So continuing on with the wonderful bus conversion, we finally have hardwood floors installed! It wasn't quite as trivial as I thought it would be (even having installed a few floors before). The problems mostly arose from the slight curvature of the 3/4" plywood surface, the occasional screw or bolt that had not been fully countersunk, and the glue. I've learned my lesson, I will NEVER glue a floor surface on ever again. The epoxy is not what I thought, is incredibly difficult to work with, and it gets everywhere - including the skin. But fear not because wood glue is one of the easiest glues to remove from one's skin and this is wood glue, no?
I read the safety sheet AFTER the installation and discovered one is not supposed to work with NA-8500 adhesive without proper gloves. I actually went so far as to call poison control late last night just to ask if there was anything I could do to get the glue off of us. Unfortunately "wait it out" was the official answer (soap, detergent, vegetable oil, mineral oil, and gasoline did not work). So here I sit actually looking a bit like a leper as I type this, my hands burned and peeling from this über adhesive glue. Be forewarned should you decide to wood glue your hardwood installation. On the upside, it's probably pretty damn effective.
Here are a few pics:
 Caroline spreading some of the glue with our 1/4" x 1/4" glue trowel. MUCH harder than it looks. For reference, always apply the glue orthogonal to the direction of the wood grain
 Mike Crockett was helping us to install the floors and took care of all of my wiring issues as well. There were cheap reading lights all over that I had removed and capped (the wires are good, so may as well keep them handy and accessible)
 Almost there!
 I finished the front half of the bus myself this afternoon. Relaxing after a lot of back breaking work. The gluing really takes it out of you.
 The final wood surface. Unfortunately it got late by the time I finished, so I couldn't grab one in the day light.
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So I've been interested in getting a bus of some sort ever since I toured New Zealand in a camper van back in 2003. It was just such a great time that I have always wanted to do a conversion myself. The dream has always been alive, but has just never come into full fruition - until now.
Caroline and I started chatting about the idea of having a bus and so after tons of research and a lot of poking around, I found a relatively inexpensive Ford Econoline E-350 Private Bus. She's definitely a sight (of some kind), but I think with some hard work, and some fresh paint, we can definitely convert her into a cool little toy.
 A first look at the bus in my driveway
 The original back of the bus (the front rows of seats are just behind me in the shot). You wouldn't know it from looking at it, but all of that rubber on the ground probably weighs almost 200 pounds!
 Caroline removing one of the passenger seats. They were quite a bit harder to remove than one might imagine. Not to mention, the steel frames they sit upon are heavy as all can be.
 There were some pretty old wires in the engine compartment, so I started replacing them one by one. This is the new terminal lead I installed today
 The inside of the bus after completely stripping it down to its 3/4" plywood shell
As I was finishing removing an old kitchen exhaust fan this evening, I disconnected a rubber hose from one of its two vents. I assumed that the hose was just for air exhaust, but evidently it collected water as well. As soon as I pulled the hose off, the dirtiest water I have ever seen started gushing from the spout. I managed to redirect most of it outside, but I can't imagine the parasites that entered my body through the initial 20 seconds or so of trying to stop it from squirting.
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But as we continued chatting, we discussed the fact that for whatever reason, voters instinctively tie Wall Street CEOs to the Republican Party and Hollywood celebrities to the Democratic Party. It's one of those things that most of the voting populous just seems to accept. Obviously there are notable exceptions to this rule, but I think most people would assume that if you work on Wall Street, you're voting Republican, and if you work in Hollywood, for a Democrat.
While there are undoubtedly some social issues that could be addressed, the biggest problem in 2012 is hands down the economy. Liberal friends of mine often bring up the huge disparity of wealth that exists within Wall Street corporations, how that gap is widening, and how it is being used to control Washington. The data seems to corroborate this and I definitely believe it's a problem we should be [intelligently] discussing as a nation. But my father was quick to add to our discussion that this same disproportion of wealth is rampant throughout Hollywood as well. The difference is that nobody really seems to notice, much less care. Curiously, we even go so far as to celebrate this disparity with the affectionate term "celebrity".
This raises a pretty interesting philosophical question. If two groups are ultimately responsible for the same fiscal gluttony, why is one celebrated and the other castigated?
