Gone, Gone the Damage Done

The financial costs of hurricanes Helene and Milton will exceed anything we’ve experienced in a single hurricane season.  The loss of lives is also significant and still counting. For many survivors, their world has been turned upside down and may never recover.  This would certainly be the case in many mountain communities in Western North Carolina.  The devastation there is almost unimaginable.  Parts of the Florida Gulf Coast have been transformed.  Some residents have had enough and will move inland or out of the state.  Hurricanes are a reality for Florida and there will be more.

 

The politics of hurricanes and hurricane relief are in full swing.  The Right is pointing fingers at what they claim is a poor response.  That poor response being the result of federal agency incompetence along with too much money spent on immigrants and other nations.  The Left’s response is they are doing a good job and those who claim otherwise are misinformed or worse, spreading that misinformation.  The Left is also seizing on these disasters to once again make their case that human caused global warming, largely caused by fossil fuel, is the real problem.

 

At the risk of being labeled a “climate change denier”, it’s worth pointing to the data. This is a link to some very interesting data from the NOAA National Hurricane Center U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade (noaa.gov).  You can read it for yourself and reach your own conclusions, but I would draw your attention to the note just below the data records.

There are two sides to the hurricane story.  The mainstream version claims that even IF we are not having more hurricanes, we are having more major hurricanes. Again, the data to support that claim is questionable at best.  One thing is certain. Hurricanes are doing more damage now than in the past.  The same can be said of tornadoes and hailstorms and wildfires. Today there are simply more people and more structures in places where hurricanes (and tornadoes and hailstorms and wildfires) are most likely to hit.

The questions we must answer:

_1 How much has human activity contributed to climate change?

_2 How much can humans do now to change the climate to something more favorable?

_3 Should we spend more money trying to change the earth’s climate or spend more money preparing to live with the earth’s climate?

_4 And of course the most pressing question: What can we do for the folks who lost so much to Helene and Milton?

                                                             Galveston, Texas 1900

The Experts Can Be Wrong. (Perhaps more often than not).

 

A lot has been said and written about how the “experts” got things wrong about Covid.  Experts being wrong is not all that unusual.  In recent history the “experts” have been wrong about quite a few things.  For over 100 years the experts have been saying the world would soon run out of oil.  Eventually, we will…but it’s yet to happen “soon”.  The experts gave us the “food pyramid” back in the 1950’s and now the new experts are saying the old experts were wrong.  In the early 20^th century the experts were confident that eugenics was the path to a better, healthier, more intelligent human race.  That path only ended up in global war and genocide.  For over 100 years the experts have come up with various ideas on how to “fix” the Middle East.  Thus far they’ve only made it worse.  And I can remember when the experts just knew it was bad for players to drink water during August two-a-day football practices.

 

As one grows older one is likely to deal with a more “medical experts”.  Fortunately, they tend to be right most of the time.  Unfortunately, when they are wrong it can really hurt.  A case in point, in the summer of 2022 I was having some pain in my right hip.  We were looking forward to a trip to Italy in September, so I decided to go to my orthopedic doctor and get it checked out.  Maybe he could give me a shot.  Or perhaps he would tell me the hip was arthritic and would most likely need to be replaced within a year or two.  I was prepared for the worst but then got good news. After he X-rayed my hip, he concluded that I just had tight hamstrings and glutes.  So, he sent me to another expert, a Physical Therapist, who gave me a stretching routine and some tips on improving my posture.  Go now and be well.

 

Dutifully I did the stretching and worked on posture.  My hip responded by getting worse.  So, I doubled down on the stretching and good posture discipline.  My hip got worse and soon my entire leg started to hurt.  A week before we were to leave for Italy I could no longer stand or walk for more than 5 minutes.  So that trip was cancelled, at no small expense.

 

I went back to my ortho doctor and he took X-rays of my back this time and said there was a problem.  So, I ended up with a back and spine specialist.  More X-rays and an MRI revealed a slipped disc in my lower back along with stenosis.  Serious but not necessarily serious enough to justify surgery just yet.  So back to the Physical Therapist and some new exercises.  With rest and some light exercises there was improvement.  We added more exercises and it immediately got worse.

 

My wife criticizes me for going to the internet for medical advice, but sometimes it pays off.  I discovered that one of the exercises the PT had me doing was exactly what I should not be doing with a slipped disc.  So, I stopped going to the PT.  I continued with some of the other exercises avoiding the bad one or anything that resembled the bad one and quickly got better.

 

For two years I’ve been ok and continued with the stretching that the “experts”, including those on the internet, recommended.  But recently after two weeks in Alaska, my hip and leg began hurting again.  So, I did even more stretching of the leg and hip muscles.  And it got worse. 

