Andrea S. James

Category: That’s Life

  • A tribute to biology, which bugs me

    This post is an ode to the health care workers — doctors, nurses, lab researchers and scientists.

    I salute you.

    Because biology has got to be the most infuriating of the basic sciences. And I don’t know how you work each day with the maddening messiness of organisms. It has got to be like dealing with derivative instruments each and every day, only with blood and needles involved.

    After spending some time with a friend on chemotherapy, and reading “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,” I’ve been thinking a lot about matters of the body.

    My adult world has been one of computer code, words, numbers, math, physics, money, finance, accounting, business, technology, satellites. It’s all about efficiency and accuracy.

    And biology is all so . . . nebulous. Organic. Messy.

    As a reporter, I remember once touring a bio-tech lab in Bothell, Wa., where a company was working on a new treatment for a particular blood-circulation malady. The chief executive of the company told me that the treatment may work on more than half of patients — and that would represent fantastic odds.

    What? Why wouldn’t it work with everyone? There were math and chemistry formulas all over the place, on every available surface. How come sometimes A = B and other times, A = C, but B does not always equal C, but sometimes it does. How does that make logical sense?

    And scientists in this world just accept this without going mad. Amazing.

    Even the stock market, with all of its dizzying weariness, opens every day at 9:30 a.m. ET and closes at 4 p.m. Chaos with time parameters!

    Try telling the human body that you have a deadline. That you have someplace to be. That your Outlook Calendar has sent a 15-minute reminder and you’ve got to get going.

    I studied computers and physics in college and the practical application of those disciplines is normally always a predictable outcome. (Physics does become a discourse on probabilities at the quantum level, but for the sake of argument, when applied practically, Earthbound Newtonian physics adheres to unbreakable laws.)

    A basic element of computer coding is the If / Then statement.

    It looks like this:

    IF A=B

    THEN:

    DO this;

    ELSE:

    DO that;

    END.

    It’s so simple. It’s boolean. It’s either-or. True or false. One or zero. On or off.

    Biology? What a mess. Is it any wonder that health care is difficult to figure out on a societal level? That care standards vary and that a dollar here doesn’t go as far as a dollar there?

    Sometimes, I wonder if the desire for government to just take over health care – pay for all of it, handle all of it – has less to do with economics and more to do with people’s frustration and fear over the messiness of the process, the bills, the lab tests, the lack of instant gratification and the unpredictability of it all.

    Hat’s off to you, biology workers. You are way more comfortable with random outcomes than I could ever be.

    Life is messy and you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty.

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  • September 11, 2001 – September 11, 2011

    I grew up in New Jersey on Monmouth Bay, near the Keyport docks, across from which the Twin Towers stood.

    When the attacks happened, I was in Washington, D.C., attending college.

    I’m mourning today. But, I’ll be flying.

    I’ve had this web site in some form or another since 2000. Here is what I posted a week after the attacks in 2001. This was before I knew I wanted to write for a living, before I knew whom I would marry, before I knew, really, much of anything. I had freshly turned 20.

    When I read my old post, I feel sort of tender about it. I detect a loss of innocence that was shared by a nation.

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  • A paradox of modern life: Comfort is a noose

    It is two days post Hurricane Irene.

    If you talk to enough folks, you can detect disappointment in some Northeast corners about how boring the storm was.

    Why is that?

    My theory is that people are hungry for adventure and many don’t know how to seek it themselves for risk of losing physical comfort, and thus, they find themselves surprised and pleased by the adrenaline rush of an approaching storm.

    Most people would never confess that they find storms exciting.  It’s not a politically correct thing to say, especially when death and damage are involved. But, on some level, an approaching hurricane is as exciting as it is dreadful.

    Because as much as we seek comfort, we also find it boring.

    Comfort is a noose. Once we have it, we become too content, we fight too hard to keep it and not hard enough for the things that give life meaning. A hurricane is a reminder of what’s important — relationships, life, little pleasures, love, truth.

