The over/under death-trap of seniority-based organizations

Just because you are an expert in the field does not automatically qualify you for a management position.

Oppenheimer and Groves
at remains of Trinity test
in September 1945.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant theoretical nuclear physicist. But the management of the Manhattan Project succeeded because General Leslie Groves was a great leader of men, albeit one who knew next to nothing about nuclear physics.

Many large organizations "promote" their best experts to management positions. This is actually a prescription for long-term failure of the organization. This might be counter intuitive, but it need not be so.

Management often gets higher pay. That is an implicit prescription for the organization's ultimate failure in accompishing its organization's goals. It's a lose-lose proposition: The organization gets a less than optimum manager in return for a loss of expertise in the accomplishment of the organization's principal product or service.

The false equivalence of specific technical expertise with general management skills leads to having under-qualified managers, who more often than not are over-compensated, micromanaging subordinates who are much better positioned, albeit under-compensated, to accomplish the technical tasks, including the coordination of the technical efforts.

Woody Allen once quipped, “Those who can't do, teach. And those who can't teach, teach gym.” I would take Woody's dictum one step further: "Those who can't teach gym, manage."

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Post 2,044 “The over/under failure of seniority-based organizations”

§ I Am Music and I Pick the Songs: Take My Breath Away

Take My Breath Away Single Cover
(image via Wikipedia)

{Song #78 « Song #79 » T•of•C}

§ ≡ One of an ongoing series of posts in which I pick, in my not-so-humble opinion, the best songs of the second millennium. Feel free to offer constructive dissenting opinions; preferably set to music.

Song #79 is Take My Breath Away, performed by the band Berlin and written by Giorgio Moroder and Tom Whitlock. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

---

This song speaks to me of my personal awakening in 1986.


Take my breath away

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Post 2,011 § I Am Music and I Pick the Songs: Take My Breath Away

Atom bomb historic sites may become national park

Another Remembrance in Spacetime

(Image via Wikipedia)
The "Trinity" gadget, fully assembled and ready to test

Related source » Atom bomb historic sites may become national park: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“(CBS News) The U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, 67 years ago. It led to the Japanese surrender that ended World War II, and brought us into the nuclear age. Now there's a plan to mark the history of that devastating weapon by turning its birthplaces into a national park.

[…]

Even the home of the bomb's lead physicist Robert Oppenheimer would be open for tours. It's still standing and so is its longtime resident. Helene Suydam, 92, moved there in the late '50s. She's kept the living room very much the way Oppenheimer left it. When asked if her home becomes a national park - and what happens to her in the meantime - Suydam said with a laugh, 'Well, they don't get it until I'm not here, so I'm not worried!'”
— By Lee Cowan, August 6, 2012 (CBS News) [h/t "Los Alamos Report"]

As a personal aside, I know Helene Suydam from my duplicate bridge-playing days in Los Alamos. Back then, however, I was not aware that she lives in the most famous home in Los Alamos — Robert Oppenheimer's former residence.

I checked the present-day roster of local players at the Los Alamos Duplicate Bridge Club, and I note that Helene is still playing bridge.

Related articles

• Nagasaki Marks Anniversary of Atomic Bomb Attack (abcnews.go.com)
• National › Hiroshima marks 67th anniversary of atomic bombing (japantoday.com)
• America's Nuclear Sites Could Become National Parks (gadling.com)

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Post 1,868 “Atom bomb historic sites may become national park”

Amelioration of Armageddon

Some glad tidings amidst all the alarmism …

J. Robert Oppenheimer
First Director
Los Alamos National Laboratory
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related source » Lab Breakthrough: Asteroid Killer Simulation | Department of Energy: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Bob Weaver took some time recently to talk about how his research would help avert a catastrophic asteroid impact; saving the world from complete destruction and rescuing humans from mass extinction.”
— Michael Hess, July 5, 2012 (energy.gov)



   Video published on Apr 30, 2012 by LosAlamosNationalLab

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Warmalism, schmor-malism.