 

Then I stumbled across another internet “expert”.   Based on his information, it just confirmed that this was sciatica caused by the back problem, even though my back did not hurt.  NO surprise there.  But, to my surprise, this “expert” advised that stretching the hamstring and hip muscles was a bad idea.  The stretches might feel good in the moment, but only served to irritate the sciatic nerve.  He advised a different routine focused more on strengthening the glutes and lower abs.  Within a week, my pain eased up considerably and I am back on the road to recovery.

 

Bottom line, for over two years I have been doing what the experts advised.  And after some adjustments I was doing ok, until I wasn’t.  I’m pretty sure some of our Alaskan adventures fired up the sciatica and all my efforts to calm it down only made it worse.  At some point I may need surgery to fix the slipped disc.  But for the time being I have found a better way to deal with it.  The experts might know a lot about what has worked or could work, but remember they can just as easily be wrong.   

Another Installment of My Two Cents Worth…Election Edition

_J.D. Vance clearly won the debate vs Tim Walz but count on Trump to undo whatever positive momentum Vance’s performance may have generated.

 

_Democrats have been in full reset mode since the Biden debate meltdown. Tighten up the borders, increase support for Israel, cut interest rates, release more oil from critical reserves, keep Joe Biden out of the public spotlight as much as possible and promote Kamala Harris as an Obama-like transformational leader who will bring joy and good tidings along with hope and change.

 

_Whatever the real story is about Lt. Gov Mark Robinson’s alleged porn posts, North Carolina has gone from a toss-up or slightly red, to leaning blue.  Trump needs to win North Carolina and that might not happen now.  The election comes down to AZ, NV, GA, WI, MI, PA and North Carolina.  These represent 93 electoral votes.  Trump needs at least 51 of those.  But PA is the key.  Assuming he wins AZ, NV, GA and NC he’s still 2 votes short of the necessary 270 to win.  If he were to lose NC, but capture PA, he could still win. 

 

_The economy, the border, the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine are all negatives for the Democrats. And depending how long it goes on; the East Coast Longshoremen’s Strike could turn things against them.  But the Democrats have two big things in their favor: Trump and abortion.  Trump-hate alone may be enough to push them over the line.  Throw in the abortion issue which is probably 60-40 in the Democrats favor and it’s likely enough to keep them in the White House.

 

_The sad truth is when you look at Trump/Vance, Harris/Wolz; three of those four could not even fill a high-level leadership role in a major corporation.  Vance is probably the only competent one in the bunch.  America must do better when it comes to developing and selecting government leaders.

CONSEQUENCES

 

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” – The Apostle Paul, Romans 7:15

In the context of Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, I certainly agree and can relate to what he’s saying here.  We must battle the world, the flesh and the devil if we are to follow Christ as He expects us to follow.  But when I consider what Paul says in this verse, I would amend it just a bit.  Indeed, people do what they may hate to do, but only after they’ve done it.  In the moment people do exactly what they want to do…or they wouldn’t do it.

 

You may argue that people do what they don’t want to do all the time because they have no choice.  But, people always have a choice.  Therefore, people often do what they don’t want to do even though they do have a choice. Your spouse asks you to take out the garbage.  You may not want to do it, but you have a choice…nonetheless, you better do it.  The alarm goes off Monday morning and you don’t want to get up and go to work. You want to stay in bed.  You have a choice.  What do you want more? To keep your job or stay in bed?  Ultimately you will do what you want to do in that moment.  That’s why some people don’t get up and some do.  In either case, the person is doing what they want to do.

 

People do what they want to do even when it’s not in their long-term best interest.  You say you don’t really want that second bowl of ice cream, but you’re lying to yourself.  You eat that second bowl because you want to eat it, and in that moment, you’re not seriously thinking about what’s best for you in the long-term.

 

People do all sorts of self-destructive things because they want to do it.  Drug addicts use drugs because they want to.  They want to because they are addicted.  They may hate what they are doing, but they are doing what they want to do.  And they have a choice.  It’s a hard, painful choice, but they do have a choice.  Young men join gangs and do bad things even though they may say they really didn’t want to.  No, they had choices.  None of those choices may be all that great or easy to make.  But they did what they wanted to do in the moment.

 

In today’s world we have made the mistake of telling people to make decisions based on their feelings.  You do you.  Live your truth.  What a crock.  There is right and there is wrong and if you don’t believe that, at least believe there are consequences.  You feel like taking out student loans to get a degree with little or no monetary value?  There are consequences.  A kid puts all their efforts into trying to become a highly paid professional athlete because that’s what they want to do and they choose not to get an education or have a plan B.  But things don't work out.  There are consequences.  A young girl wants to be loved and gets pregnant? Consequences.

