau, composed by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. When this song was played, I am told, I would say that it was about "my river." The piece, by the way, is about the Czech river Vlatana (Moldau is the German word), and the composer intended to incorporate the sounds of the river into the composition.

To this day, I always have a special feeling when I hear the composition about my river. I have fond memories of listening to this piece frequently when I woke up to the morning program of Dennis Owen at WGMS in Washington, D.C. during my years at the University of Maryland and The George Washington University.

It may not be a duck

Yesterday, I came across a bird on a car in a parking lot. The food it had in its beak made it look, from the front, like a duck. I am not sure, however, whether ducks have spots, so I can't determine if it looks like a duck. I am not sure how ducks are supposed to walk--nor, for that sake, how other birds walk--so I cannot use that criterion. The bird did not quack, but one cannot infer non-duck status based on the converse. Another practical problem is that I am not sure if there are any "non-duck-like" ways of quacking (other than in offering bogus medical services), so I am not sure what the standard of comparison would be.

Ultimately, of course, the question is whether I could make more profit on this bird than I could on a duck. Unfortunately, I did not see any commercial value here.

The Grass is Greener at USC

It is clearly evident that the grass on campus is now both literally and figuratively greener. Normally, I am rather suspicious of change, but, with green being my favorite color and with the environmental benefits of not having to irrigate artificial grass, this seems like a good one.

Valentine's Gift for Geeky Girlfriends

Costco features a deal at http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?whse=BC&topnav=&prodid=11188565&ec=BC-EC877-CatHome&pos=6&lang=en-US where a $59.99 discount is given when a Magellan Maestro 3250 auto GPS system is bought along with three dozen roses.

Juicy gossip in the LA Times

The online version of the Los Angeles Times today features an article whose link from the front page features a title one might expect more to read in the National Enquirer: "Text messages point to affair in Detroit."

On second thought, maybe the Enquirer would use words less restrained than "point to."

A bad dream--in two stages

The other night, I first dreamed that I was on my way to guest speak to a colleague's class at a nearby institution. I had budgeted plenty of time, but suddenly realized that I had only twelve minutes until the talk was scheduled to talk--but would definitely not be able to make it to the location--which I wasn't entirely clear on where to find. To make matters worse, as I was sitting in a parking lot to call my colleague, my cell phone was stolen. A woman approached me, asking, of all things, for an aspirin (which I must somehow had had with me), and while I was distracted, her partner in crime stole my cell phone. I woke up and wondered if it was really safe to keep my cell phone on my belt, or whether I was too vulnerable to get it stolen that way in real life.

In memory of Dr. Walter Rice

The day before yesterday, I received the sad news that my old economics professor--both from my undergraduate days and from the MBA program--had passed away that morning.

Dr. Walter Rice was an old-timer at Cal Poly--going back to the days when the place was known by some as "Cow Poly." As I recall, Dr. Rice joined the Cal Poly faculty in 1964, the year in which I was born. Before then, he had first had a pre-college stint as a textiles buyer and then, after completing college, a career with the Department of Transportation (or some other state or Federal transportation related office). Dr. Rice developed a course in the Economics of Transportation, and his interest in that showed itself in other courses, too. One day, he prefaced an example by saying something to the effect that "Knowing my personality, you can probably guess that this has to do with transportation." Having originally joined the faculty without a doctoral degree, Dr. Rice spent an interlude receiving his Ph.D. at what was then (and until recently) known as the Clairemont Graduate School. He had, however, returned to campus years before I ever showed up.

Dr. Rice showed a great deal of enthusiasm for his field and was renowned for his constant references to "fat little dollars." One time, when the MBA Association had a contest for the design of an Association T-shirt, a group of us submitted one featuring capitalist pigs (with curly tails) "gobbling up fat little dollars." One time in class, to demonstrate reservation prices, Dr. Rice pointed out that you would obviously not turn down an offer from a potential employee to work for less than you would have been willing to pay. "You jump with joy!" he said instead.

Every year, Dr. Rice would start his MBA economics course with the story of Robinson Crusoe, illustrating first the benefits of investing time in making a net to catch fish and then diminishing returns to scale when more people joined Robinson in catching the fish. Robinson Crusoe was, of course, a profit optimizer. During my second MBA year--the course was featured in the first year--one of my classmates told me that a dozen or so people from my year had returned to hear his introductory story again.

