Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

-Dale Carnegie

Last night America witnessed a truly great moment as we watched the men’s 400-meter relay team fight against all of the odds and mount one of the greatest comebacks in Olympic history. After screaming at the TV and calming down after the emotional rush of watching my fellow countrymen beat the French, who had already proclaimed sure victory, I had a chance to reflect on what I had just seen.

It would have been so easy for Jason Lezak, the last U.S. swimmer in the relay, to give up when he realized that he was half a body length behind the leader with only 50 meters left in the race. It would have been so easy for him to ride the wave of the leader and concede to the silver medal. No one would have been surprised; no one would have blamed him for coming in second. Yet with the seemingly insurmountable distance between his last 50 meters and the Gold medal Jason Lezak reached into the depths of his strength and will power to surge past the opposition and claim his place in Olympic history.

This remarkable display of human will power and determination is an excellent example for all of us. How many times have you given up or been ok with coming in second place? How many times have you thought that your goal was too far out of reach? How many times has a situation seemed hopeless? Never give up. Never stop trying. The odds are never too great, there is always hope, there is always a way.

Read the article linked to here at espn.com to hear the reasoning behind the above statement from someone who knows what they are talking about, but I will tell you why Sheridan is right.

Part of me (the ethnocentric American part) wants to see team USA win every game by 30.  No, most games by 30, some by 40 and I would love to see one 60+ point win.  The other part of me (globalist, underdog sympathizer) wants to see some good, close games.  We will see what version of me steps up in the next two weeks.  (I think I already know.)  Go USA:

Three reasons team USA will return with gold:

1) They have to.  They have to.  They have to.  No really, they have to win the gold medal.  Team USA has been nothing short of a national disgrace for the last 4 years.  On top of that, our apparent “problems” have been diagnosed and treated.  If we don’t win now there is no room for excuses like, “NBA ball is different than FIBA,” or “USA players don’t have the opportunity to play together as often as other national teams.  These problems have supposedly been remedied.  So if USA does not achieve gold, they achieve shame.  (At least from me.)

2)  This time around team USA is one thing that it was not last time around; Prepared.  Team USA is also cocky, brash and confident, (all-three perfected and proudly made in the USA,) but those are not new.  Preparation is a new.  This years team USA has been in it for three years.  Not as long as some other national teams, but 2 years and 9 months longer than previous teams.

3)  Uber embarrassment.  Team USA has been mired in embarrassment for the past four years, but this year it feels even heavier.  No excuses.  The best America has.  But no matter what anyone says, and no matter how cocky team USA is, they are reigning losers.  No one can argue that, because it is a fact.  That is embarrassing.  The entire world expects team USA to win, because they should, but that was the case four years ago, and we all know how that turned out.  Embarrassing.  Like I heard Kobe jokingly say, “if we don’t bring home the gold, I will have to become an Italian citizen and all the other guys will have to pick another country.”

GO USA!!! (Please, please, please don’t bring home bronze!)

Source: ESPN.com, Chris Sheridan

I have been told that a few of my recent posts have been more on the negative side of life, so here is a more light-hearted one.  Today’s post is about dreams…

A few years back, I was sitting with some of my roommates talking about the future and we starting talking about money.  I made the comment that I wanted to be so rich that I could eat beef jerky everyday.  What does this tell you about me?  1) I have simple dreams 2)  I love beef jerky and 3)  I don’t ever need to make THAT much money.

Sometimes when I am buying a high-priced item like a $1100 airline ticket to Taiwan, a new laptop computer, or even something smaller like new brakes for my motorcycle I think about the cost in terms of beef jerky.  A plane ticket, or 523 2oz individually packed Jack Links beef steak jerky, or 137 packages of Tillamook beef steak nuggets, teriyaki or original.  Mmmmm…  I wish I had some right now.

I figure I need about $1000 dollars a year for my jerky budget, to be content.  (Although I think I may die from heart failure first.)  That would make me happy.  (Jerky, not heart failure.)

Now you know what I want for my birthday

“We pride ourselves in customer service.”  You know, now that I type it out, I don’t even know if I am saying it right.  “in customer service…,” or “on…,” or “in our…,” I don’t even know.  But anyway you say it, it is a dumb thing to say.  And this is why.

You usually hear someone say this overused, misunderstood phrase in order to apologize for messing-up or exhibiting crappy customer service.  But regardless of whether or not you have just made a mistake and are trying to talk your way out of it, or have been brainwashed to think that this phrase makes you sound smart or cool, you should not ever say it.  The point of all of this is that “priding” yourself in customer service is a waste.  Actually be good at customer service.  Don’t tell people “I like customer service because I read in Forbes that good companies have good customer service,” but figure out how to actually HAVE good customer service and then go out and execute.  (Do it!)

It drives me crazy when I talk about how important doing something is with no, or little intention to actually do it.  Customer service unfortunately falls in this category sometimes.

The interesting fact is that there is a fine line between being exceptional at something, or just good at it.  The bad news is that we barely push ourselves that one more step to be exceptional.  The good news is that if you are good at something you are usually tantalizingly close to being exceptional at it.  If you just do it!

1) The worldwide Media is going to paint a picture of an ugly China.  Every injustice and social issue that china has will be spotlighted one by one as if each one was the beginning of the end of the world.  (I am not saying that the problems are real.)  Sensationalistic news reporting will be at it’s best.  I am going to kick the next person I hear call China, “Red” China in the shins, hard.