    A life lived to preserve physical comfort isn’t really all that fulfilling. It is fulfilling to seek it, but once you’re there, then what?

    The happiest people are not those who are the most comfortable. The happiest seem to be those who are in a zone. Those with a mission and a goal, those who are seeking to better themselves or some societal element over which they have control, those who have risked physical comfort for some greater purpose.

    Religious missionaries and business entrepreneurs and loving parents share this in common.

    Happiness lives outside of our comfort zone.

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  • Vacation for Americans means working from somewhere else

    Canary Islands vista
    Checking in on the U.S. stock market from the Canary Island of Tenerife, a Spanish territory off the west coast of Africa. (Photo by Andrea James)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    I’m just back from a lovely holiday in Europe. My husband and I try to get out of the country at least once, if not twice, per year.

    This year, we attended a wedding in the Irish countryside, swam in the Atlantic off of the Canary Islands and shared a pint with friends at a Dublin pub. (Well, I had a proper Irish coffee with whiskey instead.)

    I am a stock analyst and about 50% of my job is staying on top of current events. It is not the sort of occupation where you can just check out for 10 days.  (Or, as it happened thanks to Hurricane Irene and flight cancellations across the Eastern seaboard, we were gone 12 days.)

    Plus, I had a company that scheduled an earnings announcement after my trip was booked. Which means I’d be working at least a day-and-a-half abroad.

    This was my dilemma: How do I ensure a reliable Internet connection abroad?

    I wanted to check in on my stocks and the news at least once per day.  Plus, it’s easier to relax if you’ve made sure that the business world isn’t blowing up on you. But I dreaded searching for WiFi hotspots, paying hidden fees, troubleshooting various networks. What a stressful mess when I’m supposed to be on vacation.

    The bed & breakfast inns where we stayed did not have WiFi connections. (I can just imagine our Irish hosts wondering about these crazy always-working Americans!)

    My friend recommended XCom Global‘s Mifi hotspot, and so I decided to give it a try. It worked so well, that I have to recommend it*.

    XCom Global's mifi hotspot device is the size of my hand

    I phoned them up on a Friday, and by Monday morning, they had FedEx’d me a little device that easily fit into my carry-on luggage. Also included was a FedEx return envelope for post-trip.

    Once abroad, I turned it on, connected to the WiFi hotspot and voila!

    Instant high-speed Internet. Every day. Even when we were stranded at two airports because of the hurricane, I could plop down in a seat and pull out the device to check on flight connections and reservations.

    The Internet was fast enough that I was able to use Google Voice from the Canary Islands, which are off the west coast of Africa. I asked a question on the earnings conference call without paying exorbitant fees to use my cell phone.

    It cost me $25 per day, for about $250 total for 10 days. That includes the optional insurance on the device. There was no limit on my Internet usage, which is desirable for uploading vacation photos whilst downloading up-to-the-minute stock market data. Thumbs up.

     

    *I am receiving zero compensation for this post. The company doesn’t know I’m writing it.

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  • How do you unlock your heart?

    If you’ve followed along for a while, you know that I’m nuts about downhill skiing. That said, I pretty much can’t stand the minutia involved in getting ready to go to the mountain.

    I live in a condo building and store my skis in a unit in my building’s basement. To load the skis into the car involves sticking my condo-unit key in my pocket, going to the elevator and using a special key to tell the elevator to go to the basement. Once down there, we unlock the storage area door and then there’s a combination lock on the storage unit itself.

    Then, we haul the gear upstairs – skis, helmet, poles, boots — and use another key to unlock the car and yet another to unlock the ski rack.

    We haven’t driven two feet and we’ve already had to employ six keys. It saddens me that humanity must be so guarded to protect ourselves from each other.