Dr. Rice knew that some of us--especially those of us who did not have much of a math background--found certain aspects of his course rather difficult. Sadly, I no longer remember exactly what "isoquant" curves are about, but I remember those being especially challenging. One day, Dr. Rice alluded to the relief that many of us might feel after the upcoming exam was over. He then discussed a hypothetical scenario where, to celebrate the completion of the exam, we would head up to San Francisco. He suggested--illustrating some marginal phenomenon--that when we reached Gonzalez (probably about 75 miles North of San Luis Obispo--or some 300 miles North of Los Angeles on Interstate 101) and suddenly spotted him, we would want to be as far away as possible from him. Fortunately, it happened that at Gonzalez, there was an "arc" type road briefly running along the freeway, and going on that would maximize the distance from him.

Dr. Rice would often refer to "utils," a unit of utility. He mentioned that a meter to measure this quantity could be calibrated by pointing to the course text book. Finding that the utility for the book measured at -3.5, we would know that the meter was working properly. Dr. Rice's constant use of the term "utils," unfortunately, came back to haunt him when a disgruntled former student--with a vivid imagination--filed certain outrageous charges against him. Among her allegations was that the term was a secret code word used by Dr. Rice and a student assistant to refer to cocaine--or some other elicit substance--that they were allegedly dealing. Tragically, it took close to a year to clear Dr. Rice of these fabricated charges.

Dr. Rice did not take kindly to people who ditched class or failed to pay proper attention. Back in the days where few faculty recorded student attendance, he was a pioneer. One day, he announced that for those who were absent that day, the day's notes would be due at our next class meeting. Those of us who were present, however, did not have to worry about this. Dr. Rice took grave exception when, on the first day of classes, the caught a student looking through the class schedule during class. He expressed his vehement view that he considered such behavior "very rude." The last two words, in particular, thundered. One of my classmates who took a different section from mine mentioned that near the end of class, a student was startled by some outside noises and glanced at her watch. "Class ends when I say it ends!" came the stern and roaring reprimand. Dr. Rice liked to keep the door to his classroom open--presumably so that passers-by would not miss out on his wisdom. In my second year of the MBA program, a very beautiful woman in the program was taking Dr. Rice's class. I knew that I could stop and admire her--deeply absorbed in the lecture--for a few moments without getting caught. Later, she told me about not daring to fail to pay full attention in that class.

To make sure that no one--despite paying close attention--missed out on his wisdom, Dr. Rice would often repeat himself. There were also certain hypothetical entities that kept coming up--e.g, the "W. E. Rice Widget Company."

I have fond memories of Dr. Rice and will miss him. I am also very disappointed that Dr. Rice passed away years before he would have had a chance to see one of his favorite students receive the Nobel Prize in economics.

I saw Adrian Monk knock out Santa Claus with a candy cane...

Well, it wasn't actually the real Santa Claus, but rather a criminal who ran away after he had created a distraction by dressing up in a red suit while his accomplices robbed a nearby museum.

Earlier in the episode, Adrian had astutely admonished Julie, his assistant's daughter, that "You wouldn't like [Christmas], either, if you hated it as much as I do."

At one point, Adrian was accused of shooting (albeit not fatally) the impostor when he was engaging in a previous failed attempt at distraction. Adrian, however, claimed that the impostor had come at him and that he only shot in self defense. When interviewed on TV, Adrian's reassurance to the children that he did not shoot the real Santa Claus backfired when he explained that there is no such thing.

It took me so long to find out I was wrong--but I found out

As John Lennon says in the song "Day Tripper," "It took me so long to find out, but I found out." Let me hasten to say that I am not--and have never been--into drugs. (After all, tall people are naturally high.) So that is not the reason for my mistaken impression of what I, until today, thought of as "the 'Barumbumbum' song."

In Denmark--at least until I left--I am not aware of a translation of the "Little Drummer Boy" ever being popular. At least, I do not recall ever hearing the song. Since another Christmas song explicitly refers to "the little drummer boy," I actually thought that that was the song with what title.

Imagine my surprise when--after being in the U.S. for twenty-nine years and one and a half weeks--I learned the name of the song. I also learned that the words apparently are "pa rum pum pum pum." This mistake is clearly not of the astronomical magnitude discussed in my previous post "How Could I Have Been So Wrong"--but it still stings!

Biggest points of the semester

This is the last week of classes for the semester. Tomorrow's lecture will include a reminder of some fundamental truths:

• Income ≠ willingness to pay
• You do not have to make a direct profit on everything you do. What matters is TOTAL profit.
• Having a great product does not mean that consumers will (a) know this and (b) be able to find a place to buy it.
• Selling online usually costs more than going through traditional retailers
• Behavior of segments tends to differ. Averages are often meaningless and misleading.
• Messing with Microsoft is stupider than messing with Jim, spitting into the wind, tugging on Superman’s cape, or pulling off the Lone Ranger’s mask.