Getting Serious

Hi!

Okay, I'm getting serious about my fourth resolution. The main reason I've had trouble exercising is because I'm overweight and the additional stress that puts on my back makes is really hard to be consistent. I need to lose weight.

Brandi and I are going to a place called Natural Weight for Optimized Living. Basically, it's a doctor-assisted low-calorie system that helps people lose weight and establish healthy eating habits to maintain it. My problem is that I eat in waves. I'll get really hungry, then eat WAAAY too much. I need to learn to smooth it out and not eat too much at once.

I currently weigh just over 200 pounds. My goal is 165, but if I'm really able to start exercising then my muscle mass will probably be too high for 165. We'll see. All I know is that 200 is way too much, and carrying around that much is hard on my back. I'll post a resolution update in another month or so (not much has changed with the others) and that'll include an update on this, too.

Thanks,
Matt

Pseudo-Random Ramblings

Hi!

I just updated my Twitter/Facebook status with "was up at 5am, walked the dog, bought 10 more rolls of grass, put them down, watered them, and cleaned the pool." The rest of the family is still asleep and probably will remain so for at least another hour. I'll probably nudge Brandi awake in a bit and ask whether she'd like a bagel and coffee for breakfast. Before I go, though, I need to turn the water off so the yard doesn't flood.

Later, I need to clean our grill and remove the spider webs from the pool area furniture. The deck I built last year is structurally sound, but the outdoor carpet I put on it has been destroyed by dog feet. They don't do it on purpose. When they run across it, that's what happens. I'll need to clean it up and find something to put there that can handle the traffic.

I submitted a presentation to Ignite Phoenix, but it wasn't accepted. I'm disappointed, but a bit relieved. I have a lot to do. Not having to prepare for that eases my workload a bit. I still have to prepare basically the same speech for next Thursday, though. I'm speaking at my Toastmasters club's 20th anniversary. I have written the script and need to prepare the slides today. I'm sure I'll post a video or something next weekend.

Tomorrow, I'm taking my brother and sister-in-law to the airport. They're leaving for Romania. He'll be there for a few weeks. She'll be there a couple of weeks longer. Their son, my nephew, has been there for a few weeks (with his grandmother) already. Brandi has taken the kids to visit friends and relatives for a week or more. For the first day, it's nice. Starting day two, though, it's depressing. Brandi and I certainly couldn't send our kids away for that long.

These seem to be just random ramblings, but I'd like to think they're not. This is part of my planning time. I listen to my iPod almost constantly when I'm doing housework, driving, etc. Any time I'm by myself. I don't often listen to music. Most often, I listen to podcasts (NPR, CNN, BusinessWeek, etc.) which is more engaging. When I don't have my headphones on, I start thinking too much and this is what you get. I think about what I've done, what I'm doing, and what I plan to do.

Here I go again: I'm going to get a drink, turn off the water, then go get some breakfast. Later, I'll probably take a nap. It's not even 7:30, but it already feels like it's been a long day...

Thanks,
Matt

Connected Capitalism

Hi!

I heard Neville Isdell's (recently retired Coca-Cola chairman) commencement speech at Thunderbird on the school's knowledge network. I was planning on summarizing the key points in a blog post, but found the entire speech on a T-bird web page. While not as stirring as President Obama's speech at ASU's commencement, his message is quite interesting. I highly recommend it.

Thanks,
Matt

Change

Hi!

Yesterday morning, Joshua told me that he was unhappy. He was unhappy because he was uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable because he was cold. Now, WHY he was cold because the subject for our discussion. He believed that he was cold because the A/C in the house was set at too low of a temperature. I believed he was cold because he wasn't wearing pants.

Clearly, something had to change in order for Joshua to become happy. I explained to him that adjusting the A/C (which I did) wouldn't change the temperature in the house very quickly. If he really wanted to change his situation, he needed to find a way to make the change to himself. He didn't choose to put on pants, but he did choose to lie under a blanket.

I think this is a good example of what most of us go through every day. We can blame external factors as the sole reason for our unhappiness, or we can look to make changes to ourselves that affect our situation. While I was glad to do what I could to change the environment for Joshua, I wanted him to see that he has the power to improve his own situation. I think we'd all benefit from considering that possibility in our own lives as well...

Thanks,
Matt

Shima Igiri Bo I

Hi!

I finally got around to writing out the second Kenpo bo form. The blog post is here. Some day I'll post a video...

Thanks,
Matt

Shima Igiri Bo I

Shimi Igiri Bo I is the second bo kata in the Okinawan weapons curriculum. A rough step-by-step description of the moves is below, though it is in no way a substitute for qualified instruction. The letters in parenthesis indicate the direction (assuming start is north) one should be facing in the stance. Assume it doesn't change until the next indication.

Feet together, bo on right shoulder

LF step out, horse stance, down block

Look left, LFF cat stance (W), angled overhead block, overhead strike

LFF front stance, thrusting strike

Look right, RFF cat stance (E), angled overhead block, overhead strike

RFF front stance, thrusting strike

Pivot left, LFF front stance (N), LHF low strike

RF step forward, RFF front stance, left side strike

Drop to back knee, high reverse strike

LF step up, feet together, bo on left side

Grab bo with RH, LF step out, horse stance, switch bo to right side

Left side strike, reverse strike

LF step forward, LFF front stance, LHF uppercut (end with left arm behind head)

RF front kick (strike the bo), LF behind into crane stance, RHF overhead strike

Shuffle forward, RFF front stance, thrusting strike

Turn left, switch hands, LFF front stance (SE), push block, overhead strike

Lift LF, clear (swinging reverse strike), LFF front stance, reverse strike

Overhead strike, thrusting strike

Turn right, switch hands, RFF front stance (SW), push block, overhead strike

Lift RF, clear (swinging reverse strike), RFF front stance, reverse strike

Overhead strike, thrusting strike

Turn left, step forward, LFF front stance (S), LHF ankle strike

Step forward, RFF front stance, side strike

Thrusting strike to the throat, backward thrusting strike to the ankle

Left foot back, RFF cat stance (NE), LH high low block

Right foot back, LFF cat stance (NW), RH high low block

Left foot step up, feet together (N), bo on right shoulder

Left hand to belt, bow

Karate Kamp in Show Low

Hi!

Mr. Bagshaw sent me some pictures of the Karate Kamp in Show Low. I've posted them here.

Thanks,
Matt

Level of Thinking

Hi!

My last three posts have been old school papers. I did this NOT just because I wanted to post, but couldn't come up with new material. I also wanted to demonstrate how my level of thinking has changed (or not) through the years. I'm still opposed to the death penalty; I'd still love to do an expatriate assignment (Thunderbird, anyone?); I still think that technology raises as many questions as it answers.

Most people who know me know I'm pro-choice. This, I don't think, is the same thing as being pro-abortion. Like President Obama, I think they should be safe and legal, but few and far between. I've read a lot about the abortion debate and spoken to many people on both sides. The problem I have is that one side wants to make it all about choice and the other wants to make it all about life. Whose choice and whose life? Whether abortion is legal or illegal isn't going to change how most people view the morality of it. Is the pro-choice side really naive enough to think that it's an easy decision just because it's legal? Is the pro-life side really naive enough to think that abortions will stop if they become illegal?

I just don't get it. Laws don't define morality. They may shape it to some extent, but recent economic events have made it painfully obvious that just because something is legal doesn't make it right. Legal or illegal, right or wrong, let's now focus on where both sides disagree. Let's focus on where both sides do and find practical ways to take steps in the right direction. To paraphrase Einstein: We can't solve problems with the same level of thinking we used to create them. Let's raise our level of thinking.

