I am out this week in San Jose with Cisco for the security Virtual Team. So many weeds in the conference! After it was over yesterday I drove up to Sunol and hiked (still in my nice work shoes) to the top of the ridge. Nice view!  

    
   

This starts the online petition to officially make the the third Thursday after the third full moon after Thanksgiving celebrated throughout all English speaking and Spanish speaking countries to be known as “Dr Turner Thursday”. Being a federal holiday, it will mean my student will not be able to retake his Spanish test that week, so he better get an A the first time

I have made up my mind who I am supporting this year for President.  I put my thoughts in this blog post form for my son Austin, who will be 18 this November and cast his first ever vote.  I think he should know who his dad is supporting, and more importantly why I am supporting my candidate. I think it is important for me to demonstrate that I have values, articulate what those values are, and then give a chance for those values to be passed on to the next generation.

 

First off Austin, please remember to register to vote. Don’t wind up like Ivanka Trump. She gave a great speech last night, but she failed to register to vote in the New York republican primaries, and therefore never cast a ballot for her own dad. Remember son, actions speak louder than words. Here is a link to the Cleveland county voter registration website,  you have to mail this off mid-September. Details in the link.

I am a fiscal conservative and a social moderate-to-conservative. I believe less government is good government.  I believe less is better when it comes to taxes – not just federal, but state and local as well. Heck, if I could have my way I’d repeal the 16th amendment to the US Constitution.  Government should simply provide a fair playing field for businesses and then get out of the way. Let business owners and individuals take risks in a free-market capitalism society. The notion of government picking winners and losers in life makes me sick.  Individuals who take risks and find success should be richly rewarded. Individuals who take risks and fail should not be made whole via the taxpayer.  Yes, some basic safety nets should exist, but let’s not try and legislate everyone into wealth without working for or earning that wealth in any way.

Like Donald Trump impressed on his kids, I like to think big. The above paragraph should give you insight into what’s important for me this election cycle. Starting at the top we need to have a vision for what this country should be like long term (at least a generation out).

 

 

So when you think in a strategic manner, what should be the top issues we should be discussing this political season?

One strategic issue that immediately comes to mind is our national debt and the long-term soundness of our economy and US dollar. Right now we have a federal debt that is in excess of 100% of GDP. I realize most people reading this are not policy wonks, so that statement is hard to relate to. Let me offer a layman’s translation – that’s bad. We are deep in debt – $19.3T based on usdebtclock.org. The real problem is not what we have spent in the past, but what we will spend over the next 30 years. Social Security, Medicare and our defense outlays are structurally unsound and need to be reformed. Let me take you to the part of Donald Trump’s RNC speech last night where he talked about entitlement reform and balanced budgets.

Oh wait, Trump never mentioned the subject. Not once.

In general I have a problem with Trump’s positions. He is protectionist, not a free trader. He wants to repeal NAFTA. I do believe free trade is good for all economies involved. Protectionist people typically find themselves destroying the market they claim to protect, and find there are no sellers at any price when they do their damage. Let’s take an Oreo example. Last year Nabisco stopped making Oreos in Chicago and moved production to Mexico. Donald Trump has been railing against that move and tell Chris Christie not to eat any more Oreos. Is Nabisco moving production to Mexico a problem? If you owned Nabisco and you could get better a better product at a better price you too would move to Mexico. It’s just good sense. As a consumer if you don’t like it then don’t buy Oreos. However, government stepping in and vowing to get back at Nabisco is exactly what I’m talking about when I say Government is now (but should not be) picking winners and losers. Government is just too powerful these days. They can sue you, lock you up, impose taxes on you and generally harass you. I can’t stand for that.

Same goes for tax inversions with multinational drug companies. If an American business can get a competitive advantage by incorporating in Ireland — let them! The alternative is that the American companies go to extinction because they get outsold by a better foreign competitor.

Trump disagrees with me on those points. He believes American companies have some patriotic duty to use American workers and pay American taxes. Hogwash. Capitalism is intended to be self serving. The beauty of capitalism is that in serving your own financial interest, you add value in the marketplace and enhance the interests of greater society. Last I checked this was still a capitalist country (Socialist Bernie didn’t win, did he?).

If you don’t believe me then immediately start doing all your shopping at made-in-america-mart. You know, that large Wal-mart looking place where every product is manufactured in the US. Obviously such a place does not exist. Capitalism dictates that it does not exist. As consumers we want the best products at the best prices and if you stroll the aisles of Wal-Mart those products come from all over — plastic and electronics from China, clothing from Bangladesh and Vietnam.