Since the crux of our discussion was riding on the back of conjectures and assumptions, I thought it would be interesting to actually do some research on the matter. That is, how do the top dogs of Wall Street and Hollywood actually stack up against one another? Is there a difference between them and if so, what is that difference? After a bit of online research, I constructed this table of the top twenty Wall Street and Hollywood salaries of 2010 (it was difficult to find consistent data for 2011). The results are pretty interesting.
| Wall Street |
Hollywood |
| CEO |
Company |
Employees |
Millions |
Celebrity |
Title |
Millions |
| Philippe P. Dauman | Viacom | 10,900 | $84.5 | James Cameron | Writer, Director, Producer | $257.0 | | Ray R. Irani | Occidental Petroleum | 11,000 | $76.1 | Johnny Depp | Actor | $100.0 | | Lawrence J. Ellison | Oracle | 111,297 | $70.1 | Steven Spielberg | Director, Producer | $80.0 | | Michael D. White | DirecTV | 25,700 | $32.9 | Christopher Nolan | Writer, Director, Producer | $71.5 | | John F. Lundgren | Stanley Black & Decker | 36,700 | $32.6 | Leonardo DiCaprio | Actor | $62.0 | | Brian L. Roberts | Comcast | 126,000 | $28.2 | Tim Burton | Director | $53.0 | | Robert A. Iger | Walt Disney | 156,000 | $28.0 | Adam Sandler | Actor, Producer, Writer | $50.0 | | Alan Mulally | Ford Motor Co. | 164,000 | $26.5 | Todd Phillips | Writer, Director, Producer | $34.0 | | Samuel J. Palmisano | IBM | 426,751 | $25.2 | Taylor Lautner | Actor | $33.5 | | David N. Farr | Emerson Electric | 133,200 | $22.9 | Robert Downey Jr. | Actor | $31.5 | | Howard Schultz | Starbucks | 149,000 | $21.7 | Will Smith | Actor, Producer | $29.0 | | William C. Weldon | Johnson and Johnson | 114,000 | $21.6 | Joe Roth | Producer | $28.5 | | Louis C. Camilleri | Phillip Morris International | 78,300 | $20.6 | Kristen Stewart | Actress | $28.5 | | Randall L. Stephenson | AT&T | 256,420 | $20.2 | Jerry Bruckheimer | Producer | $27.5 | | Miles D. White | Abbot Laboratories | 90,000 | $20.0 | Robert Pattinson | Actor | $27.5 | | George W. Buckley | 3M | 80,000 | $19.7 | Jason Blum | Producer, Writer, Director, Producer | $26.5 | | Louis Chenevert | United Technologies | 199,900 | $19.5 | Tyler Perry | Writer, Director, Producer | $25.0 | | Robert P. Kelly | Bank of New York Mellon | 48,700 | $19.4 | Jennifer Aniston | Actress | $24.5 | | Muhtar Kent | Coca-Cola | 139,600 | $19.2 | Jon Favreau | Director, Producer | $24.0 | | Robert J. Stevens | Lockheed Martin | 126,000 | $19.1 | Nicolas Cage | Actor | $23.5 | | | | | | | | | Total: | 2,483,468 | $628.0 | | Total: | $1,037.0 | | Average: | 124,173 | $31.4 | | Average: | $51.9 | | Source: | money.cnn.com | | Source: | therichest.org |
I was actually pretty shocked by the side-by-side comparison. Certainly we're all aware of the amount of money that celebrities make, but I was a little surprised to discover that the Hollywood list was significantly better than the Wall Street list. Even more surprising is that the Wall Street figures include base salaries, bonuses, yearly stock grants and options, and even estimated company perks. The Hollywood figures only include estimated earnings from movies and specifically exclude special appearances, television works, and perks.
 A side-by-side graph of the top 20 Hollywood vs. Wall Street salaries in 2010
(ordered from highest salary to lowest)
(Download High-Res)
Of course there are plenty of other factors that can be considered too.
For example, Wall Street corporations are frequently condemned for allowing huge disparities of wealth between their employees. In other words, while the CEO might be making tens of millions of dollars annually, those working just as hard at the bottom may be struggling just to feed their families. I would not disagree that this is a major concern of our long-term economy. However, having been an extra on a movie set before, I know for a fact that I was only paid minimum wage for my work and suspect this is pretty consistent across the board. Moreover, and having lived in Hollywood, I'm positive that your average "actor" is flat broke. Therefore it would seem to suggest that the same income gaps probably exist in Hollywood as they do on Wall Street. So why is one fundamentally better than the other?