Thanks,
Matt

The Measure of Life

This is a paper I wrote for my Science, Technology, and Values course as part of my undergraduate degree from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Being a computer engineering student and a big fan of Star Trek, I am fascinated by the character Lt. Commander Data, who is an android. During several "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episodes, more than I could count, Data expresses desire to become more human. In one particular episode, Data's cooperation is sought in order that he take part in an experiment that would involve taking him apart for study. Some guy shows up on the Enterprise and has transfer orders ready for Commander Data so that he might be transferred to his lab and be shut down for study and experimentation, a process that could cause Data much harm, especially since this guy does not fully understand the work of Dr. Sung, Data's creator. Needless to say, Data does not want to participate and decides to resign so that he may avoid a transfer of duty; at this time his rights are questioned and he is put on trial to determine whether he is the property of Starfleet or an individual with his own right to choose. This raises several very important questions. What is life? What defines a sentient being? On the show, a sentient being was defined as one with the following three qualities: intelligence, self-awareness and consciousness. Under that definition, it would be very difficult to distinguish between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. So do artificially intelligent systems have rights? As our technological abilities broaden, this may soon be a necessary topic of discussion.

In some way or another, all life is created. That cannot be disputed. Children are born every day and are the progeny of their parents; and therefore are created by their parents. Children are created by their parents. Seeds are planted and flowers grow, now plants may be considered alive, but they are not considered sentient beings because they are not considered intelligent and conscious. But what about machines? By way of elaborate, to say the least, and extensive programming, artificially intelligent machines can display intelligence for surpassing that of mere mortals; Data demonstrates that in just about every episode. So obviously intelligence cannot be an issue here.

But what is the issue here? The issue is deciding where to draw the line on life. If I were to design a machine that would think for itself, reason and understand logic, would that machine be a life form? That, I don't think so, several years ago I wrote a program that played checkers, the computer did have a "thinking" algorithm in which it "looked" at the game board and "thought" about the consequences of moved and then "decided" on which one was best. The reason most of the verbs in that sentence were in quotes is because the computer wasn't actually thinking, the computer was simple going through a series of statements that evaluated the moves and made the best one based on a set of rules that were coded into the program. This is not artificial intelligence, it is simply programming. Artificial intelligence requires that knowledge and understanding be acquired through means other than what is hard-coded into the programming. In order for a machine to be artificially intelligent, it has to learn.

Learning is the key. Even though I have not personally taken part in any artificial intelligence projects it doesn't mean that they are not in abundance. AI seems to be the wave of the future, but suppose this: Lets say a group of engineers were working on an AI project and one day made this huge discovery; they noticed that their project, HAL (for lack of a more original name) learned something today!!! Now, it is right for them to flip the switch at the end of the day and erase HAL's memory? Does HAL have a right to life, does HAL have a right to retain his memory and decide for himself what he wants to do with that memory. I say sure, if HAL is intelligent enough to understand the consequences of the actions of the engineers when they flip the switch, then he should have the right to decide whether that switch should be flipped. This question was raised during Data's trial. The Captain, Data's defense counselor, asked Data whether he knew what the potential consequences of the trial were. Data emphatically answered that he was aware that his life was on the line. He understood that the data in his memory could be stored elsewhere and restored is his memory was somehow erased. But his fear was that he would lose his experiences, which are what define his life, not just the information that he has stored in his memory banks. To Data, this is what death would be like, having to start over and gain new experiences; I would say that this demonstrates self-awareness.

Part of the Enterprise's continuing mission is to "seek out new life and new civilizations," if we were to someday have the technological capabilities to create an android such as Data, and we created several thousand of them, would we have created a new civilization, a new race? I would say so. What is a race, if nothing more than a collection of beings with similar characteristics? And if this new race, with self-awareness and intelligence, was not allowed to think for themselves and decide on their own fate, what would we have created? It seems to me that we would have created a race of slaves and, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Abe Lincoln sign something back in the 1860's or so that prohibited that in this country? So what do we do?

Should we just crank out these androids and set them loose, I'm mean why create an android if you can't get anything out of it because he's got to have a life of his own? Ah, ha! Back to the "creating life" issue. My parents created me and now I can pretty much do what I want, my life is my own, but that wasn't always the case. I can remember times that I absolutely had to cut the lawn or I couldn't go swimming at John's house. Is that a form of slavery? No, it's not because these were my parents, they created me and I would someday be able to go off on my own and create my own children (with a lot of help from my better half) and then I'll have intelligent, self-conscious beings around to somewhat do my bidding. So what does this have to do with androids? Well, how about this: You create an android and you get to keep him around for a while to make sure his circuits are not going to malfunction or his positronic matrix is stable, or whatever. Then, he is free to go off on his own and join the military if he wants to. Basically, you raise your droid and then let him live his own life. Life, that's the real issue here, letting an intelligent, self-aware being live his own life. I may not approve of the lives of everyone around me, but I cannot deny that their life exists and besides, who am I to define the measure of life?

Mr. Smith Goes to Beijing

This is a paper I wrote for my Doing Business in China course as part of my ASU MBA. It was submitted following my school trip there in May, 2001.

Executive Summary

In recent years, foreign direct investment in the People’s Republic of China (PRC, China) has surged, accompanied by an influx of Western business people.[1] Indeed, U.S. firms employ almost 7 million people outside the United States, and more than 100,000 U.S. firms are engaged in some type of overseas venture. With demand for expatriate executives in China expected to increase by 400% over the next decade, and annual compensation packages ranging from $250,000 to $300,000, it is critical that these firms choose and train the right people for these posts.[2] However, evidence exists to the contrary: Studies have found that between 16% and 40% of all expatriate managers end their foreign assignments early because of their poor performance or their inability to adjust to the foreign environment. Furthermore, as many as 50% of those who do not return early function at a low level of effectiveness.[3]

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons expatriates are necessary for companies establishing branches in China, understand the cultural differences that make expatriate assignments in China difficult for Americans; and explore the decision criteria firms are using when choosing their expatriates, the training expatriates receive before and during their assignments, and how the expatriate experience affects an employee’s career.

Why Expatriates?

"Localization" - filling management positions with local hires rather than expatriates - is the end goal of most foreign companies with operations overseas. But recent interviews suggest that many foreign companies consider the success of their China ventures to depend on having a minimum number of expatriate managers in the field, particularly during the venture's early years. Some foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) in China feel strongly that only managers brought up through the foreign parent's ranks have the full sense of the firm's mission, products, and competition. Others cited having a reliable source of communication and someone who understands the corporate culture as important reasons to have “one of their own’ in the PRC. The particular skills required of the position, of course, also factor into the decision to send an employee abroad.

Though more and more local Chinese are filling deputy marketing and production manager positions, FIEs still tend to post expatriates for such positions as chief financial officer, general manager, and human resources manager because the level of local expertise in these areas remains low. As a result, many American human resources experts believe that China is still many years away from the point at which locally hired executives will regularly begin to replace expatriate managers.[4]

Cultural Differences

The foundation of the cultural differences between Chinese and Americans lies with the Confucian influence on Chinese society. Confucius was a Chinese scholar and statesman who lived during feudal times over 2,000 year ago. He established a rigid ethical and moral system that governs all relationships in China. Confucius taught that the basic unit of society is the family. In order to preserve harmony in the home, certain reciprocal responsibilities must be preserved in relationships. These relationships are between ruler and subjects, between husband and wife, between father and son, between elder brother and younger brother, and between friends. Since all but the last are hierarchical (in Chinese society, men are of higher “rank” than their wives), rank and age are very important in all interactions. All actions of the individual reflect upon the family, and filial devotion is of utmost importance. The virtues of kindness, propriety righteousness, intelligence, and faithfulness are deeply revered.[5]

As a result of this reverie, business negotiations can be difficult to understand from a American cultural perspective. Chinese identify themselves with the groups to which they belong. There is not a lot of emphasis placed on the individual, but rather his or her network of relationships. When conducting business in this environment, it is critical to build trusting relationships with the Chinese. Once the relationship is recognized, there are a certain number of behaviors that are expected. First, the Chinese use the term “guanxi” which implies a web of duties and debts that must be repaid by returning favors and doing what is requested by the other party in the relationship. Relationships are serious business in China and they involve a high level of commitment and obligation. This “relationship building” is something with which American managers struggle. The American concept of “doing business” doesn’t involve these notions since trust is considered unnecessary due to the legal process of signing the deal. In China, however, the opposite is often true: After a deal is signed, then the real negotiations begin.

