Economists: Stay away from my car!

I'm reading an article by an economist about how consumers incorporate fuel economy into their vehicle purchasing decisions. I was first skeptical when I read this:

"a. Model

Automobiles are purchased for the travel services they provide."

Really, is that all? What about style, image, fun?

Then I read this:

"Performance is measured by turning circle..."

That was it. Her one measure for "performance" was turning circle. Wow. It's no wonder that real-world buying decisions haven't been exactly what (most) economists have predicted.

A New Job! (February 2010 Edition)

I'm very hopeful that this is the last time that I'll be posting that title for a long time. After about 8 months, my time with UNESCO has come to an end and I'll be starting a new position tomorrow as an environmental consultant at BIO Intelligence Service. Very briefly, BIO helps public and private sector clients make  well-informed decisions about new products, services and policies by analyzing the relevant, environmental factors. As a consultant with them, I'll be doing research, writing reports, and generally geeking out on all things environment. Needless to say, I'm excited.

In all, my time with UNESCO was a very positive experience, though it certainly had its ups and downs. The United Nations System certainly needs competent, motivated (and young) people to fill its ranks, but there are a lot of barriers which prevent it from being an attractive option. That would be too much to get into now, but suffice it to say that I take my current professional transition as a positive career step.

Time to choose my socks for the big first day tomorrow...

Disturbing

For over a month, this poster has been plastered all over the Paris metro:

Needless to say, it was pretty unsettling to see that every morning, especially when the review blurb on the right-hand poster reads "We love to hate Esther." Hey, that's my wife you're talking about!

Thankfully, they're now all but gone, only a few stragglers remain, waiting to be covered by a poster for Alvin & the Chipmunks 2.

Catching Up

The bad news is that it's been a few months since I last posted anything here. The good news is that ti's been a pretty busy period meaning that I've taken plenty of photos. Let's do this chronologically:


Thanksgiving in Michigan

Thanksgiving in Michigan 2009

Esther and I went back to Michigan for Thanksgiving and enjoyed not only ten (more or less) relaxing days but also several gustatory delights including Thanksgiving dinner (of course) as well as Lazybones Smokehouse BBQ. Hands-down, the best BBQ I've ever had. It's enough to turn a vegetarian.

Christmas in Paris

Chistmas Breakfast 2009

Normandy - December 2009

It was a quiet Christmas in Paris this year. Esther and I enjoyed a delicious brunch at our house (first album) before heading out to Normandy for a few nights. In the larger town (Deauville) near the village (Villerville), there was something of an inexplicable parade. It had to do with the 150th anniversary of Deauville, but I have no idea why there was a guy riding a giant carousel horse. It made for interesting pictures though.

Day Trip to Strasbourg

Travels - Strasbourg 2009

While I had the week between Christmas and New Year's off from work, Esther did not so I had to keep myself busy. One way of doing so was to enjoy two of my favorite things about France, the high-speed trains and the diverse regional cultures. I booked a round trip ticket to Strasbourg (on the border with Germany) leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening. The two-hour train ride was blissfully uneventful and much quicker than the four-hour drive (and with my young person's reduction card, a wash in terms of cost). I really enjoyed the city and the photos are all fully captioned, telling the whole story.

Into 2010
The new year has started without much change though it has been the occassion to think about my mid-term plans. As those develop, certain aspects will certainly be shared here. I'll do my best to keep this updated more often and wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

Old

I got old, and I noticed the moment when it happened. It's when, all of a sudden, there is a practice which is common among the youth of the day, that you find completely incomprehensible.

Here's what happened:

Reading a NY Times article a few weeks ago about teens and Twitter (by the way, do you all know that I tweet?), they mentioned the case of Kristen Nagy, 18, to illustrate the case of a teen who sends a lot of text messages, but doesn't use Twitter. How much does she text? Let me tell you. She sends 500 text messages per day!

What???

500 texts per day? Over the 16 waking-hours of a day, that's a little more than one text every two minutes. For 16-hours straight! If it takes you 15 seconds to send one text, that's more than two hours spent sending 15-second text messages, not including the time it takes to read the messages you receive.

Trying to understand this, I compared this to my experience. Esther and I have unlimited texting included in our plans to go along with our text-friendly phones. Sometimes, when we get really crazy, we might send 15 texts per day. But 500? That's simply incomprehensible. I can't even imagine why someone would ever want to do that. It's stupid. It doesn't make sense. It makes me a little mad. I just don't understand.

And that's it, now I'm old. Kids are doing something and I, despite all my blogs, Twitter feeds, RSS subscriptions and social networks, simply can't wrap my head around it. Does not compute.

I think it's only going to get worse from here.