We all can chant USA-USA, but look at our actions. We simply demand the best. We don’t shop at made-in-america-mart. If we did we would pay $200 for a plastic chair instead of $20. If this was a nationalist, socialist society we may one day be forced to do that, and our standard of living will go down significantly. But that day is not here yet and we don’t have to be told where to shop. Own a foreign made car? Well, you must be un-American. I don’t subscribe to that line of thinking.

One quick way to spur this economy is a tax holiday for the repatriation of corporate foreign cash held overseas. Look at my employer, Cisco Systems. We have $50B sitting in cash, overseas. If our management would like to use this and build a factory in the US, or hire some program manager jobs to roll out a new technology for the Internet of Things — whoops — Uncle Sam will take $25B of that $50B. If you were the Cisco CEO you would not pay that extortion fee, instead you’d also open up that new plant in Mexico or China. Sad but true. How about a one-time tax holiday and bring that cash back home? Totally political, totally doable.

And how many times did Trump mention cash repatriation last night? You guessed it, zero.

To Trump’s credit his website does say he is for a tax holiday for repatriation, but I need to hear it from him directly.

How is Hillary on these economic issues? Worse. She is not for any kind of reduction of taxes on foreign earned cash. I have not seen her talk about entitlement reform. She is also of the mindset, just like Donald, that government is the solution to our problems. Coal? Ban it. Heck, I would not be surprised if she banned fracking – it’s not a big deal, just American energy independence. I am no coal or fracking fan but again she demonstrates someone who wants to pick the winners and losers for us. I don’t trust her.

There is a 3rd choice this year. It is the libertarian party with a former governors of New Mexico and Massachusetts. The libertarians line up with my thinking. They may be a little more socially moderate than I am ok with, but that’s ok.

I really think if most Americans will stop and think for themselves, they will realize they have more in common with Libertarians than they do with Republicans or Democrats. What is a Libertarian? Look to Wikipedia: Libertarianism (Latin: liber, “free”) is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as its principal objective. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and freedom of choice, emphasizing political freedom, voluntary association, and the primacy of individual judgment.

On all the issues I am much closer to Johnson/Weld than either of the other 2 tickets. He is for term limits. For a massive overhaul of the tax code, for cutting defense and entitlements to what we can pay for. This snapshot gives a good view. By in large I agree with all the sentiments outlined below

 

Many in the Republican party will tell you that we are locked into this two party system and a vote for Johnson is a vote for Clinton. Hogwash. I am not moved by your fear. A vote for Johnson is a vote for Johnson. A vote for Clinton is a vote for Clinton. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Nowhere in the constitution does it say the word “Republican” or “Democrat”. And it’s time to take our country back from that corrupt, rigged 2 party system full of blood sucking insects.

Notice I did this whole post on issues, not personalities. There is so much concentration and emotion around the personalities of Trump and Clinton that there is no mention of the issues. While personalities are important, I like to think I am giving my vote to the person that best represents my issues, regardless of race or gender.

I’m voting for Gary Johnson.

 

On July 4th my Facebook feed had split personality syndrome. There were many friends were pragmatic about KD’s move to Golden State (the NBA is a business, I understand) and there were some that were not so positive on him turning his back on OKC (traitor taco, anyone?).  How do I feel about the situation (and how should you feel as well)? Read on:

For me, sports is about cheering for people. I never want to cheer for a shirt. I like to understand what kind of person a player is and what makes him/her tick. KD is an excellent person. Besides giving 8 years to basketball in OKC, remember that when the Moore tornadoes of 2013 went through the community, KD donated $1 Million of his own money to the relief effort.    He certainly did not have to do that, or invest his time in this community, but he did. That should not be forgotten. He made a home here and gave to the community.

There are some great athletes who are not great people.  I don’t want to cheer for them.  I’m thinking people like Lawrence Taylor (rape) or Dexter Manley (illiterate).   Do you suddenly want to cheer for a person like that because they are wearing a specific shirt? At that point, you are cheering for a shirt and not a person.

KD is obviously an articulate, intelligent person.  He well represented Oklahoma while he was here. I will be cheering for him and hope he finds what he’s looking for at Golden State.