Another common point of critique is that corporate leaders are consistently sending American jobs overseas. This is definitely a political point of contention and another serious issue we should be trying to intelligently address. But again, I'm not so sure Hollywood operates on a much different principle. Many of the 2010 and 2011 blockbusters I researched were filmed in exotic overseas locations. In those particular cases, the national and local economies of foreign nations were the beneficiaries, not the United States. I would also suspect that foreign film crews are predominantly used in overseas shoots as well (albeit have no specific evidence to support this claim). But again, couldn't Hollywood just fly entire film crews and cast members (even the extras) abroad? Naturally the answer is yes, but much like Wall Street's argument, their margins would significantly suffer. But why is this an acceptable practice in one realm and not the other?
We might also consider the topic of actual employment numbers (included in the table for reference). While I unfortunately was unable to locate data on specific movies, various online searches suggested a modern summer blockbuster might require between a few hundred and a few thousand cast and crew members. But for sake of argument, let's assume a big Hollywood blockbuster is going to require 10,000 people and that the top billed actor is willing to settle for just $20 million (these figures should be greatly skewed in favor of Hollywood). Sam Palmisano, the CEO of IBM, gets paid $25.2 million annually - a tremendous sum of money no doubt. But we might also consider that he essentially presides over more than 426,000 employees (not to mention shareholders)! The per-employee financial difference here is so great that it can actually be measured in orders of magnitude, and that's making very generous assumptions in the case of Hollywood. So again, I am in no way attempting to justify Wall Street, but this same Hollywood disparity is phenomenal, especially if we consider a "per employment" sort of scenario.
We could even delve into the topic of corporate subsidies if we wanted to, but once more, Hollywood gets tremendous incentives and tax breaks to do what they do. Not only that, but they have the convenience of regulating their own industry whereas Wall Street at least has to contend with the SEC and a few other governmental bodies.
The bottom line is that I love Leonardo DiCaprio as much as the next guy, but I sincerely doubt he is going to give up the earnings of his next $50 million movie deal so that his set gaffers can get paid better. No more than the average CEO is going to give up his $50 million dollar salary so that the company electricians can get paid better.
The fact is that both Wall Street and Hollywood have a lengthy list of economic pros and cons. In some cases those pros and cons overlap, and in other cases they're unique to the industry. The point is that neither is better than the other when it comes to addressing the dramatic income gaps that appear to be widening in the United States. And yet for some reason it seems that the country remains deeply divided on which side is "good" and which side is "bad", which side is celebrated and which side is condemned.
As with most of my writings, my point here is not to make a case in favor of one side or the other. Rather, my contention is simply that as a nation, we are so incredibly susceptible to marketing and hyperbole-driven agendas that we've become deaf and blind to the realities of our own frustrations. We completely ignore the fact that both sides are willing participants of nearly identical agendas. I believe our greatest societal flaw is that we try to rationalize why one side is somehow better than the other one, completely ignoring the possibility that perhaps there are some pretty singular agendas floating between the two of them.
Personally, I commend anybody who is able to play the system for what it is and come out millions of dollars ahead of everyone else; I only wish I were clever enough to do the same. But having succumbed to a life far from that reality, I just wish my fellow countrymen and women would consider the fact, even if for just a moment, that perhaps their political team of choice isn't really all they've convinced themselves it is. I think that would truly be worth something we could all benefit from.
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As I wind down my eight day voyage to Colombia, I can't help but dwell upon the non-sensible, invasive, and criminal sham that the United States' travel policies have turned into. Colombia, perceived by Americans as a third world land of drug cartels, kidnappings, and guerrilla mercenaries (none of which is really accurate), has absolutely superior air travel service compared to the United States. This is true both of the government policies surrounding travel and the actual service provided by at least one private domestic carrier.
Domestically, a group of us flew from Bogotá to Cartagena on Avianca Airlines. The experience could not have been more positive. After quickly checking in with a friendly staff we proceeded to security. The line was short. We didn't remove our computers from our bag, nor take off our shoes, nor throw away our bottles of water. Nobody intended to make us assume the position of a criminal and examine our naked body. Nobody intended to feel our genitals, nor to have us remove articles of clothing. We put our carry-on bags on a conveyor belt and comfortably walked through a metal detector. Those of us who tripped it were not harassed, but rather quickly wanded down and sent on our ways.