Another aspect of the relationships within China is saving face (mianzi). The Chinese aim to save the dignity and reputation of others by not reprimanding someone in front of his peers, not disrespecting elders and not speaking out of turn. Managers are considered to have “face” by being virtuous, upright and dependable. It is important for managers not to violate the community standards of reliability and restraint if they desire to maintain and/or gain face. This is another concept foreign to many American cultures, which value directness and, sometimes brutal, honesty.

Also inherent to business relationships is hierarchy and order. Hierarchical relationships form the backbone of Chinese society, as mentioned previously with regards to the Confucian influence. By observing the hierarchy, Chinese social order is maintained. The social order is contrary to that of American culture, which values individualism and differing opinions. The Chinese view this type of behavior as immature and disruptive. The Chinese expect people to respect the integrity and hierarchy of the group by not openly expressing emotions or disagreements. To American managers in China, understanding the dynamics of the relationships they will inevitably need to build is vital to their success.[6]

Choosing Expatriates

The importance of human resources to the investment equation in China cannot be underestimated. Not only are personal relationships a high priority in the Chinese value system, but the current level of management technology in China requires experienced leadership in the workplace. As business globalizes, American companies face an array of options for filling posts in China: selecting someone from within the foreign parent; recruiting a foreign national outside the firm in Hong Kong, China, or the United States; hiring a PRC national who has studied in the United States; or working with one of the many executive search firms that have established offices in Hong Kong and China to recruit personnel with a specific mix of qualifications. Whichever route a firm takes, technical or business skills, language ability, and familiarity with the PRC business environment are three criteria by which applicants are likely to be judged.

While a growing number of new expatriate hires are ethnic Chinese, who tend to have superior Chinese language skills and familiarity with, if not affinity for, China's culture, many experts caution companies against hiring expatriates on the basis of non-business criteria, stressing that technical skills should always come first. There is also considerable disagreement among human resources experts about the wisdom of assigning an ethnic Chinese expatriate to a China venture. Some maintain that these managers can be particularly effective in China, since they tend to be culturally vested in China in a way that most Americans are not. Others feel non-Chinese expatriates can wield more leverage in negotiations with potential Chinese partners and command greater loyalty from their local staff.

Many experts believe that business skills should always outrank language skills in importance to a company's China operations. Because China is not only one of the most volatile markets in which to do business, but also one of the world's most competitive markets, companies should send their young, skilled, "rising stars" to China, regardless of language ability or ethnic origin. Executive qualities next in importance are cultural sensitivity and tolerance for China's living and working conditions, followed by Chinese language skills.

The vast size and complexity of the China market demands the best talent that foreign companies have. Many large, diversified multinational companies are focusing their efforts on developing the talents of promising employees in China, so that the company can gain a competitive edge with its own "China expertise" - a corps of China-based employees who understand the country's business environment inside and out, and whose knowledge is not limited to a specific sector or product. If the foreign corporation decides to go after market share in a given product or geographic area, the talents of these employees are readily applicable.

Though the expatriate phenomenon is hardly new, the selection process for China continues to stump many firms. In many cases, technically qualified candidates may be unwilling to transfer overseas. Among the qualified candidates willing to take a foreign assignment, some may be intimidated by the language barriers or living conditions in China, while others with school-age children might be deterred by China's lack of international schools. Currently, only Beijing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Tianjin have international schools. While human resources executives from some multinational corporations state that they send to China only those employees who have international experience, others admit that they simply do not have a sufficiently large pool of such employees to select from based on this criterion.

Once practical criteria are applied, human resources managers should attempt to make sure that candidates possess certain personality traits, as the impatient or intolerant are not well-suited for working in China. Rather, China demands flexibility, optimism, tolerance, and perseverance. Further, because an expatriate's mission typically involves training a local replacement, or at least transferring knowledge to Chinese colleagues, companies should look for candidates who have qualities associated with teachers. Expatriates also must not expect to change radically the ways of their local Chinese colleagues. Instead, a good expatriate employee will be able to adjust his or her supervisory skills to reflect how Chinese workers operate. For example, a Chinese employee may not be accustomed to resolving problems and making decisions independently, participating in a American-style business meeting, or offering suggestions to a supervisor. A good foreign manager should at least be aware of such attitudes and, if possible, use patience and encouragement to bring about greater efficiency in the work place.[7]

Training Expatriates

Though preliminary “look-see” visits by potential expatriates and their spouses to China have become commonplace, surprisingly few expatriates-to-be and their families receive in-depth training before leaving the United States. Management consultants maintain that too many companies equip these employees with no more than a handbook or a one- or two-hour orientation session before seeing them off at the airport. Indeed, only about one-third of the surveyed companies offered cross-cultural preparation programs to all family members involved in an overseas transfer, more than one-third provided no such training, and about one-third offered training to the expatriate employee and spouse. Though cross-cultural services firms report an increase in pre-departure programs for China, many of the larger multinationals report that training, if provided at all, occurs once the employee has arrived in the PRC.

When in-depth training is provided, the curricula often overlook the general cultural values and practices described, in part, in the previous section. Further, even crucial “China business” training often is lacking. Few expatriates are warned, for example, that China's volatile market - sudden tax and regulatory changes, reductions in supplies, frequent turnover of skilled labor, and other unpredictable problems – often means that meeting home-office goals and deadlines proves infeasible, or makes accurate forecasting much more difficult in China than back home. While such conditions try the patience and skills of expatriate chief financial officers and general managers, having a home office that faults the expatriate for failing to live up to corporate expectations only adds insult to the expatriate's injury. This can lead to the replacement of a manager who is just beginning to develop guanxi, and thus become more effective, with someone who will have start from the ground floor.

While Chinese language ability may not be the most important criteria in selecting an expatriate for a China post, having at least some level of comfort with the language is important. Though many expatriates are selected based not on Chinese language ability but on their technical skills, acquiring some basic Chinese can be a crucial means of establishing trust, and thus guanxi, with local Chinese colleagues. Companies that are serious about their expatriates succeeding encourage – and pay for – on-going language training, rather than simply providing them with a translator, which could be much more expensive in the long run.[8]

Returning Expatriates

Posting expatriate employees in China is an investment with both short-term and long-term components. While the expatriate's immediate mission is likely to consist of managing some aspect of the firm's China venture, in the long run the employee stands to contribute knowledge gained overseas to the home office and, more generally, enhance a company's “international outlook.”