Switching back to OKC, I put the blame for this squarely on Sam Presti and the Thunder organization. My guess is it will come out over the next few years, but we know nothing about what OKC offered.  Did they offer a 2 year deal with a player option after this year (like Golden State) or did they try to strong-arm him and force him to take longer contract? They should be offering him a player option every single year — value your people. Make them feel wanted, not trapped.

Sam Presti has not done anything useful that I can think of in 5 years. The things he has done include trading Harden and trading Ibaka.  How do you do that?  How do you let your people know they are not that important? That if they don’t want to be here you will happily get rid of them? No wonder KD felt little loyalty to the OKC organization– he saw it with the actions the team took on his co-workers.   We’d have the same feelings if the companies we work for devalued people and just treated people like butts in a seat.  The churn at OKC is too high. Could it be that Presti did not understand how KD would feel about changing head coaches, churning his teammates?  If Presti mis-read Durant there, that’s Presti’s fault.

Now there is talk of trading Westbrook, and Presti is dumb enough to do that, or at least allow the talk.  Presti is simply too proactive as a GM. Westbrook is a superstar, and if he is leaves, especially by trade, OKC will not have a conference finals caliber team for another 20 years. Presti should make sure Westbrook is happy with his situation here — offer him a maximum contract that has player options on it for every single year. If Westbrook still leaves with that offer to him then so be it, but at least that will demonstrate to Westbrook that the Thunder organization values him with their actions, not their words.

 

 

 

 

Neville’s top 50 movies all time:

1. Trading places

2. Toy Story

3. The Lion King

4. Cars

5. The Sound of Music

6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

7. Toy story 2

8. The Naked Gun

9. Star Wars episode 3

10. Airplane

11. 1941

12. National Lampoon’s Vacation

13. Wall Street

14. Dr Strangelove

15. The Shawshank redemption

16. SpongeBob movie

17. Zero dark thirty

18. T2

19. The little Mermaid

20. Aladdin

21. Bill and Teds excellent adventure

22. Blazing saddles

23. Back to the Future

24. Titanic

25. The Blues Brothers

26. Braveheart

27. 2001: A space odyssey

28. Ratatouille

29. Annie

30. Apollo 13

31. The Untouchables

32. Monsters Inc

33. Forrest Gump

34. Dumb and Dumber

35. Guardians of the Galaxy

36. The Godfather

37. Raiders of the lost Ark

38. Ferris Bueller’s day off

39. Dances with Wolves

40. Star Trek 2

41. Full Metal Jacket

42. Office Space

43. UHF

44. Die Hard

45. Planes, trains and automobiles

46. Blade Runner

47. The hangover

48. Veducated

49. The hunt for red October

50. Michael Jackson this is it

Hobbies? Why yes, in fact I have one. My hobby is collecting rocks. I have been doing it ever since a 2006 trip through Utah where I found a rock that was particularly intriguing to me. I decided then to have a goal to find a good rock from all 50 states and bring them to my front yard back home in Norman.

I have been to most states in the US at least once, but one state I had never been to was Oregon. Last week Shelli and I took a weekend trip out to Portland and the Oregon coast, fulfilling a desire we had been having for the last few years.

We had a great time, and I’m proud to introduce rock #~20 into the collection:

And here it is! The Oregon rock!! pic.twitter.com/CdxZjPlHDo

— Neville Aga (@CiscoNeville) May 7, 2016

I thought this rock had the right color for the rocks I saw in the area — darker, but not black volcanic.  It also has a nice little feature in the corner which looks like a rose, which is an Oregon thing.  The roses they grow there are huge!

The specific place this was taken from?  Just south of Cape Meares lighthouse, on the beach  45.4601N, 123.9701W

 

I need to brush the dust off my old rocks and re-intorduce them to the blog.  That will be the next blog post.

 

 

I have been struggling for a few days getting a vnc server to work in my new Debian server with xfce desktop. Doing google searches returns a wealth of “try this and see if it sticks to the wall” type approach.  Well, not satisfied with that I am attempting to explain here every line in a common /home/username/.vnc/xstartup file, so when you go for troubleshooting you can fix things yourself more intelligently. Feel free to comment if you can add more to this thread.

Common xstartup file lines and their meaning:

#!/bin/sh

First line of any executable script. The file needs execute permissions to run (obviously). That’s “chmod 755 xstartup” if you have issues there.  Don’t let the leading # comment tag fool you, as this is not really a comment, this is necessary to invoke the /bin/sh shell to run the rest of the lines of the script.  This is explained in wikipedia under “shebang (unix)”

# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

TBD

/usr/bin/xfce4-session

This is where you start your window manager. I am using xfce4. You can also use gnome, kde, cinnamon, etc. 

