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  • Ordnungswidrigkeitsverfahren

    Ordnungswidrigkeitsverfahren

    What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of?

    Well, I was not part of it, but this happened today in Germany.

    A passenger on a train passing over a railway bridge spotted a woman wearing a mermaid costume swimming in the Rhine near Mainz. Believing it to be an emergency, the witness notified the police. The Wasserschutzpolizei (water police) located the swimmer, who explained she intended only to pose in the shallows but was caught in the current. [1, 2]

    The swimmer was instructed to exit the water and safely reached the shore. German is a complex language to learn, but so is mermaid so some of these details are murky as The River Rhine .Because swimming in the commercial and highly trafficked sections of the Rhine river is illegal, the incident resulted in a regulatory offense proceeding.

    Was ist passiert

    What is interesting to know as this is an area where many cruise ships on popular cruise lines, dock. They’re are now heading back home telling their families about how there’s actual mermaids in Germany.

    Das Schwimmen ist verboten

    Because swimming is strictly prohibited in the heavily trafficked shipping channel of the Rhine, she now faces an Ordnungswidrigkeitsverfahren (administrative offense).

    As a punishment, she must write the word Ordnungswidrigkeitsverfahren on the blackboard.

  • When Dinosaurs Walked The Earth

    When Dinosaurs Walked The Earth

    What app eats up most of your free time — and do you even feel bad about it?

    Mapquest

    OK, I’m being a little hyperbolic here, but this was the early days of MapQuest.

    You looked up your starting point and ending point and it mapped out a route for you. You wrote it down on a piece of paper, put it in your car and drove to your destination.

    I remember doing this and going to a soccer game with my kids. There was a cul-de-sac about a half mile from our destination of cars backing out of the cul-de-sac that MapQuest told the drivers it was a through street. it was not.

    eBay

    I remember many years ago, my daughter, losing her stuffed elephant named puffy. It was a puff A lump and she was beside herself. I had to set up an eBay account just to get puffy elephants. Puffy elephant is still my username 30 years later.

    Bob

    My neighbor, Bob was all smug when we first got iPhones and I was looking at the stars. I pointed out the Pleades and Venus in the western sky.

    Pleiades - Wikipedia

    Bob told me he had an app for that. He corrected me and told me that was Jupiter.

    It was actually Venus.

  • Als ich noch ein Kind war

    Als ich noch ein Kind war

    What’s a movie or book that inspired you to travel?

    I think travel inspired me to travel. The only experience I can remember is being a young kid and I was watching either a baseball or a football game that took place in Seattle. Either way each team was new to the league.

    The camera panned around the surrounding areas and I was impressed by the Green and all the water. I thought it would be cool to live there one day.

    We were so limited as children to our travel, so our thrillers came easily. I had a poster above my bed of the Golden Gate Bridge. I know I wanted to see that one day.

    As a kid it is all that simple.

    I would sit in my bed at night trying to fall asleep. I would listen to the cars roll by on the nearby freeway, wondering where they were going.

    

    

  • Maximize Shareholder Wealth

    Maximize Shareholder Wealth

    If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be?

    The greed and gluttony of the eighties are a reminder of who we are as individuals. I was in grad school during this era, and the the lessons from that era have trickled down like a monopoly game that nobody is interested in anymore.

    And by trickling down nothing actually trickles down. Certainly having investments that do well is a benefit to me. What I want is for that sentiment to benefit all of society. Greed is not good. Corporations are not people.

    The world does not need one more billionaire . The world needs billionaires who give back to society.

    An idea thrown about in the early nineties the I embraced is the following.

    Former U.S. Senator Paul Tsongas argued that mandatory quarterly corporate reporting and its focus on short-term profits hindered the long-term global competitiveness of U.S. businesses. He championed pro-business, centrist economic reforms to strengthen the domestic manufacturing base against international rivals like Germany and Japan.

    What he reasoned, was a longer reporting horizon that would avoid profit centered short sighted decision making. I still support this.

    I also endorse a system more like European systems that are more employee centric.