Some expatriates complain, however, of the lack of performance evaluation methods in place for their China positions, considering the substantive differences between the American and Chinese business environments. Indeed, a common fear among American employees presented with the chance to work in China is that, by doing so, they will be bumped off of the parent firm's promotion track. This is especially true of the “rising stars,” who are likely to be the most successful. While companies appear to be trying hard to fight this misconception, and indeed many companies already consider international experience to be an essential part of career development, anecdotal evidence suggests that few FIEs in China have clear performance measures and regular evaluations in place for expatriates. Rewarding the expatriate with a substantive assignment or promotion – not simply with a horizontal move to another position – upon completion of a China posting will serve as a positive example to other employees considering overseas assignments.[9]

Conclusion

There are few easy answers to resolving the problems that arise in managing a global workforce. Working and living conditions vary among countries, cities, and companies. But, certainly, personnel administrators must begin to meet the challenge by tuning into expatriates' daily experiences. Increasingly, as American companies venture into foreign markets as complex and promising as China, they are likely to discover that attention to human resources issues, such as choosing, training, and retaining expatriates, is crucial for long-term foreign-market business success.[10]

References

References are given as endnotes. When a paragraph or section ends with an endnote, it generally means that the previous paragraph or section was adapted from the reference. When a sentence within a paragraph ends in an endnote, it means that that the fact stated in the sentence was obtained through the reference.

1. Selmer, Jan. Effects of coping strategies on sociocultural and psychological adjustment of western expatriate managers in the PRC. Journal of World Business, Spring 1999 v24 i1 p41(1).
2. Melvin, Sheila and Kirsten Sylvester. Shipping out. The China Business Review, May-June 1997 v24 n3, p30(5).
3. Kaye, Marianna and William G.K. Taylor. Expatriate culture shock in China: a study in the Beijing hotel industry. Journal of Managerial Psychology, July-August 1997 v12 n7-8, p496(15).
4. Melvin, Sheila and Kirsten Sylvester. Shipping out. The China Business Review, May-June 1997 v24 n3, p30(5).
5. Morrison, Terri, et al. Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands. Adams Media Corporation: Holbrook, Massachusetts, 1994, p56.
6. Menasci, David, et al. China. A written assignment for Arizona State University’s International Management elective, Summer 2001.
7. Melvin, Sheila and Kirsten Sylvester. Shipping out. The China Business Review, May-June 1997 v24 n3, p30(5).
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.

Killer Justice

This is a paper I wrote for my Legal and Ethical Issues in Business course as part of my ASU MBA.

Introduction

The death penalty in the early eighteenth century was the equivalent of prison today – the standard punishment for a wide range of serious crimes. Today, people criticize our prisons for not working as well as they should, and colonial Americans sometimes leveled the same kind of criticism at the death penalty. Back then colonists could be executed for robbery, burglary, arson, counterfeiting, poaching, and theft. In Massachusetts, blasphemy, adultery, and incest were also capital offenses for a time. The list of offenses for which a convict could receive a death sentence in 1700 would be considered shocking today. However, as late as 1960, Caryl Chessman was executed for kidnapping in Los Angeles.

These days, Americans pride themselves on their commitment to human rights, but the United States is virtually alone among Western nations in putting its criminals to death; and in some parts of the world, America’s use of capital punishment is considered inconsistent with human rights. The death penalty has many ethical, managerial, and legal facets. The purpose of this paper is to explore the issues involved in each in an effort to understand why killer justice is still prevalent in America.

Ethical Issues

One of the main justifications for capital punishment in its colonial days was penitence. Repentance before death was widely considered indispensable, and a death sentence was though uniquely able to facilitate repentance. Interestingly, it is through this usage that we came upon the term “penitentiary” to refer to prisons. People were genuinely concerned about the souls of criminals and figured that if these people knew they were going to die then they’d be more likely to repent than if death struck them at some unexpected time. Ethically speaking, this made a great deal of sense to colonial Americans. They believed they were doing criminals a huge favor by providing them with an opportunity to know the date and time of their death so they might have the opportunity to enter into eternity unencumbered by sin.

Capital punishment receives a lot of its support from the public, in part, because it provides retribution. However, is retribution the purpose of the criminal justice system? According to Justice Hugo Black in 1949, “Retribution is no longer the dominant objective of the criminal law.” Indeed, capital punishment failed to deter, rehabilitate (obviously), or perform any of the other functions of punishment, except that of retribution, which for most intellectuals by the end of the twentieth century was no longer a permissible goal. What is the point of our criminal justice system? According to our book, the purpose of criminal law is to prosecute violations against society. Does retribution fall into that category?

One of the main questions that should be asked of any punishment should be: Does it deter the crime? In the 1970s, economists constructed equations expressing the murder rate as a function of several factors (variables), one of which is the likelihood of being executed. They then used statistical regression techniques to determine the correlation between the murder rate and the likelihood of execution. In 1975, Isaac Ehrlich calculated that each execution prevented approximately eight murders. As any MBA would be quick to point out, one can show anything if one has the right set of data. Ehrlich’s list of factors was short and he seemed to use data that was predisposed to the conclusion he wanted. In other studies thought to be unbiased, a deterrent effect could not be statistically shown. This makes sense, of course, since who ever commits a capital crime with the expectation that they’ll get caught?

Recently, there have been many highly publicized occurrences of people being released from death row after their innocence is proven using DNA evidence or by some other means. Given the “human” factor in trials, is it ethical to do something as final as execution when, in many cases, the defendant’s guilt cannot be proven with absolute certainty? We know from out statistics class that the only way to ensure that innocent people are never executed is never execute anyone. Is executing the guilty so important that we should risk executing the innocent by mistake? Senator Jeremiah Denton of Alabama explained his position on the matter this way:

“Saying that we should not have the death penalty because we may accidentally execute an innocent man is like saying we should not have automobiles because some innocent people might accidentally be killed in them. Or we should not have trucking or we should not have aircraft, or we should not have elevators because we’re going to have accidents. There are going to be some mistakes committed. The question is, on balance, which way do we better promote the general welfare?”

Indeed, Senator, which way? The striking thing is that many people feel this way. They should put themselves in someone else’s shoes for a while. How quickly would they change their mind if they (or someone they loved) were falsely convicted of a capital crime?

Managerial Issues

The managerial issues relating to the death penalty have changed over the years. In colonial times, communities did not have the ability to imprison someone for life. Jails were frequently broken and there were no facilities for any sort of long-term imprisonment. The natural solution to these problems was to execute criminals and that would be that. The actual execution, however, provided a whole other set of managerial matters. In England and elsewhere in Europe, death sentences were carried out by professional executioners, specialists loathed by the public. In the colonies, no one wanted the job so the task fell to the local sheriff who often received a bonus for such duties. For example, in 1736, for “Executing a Person condemn’d,” Virginia sheriffs were to receive 250 pounds of tobacco. Maryland found it so difficult to appoint an executioner that the colony turned to a succession of criminals, each of whom was reprieved from a death sentence in exchange for agreeing to serve as hangman for a term of years or life. If something is so believed to be “right” why is it that no one wants to do it? Perhaps this is an ethical issue as well. Indeed, the American Medical Association prohibits its members from participating in executions in compliance with the Hippocratic oath to “do no harm.”

One of the primary managerial issues relating to the death penalty today is the cost. The length and complexity of a capital trial inevitably gave rise to difficult issues on appeal. Litigating a capital case through the courts normally took several years from start to finish. Because the defendant usually could not afford to pay a lawyer, everyone involved at every stage of the proceeding was being paid by the state – the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, the judges and other court employees, and even the expert witnesses need by both sides to explain the psychological and sometime neurological evidence presented at sentencing. The result is that the death penalty is very expensive, much more so even than sentencing murderers to prison, even accounting for all the costs of maintaining prisons and their residents. A study at Duke University found that the cost of capital punishment to the taxpayers of North Carolina – that is, the amount by which sentencing murderers to death exceeded the cost of housing them in prison for life – was more than $250,000 per death sentence and more than $2,000,000 per execution. The cost was similar in other states. Arizona has conducted at least 19 executions since 1977. Imagine what good could have been done with that $40 million dollars. Again, is executing people so important that we should bear this cost?