 

 

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup

The [ -x /something ] construct means “if /something file eXists then”.   && is the logical and operator (if 1 and if 2). The way it is implemented here is an if then.  Basically this is saying if the /etc/vnc/xstartup file exists then execute it. Otherwise continue on. The /etc/vnc/xstartup file is a system wide kind of file, where the user based xstartup is specific to that user.

[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources

Same as above.  FWIW, I don’t have an /etc/vnc/ directory or a $HOME/.Xresources file, so I could remove / comment these.

xrdb sets the contents of the RESOURCE_MANAGER property on the root window of screen 0. This is where apps get user preferences on color and fonts.

xsetroot -solid grey

Tailors the background of the window, if the widow manager (xfce4) goes away. So, not that important because a vncserver without a xfce4 (or similar) desktop — what’s the point?

vncconfig -iconic &

A helper application for vnc. The option forces it to be iconized

xterm -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &

This one is odd. You would think the -geometry refers to the geometry of the vnc session, but it does not. This is saying start a console (xterm, or x-terminal-emulator, all programs found in /usr/bin) that is 80 columns wide, 24 columns tall and spaced 10 pixels (both the x and y axis) from the top left corner of the screen.   What’s odd? This terminal is behind the vnc x session, so you only see it when you log out of your vnc desktop. Because you don’t go back to a login window manager, only then you see this command prompt.   Really, you don’t need this line.

You will set the geometry of the screen elsewhere, in your user profile at computer startup time in the file

/etc/systemd/system/vncserver.service
- or -
/lib/systemd/system/vncserver.service

 

twm &

or could be x-windows-manager &. This says start the window manager and is the last line in the file.

Filed under: Who I am voting for in the Republican primary and why.

Usually Oklahoma’s vote does not matter.  By the time primaries in Oklahoma roll around the candidate is fairly well established. This time around I would have liked to vote for Jeb Bush — I heard him speak once on public education in Florida and he was spot on. However, as usual, my guy is out before the primaries roll into my state.

So what to do?  Well, I am left with 4 choices: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich.  It’s time for me to make my mind and cast my vote.

The first question I have to answer in my own mind is am I looking for a leader or a person who shares the same policy views I do. Think about it — say your political philosophy was socially moderate, fiscally conservative, you wanted this kind of tax code, that kind of education system, and Pee-Wee Herman exactly shares every one of your beliefs.  Does that mean you should back Pee-Wee? For me the answer is no.  I am looking for someone that I think is a good leader in addition to sharing common values.  I bring this up because I am using that criteria to not vote for Donald Trump.  I have heard Donald speak a couple times and he is enjoyable to listen to. As he says, he knows how to “talk”. He is a Washington outsider, he can communicate.  I’ll drop the similarities to Ronald Reagan there. I think Reagan had a wildly optimistic view of America, where Trump has a wildly optimistic view of himself.

From a policy standpoint I am not that much out of line with Trump.  First of all you know where he stands,  For instance how does Trump feel about illegal immigrants from Mexico?  I have a feeling you know that one. When he spoke in OKC at the state fair his backdrop was a 40′ wall and he looked at it and said the Mexico wall was going to be waaaaaaay taller than that.    Personally I think illegal immigration from Mexico is nothing to fear.  People will always want a better life for their families and it shows how much we have to offer here in America that people would risk what they do to come here. Personally I fear when illegal immigration from Mexico is not a problem, because that means that Mexicans are voting with their feet — opportunity and life is better there than here.

But I digress.  I know where Trump stands on Mexico. I know where he stands on immigration for Islamic people. I know where he stands on corporate tax inversions.   I can’t really say I know where Marco Rubio or Kasich stand on anything. Most of their message is about how they can win in November, not anything about who they are or what they believe in.

So what are my policy care abouts? And who represents them the best?