 A simple chart comparing the security protocols I experienced between the United States TSA and the Colombian airport security
It was everything a country like America should be capable of.
The only additional (though arguably positive) layer of security is that they check bag tickets after you pick up your bag on the conveyer. Although this does slow the process down by a few minutes, I can appreciate wanting to protect against private theft.
The airline itself was also phenomenal. Avianca has a brand new Airbus fleet, each seat fully loaded with televisions, gaming devices, and USB mounts. All of the in-flight services were completely free of charge despite the flight only being an hour. As a strong proponent of allowing foreign carries into the US domestic fleets (one of the US' many anti-competitive laws), I would definitely welcome Avianca with open arms and in all likeliness become a frequent flyer.
Internationally, the departure process has been almost as easy, albeit with a few more steps. After receiving our tax vouchers at one window and then checking in with United, we proceeded through to immigration and had our passports stamped. Security was almost identical to the domestic flight only they did ask us to remove our computers from carry-on and place them in a bucket (much like the TSA does). There was no removal of shoes, no trashing of water and food, no groping, no naked body scanning. Rather just a simple metal detector with a follow-up wand.
The only annoyance came after waiting at the gate for about an hour. Evidently a secondary screening process was being setup and we had to leave the room, and re-enter through the secondary metal detector. There was one bit of stupidity here. I was allowed to bring my metal water bottle full of water through, but I was not allowed to bring my half-full plastic water through. Curiously though, I was allowed to pour the contents of the plastic bottle into my metal bottle and continue without further incident. Go figure.
All in all though, it was a pretty positive experience.
I spoke with a couple of Colombians about these processes and they agree that traveling around Colombia is a very pleasant experience. They also said that they hated travel procedures of the United States citing that they're treated very badly, generally as if they're terrorists.
I will continue to strongly oppose the TSA and all levels of government that use fear and American ignorance to strip individuals of Constitutional rights. I strongly encourage others to do the same.
March 23, 2012 5:13pm CST Edit: After chatting with members of the Reddit community about this post, I'm told that my experience may have been unique. Further discussion seems to suggest that the lighter security I experienced was due to my traveling during the low season. Others have reported significantly more invasive scans, albeit body scanning technologies are still not present.
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If you're not familiar with this project yet, an ad agency called BBH has equipped 14 homeless people in Austin with 4G data-enabled devices. They've asked their participants to roam the South by Southwest festival offering free WiFi to people.
The stunt has attracted a host of negative publicity. People have been suggesting it is unethical, immoral, and exploitative. I even read one article claiming that the agency is essentially commoditizing (generally read as enslaving) the homeless. Unfortunately, these claims couldn't be further from the truth. In fact the only unethical component of this whole matter is how quick the media has been to present a new bandwagon for the uninformed to jump on.
A few points to consider:
Firstly, this is not a bad financial deal. All of the individuals are being paid a minimum stipend of $50 per day, $20 of which is up-front. If that number seems low, keep in mind that they're not exactly doing work, rather they're just instructed to go about their day; people will find them. The company is also suggesting that people provide donations for the service; the suggested rate seems to be about $2.00 for 15 minutes of access. In addition to their stipend, the homeless keep all of the donations that they're given. That adds up pretty quickly at a festival like SXSW.
Secondly, they're entrusted and invited to participate in a worldwide event. I'm not a social worker, but I have to assume that when you entrust somebody with an expensive piece of hardware (one they could easily run off with), provide them with a festival t-shirt bearing their name, and give them a legitimate reason to interact with the general population, this is possibly the greatest offer many have seen in some time. It provides a presumably disparaging person with opportunity, something we all hope for.
Thirdly, I also have to assume that the fourteen people selected for this project are fairly competent individuals. That is to say, there is a certain level of communication and responsibility necessary for this project to be successful, even if it is minimal. It seems that the ad agency would be somewhat selective in their process of choosing who was eligible to participate. This would suggest that the participants are of pretty sound mind.