Here we have some welcome developments from serious scientists at one of the world's premier research institutions — the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Post 1,841 “Amelioration of Armageddon”

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Photons at the End of the Quantum Tunnel

Simulation of quantum complexity — simplified (a bit)

An example of Tunnel Effect - The evolution of the wave function of an electron through a potential barrier (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related source » First Simulation Of Quantum Tunnelling On A Quantum Computer: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“The exploitation of quantum weirdness for computing is one of the great goals of modern physics. It's promise is dramatic for a wide range of number-crunching tasks. But quantum computers have another trick up their sleeves, which is sometimes forgotten — the ability to simulate other quantum systems. Physicists have already shown how quantum computers of various types can simulate phenomen[a], such as quantum phase transitions and the dynamics of entanglement — things that classical computers simply cannot handle. There is one quantum phenomenon, however, that has never been simulated — tunnelling. This is the ability of quantum particles to cross a barrier without seeming to have passed through it. There's no reason, in principle, why quantum computers can't simulate tunnelling. The problem is the complexity of the task. […] Earlier this year, however, Andrew Sornborger at the University of Georgia in Athens showed how the case of a single particle tunnelling through a barrier could be made simple enough to simulate on today's quantum computers. Such a demonstration would be the first example of a digital quantum simulation. And today, Guan Ru Feng and pals at Tsinghua University in Beijing say they've done it. […] That should open the floodgates for more digital quantum simulations in [the] future.” [emphasis added]
— Technology Review (KFC), 05/15/2012 (technologyreview.com)

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The deeper we probe the quantum physics (sub-atomic) regime the more fascinating are the counter-intuitive phenomena encountered. The exemplar of such mind-boggling weirdness has been quantum tunnelling, wherein a particle, such as an electron, quantum-mechanically tunnels through an energy-potential barrier, which it seemingly could not surmount, according to classical physics.

The pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics (Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, et al.) were able to formulate the theory of quantum mechanics via classical techniques of theoretical and experimental physics, in the first half of the twentieth century. But mathematics and classical physics required a major innovation for the successful completion of the Manhattan Project (Oppenheimer, von Neumann, Ulam, Fermi, Feynman, Rabi, and many other American greats of 20th-century physics and mathematics) that ushered in the age of nuclear power. That innovation was digital-computer simulation. By the dawn of the third millennium, a veritable explosion of scientific findings has been accomplished with the aid of computer simulation techniques, notably via Monte Carlo simulation, the brain-child of von Neumann and Ulam at Los Alamos National Laboratory, in the early 1940s.

Once again, however, mathematical-physics research is pushing the envelope of complexity shrouding quantum reality. And, once again, another innovation aims to tunnel through that shroud — quantum computing itself for the simulation of other quantum systems!

Human ingenuity boggles this human's mind …

Post 1,812 Photons at the End of the Quantum Tunnel

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Wildfire Nears Los Alamos

   Shades of “Cerro Grande” in 2000

Las Conchas wildfire nears Los Alamos
LA Medical Center in foreground (June 27, 2011)

Related source » Fire destroys 30 structures as it nears Los Alamos nuke lab
Mandatory evacuations for town; first atomic bomb was built at complex
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“SANTA FE, N.M. — A raging wildfire spread to within one mile of the nation's preeminent nuclear weapons facility on Monday after destroying 30 structures, including some homes, overnight. Officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory scrambled to make sure that radioactive and hazardous material were protected from the wind-driven fire that has forced the installation to close. By Monday afternoon, a mandatory evacuation was ordered for the town of Los Alamos, population 12,000, after residents had earlier been advised to leave. […] The fire was eerily similar to one of the most destructive fires in New Mexico history. That fire, the Cerro Grande, burned some 47,000 acres — 73 square miles — in May 2000 and caused more than $1 billion in property damage. About 400 homes and 100 buildings on lab property were destroyed in that fire. That blaze also raised concerns about toxic runoff and radioactive smoke, although Roark said no contaminants were released in the Cerro Grande fire.”
— Weather - msnbc.com

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I was there (in the flesh, so to speak) for the so-called "Cerro Grande" fire/evacuation in May of 2000. All of us living in Los Alamos and White Rock at that time became refugees in either Santa Fe or Albuquerque for about 10 days or so. My own home was spared any noticeable damage, but some people lost everything (if it wasn't insured). I, personally, don't know of anyone, however, who didn't carry insurance.

