On Turning 60

I turned 60 years old last week.  Much like my 40th and 50th birthdays, I've been very contemplative about it.  I'm mainly trying to determine how my life is different, for better or worse, than I thought it might be when I was younger.

It's easy to come up with the 'worse' part.  In your 20s and 30s, if you're thinking about the future at all, you're thinking of a lot of nice material things, like big houses and luxury cars and destination vacations.  You might be thinking of having a family, but you aren't worried about that deterring you from the material things.

Of course, the reality for most of us is we don't get all of that.  With hard work and good luck, you achieve some of those goals, but ultimately you realize there's a big difference between goals and dreams.

Meanwhile, I always conclude the 'better' of it is the non-material things.  Family.  Friends.  Health.  I'm old enough now that I don't care about having the biggest house or the nicest toys.

In fact, thanks to the lessons of time, it's a good feeling to not care so much about things that now seem trivial.  I still have goals (and dreams), but now the list is shorter.  Much shorter.

I said the same thing at 60 that I did and 40 and 50.  Achieving a new decade -- age itself -- is a gift.  I'm very satisfied with that.

Midway

I recently returned from a trip to the La Jolla / San Diego area.  I'd been there once previously, which I wrote about in 2021.  I want to add something to that summary -- this time, I toured the decommissioned aircraft carrier, the USS Midway.

The Midway was the main naval vessel involved in Operation Desert Storm, circa 1991.  It's now a museum, permanently docked in the San Diego harbor across from the Navy base on Coronado Island (where it just so happened two active aircraft carriers were docked).

Along with an audio tour, there were dozens of volunteer docents to help guide you around.  These were almost all retired Navy vets, so they could add great context to what you saw and heard.

About what you saw and heard about.....this is a short list:

The flight deck, full of past Naval aircraft.

The bridge.

The navigation room.

The communications room.

The lower decks, which included the barracks, the officers quarters, the galley and kitchen, the sick bay, the machine room, the boiler room, and much more.

It was mind-boggling to think of what it took to build the ship, and what it took to operate it a city of 4500 people on the sea.  Not to mention how something that weighs 100,000 tons can even float!

I highly recommend going to the USS Midway Museum.

Escape Pods

For something that is now so ingrained into our culture, only once before have I blogged about podcasts.  That was back in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when we all craved for new entertainment content.

There are so many more podcasts out there now.  Some are good, some are bad, and some only exist to make money for a producer without any social value.

I don't have time to listen to all of the podcasts I'd like -- there are too many of them, and/or their running time is too long.  (In the same way no movie needs to be longer than two hours, no podcast needs to be longer than 45 minutes.  And this is coming from someone who never listens to the commercials, nor listens at less than 1.5x speed.  To me, an hour-long podcast equals a three hour-long movie, and no one has the time or content to remain interested in that.)

As mentioned in 2020, my main go-to podcasts are those from the Freakonomics Network.  They have several now in addition to the main weekly podcast, including a newer one called The Economics Of Everyday Things.  It's about how some industries work, anything from Girl Scout cookies to car washes to body part sales(?).  Plus, it's always less than 30 minutes long -- see last paragraph.

A longer, similar podcast is called Search Engine, which is a deep-dive on a hodgepodge of topics that we might never think about.

For politics, you can't beat Pod Save America, hosted by the former Obama speechwriting crew.  If you don't lean progressive, a more middle-of-the-road podcast is Hacks On Tap, hosted by former democratic and republican political operatives.  (Mike Murphy, the republican, is as witty as they get.)

On the lighter side, I prefer Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, in which he interviews mostly other comics.  His shorter fan-interview offshoot, Conan O'Brien Needs A Fan, is also great.  No one is funnier and more likable than Conan.

I know, I know, there are so many more that I'm sure would be great to hear, including some I've never even heard of yet.  (That doesn't include true crime or cold case stories, which I don't care about.)

This is as far as I can go in my current pre-retirement world.

Dear Graduating Class of 2024

Congratulations, Class of 2024!  You got to start your journey during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, and now many of you are, or should be, ending it during the year democracy may die.  What is it with you?

Never mind that.  Think about this.....I've often said that all possible graduation commencement addresses may have already been given.

Think about the tens of thousands of speeches given every year by valedictorians and featured guests, over decades, and it's hard to believe every theme hasn't been covered.  I've been doing this annual post since 2012, and I'm not even going to pretend I haven't repeated a theme, or at least infiltrated one.

With that in mind, my advice to you this year will be an addendum of advice I gave from last year.  In 2023, I talked about how being 'woke' was generally a good thing, not a bad thing.

Which brings me to now, when we've seen small but noteworthy protests on college campuses over the Israel-Hamas war.  More specifically, the protests allege Palestinian genocide by Israel for its bombardment of Gaza, and ask for the war to end.  Some of the protests have not been peaceful, and have disrupted graduation ceremonies.

Look, it's good that you twenty-year-olds are so concerned about genocide that you'd want to actively protest about it, and bring awareness to an issue for which you care.  That's good woke.

However, it's dumb that some of you would protest in a way that threatens or physically harms people or property.  That's bad woke.

And to what end do you protest?  Once you've brought awareness to the issue, and maybe got the college trustees to meet about defunding some part of their endowment, you should declare victory and leave.  How does ruining graduation ceremonies for yourself or others advance your cause?

Also, let's face what should have been an obvious truth -- after graduation, when campuses empty out and there are no cameras to record you, the protests were going to end.  They would have ended soon anyway, as our very short American attention spans lost interest.

So to the Class of 2024 I say, choose your wokeness wisely.  There will be plenty of reasons to be offended in life.  If you're ignoring or amplifying all of them, you're doing it wrong.  