    But once we get to the mountain, we’re free. I always felt that there was a camaraderie on slopes — a bunch of like-minded people, willing to brave frigid winds and a mountain that could kill us, just to strap on some heavy piece of equipment and hurl ourselves down a hill. It’s play at its finest. Totally pointless and totally filled with utter, sheer joy.

    One day this past season was particularly cold. I was losing feeling in my fingers and my friends and I agreed that we’d grab lunch after this next run. Like I’ve done for more than 15 years, I raced over to the ski rack, popped off my skis, hung my poles around the top and clodded clumsily in my boots into the toasty restaurant.

    Probably two hours later, we re-emerged, full and warm and ready to have at it again.

    My skis weren’t there.

    After an hour of digging in the snow and checking the racks over and over and over again, I realized with sad finality: Someone had taken my skis.

    But, maybe it was a mistake, I hoped. Maybe they’d bring them back. Later that night, security informed me that there had been six thefts that day. I learned that equipment thefts are often not done by “just kids,” but have ties to organized crime. Criminals steal the gear, sell it on eBay or Craigslist, and use it to finance drug-running and other illegal activities.

    My skis were stolen.

    I hate that phrase. I hate what it means and I hate how much it still bums me out even as we head into summer. My skis were 10 years old and cheap and my ski ability had improved so much since I bought them that I should’ve had new ones by now anyway.

    My skis had little fiscal value. I bet they wouldn’t command more than $20 on the open market.

    And yet, the thieves had stolen something invaluable: my ski-culture trust.

    It’s interesting to me that in the Bible, Jesus refers to the devil as “a thief.” If I were to pick the worst adjective for evil, the worst thing you could do, I don’t think I would have chosen that one. I think I’d pick murderer or rapist or despot or tyrant. But Jesus says, “thief.”

    Even 2,000 years ago, people knew that thievery was a very evil thing. A murderer is a thief: He steals life. A rapist is a thief: He steals peace of mind. Despots steal autonomy. Petty thieves steal our ability to look at a strange man as a brother and love others as we love our selves.

    Before this upcoming winter, I’m going to have to buy new skis. I’m even a little excited for some new, shiny carvers.

    But what makes me sad is that I’m also going to buy yet another lock and key.

  • Why I start at 4 am: It’s morning first in New York

    How many time zones are in the contiguous United States?

    a) Three

    b) Four

    c) Who cares?

    If you answered (a) you might live in Chicago, or the central time zone. Or, you might live outside of the U.S. and made a bad guess.

    If you answered (b), you are correct. And you likely live on the West Coast or in the Mountain time zone.

    If you answered (c), you live on the East Coast.

    I grew up in New Jersey. In other words, I grew up thinking that New York was the axis point upon which the whole world pivots. I never realized that there was an entire country out there of people constantly adding hours to their own time to convert to eastern.

    When I worked and lived in Washington, D.C., I never put an ET after the time. A 9 am conference call was at 9 am. Period.

    An East Coaster’s awareness of time zones is like the average American’s awareness of Canadian politics.

    Growing up, I didn’t even consider myself an East Coaster. I wouldn’t have known what that meant. West Coasters tend to not be like that. They’re hyper aware of the fact that they live on the West Coast, and that it’s different from the rest of the country and that you have to add three hours to your time so that New Yorkers understand you. It’s kind of like how in the South, everyone goes around thinking about how they are in the South. But growing up in the Northeast, I never thought about how I was in the North. I never called myself a Northerner until I moved South. But Southerners call themselves Southerners all the time.

    The first time I moved out of the ET zone, I lived near Chicago. A New Yorker said to me, “I don’t understand why you’d move there. There’s nothing you can get there that you can’t get in New York.”

    I responded back about how people love the Cubs, even though they don’t win like the Yankees, and how that is really endearing. He didn’t get it.

    “Oh wow, in Chicago, their t.v. shows are an hour earlier,” I realized. “Isn’t that neat.”

    By the time I moved to Seattle, my New Jersey family had given up trying to figure out what time it was in my world.