As I recall, the insurance companies responded admirably. I don't recall hearing any horror stories about dealing with them (but that doesn't necessarily mean they didn't occur). The Lab did not experience any critical damage (no pun intended), at least not to my knowledge.

The current fire sounds at least as bad as the one in May of 2000. I hope the Town, the Laboratory, and, most of all, the people make it through this potential calamity with minimal casualty.

---

     UPDATE: July 1, 2011

Omega Bridge, Los Alamos (27 June 2011)
Some rights reserved by LANL

Related source » Los Alamos Officials Plan for Return of Residents
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – As firefighters held their ground Friday on the flank of a massive wildfire that burned near the nation's premier nuclear weapons laboratory, officials at the lab and in the surrounding town began planning for the return of thousands of residents and employees who fled the area earlier this week.
Officials didn't give a timetable for when they would lift the five-day-old evacuation order for the northern New Mexico town of Los Alamos, normally home to 12,000 residents. But some county workers were back Friday to prepare for the eventual rush of utility service calls, as well as possible flooding from surrounding mountainsides denuded by the wildfire.
With the fire burning several miles upslope from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials were confident the blaze no longer posed an immediate threat to the lab, where experiments on two supercomputers and studies on extending the life of 1960s-era B61 nuclear bombs have been put on hold.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/07/01/crews-battle-nm-fire-which-pushes-into-canyon/#ixzz1Qy1PTyqA”
— Published July 01, 2011 | Associated Press (foxnews.com)

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     UPDATE 2: July 21, 2011

A house in Los Alamos burns during Cerro Grande fire
Image via Wikimedia Commons

Related source » The 25 Worst Mistakes In History
New Mexico loses control of a controlled burn in the Cerro Grande

 [This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“Loss in 2000: $1 billion in property damage
Inflation-adjusted: $1.3 billion
The Cerro Grande fire in New Mexico in 2000 started as a prescribed fire which spread due to high winds and drought conditions.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-mistakes-in-history-2011-4?op=1#ixzz1Slq4xI3v”
— Leah Goldman and Gus Lubin | Apr. 26, 2011 (businessinsider.com)

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Post 1,665 Wildfire Nears Los Alamos

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Serious People Are Grateful

Related Link » Is the media right on the Joint Strike Fighter?

“Having worked in four government agencies, I know that when a battle between contractors has such a high public profile, there is usually more to the story than what we see in the news. Might this be true in the case of the Joint Strike Fighter engine debate? […] And guess what? The GAO report totally backs up the GE-Rolls Royce claims of cost savings. GAO studies indicate that a procurement track that pits two contractors against each other as a product is developed actually does save a huge amount of money over the long term because the competition encourages innovation and efficiency. I was, frankly, surprised at how conclusive the GAO report is – I suppose I’d guessed that the report must be mixed or somehow inconclusive since its findings haven’t been the lead in news stories about the Strike Fighter.” [emphasis added]
— By Jean Card, 06/04/10 (TheDC)

In my considered opinion, Ms. Card should not have been surprised at all by her finding. The most important research and development effort ever undertaken, which must be credited with safeguarding humanity for more than half a century to date, has been conducted under the auspices of the two premier American National Laboratories — Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. And the reason there are two laboratories (rather than only one) engaged in this ongoing national-security endeavor has been understood by serious people for a very long time: vital missions thrive from the innovation and efficiency promoted by competition (friendly or otherwise).

Politicians and the media are, by and large, not serious people. Serious people shun the limelight. They work hard applying themselves to the solution of difficult problems of great significance to humanity, frequently in the face of outrageous impediments inflicted by self-serving politicians and the salacious machinations of the media jackals. The magnificent accomplishments of all our National Laboratories are largely taken for granted by most politicians, often maligned by the scandalous media, and virtually unknown by the man on the street. But serious people know. And they are grateful.

