Safe at Home. January 17, 2019

Copyright © 2019                               John F. Oyler 

January 17, 2019

Safe at Home

I am finally back at home after sixteen exciting days with my extended family in California and Hawaii. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience, but I must admit I am feeling perfectly comfortable back sitting in my “easy chair” in my living room, alone with my reflections on the trip.

The excitement level began to decrease as each faction of our family left for home and we concentrated on getting in a last crack at our favorite activity. Mine was walking along the shoreline trail, marveling at the volcanic cliffs, the unique vegetation, and the ever-changing tide pools.

The origin of the Hawaiian Islands and their history as part of the Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount is fascinating, especially since the science behind its technology is only sixty or seventy years old. Today we believe that the surface of the earth is covered by six major and seven or eight smaller tectonic plates that move consistently but very slowly

We believe the largest plate, the Pacific Plate, is moving in a west-north western direction from the East Pacific Rise toward the Eurasian Plate, at a speed of about one mile per twenty-five thousand years. We also believe it is passing over a (probably) permanently located “hot spot” in the mantle, which regularly produces volcanic action, building mountains on the ocean floor. The Hawaiian-Emperor Seamount is a geologic record of this movement.

Today there are three active volcanoes on Hawai’i. “the Big Island”, and one still undersea southeast of it (Lo’ihi). Maui is dominated by a dormant volcano, Haleakala, whose last eruption was about four hundred years ago. It rises over ten thousand feet above sea level, over five miles above the sea floor. It was located directly over the hot spot three million years ago.

In these days with so much concern in Middle America about immigration and the diversification of our population it is encouraging to see how well major different ethnic groups co-exist on Maui. We “Whites” are a minority, less than twenty nine percent of the population. Polynesians (Pacific Islanders) make up about eleven percent; Asians, primarily Chinese and Japanese, account for thirty three percent. Over twenty two percent are “mixed race”. Maui is certainly a poster boy for successful ethnic diversity.

Our last day in Maui we went to Pai’a for lunch at Charley’s Restaurant and Saloon. Maui is well known for attracting celebrities, and Charley’s appears to be the epicenter of the attraction. It got its start when Willie Nelson began to hang out there and perform occasionally. It is worth a visit just to peruse the photos over the bar – Kris Kristofferson, Leon Russell, Neil Young, for example, in addition to Willie.

My son-in-law Jim got a Panama hat for Christmas; combining it with his dark sun glasses creates a minor resemblance to singer Leon Redbone (well-known for his record of “Christmas on Christmas Island”, among others). All we lacked was the black string tie. I tried, unsuccessfully, to convince our waiter that we were in the presence of a celebrity, hoping we’d get a free meal. I should have offered to have him sing “Christmas Island”, accompanied by his daughters on ukulele.

I broke up my trip both ways by spending a day in California between flights. John’s company has a major office in San Mateo; we visited it on the way back. Quite interesting for me to compare a modern Silicon Valley high tech office with the workspaces in an engineering company in Pittsburgh four or five decades ago.

Today’s office consists of cubicles seven feet square bounded by low walls and housing a computer workstation and several bookshelves. I kept looking for Dilbert, with no avail. The office was liberally supplied with video conference rooms, “phone booths” – enclosed rooms for telephone calls, and space for relaxing coffee breaks. A much more comfortable environment than the “bull pen” filled with drawing boards that I recall. 

An interesting feature was a large gong, apparently a symbol of the company’s opening trading sessions at the Hong Kong Stock Market when they “went public” in Southeast Asia last year. I had a picture of John and me with it, labelled “the ultimate pie bell”, in recognition of our love of pie.

Indicative of the company’s global business, there were three clocks at the office entrance, recording time in Beijing, San Mateo, and Cambridge (Massachusetts). I accused John of paying homage to both Stanford and MIT, a accusation he denied.

We had lunch with one of John’s MIT fraternity brothers, Nick Stamos, who is CEO of Rakuten Intelligence, a subsidiary of a Japanese firm characterized as “Japan’s Amazon”. Nick’s company is focused on analyzing data from over five million customers of the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods!) industry to help retailers plan market strategy. 

It was interesting to listen to two old friends who are major corporate executives “catch up” on their activities in the past several months. They spent about five minutes talking about their respective business problems and then shifted to talking about their families. Nick’s seven-year-old Sophia has just persuaded her mother to let her get her ears pierced. John’s five-year-old Lai An enjoys doing her (kindergarten) homework with her father. Very refreshing for me to realize these guys have their priorities straight.

I think sixteen days in the fast lane is sufficient for this octogenarian. I will be content to relax for a while and let younger, more energetic folks worry about the government shutdown, The Great Wall of 2019, and Antonio Brown’s misbehaviors.