    “It’s still light out,” I’d say at 8 pm.

    “Really? I’m going to bed,” they’d say at 11 pm.

    East Coast business people who travel West and wake up at 7 am say, “By the time I wake up here, I feel so behind, like I’m missing out on everything. I’ve got all these e-mails already.”

    Yes. 7 am on the West Coast is 10 am back East. It’s late morning.

    I love my adopted West coast. I’d like to stay forever. I’ve fully confronted my East Coast geographical snobbery and have overcome it.

    But it will always be morning first in New York.

  • The world is going to end on Saturday

    So why am I spending one of my last two full days on Earth updating a financial model. Sigh.

    (I’m not sure how free cash flow yields will help me in the after life.)

    I suppose I’m doing it because of that whole pesky, “you shall know not the day nor the hour,” thing.

    I’ve finally had some time to read up on all this rapture news. Fascinating. No, the prediction isn’t fascinating. It’s actually kind of convoluted. Link to original source material. What’s fascinating is all of the attention it is getting — more than 2,500 articles so far, according to Google News.

    I suppose some find it delightful to mock these people.  I’ll, ahem, reserve judgment.

    And seriously. Any of us could die tomorrow. Or we could live until we’re 99. What to do? How do you make the most of your life? Can we really have it all?

    In yoga class yesterday, during a pose, the teacher told us to look past the ends of our fingertips. Not way out, but just an inch or two past. She said we should plan our lives the same way, looking a little ahead, but not too far.

    “Too far” varies for everyone, and depends on age and circumstance. I’m operating on about a two-to-five year span.

    It’s a bet, a calculation, we all have to make.

     

    Update:

    And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, yes our actual CDC, has a page dedicated to how to prepare for the zombie apocalypse.  Guess our government’s not so stiff.

  • Are universities the next bubble to burst?

    We’ve lived through the tech and real estate bubbles. What’s next?

    How about college?

    University cost increases long ago outstripped the wage benefit of going. Or so, I’ve read.

    Thus, demand will eventually reflect this fact and fall, and the cost of attending college will have to come down. Right?

    Undergraduate tuition has no doubt skyrocketed. Take NYU — it costs about $20,000 per semester to go — that comes out to $160,000 for four years. And that’s just tuition. It doesn’t count the stuff you need to survive. You know, like food and shelter.

    Let’s take three 18-year-olds with wealthy parents. Each has $160,000 with which to do whatever he wants. (This is more common than you might think: I seem to have many friends with zero student loans.)

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  • Don’t be offended, we’re all clueless

    This scene took place more than four years ago, at a previous job:

    I had a black co-worker who usually wore her hair natural, which means it flowed up (rather than down) with tight curls extending high on her head.

    And once every few months, she paid tens of dollars to have it straightened. And then it flowed down and was straight, like white or Asian hair.

    One time, one of my white-male-40-something-never-been-around-black-people co-workers said to her, “I like your hair a lot better this way.” He was talking about her expensive straightened hairdo.

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  • A Seattle transplant reminisces about swimming pools

    Springtime is trickling into the Pacific Northwest — with sunbursts between raindrops. The days lengthen as sunset arcs toward 10 p.m.

    A Seattleite suns by the pool in Mexico
    This is me, a budding Seattleite, sunning by the pool on a recent Mexico vacation

    I love this time of year. It means summer is coming — and summer in Seattle is a beauty.

    But there’s one thing I really miss about summers here:

    Pools.

    As summer approached as a kid, I would daydream about which pool I wanted to jump into first. I would examine my pool options, imagining the perfect concrete-to-grass-to-foliage ratio. Too many trees make shadows in the pool. Too much concrete makes the pool area uninviting.

    The perfect pool experience means a blue pool liner (no cement!), surrounded by white concrete, which is surrounded by green grass, which is surrounded by trees. I liked the shouting and bustling, see-and-be-seen scene, of public pools.

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