A third managerial issue falls on the shoulders of state governors, who have the power to grant pardons. This process is also known as commuting a sentence and is becoming rarer as trial lengths become longer. Pardons used to be a way for governors to overturn what was believed to be an unjust sentence, but today they are political. Former Missouri governor and current U.S. Attorney General John Ascroft said, “It would have been arrogant and irresponsible of me to second-guess the people and the court system by arbitrarily reversing the decision of unmistaken juries and judges.” This echoes the sentiments of many governors who don’t feel it’s their place to overturn what so many have worked to put into place. Of course, public opinion comes into play here. Governors who seek re-election will typically do whatever is called for by the collective opinion of their constituents. Since a majority of the public in the United States has always favored the use of the death penalty (regardless of geography or demographic), it would be political suicide to go against that. From a managerial standpoint, this makes perfect sense. For example, in the midst of his 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton made a point to return to Arkansas to sign the death warrant for Ricky Rector, a brain-damaged inmate so oblivious to his fate that he planned to save the dessert from his last meal to eat after his execution. Clearly Clinton knew the power the death penalty had at the polls.

Legal Issues

There are two kinds of arguments employed against the death penalty: procedural and substantive. Procedural arguments hold that the means by which capital punishment is imposed rendered it unconstitutional. By contrast, substantive arguments hold that the punishment is unconstitutional regardless of how it is administered.

Procedural Arguments

In 1972, the Court’s Furman v. Georgia decision brought executions to a halt when it found that death penalty statutes gave too much discretion to individual judges and to juries. Justice Potter Stewart had likened being executed to being struck by lightening to describe the process as being something impossible to predict. “Unpredictable” is not an adjective that the Court wanted used to describe the American criminal justice system. This resulted in statutes describing aggravating and mitigating circumstances that were meant to instruct the jury in regards to sentencing. In 1976’s Gregg v. Georgia, the Court upheld Georgia’s death penalty statute as constitutional and executions resumed.

One of the current procedural issues involves jury selection. It is typical that potential jurors who state that they oppose the death penalty be rejected. A procedural argument could claim that this makes the jury unrepresentative of the public and therefore a death sentence more likely. Our on-line discussion covered similar arguments in cases where a judge, not a jury, decides sentencing in capital cases. Another is the notion of due process. The execution of the innocent has already been mentioned in Ethical Issues, but there is a legal issue as well. If new evidence (e.g., DNA tests) comes to light that would exonerate the defendant, is that person being denied due process as a result of already being executed? Should the family of the defendant be able to sue the state (and win) for wrongful death?

For abolitionists, procedural arguments may provide a momentary reprieve while legislatures draw up new rules, but procedural arguments alone are unlikely to result in any permanent changes. The goal of procedural changes is to ensure fairness. While it is clear that there have been some obvious racial biases in handing out death sentences, these cannot necessarily be attributed to any procedural legal issues. However, considering that these biases do exist would it every be possible to ensure complete fairness in any criminal case?

Substantive Arguments

The most common argument against the death penalty is that it violates the Eight Amendment guarantee against infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.” At the time of the writing of that amendment, Americans had the distinct but related senses of what was meant by “cruel and unusual.” The first is the sense of proportionality. Leviticus required punishment to be proportioned to the gravity of the offense, “eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Therefore, disproportionate punishments could be considered “cruel and unusual.” The second considered “cruel and unusual” to mean anything not authorized by law. This means that Seinfeld’s “show about nothing” in which someone is sentenced to be his butler could fall into that category. The third meaning referred only to the methods of punishment. Regardless of the gravity of the crime, that is, and regardless of the legislature’s desires, there were certain ways of punishing crime that were so painful or otherwise oppressive as to be out of bounds. What, I ask, could be more oppressive than death?

“No Mortal, except the Sufferer, can form any adequate Conception of that Terror which seizes the Soul of Person doomed to suffer such an exquisitely shocking and shameful Death.”

The quote above is attributed to John Shearman while on the gallows prior to his own execution. The terror felt by the condemned on their way to their death is well documented. However, this alone has never been enough to deem execution as “cruel and unusual” and therefore prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Why not? How many of us can truly say we know what it’s like to be absolutely convinced we are about to die? Few, if any. It’s interesting that we throw the word “cruel” around so often when describing the actions of criminals towards their victims, but never consider using it when describing our treatment of the condemned. If providing someone with a “last meal” and giving them their “last rites” before walking them to their death isn’t cruel, then I don’t know what is.

A Global Perspective

In 1958, when Jimmy Wilson (who was black) was sentenced to death in Alabama for robbing a white woman of $1.95 (that’s right, a sentence of death for the robbery of one dollar and ninety-five cents), the case was know around the world. The American embassy in London reported receiving six hundred letters of protest per day; another four hundred per day in Dublin. The American ambassador in the Hague received death threats in the event Wilson was executed. Alabama governor James Folsom called a press conference to announce that he was “snowed under” by more than three thousand letters he received in a single box from Toronto and finally commuted Wilson’s sentence.

Conclusion

In 1998, a representative of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights was sharply critical of several aspects of capital punishment in the United States and urged a moratorium on executions until reforms could be carried out. The following year, the Commission resolved that all nations should move toward abolishing the death penalty complete. That same year, there were 610 executions in the U.S. ensuring that the death penalty would continue to be an issue for many years to come.

References

My primary source of information for this paper was “The Death Penalty: An American History” by Stuart Banner. This book refers to many cases and contains a lot of statistics. In the interest of time, I decided not to track down the original sources. If you’re interested in learning more about the death penalty, I highly recommend this book. I also used references from my team’s first on-line discussion. Again, I decided not to track the sources assuming my teammates put forth the necessary due diligence.

Resolution Update

Hi!

It's been a while since I posted an update to my progress, so here it is... Unfortunately, it's mostly no news or bad news.

1) Get back into martial arts as a family activity. This is still a work-in-progress, but the last few weeks have been even harder than usual. I've been sick for about a month and haven't been training. I hope to go back tomorrow, but won't be able to push it. This has, of course and unfortunately, affected my exercise goals, too.

2) Successfully complete my courses at Thunderbird. Nothing new here. My Global Financial Management course doesn't start until July.

3) Establish better communication with friends and family. My main idea for this is my blog. This is my 77th post this year. That's just under four in seven days, which was my goal. I'm going to keep up with the blog, but still feel that Facebook is doing a pretty good job of meeting that goal. Not all of my real friends are also virtual friends, so I've still got work to do...

4) Establish and maintain good exercise and financial habits. This one has not just been a struggle because I've been sick, but also because Brandi is on crutches. She's got a broken bone in her left foot/ankle and can't put any weight on it. She's had problems with this foot in the past and has never really felt like it had healed properly. With her mostly out of action, I've had to pick up most of the slack. This is leading us to eat out more. Fortunately, we understand out budget a lot better and can shift money around to ensure we're not going to get into trouble. Good financial habits not only help in the long-term, but also give one some short-term flexibility when the going gets tough.

I hope that the going gets easier soon. Until next time...

Take care!
Matt

Naihanchi Kata

by Patrick Callahan, edited for the blog by Matt Jones

THE CHINESE CONNECTION to Naihanchi

It is speculated that the kata Naihanchi (Naifanchi, Naifanchin, Naihanchin) is derived from a Chinese TamTui (Northern Mantis) form called Dai-Po-Chin (Dai-Fan-Chie in Cantonese, Dai-Fan-Chi in Mandarin). Tradition has it that the "Dai-Fanche" was part of sixteen sequences systemized by the Shaolin Monks at their prime. Later is was perpetuated into the Northern Mantis style. If Naihanchi is NOT derived from it, it is at least similar to it, and the similarities in the name and form are hard to overlook.