 

You want people to do better? Make sure they understand the consequences of their actions.  The “Universe” doesn’t care what you feel like doing.  Go on “you be you”, “live your truth”.  But know that life is not fair.  Don’t make it worse for yourself.  There are always consequences.

Alaska, Home of the Tall One

 

Denali:  Kuyokan Athabascan word meaning The High One or the Tall One.

My wife and I just spent 11 days in Alaska, not on a cruise either.  The original plan was to travel entirely by train and shuttle vans.  But I prefer to be in control, do not like crowds or being forced to spend untold hours with random strangers.  So, it’s best for me and other travelers that I rent a car.

We flew into Anchorage.  Took one guided tour from there to an abandoned mine site an hour or so northeast of Anchorage.  It was pretty much a “meh” day and my wife and I were regretting that we had not just gone back to Montana one more time.  

The next day we headed north toward Talkeetna on our own.   The first 50-60 miles was more “meh” and left us hoping it would get better.  And it did.  Finally, the mountains started to impress.  Fall colors were more vibrant as we drove farther north.  We arrived at the little tourist town of Talkeetna had lunch and then headed out for some dryland dog-sledding.  We were transported to Dallas Seavey’s Kennels. Seavey, six-time Iditarod champion, was not there but his team and his dogs were.  Seavey has a lot of dogs.  We got to meet most of them, which was great.  The handlers hitched four dogs up to a wheeled sled, showed us how to steer it and brake as needed and off we went.  It was a hoot and I highly recommend it if you’re ever in Alaska.

The next morning we took an airplane ride over Denali National Park and the clouds cleared enough that we flew over the summit of Mount Denali.  Definitely worth the time and a considerable amount of money.  That afternoon we drove north to the Denali Borough and the scenery did not disappoint.  The mountains are impressive, and it truly is a wilderness.   Few people and very little traffic.  My kind of place.  When we arrived at the park, there were more people but nothing like you would encounter at a big-name national park in the lower 48.

The following day we were on a bus tour of the park.  You can only drive personal vehicles a certain distance into the park and from there it’s hike or take one of the park’s hop-on/hop-off shuttle buses.  Had we known about that option, we would not have taken the bus tour.  After announcing that she would not talk too much, the tour bus driver/guide proceeded to talk non-stop for the next 5 hours.  She was particularly fascinated by Arctic Ground Squirrels, so at least half of her ramblings were about those little critters.  The scenery was great, we saw Dall Sheep and Moose.  But, on a scale of 1-10, I’d only give it a 5.  Could have been an 8 or 9 with a less talking from the driver.

The next day, Saturday, we headed back south toward Girdwood which is about 35 miles the other side of Anchorage.  We stayed at the Alyeska Resort and I would definitely recommend it. 

Sunday morning we took a helicopter ride into the mountains and made two landings on glaciers.  It was my first time in a helicopter and it was great.  We got to see things you could only see from a helicopter and the glacier landings were an unforgettable experience.  Again, it cost some money but was well worth it.

We finished up our trip in Seward with a cruise around the Kenai Fjords National Park. It ranked up there with the dog-sledding and airplane ride, but the helicopter ride was the best.  Then it was back to Anchorage the next day and an early flight out the following morning.

Alaska was on our bucket list and I am glad we went.  We had a great time.  But Alaska is one and done for us.  It’s definitely worth seeing if you can afford the airplane and helicopter rides and if you’re up to handling as dog sled.  If not, then I would suggest taking an Alaska cruise.  I’m not a cruiser, but I would think it’s the best way for most folks to see Alaska.

Alaska would be a tough place to live.  The long winters and limited sunshine would get to me.  Unless you’re a big-time hunter or fisherman, I couldn’t see much reason for living up there.  It’s definitely not a place for everyone.  We lived in Montana and loved it.  But Alaska is a whole other world.  Even in my prime, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it much.  But I could say the same thing about most major cities in the lower 48, so maybe I’m just too picky.

My Two Cents Worth While Sweating Out Another August in Texas

 

_It’s definitely hot here in North Texas.  It’s not record breaking, but it is news making.  It’s interesting how many of the record hot days here in Grayson County Texas are from the last century.  We have not yet become an urban heat island here.  So, what you see and feel is what you get; and it’s pretty close to what folks got 100 years ago or 50 years ago.  I’m not denying climate change, I’m just making an observation.