1. Limited government. More than anything else, I feel Reagan’s words “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” are truth.   Our government – federal, state and local is too big and represents a huge waste of our resources and potential.  The word “politics” comes from the Greek “poli” – meaning “many” and “tics” meaning “blood-sucking insect”.  So there you have it. Politics and politicians are just a bunch of blood-sucking insects that that try to do more and more programs that just result in nothing. I strongly believe free-market capitalism is the best road to prosperity and everything about government is the antithesis of free-market capitalism.  Government programs are all about chosing winners and dictating what those blood sucking insects think is correct.  Put people in control – let us decide what goods and services we want. Don’t force programs on us.  Being fiscally conservative and limited government go hand in hand.  The best way to reign in those blood sucking insects is to cut off their ability to tax and spend. The current federal budget is $3.5 trillion.  Divided by this countries 300 million population that’s roughly $11,000 perperson.  So that means for my family of 6, I am funding the feds to the tune of $66,000 per year.  And that’s just the federal part of the pie. What do we get for that $66,000? I have no idea.   I am driving on the same interstates that were built 5 decades ago. Our military? The wars in Iraq is over. In case you have not noticed, Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are dead. So what is our money going to?  Social Security (for someone else), Medicare (for someone else) and military boondoggles (for someone else).   This system is terrible and is ripe for a collapse.  The federal budget should be half of what it is now.  Social security should function to keep seniors (and I do mean seniors- those 70+) outside of poverty. Medicare should negotiate prices on prescription drugs.  Basically you should have to add value to society in order to benefit from society — not just the “me” generation and “what’s coming to me” attitude of people these days.

So what do the candidates have to say on cutting back the size of the government?  The following data I get from the candidates own web sites:

Trump – C –  Tax code goes to 4 brackets, For a family with a $150,000 income that would correspond to a tax burden of $25,000. It’s right now about $29,000.

Cruz – A –  Tax code goes to 1 bracket – 10%.  Same family with $150k income? Tax burden of $15,000.  He does not mention it on his site, but others sites report that he wants to institute a VAT to make up the difference. Most people tend to disagree with that but I wholeheartedly agree– if income tax goes away.  In fact I say repeal the 16th amendment and replace it with a VAT.  Our incomes should not be taxed.  That is just a dis-incentive to work and a reason for this place to become a welfare state.  Today’s attitude is to let somebody else provide value and let someone else pay for my stuff because I just want to consume.  Instead, tax consumption.  You effectively means test people to pay taxes — if they can afford a Louis Vuitton bag let them pay taxes on it — regardless if they are a multi-millionaire or on welfare. If they can afford to consume they can afford to pay tax.

Rubio –  B – Tax code to 3 brackets, same $150k income family pays $22,500

Kasich – D.  His website talks about cutting taxes, but I see no specifics.  The only specific he has is cutting the top rate to 28%.  I can’t use the info on johnkasich.com to ballpark middle-class families tax burden.

 

OK, so that’s the #1 issue for me. How about the other issues I care about?

Tax on overseas profits.   This is a serious issue.  John Chambers, to his credit, talked about this at least 7 years ago, long before it was such a national topic. Companies have trillions of dollars overseas. Take Apple for example. They manufacture an iPhone is China and sell it to a person in China.  China rightly wants to tax Apple’s consumption and production over there.  However, what if Apple wants to take that profit and use it to fund more research and development or build a factory here in the US?  They can’t because the feds want another 40% tax in addition to what the Chinese have already taken.  The result of this policy?  Apple will leave the money in China and use it to build new factories in China. The net result of this high repatriation tax is that companies that want to be patriotic can’t be.  They are forced to invest more overseas. Just plain stupid.  And the politicians just don’t get it.  They think these companies are being anti-american — No! They want to be American, the tics don’t allow it. They assume people will just bring money home.  In the global society they have to compete for dollars, not assume them.  Let’s use an example.  Say you manufacture widgets. You have built a healthy business in the US manufacturing them, you make and sell $1M of widgets every year with a cost to you of $900k to produce them.   You pay your taxes on that profit of $100k, say the business is left with an annual after-tax profit of $80k each year.  Fine.  Now let’s say you expand your widget into Canada and it takes off over there.  You now sell $3M of widgets in Canada and log a Canadian profit of $300K. After total taxes (Canada and US) you are left with $80k in profit in your US bank and $240k of profit in your Canada bank.  You would like to use all $320k to invest back into the business and expand your widget factory. Whoops! The US wants to change you $120k in tax to bring home that $240k. So in other words from a US perspective you only have $200k to invest in your business.  What are you going to do? You will instead keep that money in Canada and build your widget factory in Canada. It’s a no brainier.  And then, after you build it in Canada if the US tics want to figure out some other way to tax you, you will just sell the business to a Canadian entity.