Post #1,306 Serious People Are Grateful

Lucky 13

Aside from birth, death, marriage, and parenthood, arguably the three most important dates in any person's life correspond to citizenship, graduation, and retirement. And so it is for me.

Me @ge 7

I have had the great good fortune to: become a naturalized American citizen; receive my doctorate from Columbia University; and, retire from Los Alamos National Laboratory, all three on the same date — May 13th (of course, not all in the same year). This is why I celebrate today my personal Triple Anniversary.

Happy, happy, happy anniversary to me.

Post #1,265 Lucky 13

The Personification of Devaluation

Related Link » It's nonsense to say the U.S. is ungovernable
“And then, of course, there's the filibuster, the newest liberal bete noire. "Don't blame Mr. Obama," writes Paul Krugman of the president's failures. "Blame our political culture instead. [...] And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable". Ungovernable, once again. Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about "extremists" trying "to eliminate the filibuster" when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous transformative change.”
— Charles Krauthammer, February 19, 2010 (WaPo)

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“To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.” — Albert Einstein

“There are two kinds of people in the world: Johnny von Neumann and the rest of us.” — This quote is attributed to Eugene Wigner, a Nobel Prize–winning physicist. John von Neumann, whom people called Johnny, was a brilliant mathematician and physicist who also made three fundamental contributions to economics.

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I have it on good authority (a professor of economics at North Carolina State University) that Paul Krugman was deserving of his Nobel in Economics. It is my considered opinion, however, that the Nobel is undeserving of its own devaluation as a consequence of Krugman's machinations beyond his legitimate discipline of former expertise.

There seems to be a populist tendency, even among some Nobel Laureates, that the Nobel prize brings not only fame and fortune, but cart blanche to pontificate on any and all subjects great and small. But as insightful people have always understood, no matter what the nature of a given categorization, there is expertise and there is expertise. Moreover, expertise in a given field does not, in the vast majority of cases, a polymath make.

Johnny von Neumann was a bona fide polymath.

Mr. Krugman, you ain't no Johnny von Neumann.

Ulam, Feynman and von Neumann (L to R) at Los Alamos, circa. 1944

h/t JOC/EFR

Post #1,135 The Personification of Devaluation

Why the River-crossing Statistician Drowned

Related Link » The Flaw of Averages: Sam L. Savage On Why We Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty
“Have you heard the one about the river-crossing statistician who drowns after determining that the water is, on average, only three feet deep? This, says author Sam L. Savage, is just one example of the flaw of averages.”
— ‘ReasonTV’

The Flaw of Averages
h/t Theo

The computer-based sampling technique "Monte Carlo simulation" was coined by the polymath John von Neumann. Von Neumann and Stanislaw Ulam, along with many other eminent physicists and mathematicians applied Monte Carlo simulation to help create the first nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) during the Second World War. LASL was later renamed the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Post #934 Why the River-crossing Statistician Drowned

My Response to the Wolfram|Alpha Webinar Survey

{link » Wolfram|Alpha Webinar}

Dear [Senior Research Associate, Wolfram|Alpha Team],

I was impressed with the concepts of Alpha as demonstrated by Stephen Wolfram. Please feel free to visit my blog where I posted my first impressions after the webinar:

God's Gift to Inquiring Minds — Wolfram|Alpha

As to the specific questions for which you would like to have feedback:

1. • I have been retired (from Los Alamos National Laboratory) for seven years now, so I am no longer an active researcher. My main interest is to observe and reflect on our civilization's struggle to outwit the forces of ignorance that wish to drag us into the dark ages, only this time with depleted resources. I think that Alpha is an important victory for the good guys in this ongoing struggle.
   • My wife is a budding researcher in the area of cognitive linguistics, and I intend to cooperate with her to see how she can utilize Alpha's potential. I think it will prove to be a fruitful effort.


2. • I believe Alpha is here to stay, albeit as a living and evolving entity, because of the brilliant minds behind this initial effort.
   • I am not a business-model specialist so I don't think in terms of "for profit" planning. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that Alpha is well planned to support the owners' capitalistic aims (nothing wrong with that), and simultaneously serving the civilized world's needs at relatively low cost. I think an obvious route to this end is to blend proprietary data with some form of open-source means for others to curate their own special sets of data.
   • I also envision a feed-back loop for Alpha to generate knowledge data bases for its own use.