Historical Implications of Naihanchi

This section is based on the writings of Mark Bishop and John Sells. Most of the information is direct phrasing from their works or slight modifications. Both authors mention that Choki Motobu only knew two kata; Naihanchi and Passai. Mr. Bishop said that Motobu's interpretation on Naihanchi included ti-like grappling and throwing techniques.

Naihanchi is one of the reference kata that identifies Shuri-te styles, from which Okinawa Kenpo is derived.

Shigeru Nakamura learned Naihanchi from Choki Motobu as well as his fighting style. After college, he moved to Nago where he continued his karate training learning kata and kobudo from Shinkichi Kuniyoshi. He open his first school and called his style Okinawa-te. Unfortunately it burned during "the war" but was rebuilt in 1953 and he then named the style Okinawa Kenpo. His kata were essentially Chinese based kara-te and kobudo kata.

Because of his powerful punch he was given the name Chikki Bushi (Punch Knight).

In John Sells's Unante, pg.77, he writes that G. Funikoshi and a student of Yabu Kentsu, Gima Shinkin, performed 2 kata before the esteemed Kobukan at the request of the head of Judo, Kano Jigoro. Funikoshi chose Kusanku and Shinhen perfomed Naihanchi Shodan.

On pg. 230, Sells writes that Chotoku Kyan published a series of forms under the heading of, "Seven Original Kata of the Ancient Style." Those were Wanshu, Ananku, Kusanku, Chinto, Passai, Useishe and Naifanchi.

On pg. 260, he continues with: Incorporated into the bunkai...are sweeps, joint locks and grappling techniques, little apparent in their simple, surface execution. It is obvious that kakushite permeates this kata.

BUNKAI AND KAKUSHITE

Bunkai - general explanation of a movement
Kakushite - Contained within bunkai, but are hidden hand techniques.

They are the "secrets" handed down from teacher to qualified students.

Hidden in the movements are the inner-most secrets (gokui) locked within the kata postures and techniques. The full realization of the idea behind gokui is called "oyo", which literally means "practical applications". They are more than just explanations of movements. Oyo stresses the follow-through, secondary and complete techniques to "finish off" an opponent.

NAIHANCHI - The Deadliest Kata? by Ian Abernethy

HE says - the Naihanchi kata is practiced within the majority of karate styles and finds it unfortunate that the distinctive floor pattern creates the "sideways fighting" description.*

It was often the first kata taught but today most don't teach it until brown belt (originally it may have been considered the most important kata and now a higher level of understanding is needed before teaching this kata? Mr. C)

When performed, most see a simple, unimpressive kata that won't win any tournaments. He believes this is a shame because this kata has a great deal to offer.

Historically he found that Bushi Matsumura taught "Anko" Yasutsune Itosu. Itosu specialized in Naihanchi and said it was both, "...the easiest and hardest kata to learn." Itosu created the Nidan and Sandan forms to teach to the school children without all the deadly secrets (this doesn't mean they don't exist in those two kata). However, the founder of Wado-ryu, Hironori Otsuka, believed the Nidan and Sandan versions to be 'almost useless' and that is why they are omitted from the Wado-ryu syllabus.

Otsuka's dislike of them contrasted to him saying that Shodan was his favorite kata.

Significant - In 1901, Itosu placed karate on the physical education program for all Okinawa schools. He believed karate was far too dangerous to be taught to children and set about disguising highly effective techniques, as a result, the kata taught mainly punching and blocking. This is significant when looking at Naihanchi, and other kata, as the majority of modern karate styles uses Itosu's terminology; hence the label given to a technique has no baring on it's intended application.

How important is Naihanchi? Itosu was one of the teachers of both Kenwa Mabuni(Shito-ryu) and G. Funikoshi(Shotokan). In his writings, Funikoshi informs us that Itosu required him to study each of the Naihanchi forms for 3 years. Considering that the first decade of Funikoshi's training was spent on the Naihanchi kata, Itosu thought this was a very important kata.

All the side steps in the kata are there in order to position yourself to strike an opponent, who is off center due to the preceding technique, or to move you inside the effective range of an opponents strike.

It must be understood that each kata was meant to be a 'stand alone'
self-defense system. Each kata records the fighting techniques and principles of the person who created it. It is probable that Itosu believed Naihanchi to be so effective that even if it were the only thing a student ever learned, they would be an able fighter.

The proposition that Naihanchi was intended to be a stand alone fighting system is supported in the writings of none other than Choki Motobu, one of Okinawa's most feared fighters. In 1926, Motobu wrote, 'The Naihanchi, Passai, Chinto and Rohai styles are not left in China today and only remain in Okinawa as active martial arts.' The key word is "styles".

Hironori Otsuka points out the amount of knowledge within Naihanchi in his book, "Wado-ryu Karate". He states that the kata would take more than a lifetime to master and that, 'there is some thing deep about it.' The interesting thing about Motobu is that the kata he emphasized in his teaching was Naihanchi.

The fact that Motobu only knew one or two kata is not unremarkable as at that time it was very common for karateka to specialize in this way.

Although the masters of old would only know a few forms, they understood them in great depth and had the ability to apply them. Today, even relatively low grades know several kata; not a bad thing as it ensures karate won't loose any of it's heritage. It would, however, be prudent to pick one or two favorite kata (tokui) to study in depth.

Motobu is said to have taught many grappling techniques extracted from Naihanchi. One technique of particular interest is the 'nami-gaeshi', or returning wave kick. The application commonly attributed to this maneuver is a blocking or deflecting movement in response to a kick, or avoidance of a sweep. Neither are effective in a real self-defense situation.

The majority of styles show the foot coming close to the knee joint.
The purpose is to show the kata practitioner exactly where the kick should be directed upon an opponent's leg.

Naihanchi provides instruction on close range fighting; the techniques are also direct and relatively easy to apply. A look at the applications from the opening sequence reveals the effectiveness of the kata. Every single move has the potential to disable an attacker and when used in combination may very well be fatal.

THE OPENING TECHNIQUE SEQUENCES

1) The first move positions the defender inside the effective range of the attacker's punch. The strike is delivered to the Carotid Sinus which should result in unconsciousness.

2) The pull on the right arm will throw the attacker's left shoulder back and hence prevent the throwing of an effective follow-up punch should the defender's initial strike fail to incapacitate. The pull will also increase the impact of the defender's strike.

3) The defender's right hand will secure the opponent's head so that an elbow strike can be delivered to the base of the skull. A powerful blow could be fatal due to the skull being dislodged from the spinal column.

4) The head is then seized and wrenched down to the left using the hair, or ear if the hair is too short. This twisting in 2 directions can result is serious damage.

5) A punch is then delivered to the jaw of the opponent if they are still functioning, which will shake the brain and knock the opponent to the floor.

6) As the opponent falls to the floor, the defender repositions themselves by stepping across before stamping on the opponent's skull.

The whole sequence takes seconds to perform and contains a number of highly dangerous techniques. Each one in itself can be effective, but in combination the effects are devastating. The first few moves give a flavor of the effectiveness and severity of the applications of Naihanchi.

Naihanchi was a part of the methods of Sakagawa, Matsumura, Itosu, Otsuka, Motobu, Mabuni, Nakamura, ect, all of whom were able fighters. If you want impress others and your kata is Naihanchi, it will bring little reward. If you require effective close range fighting skills, and your wish is to follow in the footsteps of some of karate's Greatest Masters, then Naihanchi and it's applications should be practiced relentlessly and studied deeply.

----------

Note from Mr. Callahan: Remember, this is a review of the literature and little is of my own creation. I have taken liberty in editing to shorten the content and still not miss the important content.

Shell Game

Hi!

I heard an interesting interview on NPR's Fresh Air with Gillian Tett, British Business Journalist of the Year in 2008. Tett, whose book "Fools Gold" uses J.P. Morgan as a case study for the financial meltdown, described the banking system with an analogy that made a lot of sense to me. I'll expand on it a bit here.