Trump gets it and posts on donaldjtrump.com “A one-time deemed repatriation of corporate cash held overseas at a significantly discounted 10% tax rate, followed by an end to the deferral of taxes on corporate income earned abroad.”   Bravo. That is the exact right policy.

Cruz, Rubio and Kasich get it, I think. However. that comes from 3rd party report of what they think. Nowhere on tedcruz.com/marcorubio.com/johnkasich.com do I see repatriation addressed. 3rd party sites quote them as in favor of a one time repatriation window at 10%.  No mention though going forward if they are for eliminating the double tax altogether though.

Interestingly Bernie Sanders takes an alternative approach that might make some sense.  Tax foreign income immediately, don’t wait for it to be repatriated.  Then, there is no barrier to bringing the cash home.   Of course his idea of tax rates are much higher– that is no good, but an instant tax of say 4% as opposed to 40% could work.

 Other issues? Obamacare. In hindsight Ted Cruz was 100% right to filibuster against Obamacare. At the time I saw it as a “me too” piggybacking off Rand Pauls CIA directed political assassinations (which I believe was truly heroic). But we all saw the Feds could not run a simple web site. Typical. Give a group of 5 programmers a $50k budget and 12 weeks and we can build Uber. Give the Feds 10k people and $500million dollars and you get… broken websites. The fix for healthcare in this country revolves around patient choice (meaning patients pay for their own care, or at least have skin in the game financially). Until that happens in both healthcare (and education) we will never live up to our potential. 
More other issues? There really is no bigger issue for me than reducing the size of government in our lives. So, to that end I’m voting for Ted Cruz.  I like what he says about winding down the dept of energy, education, and all those other useless federal departments.  I like the idea of a simple, smaller tax, elimination of corporate payroll tax.  I do believe he is for small government.

 

So, I’m voting for Ted Cruz.

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He wants several

 

The idea

 

Had a great time this weekend with my Chi Phi brothers in Auburn!

It’s been a while since I’ve put in a good blog post so here goes with the top twelve things I learned this weekend at the Chi Phi Mu Delta reunion in Auburn, Alabama  (ten wasn’t enough)

 

12. Everyone’s changed / no-one’s changed: Sure twenty years will put on a little heft on the waistline and take a little hair off the top, that’s to be expected. However the six inches between everyone’s ears remains the same as I remembered it from college. In fact, any change has been for the better – happy to see so many successful and giving back brothers.  The laughs are still the same, the storytellers are the same. The guys that were driven then are driven now. Glad to see everyone doing well.

 

 

11. Auburn’s football team stinks this year, that’s going to be written about extensively elsewhere for the next three months, so we’ll just leave it at that here. I’m thinking it’s a conspiracy between the football team and agriculture school to go 3-9 this year so the trees do not get rolled this year. More on that on #3.

10. Brian Pierce is an awesome cook! Friday afternoon he brought up some shrimp, sausage, something resembling a lime-green artichoke heart (didn’t want to ask what critter that was), potatoes and corn on the cob chunks. Did a low country boil in the front lawn with a propane heater and a 5 gallon stainless pot- finished it up with saltines, Stapleton family foods Jezebel sauce (unfortunately only available in Baldwin county) and paper napkins (who needs plates?) Wow was that excellent!

 

9. The Auburn campus is stunning beautiful. This weekend was only the 2^nd time I have been back in 22 years and I had forgotten how beautiful it can get on the campus. This shot from Toomer’s looking back to Samford hall was such an incredible feeling – perfect weather, no wind, no bugs – just a lovely, quiet village on the plains of east Alabama. Words can’t do it justice. Back at the house you could see the moon and the stars so clearly and brightly – just a beautiful fall evening.  If you have the opportunity you’d have to be nuts to go anywhere else.

8. The Chi Phi chapter will be strong again. I genuinely appreciate how the current Alpha and the current members embraced us old farts. We were made to feel welcome, addressed as “sir”, given handshakes and called out by name. I know we made a mess while we were there, and others did work setting up and cleaning up after us and I appreciate their work as well. The chapter apparently ran into a rough patch a couple years ago but what’s in the past is in the past. What matters in life, where you gain your character, is not what happens to you but how you respond to it. These men you can tell have good character and will go far in life.