3. • As to things that can aid in getting a foot-hold for Alpha such that its potential can germinate, again that is not really my area of expertise, but I can intuit a few things.
   • I don't believe it would be cost-effective to try to appeal to the masses who flock to Facebook. Perhaps some day everyone will find a use for Alpha, but not until the thirst for knowledge becomes more popular than the thirst for power, money, and information about Paris Hilton.
   • A firm foundation for an evolving system is crucial.
   • Concentrate on robust flexibility, because I think it's hard to predict Alpha's evolving capabilities, just as it was in the early days of personal computing, when most people couldn't think of anything other than trivial "balance your checkbook" applications.

I am looking forward to your launch, and I wish you good luck in your revolutionary endeavor.

Best, Henri

Post #741 My Response to the Wolfram|Alpha Webinar Survey

True West Please ...

Stephen Fry in America: Episode 5 (Part 1/6)

Taos, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos

Stephen Fry in America: Episode 5 (Part 2/6)

Los Alamos National Laboratory and Monument Valley

§ Well-aimed Ray of Hope Can Pierce Misguided Change

§ ≡ A section of Preserve, Protect, and Defend: Faithfully Executing the Office of the President
{Section 4.2 « Section 4.3 » Section 4.4}

{link » In The Event Of An Obamergency …}

[S]ometimes you have no choice but to sit back and watch the show. Maybe that is what David is talking about. GOP leadership that can calmly, patiently, pointedly express opposition views and alternatives, fully aware it is simply positioning for 2012, without succumbing to impotent rage, while quietly triangulating with Democratic moderates to deftly, gently thwart Obama’s will in those cases where it is possible. Because impotent rage isn’t really that attractive … just look at the last eight years of Bush-bashing, after all, even when they actually controlled Congress. If it was, do you think Obama would be in a virtual dead heat with McCain right now?

Worthy of consideration, Jules, if only as a means of bootstrapping out of a deep sense of malaise. It might actually be fun for a while to watch the bonfire of the vanities, were it not for the infrared radiation. A poor-man's suntan, however, may be just what the doctor ordered.

The potential downside, of course, is that a conflagration can get out of hand very quickly. It was not that many years ago when I experienced first hand an emergency evacuation from Los Alamos, in the wake of a so-called "controlled burn" in the surrounding hills, which came raging into town and burned some homes to the ground. I know Obama is skilled at lowering ocean levels, but are his water skills applicable to burn-control?

And what if that GOP leadership you refer to gets swamped by Obama's coattails? Can Joe Lieberman and a handful of other moderates triangulate deftly (or otherwise) on their own? You know that Reid, Dodd, Pelosi, and the ever despicable Frank are going to be on a triangulation rampage of their own to obliterate the slightest whiff of their culpability in the financial meltdown. I hate pointing out the obvious, but the inmates are running the asylum, right into the proverbial handbasket heading south. Please reassure me that we have hope of surviving the lunacy till 2012.

Los Alamos Reveals Source of Taos Hum

{ link » subject article}

Friday, February 15, 2008 4:52 PM MST- Taos, New Mexico

Since its rise to fame in the early 1990s when a number of local citizens began reporting the incidence of an annoying non-specifically located sound, the “Taos Hum” — described as similar to a distant idling diesel engine — has been explained as everything from top secret military technology to underground space alien bases to a natural geologic phenomenon.

The world's premier research facility, the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Los Alamos, New Mexico, has revealed the source of “Taos Hum”. Two of the three competing explanations are true. It is not caused by a natural geologic phenomenon.

The results of a ten-year research effort, conducted at the Lab by an elite squad of PhD programmers, culled from three low-profile directorates on a catch-as-catch-can basis, have demonstrated conclusively (LANL-speak for a relative-error estimate not exceeding 19.7%) to be the machinations of space aliens, who secretly relocated from Roswell, New Mexico to their current underground bases in Taos, New Mexico during the great snowstorm of January 1987.