Imagine a bank is like your house. Regulators and investors are visitors who come over as guests and you give them a tour. (Note: This is decidedly different from an inspector or appraiser who will look around on his own, preferably without you being present.) Just about everyone has a "junk drawer" and you decided not to display its contents to your visitors because this is where you keep the stuff you'd prefer to keep hidden. Your visitors figure you have a junk drawer, but don't make an issue of it.

Now, imagine you've got too much junk for a drawer, so you decide to move it to a closet. Your guests return, you don't show them the contents of the closet, but it's still not an issue. Your junk continues to grow and soon it is moved to the garage. Visitors come, don't ask too many questions, still no issues. You gather more and more junk and eventually have to build a warehouse in your back yard that is about the same size as your house. In other words, half of your "stuff" is really "junk." The regulators and investors are so used to NOT asking questions about this "junk" that they continue to see it as a non-issue.

In the case of banks, "junk" is VERY risky mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, collateralized debt, etc. This junk was kept in so-called "shell" companies whose books were kept separate from the main bank, so separate as to be invisible. By 1997, the "shadow banking" system in the U.S. was as big as the visible banking system. This means that on average, there was the same size warehouse full of junk for every bank, but regulators STILL weren't acknowledging it and the rating agencies were STILL awarding AAA ratings to what was really junk.

In order to fix this system and prevent this shell game, we MUST increase regulation and force the shadow banking system into the light. Regulators should be expected to rifle through a junk drawer as part of their jobs, but MUST not ignore a warehouse full of junk out back.

Thanks,
Matt

Solar System

Hi!

My parents, who live in the Ironwood subdivision of Sun Lakes, recently had solar panels installed on their roof. Here are a couple of pictures of the roof:





The panels are on the south-facing slope, which is ideal, and they cover a pretty good percentage of the surface area. Here are pictures of the control boxes on the side of their house:





The first picture is of the box that takes the DC voltage from the panels and converts it to AC for the house. The second picture (which was taken just on the other side of the wall see to the right of the first) is of the power meters and breaker. During the middle of the day, their old power meter runs backwards!

This was a relatively expensive project, even with the tax breaks, that will take many years to pay-off financially. Financially. It pays off now in environmental impact. My father told me that he needed to do all he could so that he could looks his grandchildren in the eye. I'm proud of my folks for doing this. Sure, I wish they'd voted for Al Gore in 2000 instead of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but I'll take what I can get...and so will my kids!

Take care!
Matt

ASU's 2009 Commencement

Hi!

I attended ASU's 2009 Commencement yesterday. It was great! A long, hot afternoon, but totally worth it. I was able to get in thanks to my friend, Dan, who has a lifetime membership in the ASU Alumni Association and was able to get four tickets. (The other two went to his cousin and her husband, whom we met there.)

Anyway, I picked Dan up at his house just after 2:00pm. We stopped by the bank so I could get cash and then drove to the light rail station at Price/Apache. The line to buy passes turned out to be the longest line we'd encounter all day! We took the train to Tempe and entered through the SW gate, which was reserved for alumni. There was no line, but we had to throw out our water bottles... Here's what the stadium looked like when we first got there:



It was hot, so we spent some time walking around. Once the sun went down behind the rocks, it cooled off considerably. There was entertainment on a small stage to side of the main stage. The highlight was Alice Cooper singing "School's Out" in front of a band that had just finished covering "I'm Eighteen." Here's a clip:



Once things got started, the stadium was quite full. Here's a picture a couple of hours later:



A lot happened before President Obama spoke, but most of the crowd was clearly there to see him. Here's a clip of the end of ASU President Crow's intro and the beginning of President Obama's speech:



I REALLY enjoyed his speech. Very inspiring! The full text can be found here. A full video can be found here.

Most people around us left after Obama was finished. It took us a while to get back to the rail station, but once there it was smooth sailing to our car and home. It was a long afternoon, but totally worth it!

Thanks,
Matt

My Back

Hi!

Since my back injury has had such a profound impact on my training, I thought I'd cross-post what I published to my personal blog.

Thanks,
Matt

Back Nine Years

Hi!

Nine years ago today my life changed forever. I had played basketball with my brother that morning and afterwards my back was sore. I had been through this before and a little stretching and hot shower was all it took. That night I went to Taekwondo class and did my usual workout. While performing Juche, I felt something *happen* in my lower back and later couldn't kick much higher than my ankle. Afterwards, I still felt like I could just sleep it off. However, the next morning I couldn't move.

My wife and father got me into the car and to the ER where I got some pain meds and had an x-ray. The x-ray was inconclusive so I was scheduled for an MRI, but not for several weeks. In the meantime, I hobbled around with a cane and continued with the pain meds. The MRI showed that I had a herniated disc between vertebrae L5 and S1. L5 is the lowest of the lumbar vertebrae in the picture below. The Wikipedia entry has a lot of information on the subject. Apparently, this location is the most common.



Scans of the MRI are below. The image below shows most of my spine and you can see the herniation toward the bottom. It is the bulge that goes up and to the right.



A cross section of the disc is shown in the image below. You can see the bulge pressing into the spinal canal. That's what causes the pain.



What's Next?

Okay, I'm injured. What did I do next? Well, the first thing I did was start seeing a physical therapist. I had several sessions that included stretching and decompression therapy. I'm not sure this is the exact term for it, but it was basically like the medieval torture device "the rack." However, it felt pretty good. Afterwards, I felt a little light-headed like I'd just given blood. The physical therapy didn't help much.

The next thing I did was get epidural injections. If you're thinking that seems more like something a woman giving birth might have, then you're right. It's basically the same type of injection but a woman giving birth is getting a spinal block, while I was getting a cortisone shot. The purpose of the cortisone (a kind of steroid) is to reduce the inflammation of the herniation enough to take the pressure off the spinal canal.

(Side note: This is the type of shot a lot of professional athletes get to keep them on the field. It's common in the back and in the knees. Clearly this is "performance enhancing" and is a kind of steroid, but it is not considered an illegal PED. Go figure...)

Anyway, if the herniation isn't very severe, this may be a permanent solution. The idea is to give several injections spaced a couple of weeks apart. If successful, the injections, along with rest and PT, will be enough. I had three of these injections in December and they worked pretty well. I was in the best shape of my life a couple of months later. Anyway, the effect of the epidurals wore off and by then Brandi was pregnant with Joshua. The diet and workout schedule we had went by the wayside, unfortunately. I don't blame anyone but myself. I could have tried to stick with it, but I didn't. What's done is done. I had another couple of epidurals in May of 2001 prior to going to China with ASU and they helped me be comfortable on the trip, but they weren't a permanent fix either.

Surgery

That fall, I made the decision to have surgery. Joshua was born on November 15th and I couldn't comfortably carry him. As he got heavier, it'd be harder and harder. I didn't want to risk dropping him or not be able to carry him due to my back. When he got older, he'd understand what's going on, but as an infant, baby, and toddler he might just think he daddy doesn't want to be close to him. I couldn't let that happen.

I had surgery on New Year's Eve, 2001.

The surgery went well. Dr. Ercius told me that he's done hundreds of them and could do one every day, but doesn't recommend it to everyone. In fact, he didn't recommend it to me. I wanted it anyway because I wanted to be given a chance to heal. I was only 28 and didn't want to think that my healthiest days were behind me.

It took a while for me to get back on my feet and I stopped actively training in TKD. (Perhaps surprisingly, I continued to train for the 18 months after the injury but before the surgery. I couldn't train as hard or as often as I had, but I did do it.) I've written on my TKD blog about why I keep training, so it should be no surprise that I got back into it when I could. It just took a while...