2) Domestic media will paint a picture of China that is perfect.  Every single injustice and social issue that does exist and plague the Chinese people will be swept under a humongous Olympic-sized rug.  Thousands of Chinese with smiling faces and full stomachs will sing a thousand praises to communism, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and the great Motherland.

I don’t blame China for their biased media and I don’t blame the national media (NBC) for wanting to give their audience a good show.  I just know I am going to wrythe and squirm every time I see a blatently exaggerated or half-truth reported to the world as reality.  The world is ignorant and will eat it up.

I am in the office chair manufacturing and design business, and in our industry “green” is in.  But it is new.  No one really knows what they are talking about when they say they attain this mystic goal.  If they do know what they are talking about, you can assume the person or people they are talking to really don’t know what they are talking about, or the definition of “green” is different for the both of them.  In our industry you are green if you are certified green.  But which certification?  There are a half dozen already floating around out there.  They all show that you are trying to be green, but do they really prove that you are green?  And what does that even mean?

To illustrate the point, I introduce the following excerpt from an article in the Taiwan Review on solar energy:

In February this year, Taiwanese company E-TON Solar completed installation of solar panels that provide power for London’s City Hall. The total installed capacity of E-TON’s panels now equals some 50,000 kilowatt hours each year–or 1.5 percent–of the building’s electrical needs. That may not sound like much, but it will prevent more than 28,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants from entering the atmosphere each year. Moreover, the project demonstrated the feasibility of retrofitting uniquely designed buildings with solar cells, a task that was not easy given the structure’s domed roof and “eyelash” shading system.

50,000 kilowatt hours each year equals 1.5% of the building out-put, correct?  So that means that 3,333,333 kilowatt hours of energy are consumed by that building every year.  And using solar panels is saving 50,000.  Great, I think…  Who in the world even knows what that means!  I am not stupid, but I guarantee the average American (British, Taiwanese etc…) does not have a clear grasp on what that number means.  Now to my favorite example.  The article goes on to explain that by saving 50,000 kilowatts of energy every year, although a mere 1.5% of the buildings consumption, 28,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are spared from being spewed out into the atmosphere.  Now who, without lying can really say they have any idea what that means?!  28,000 kilograms eh?  I think I ate that much gummy candy back in high school, but I can’t remember.  I don’t think the labels were in kilograms back then.

My point (if there is one mixed in all the sarcasm of the above paragraph) is that if we are really going to make a difference (regular people that is) we need to be a) speaking the same language, and b) using metrics that make sense to the lay-person.

The Beijing Olympics will be the largest gathering of foreigners in China in recent history - the biggest foreign influx since the Mongol invasion - and a social experiment of sorts for a country that is overwhelmingly monochromatic.

Having been to China a few times and living in Taiwan for a couple years, I can relate to the “white foreigner in China” reaction from many Chinese who have not had the opportunity to get up close-and-personal with foreigners.  Although in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai where there are literally millions of foreigners, there will not be much “surprise” for most Chinese.  Plus, most tourists, even the most daring don’t linger far from the “tourist friendly” areas of any part of China.

This will however be a very interesting social experiment, as the AP aticle linked to below states.  Foreigners, especially Europeans and Americans are used to being able to do whatever they want when they want, and you can’t so that in China.  Traffic is a good example.  In the U.S., when an idiot, or an airhead wanders into the street into oncoming traffic, cars stop.  Red lights, stop signs, these things are followed for the most part.  They hardly mean anything in China.  Stepping out into traffic in China WILL get you to a hospital quickly.  Traffic is only a part of it, an example of the differences between East and West.  There are much more important and serious things that can get an ignorant Westerner in trouble.

Not to be a downer, most of the interaction should be nothing more than a lot of fun.  I wish I could be there to take it all in.

Source: Beijing Readies for Influx of Foreign Visitors, AP

It makes me so angry to hear about people wrecking their bikes and not wearing helmets.  If one person dies a summer, that should be enough to jump to action and do something to rectify the situation.  But it happens every single day, and that is just in Utah!  Riding a motorcycle is dangerous enough, please wear a helmet.

“Independence is a psychological issue. Liberty is a spiritual issue. It is the freedom to evolve without any intervention from anybody.”

“The urban Chinese in the mainland of China today are more prosperous than ever before. But are they free to evolve psychologically and spiritually? They are confronted with the state ideology of communism as the sole yardstick.”

Yes, the people of China are far better-off than they were 20 years ago.  However, I would also say the people of China could be much better-off if their government worried about them, and not JUST their GDP.

How free does wearing Nike, driving Mercedes and playing golf make you if you have to trade religion, freedom of expression and a say in governement to get it?  Governement wants you to think that psychological independance can be had without “actual” independance, but I am not so sure.  I know a lot of educated people in China that, at least on the outside, seem to be okay with giving-up certain freedoms for economic growth and prosperity.  But the more we talk about the loss of those freedoms, the more they seem to talk themselves out of the propaganda ingrained responses and share their real feelings.  I can only imagine what the Chinese people who are currently along for the ride (as long as the economy is scorching, you can have our freedoms!) will say and do when China runs into it’s next inevitable mini-slump or mini recession.

Indonesia’s independence: An unfinished business

To say it was terrible would be a lie, becasue it was horrible.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  Brenden Fraser is the worst actor in the history of “worst actors of all time.” I don’t know if he should even be considered an actor to begin with.

The story was bad, the acting shouldn’t be considered acting, the directing was terrible, the cinematography was lame and the dialogue would have been funny if it was not supposed to be funny.