7. The golf courses are better in the southeast. Out west we have our trees but they are few and far between so you have a few trees framing each hole. Back in Alabama the forrest is thick and thick trees and pine straw frame up each fairway. And the golden eagles hovering overhead did not hurt either. Unfortunately those were the only eagles on the course – in fact somehow our group achieved a new low in best-ball golf – we actually scored a double-bogey 6 on the par 4 last hole. With 4 golfers and mulligans how in the heck is it possible for us to stink that bad?  We should have quit scoring after hole 1 with our birdie.

 

6. College is nuts expensive. Yes, I’m bracing for that big bill in a couple years, but its not just tuition and room/board. The books are crazy expensive too – I joyrneyed to the back of J&M (yes, they still keep class textbooks back there) – look at the price for a EE book!  I remember I paid something like $60 for each class textbook and sold them back (the ones that sucked) at the end of each quarter for $15, now a new textbook averages $250.  And that’s just one class. Yikes!

 

5. Big shout out to all the alumni that organized and came to the event. Especially Bryan Schreiber who gave his time, set up golf, picked up Jon and myself from the airport and provided the Chi Phi Uber service.

 

4. Memo to The hotel at Auburn University—people coming here care about football. As crazy as it sounds, apparently the management there has not yet figured this out. Check out the picture below—we decided to watch the Ole Miss – Bama game as a group in the hotel bar. The hotel bar only has two smallish (~20”) TVs in the bar, and they are far away from the seating. Resembled watching TV on your watchman in the 1980s – size of a postage stamp.  We moved into the banquet room where there was a larger TV – however check out the live mellow Jazz band on the right of the pic—You would normally watch Ole Miss-Bama to the sound of Eli Gold’s incoherent droning (Golden Flake chips, anyone) – no, we got to watch the game to the… soft mellow cover of moon river playing in the background.  I can’t make this up.

 

3. Toomer’s corner itself is different. By now it’s legend that several Chi Phi’s were responsible for the 20’ tiger paw smack dab in the middle of Toomers.  This year they decided to make that paw permanent with brick pavers. While I applaud the intent to make that a permanent fixture of what Auburn is, the execution is off a little bit. The paw prints lead into town not away from it and the print itself is rotated 180 degrees from where it should be. Mostly though it’s the color. The new pavers are a tan-yellowish color. Everyone knows that tiger paw prints are supposed to be orange. I guess there is some safety aspect to painting orange in a large intersection (only reason I can think they did not use orange pavers), but damn — this is Auburn and orange is the only color that seems right to me.    Sounds like we need another 5 gallons of paint and a 4am window part 2.  Bryan, you think we can still play they “young kid, good old student fun” card?

The Toomer’s oaks also have changed the landscape. What a damn idiot Harvey Updike is. Oh well. The new oaks, while I guess they are as big as a transplanted tree can be, just look small. Also, they planted them further away from the intersection, so the net effect is the branches don’t come out into the intersection as much as they used to.    It won’t look the same with toilet paper rolled all over it.

The lemonade was great. On my last trip to Auburn for some reason the lemonade was meh.  This weekend it stood out as excellent, enough so for a 2^nd cup Saturday morning.

 

2. In life it takes all kinds. I’ll admit a part of the reason I came back is I wanted to see how people’s lives have played out. Among our brothers we have some doctors, judges, board members, life failures and everything in-between. Some divorced, some never married, some with kids of their own in college now. It’s refreshing to hear all the stories and realize that we share something in all life throws at us. It is fun to be part of the journey.

 

1. Auburn girls are dumb. Sorry, but this one of my favorites. Its coined by my wife in who is referring to the fact the Auburn girls let me go and I got scooped up by in Oklahoma. When it comes to how life played out, I am blessed – my life has played out fantastic with my wonderful wife and our four kids. Amazing that Neville, the goofy, nerdy one in the frat house ended up being married the longest (20 years plus now).. I love you Shelli – you’re gorgeous and the best—time to go home to Oklahoma now!

 

With GSX 2015 upon us it is a great time to reflect at last year’s challenge and how we are faring on the journey to #1 IT company in the world.

To recap, at GSX14 John Chambers charged us with the goal of being the #1 IT company in the world.  By my calculations we were #4 in the world last year.   Here is my post from last year in case you missed it

So one year later?   While we are still #4 I’m happy to say that we have moved much closer to #3&#2.  Market caps today of ORCL, IBM and CSCO are $160B, $145B and $130 respectively.  So we only have $15B to go for #3 and $30B to go for the #2 spot. That’s down from last years $60B gap to those two.

So, give us one more year and we are at #2.  Call MSFT a consumer company and were #1!