Post-Surgery

For a while, I was taking a LOT of ibuprofen. My doctor (who was soon to be my former doctor) said I could take 1600mg every day. I didn't want to have what I basically thought was a drug addiction so I broke the habit and started seeing another doctor. I was also worried about the long-term effects of that much ibuprofen.

(Side note: I broke the habit while fasting using the Lemonade Diet in November of 2006. It worked very well. I felt great! I missed food, of course, but I wasn't hungry and I had all the energy I needed. I also got off caffeine while on that diet, but the following August visited Costa Rica. Being in CR without drinking coffee would be like going to Belgium and not eating chocolate. Couldn't be done! Even Brandi started drinking coffee there. I not only feel off the no-coffee wagon, but ran from it screaming!)

I also started seeing a chiropractor and a massage therapist. Both have helped me a lot. I credit my ability to get back into martial arts to the treatments I received from Dr. Chris of the Chandler Pain Clinic and the LMTs at his office. Getting my back and pelvis straightened out, and then relaxing the muscles around them, has been very helpful. I used to go every week, but now it's every month. (Many chiropractors get their patients "addicted" to the adjustment rush so they visit more and more often. Chris told me up front that his goal was to get me down to fewer visits. Any active person would benefit from regular adjustments, I believe.)

These Days

These days, I have good days and bad days. Good days are when I stretch early and am pretty active, but not doing too much strenuous work. When I push it too hard, or spend too much time sitting down, the sciatica comes back. It can best be described (the way I feel it) as a desire to stretch that can't be met. During really bad days, which only happen once every month or so, I have a hard time getting up and getting going. Any kind of bad day can usually be followed by a good day with an ice pack and some rest.

The biggest problem, though, is fear. I can still have episodes when my back just "goes out" and I never know when it'll happen. It is like a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. One minute, I'll be doing something I've done a thousand times in the past nine years. The next minute, I'll be able to think of nothing but lying down with an ice pack. It is very frustrating. All I can do, though, is what I've always done: Plan and live every day as if it's going to be a good day and deal with the bad days as they happen. To do otherwise would make all days bad...

Take care!
Matt

My Uniforms

Hi!

It's rare that I'll cross-post from my personal blog to this one. (Usually it's the other way around.) This post is an exception, though. It's not 100% relevant to presentation skills, but it makes an important point.

Thanks,
Matt

My Uniforms

Hi!

For someone who is not in the military, I spend a lot of time in uniform. Not just as a martial artist, but in every role I play. I recently started thinking of a "uniform" as something I wear to fit in. Based on that description, I wear a uniform to work and which uniform I wear depends on the group in which I want to fit.

For example, when I need to be "Matt Jones, Intel Manager" I'll wear a pair of my Haggar pants, a button-down shirt, and my Rockport shoes with dress socks. Today, I taught a Perl class so I needed to be "Matt Jones, Computer Programmer." That uniform is easy: jean shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers. On Monday, I'll be "Matt Jones, Distinguished Toastmaster" when I teach Presentation Skills. Not surprisingly, this uniform is very similar to my manager's uniform.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this. When I teach Presentation Skills, I tell the class to dress according to the expectations of their audience. If they're not sure, then err on the side of being overdressed. It's easy to take off a tie, if you're wearing one. The bottom line is that I don't mind being in uniform when it's appropriate. What I won't do, though, is let the uniform define who I am...

Thanks,
Matt

Perl

Hi!

Since I'm teaching a Perl class tomorrow, it's on my mind so I thought I'd blog about it. I love Perl! I earned my undergraduate degree in computer engineering at RIT and did a lot of programming there. However, it wasn't until I was an intern at Intel that I learned Perl. I was working in the i960 architecture group and needed to learn Perl so that I could update the microcode validation scripts we were using. There wasn't a class available, so I bought a book and learned it on my own.

Perl is an interpreted language, so it's not necessary to compile the code. It doesn't require explicit types for the variables, so it's not necessary to pre-define them. It's a lot like C, but much, much simpler. I learned some C in college, but we mostly programmed in Modula-2, which is like Pascal. (Side note: RIT has since switched from Modula-2 to something more practical. I've been trying to convince the CE department for years that they should offer Perl as an elective. So-called *real* programmers may not use Perl, but engineers do!)

Anyway, I was given the opportunity to be the course content owner for Perl a couple of years ago and jumped at the chance. I had to re-type all 200+ slides as the previous course content owners had left the company and didn't leave a PowerPoint version of the course materials. This gave me the opportunity to streamline the material and divide it into an introductory course that covers the basics and a series of advanced modules that can be covered independently. I also took it upon myself to increase the instructor base and expand it across more Intel sites. I saw no reason for us to pay vendors to teach Perl when we have so much expertise in-house. We've gone from having instructors as six sites to having instructors at 14, including Intel sites in Israel, Ireland, Malaysia, China, India, and Costa Rica.

My plan is to teach the course at least once per quarter and I encourage the other instructors to do the same. Most do not, but since we're meeting demand it's not a major issue. I'd prefer interns these days not to have to learn on their own. We've got a great two-day course and I want everyone who needs it to be able to take it. Of course, *need* is something I'm trying to create. Unlike complied languages that are platform-specific and typically need a suite of tools to do anything useful, Perl (being an interpreted language) is very portable. It's easy to install a Perl interpreter on any platform you like (Windows, Mac, UNIX, etc.) and any well-written script will run on them all!

Learning to write code is learning how to translate your logical thought process into a common language. The language may not be readable by everyone, but it could be. It's just a matter of learning how to convert syntax to English. For example, the statement

if ($x == 1) then {$y = 0;}

can be *read* as "if the scalar variable x equals 1, then assign 0 to the scalar variable y." The ability to translate Perl code into English is required for teaching. It's also necessary to be consistent so the students get used to hearing code "read" in the same manner each time.

I'm looking forward to my class tomorrow, not only because I love teaching but because I always learn something as a result. The saying "you learn something new every day" is definitely going to be true for me over the next two days. I hope it's true for you, too, no matter what you learn...

Thanks,
Matt

It Happens

Hi!

I was going to do a post related to my resolutions, but realized that I don't have much to report. I'm doing fine with communication, martial arts and school haven't changes, and neither have fitness and finances...which isn't necessarily a good thing.

I've been kind of sick and generally tired for a couple of weeks. I had a bad cough and got bad sleep. It's also been quite warm and our air conditioner isn't working. It'll cost ~$1000 to get it fixed. It seems that we have to put a grand into our A/C every spring. It happens.

The A/C will be fixed on Wednesday. The pool should be ready by then, too. Hopefully a few good nights' sleep, some evenings in the pool, and I'll be ready for the weekend...

Take care!
Matt

Yard Work

Hi!

This weekend was mostly dedicated to yard work. I spend a lot of time working outside anyway, but this weekend was the culmination of some significant changes to our back yard. First, we cut down and removed the apple tree. It had died, so that was a no-brainer. This opened the door for the aforementioned significant changes.

Next, we moved a smaller, undeveloped tree from a planter along the back wall to one in front of the shed. Three of the empty planters on the north side of the yard were removed. I took up the curbing and moved the compost into the garden. Some of the curbing will be made into semi-circular planters by the pool fence.

The big change is the movement of the play structure from the yard into the wood chip area. The slide goes into one of the planters. I removed about 8" of dirt from it and filled the hole with wood chips to soften the landing. Here are some photos I posted on Facebook.

It opens the yard up, which now seems twice as big. I put some chairs in the corner, which will be shaded earlier in the day than the rest of the yard. This will give Brandi and I a place to sit while the kids play. The next step is to grow grass where the play structure was.

Next up, improvements to the pool area...

Thanks,
Matt