_The British are coming. It appears that our cousins in the UK have finally had enough.  Mass immigration combined with a lack of cultural assimilation have finally reached the boiling point.  Many British citizens, generational British citizens are fed up.  They have learned a lesson that inclusion is a hard pull when people come from entirely different cultures and religions.  And if they don’t look like each other it makes it even more difficult.  Not impossible, but not something that just happens because certain progressive elites think it’s a good idea.  Everyone must work together and want to get along.  And frankly, the newcomers end up having to want it the most and work harder to get it.  So far, that’s what we’ve seen here in the United States.  Perhaps because we are a nation of immigrants.  But it’s not easy.

_Donald Trump may have dodged the assassin’s bullet, but he is now shooting himself in the foot on a regular basis.  Ignoring the counsel of cooler heads and seasoned advisors, he’s making it personal. Trump is also showing signs that his age is catching up with him.  It’s not a good look.  The GOP, with Trump leading the charge, is on the way to losing the November election, not only for the White House, but “down-ticket” which means the Democrats will control the Executive Branch, The Senate and The House.

_Excluding the bizarre opening ceremony, I enjoyed watching some of the Olympics, especially track and field.  The USA did well.  Those from Texas or developed in Texas showed up and showed out.  But the Olympics has too many events and too many participants with no chance of winning a medal or even being competitive.  Fewer events, fewer athletes and a shorter, classier opening ceremony would make the Olympics much better in my opinion.  (Old guy now pulls up his pants, slaps a newspaper against his leg and rattles the change in his pocket.)

"It is greencards that become blue passports. It is unlearning the language of our grandparents. It is knowing how to pronounce Arkansas and Illinois.  It is enjoying barbeques on somber national holidays."-Anamika Nair

 

More Than Money

Recruiting management and executive talent in the transportation/logistics world has been as much of a roller coaster ride as the industry itself.  We went from the Covid Freight Bonanza to the Great Freight Recession.  Like most roller coaster rides it’s been a combination of fun, fear and nausea.  That would certainly describe the transportation/logistics job market.  We quickly went from “Help Wanted” to layoffs and hiring freezes.

Overlooked in this mad scramble to hire talent and then reverse course to “right-sizing” are some fundamental changes in the Candidate Market.  These changes have been coming on for the last 10 or 15 years and have now come to define the candidate market.  And when this freight recession ends, and it will end, good luck finding help.

Much has changed and there are a lot of reasons why.  These reasons tend to fall under the heading of “changing expectations”.  I think this is particularly true for candidates who have come of age since 2000.  For management level and above this would be in the 25-45 age range.  They have grown up in a different world; the world of 911, the 2008-2010 recession, mergers and acquisitions, an increasingly polarized nation and, most recently, the Covid Pandemic.  To a large degree these events have shaped their outlook toward work and career advancement.

These candidates are reluctant to trust employers (or recruiters).  They have personally experienced or witnessed the impact of a recession on employment.  The escalation of merger and acquisition activity during the extended era of cheap money following the recession may have created some jobs, but even more job losses.  If this is how the marketplace works, why risk changing jobs or relocating for a career opportunity that is just as likely to evaporate as it is to materialize?  We have a prime age workforce that just doesn’t buy into pursuing career opportunities unless the overall payoff is large, highly probable and immediate.  They have good reason to be cynical about the long-term benefits of sacrificing too much for what may well turn out to be too little.

The offshoots of this are a desire for work-life balance and a resistance to relocation.  Furthermore, to make a job change; it must be the right position, with the right company, in the right place, at the right time…and for the right money.  Most candidates are no longer willing to take a “stepping-stone” job for a modest increase in pay, especially if it involves relocation and does not come with a significant improvement in work-life balance.  And those candidates who are genuinely career driven are looking for a bigger job, more responsibility and a lot more money.  Gone are the days of someone taking a job for a 10-15% increase in compensation.   Perhaps if there is no relocation, that might work.  Otherwise, it needs to be a 25-30% increase which likely puts them above current employees in similar positions.  So that’s not going to work.

For now there are enough unemployed or under-employed candidates who will accept any job if it pays close to what they were previously earning.  But that candidate pool will dry up quickly as the economy improves.  We are also seeing companies hire below “spec” in order to stay within their pay range for the position.  More often than not it does not turn out well for the company or the candidate.

Looking ahead, companies that have the talent will be the winners.  This means developing and retaining that talent.  Companies cannot rely on the marketplace to fill their needs.  This is coming from a headhunter who makes his living recruiting people away from one company to another. There will still be times when going to the market for talent is necessary.  Recruiting, whether internal or third-party, will still be around.  But companies best invest in new people and fill their needs internally.  Finding and hiring talent in the open market is not going to get any easier or more affordable.