The most surprising discovery, however, was the aspect of the top secret military technology causing the hum — the technology itself is that of the aliens, not of the United States! Furthermore, the entire problem is attributable to a minor programming error, known colloquially as a bug. The LANL programmers, using techniques developed during the famed World War II effort known as the Manhattan Project, diagnosed the error in the Cobol programming language favored by the aliens, the details of which have been classified. Unofficially, it is known as the Taos Hum bug.

Nightmare or no-brainer?

The traditional "State Question" in New Mexico, most frequently asked by restaurant staff, is 'Red, green, or Christmas?' But the title conundrum of this post is based on the following considerations:

The Governor of New Mexico, Bill Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, wants to debate his opponents in Spanish. Considering that the objective of such a debate is to convince the electorate of a candidate's qualifications for elected office vis-a-vis his opponents, and that the primary qualifications for any American voter are citizenship, age, and proven ability to read, write, and speak English, Richardson's proclivity for Spanish in this context seems odd. Unless you can admit the possibility that he has negative IQ (which is a euphemism).

Impact on Los Alamos, New Mexico:

First, the good news. Los Alamos, home of the eponymous National Laboratory (LANL), is arguably the most intelligent community in the Nation, if not the World, based on the disproportionately high concentration of PhD scientists, most of whom are employed by LANL (natch). Moreover, Los Alamos has the highest concentration of millionaires (misers?) in the Nation, based on the number of banks (per capita) and their corresponding data bases, exceeded only by the number of churches (pious misers?).

The bad news is that if you factor in their Governor's IQ, the average IQ of a Los Alamosian becomes that of a dumbass (which is a technical term). It's a f*cking nightmare.

Impact on the State of New Mexico:

First, the bad news. The Governor of New Mexico has negative IQ.

The good news is that the Governor is a perfect match for his State. It's a no-brainer.

First the bird flu; now this ...

Scientists Warn Ionosphere One Top-40 Hit Away From Exploding

LOS ALAMOS, NM—Astroturfphysicists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) issued a nationwide alert Tuesday, warning that exposing the ionosphere to what passes for "music" these days is likely to "roil the molecules" in the ionosphere. Dr. S. Jake Blaguard, the principal investigator (PI) for the 10-month research project funded by the Gruntled Workers of America, a New Mexico special interest group, said, "Any more songs of the kind typically recorded by The Whistling Dixies is sure to trigger a chaotic event up there. And then there'll be hell to pay down here." He indicated that roiling molecules is a technical term, but declined to elaborate, citing copyright restrictions.

Remembrance in Spacetime: Awakening

On January 13, 1986 I woke up in my new apartment in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It was a new day, in a new town, in a new part of this great big country of ours. The next day I was to begin my new position as Staff Physicist in the Applied Theoretical Physics Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. On this day my plan was to take stock. Of my life.

In a little over a month I would be 44 years old; definitely middle aged. From age seven on, I had been a New Yorker. I had a Bachelor's degree from Cornell, and a Master's and Doctorate from Columbia. I had been married and divorced. I had two young sons back in New York who, along with their mother, relied on my alimony and child support. The alimony would continue until my ex wife remarried. The child support would be required until both sons finished college. That was our separation agreement and that was my personal obligation to my sons as I viewed it.

My first job out of graduate school was like a post doc position. Although I had been a staff scientist at a private corporation in New York, the salary lagged that of my colleagues' who had accepted positions at national labs or similarly established organizations. But what concerned me most at this stage of my career (and life) was that that first significant position of my professional career had provided no retirement benefits. And, that I had a 4-figure net worth.

Although I had been a full-time student for a quarter century, I now realized that my student days were not over yet. I was sorely lacking in personal financial savvy, and, unbeknownst to me, had previously been enrolled in the school of hard knocks. On this particular first day of the rest of my life, I decided on a long-term personal mission: I would educate myself in the basics of personal finance and investing; I would continue to make good on all my financial obligations to others; and I would begin addressing my personal financial obligation to myself, namely, preparing for retirement. Clearly, there were lots of pizzas and peanut butter sandwiches in my future. In effect, I had enrolled in The Peanut Butter School of Life University.