Coaching Businesses and Life, a view from Long Beach

Important News

I will shut down the blog for a little while until I restart it with a different provider.  This does not reflect anything negative on TypePad but I need to revamp the content and structure.

In the meantime, check in at NickZart.com or at TapTheSource.com to see the latest news.

See you soon.

Nick

California Earthquake, An Exercise In Civic Duty

As you might have heard, Los Angeles had a good scale 5.0 earthquake last night that was felt all the way to San Diego.

As it happened, we were back from a weekend rally with the Alfa Romeo club and I was soaking in a hot tub when it happened.  It was a strange feeling.  Though I come from a part of the world where tremors are not uncommon, having lived in Japan has taught me to be careful but this one, at least in Casa Grande was strong.  Just as a reminder, Casa Grande was made in 1928 with re-enforced concrete and has survived the big one in 1933 .  So we feel fairly safe here.

It felt as if a block of rock was thrown on the roof.  We felt the upper level had collapsed.  The place rumbled and then went into its rolling movement for about 15 seconds or so.  15 seconds that seemed to never end.  You feel utterly powerless, at the Mercie of whatever can happen.  It is a very humbling experience.

We rushed out to make sure everyone was OK, our close neighbors and those living alone.  What was weird is that we were the only ones making sure others were alright.  Most people were there, shaking off the feeling and calling.  In fact, some of my friends were acting cool and not phased.  I feel that is not an intelligent way of dealing with an earthquake, any quake.  We shouldn't be so blase that anything under 6.5 is thought of as yet just another tremor. 

Virginia was next to my Great-grand mother's armoire that had heavy things inside, along some good sized crystals on top.  It occurred to us that anyone living alone, or alone in their homes could have had something fall on them be left unconscious.  That's why it makes sense to us to think of others and be pro-active instead of that make-believe cool.  Sometimes the little details make all the difference.

The Twitter Revolution

In a world of less face-to-face and more online activity, its no wonder we look for contact.

Blogs have taken over the world by storm ever since a few years ago.  FaceBook and MySpace have shown how much people need to be in contact with each other, while behind a computer.  Twitter, the new revolution taking the word by storm is also introducing a way to keep i touch in as little as a few hundred letters.

The great paradox is that we want to be independent while having an online "community."  In a strange twist, being online means being alone.  So can 140 words really explain who am I?  Can it really convey my being?  Maybe not in so little time and space but it does one thing.  It helps me condense my thoughts to a gist.  Most of my posts have a "gist" part so that people car read the essential, even if they miss the rest, they get it.

I come from a generation that was taught to embellish our writing, to make it appealing, sometimes taking long winded sentence structure as the epitome of artful communication.  With Twitter and my blogs, I have to condense so that even my short attention span can read what I have to say, in a gist.

And yes, you can follow the electric car blog I contribute with on Twitter by following: 33Nick

Disciplining Kids Does Not Mean Being Mean

As I tutor small kids here and there, I have come see two things.  Those who are eager to work and those who are not.  Who will have problems tomorrow?

The kids who like to learn and are eager to do so, usually are well behaved and tend to be quicker and problem solving.  I also notice that their parental structure is more uniformed, more present.  The kids who are defiant, don't like to study and generally would rather play, throw tantrums and  grow up to be problems kids.

It's hard watching it.  You want to reach out and tell parents that spoiling them today is not an act of love but one that will make them miserable tomorrow.  How?  What will happen when these kids grow up and confronted to the ones who understand the rules and limits, have learned more?  Eventually, intelligence alone doesn't cut it, it's how you apply it.  It's called wisdom.  Parents need to be there for their children, strict in a loving way.  Spoiling kids today is a sure way to make them miserable tomorrow.