Berky Meeting Nuggets 2024

The first Saturday in May brought with it another Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting.  I was only able to attend the morning session this year, but I was able to pick up the afternoon session from the national video and audio feed.

Among the things I felt were noteworthy:

For the first time since this meeting became what it is, Vice-Chair Charlie Munger wasn't sitting next to Warren Buffett.  Charlie died just short of his 100th birthday last year, and he was missed.  A main reason for me to attend the meeting was to see him make funny, smart-ass comments about the state of certain national and international affairs.

This year the company movie that's always shown before the meeting was all about Charlie, with clips of prior meetings and skits.  At the end Buffett eulogized Munger, saying while Buffett may have been Berkshire's general contractor, Charlie was its architect. 

Buffett was again joined on stage by the current co-CEOs, Greg Abel and Ajit Jain.  Abel, who is the Chairman and CEO in-waiting, basically took on Munger's old role of answering questions after Buffett had given his responses.  Buffett even accidentally referred to Abel as "Charlie" at the start of the meeting.

Buffett reported that Berky is likely to exceed holding $200 billion in cash(!) this quarter, money they'd rather invest in company acquisitions, if they could find reasonably priced ones.

Another huge crowd attended.  At the beginning of the meeting, even the seats behind the stage were nearly full, which I've never seen before.  You can't see anything but a video board from there.

As has become the norm, most shareholder questions came from people attending from other countries, notably Europe and Southeast Asia.  That they would travel this far for what is not a televised meeting is a little bit cultish, even to me who travels about 150 miles.

Given the opportunity to be heard more, I thought Abel did very well with his responses, and it left me with confidence he's going to handle the CEO job just fine.

The Clark Spark

Over this past winter, but particularly over the past 6 weeks, there has been overwhelming attention on the University of Iowa women's basketball team and its superstar player, Caitlin Clark.  When I say overwhelming, I mean local and national media outlets covering it as a top story, along with local and national commercials featuring Clark on a near-constant loop.

This attention may be a bit over-the-top, but it's mostly deserved.  Clark has been a uniquely dominant player on a highly successful team, and she's almost single-handedly brought women's basketball to unparalleled heights of popularity.  (Full disclosure:  My spouse was her 7th and 8th grade math teacher, so I may be slightly biased.)

To me, the Clark-mania is very similar to the late 1970s when Larry Bird dominated men's college basketball with his prolific scoring and passing ability, and brought popularity to the game that hadn't been there before.  Among the similarities, it can't be dismissed that both were white players.  Among the differences, Bird did it when few games were even on TV, while Clark's games are seen by millions. 

Clark has handled herself both on and off the court with style and grace -- although often with a little less grace on the court.  Regardless, people want to see her play, and hear what she has to say.  

All of this attention, however, is bringing out some haters.  Success has a way of doing that, as does the ubiquitousness and anonymity of social media, where idiots compete to offer their extreme opinions.

I get why some are tired of Clark.  Her record-breaking performances have been going on for a few months now, as has the attention to her.  I'm even ready for a break now that college basketball season is over.  What I don't get, though, is the hate coming from current and former women's basketball stars.

I'm sure some of it is economics; Clark's play and ensuring stardom have already enriched her well beyond what those other players have earned over many more years.  However, those players don't seem to understand that the rising tide of attention to the game has lifted their financial boats as well.  It's like someone who won't accept a gift, because they felt deserving of more.

I'm also sure that most of it is plain jealousy.  Those veteran Clark-hating women's players are butt-hurt that even though they worked hard to become elite players, nobody paid much attention to them.  So they've resorted to trying to bring down Clark by suggesting she had to win an NCAA championship to be considered great, or some other such nonsense.

Their complaints are pitifully weak, and frankly, make them look like morons.  It's hard to belittle a player who led the nation in scoring and assists two years in a row.  Besides, what makes Clark great isn't just what she does on the court, but HOW she does it.  No one consistently attempted and made 30-foot shots in the college game before.  It's fun to watch.

It remains to be seen how Clark might continue to transform the women's game going forward.  While she changed the college-level game, that will be harder to do in professional basketball, where better players and extra effort will be available to contain her.

While we wait to find out, let's use the time to make fun of the old-school morons who won't simply acknowledge Caitlin Clark as one of the greatest college basketball players of all-time.

You Are (Probably) Not A Role Model

We need better role models.

Back in the day, we had good role models.  Often times these were family members or close friends with whom we had frequent personal interactions.

If they weren't personal acquaintances, our old school role models still made some impact on us.  Sometimes, our previous role models were civil or religious humanitarians who'd done far-reaching good deeds.  Sometimes, they were military folks who showed tremendous courage in the face of bad circumstances.

Regardless, we had good role models.

Now, most people who admit to having a role model will name a wealthy celebrity -- emphasis on the word wealthy.  More than likely, a person will name an athlete or actor as a role model.

Or these days, it may simply be a billionaire who didn't do anything particularly role model-ish -- they just made an obscene amount of money thanks mostly to American capitalism.

It's this last category I don't understand.  How is a CEO or hedge fund manager, for two examples, worthy of being modeled after?  Because they have money?

(I'll admit to saying Warren Buffett is a role model of mine, but I'm talking about professionally, not personally.  Let me add here that he's the most self-deprecating billionaire around by far, so if you had to name a billionaire role model, he'd be it.)

People have adopted billionaire as role models because they have social media platforms that didn't exist in the past to promote themselves,  Without that, we wouldn't even know who most of them are, much less want to follow in their footsteps.

As role models, billionaire tech bros or investors are not worthy.  Wealth creation is not a prerequisite for it, it's actually a reason why they should be disqualified from it, if there isn't anything else.

So perhaps I should re-phrase my opening....

We don't just need better role models.  We need new ones.