Which brings me to my only real problem with the outcries. Where is the consistency with the argument? I see homeless individuals working all sorts of jobs around Austin and I've never read of people being lambasted for hiring them. I've watched them distribute leaflets, hold business signs, sell papers, work parking lots, and on, and on. So I'm curious where the outcries are for homeless people being paid to hold "Liquidation Sale" signs on street corners. Is there some sort of line in the sand that we cross once the job takes on a more technical nature?
Unfortunately we're seeing these sorts of baseless, and even counter-productive outcries occur all of the time through the internet. In my opinion, they're exactly what turn legitimate problems into fashionable blips. There are no doubt cases whereby homeless people have been exploited for their "services". For example, about a decade ago Indecline Films started putting out a series called 'Bumfights'. The clear difference is that they sought drunken and probably mentally unstable individuals and paid them to incite violence against one another. There is a clear common sense distinction between these types of cases, and it's just sad that people are so willing to rally against anything, even when there are numerous and obvious benefits.
If people really wanted to help the homeless, they could trivially forgo spending $1,395 on their SXSW badges and instead donate that directly to a homeless person or any number of local shelters. But of course we all know that's never going to happen.
My take of these matters is simple. If people are unwilling to put real action ahead of empty talk, then perhaps they should at very least stop speaking for others. Especially when those others are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves.
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To my friends who intend to support the Republican party with Romney at the helm, I feel bad for you, truly I do. You have to know by now that if Governor Romney wins the nomination (which appears likely), President Obama is going to sweep the 2012 election. Don't get me wrong, I loathe President Obama as much as I loathed President Bush. I just wish I could understand why those of you who vote party-line are so blind to this reality.
It's a simple, two-fold problem. Firstly, the Republican party obviously has no clear favorite. This is probably because the three media-favored candidates are hardly distinguishable from the Democrats when it comes to most issues. Or on occasion, are so openly vile and off-topic that even many conservatives are dismissing their rhetoric. And secondly, the party has to contend with the reality that Ron Paul has an army of well-organized supporters. The latter of those is what I would like to address.
There's one thing that you need to know about the current primary process, and this is really important: the overwhelming majority of those voting for Ron Paul have NO INTEREST in supporting the Republican party outside of his nomination. I am certainly included in that subgroup. In fact, varying statistical analyses put the number around 1 in 4 right now. In other words, if it's Romney vs. Obama in November, then about 75% of those votes currently coming from Ron Paul Republicans will result in write-ins, independent 3rd party votes, or abstentions. They will NOT go to Romney. This is a huge problem for you. Not even the media knows quite how to spin it.
Let's be clear about this. Most Ron Paul supporters aren't so stubborn that they would never vote for another candidate. Rather, they're just not going to vote for a candidate who intends to wander down the same path of destructive policies that we've seen for almost 15 years. Unfortunately, most of you seem to be completely ignoring these much needed policy changes. Here's three off the top of my head.
- The majority of us couldn't care less about homosexuality and the myriad of subtopics you've created around it. The whole idea of small government is that the government doesn't get to run people's lives. We take this credo very seriously, whereas you only purport to take it seriously. If your personal beliefs encourage you to act in a selfish and bigoted manner, that's perfectly acceptable. But at least be objective enough to support legislation that embodies the diversity of our country, not the homogeneity of your personal faith.
- None of the other candidates have shown ANY interest whatsoever in addressing the severe financial mess this country is in. Occasionally one will offer some insignificant cut to a future budget proposal. This is meaningless to our current problems. Since some of you evidently don't fully grasp this concept, it means that if a department was intending to **expand** by say $100 billion in 2013, your candidate might be willing to cut that **expansion** down to $90 billion. Of course this completely ignores the fact that many departments need not exist in the first place and merely reducing their expansion does nothing to reverse our current level of debt. It's like going shopping because you received a coupon in the mail. You're still spending money you didn't need to spend in the first place!
We're interested in someone who wants to legitimately cut spending, who wants to substantially reform the tax system, and who doesn't support playing favorites with American corporations. And as a parallel to that, just because you don't like the Occupy Wall Street people, doesn't make them wrong. Stop acting like corporate lobbyists and financial bailouts are somehow to your benefit, they clearly are not.
- Stop trying to take over the world. It shouldn't be done, and more importantly, it can't be done. Nobody on our side of the table is suggesting war isn't sometimes necessary. However, the entire Muslim world is NOT your enemy, and certainly not our enemy. Even if they were, there are over 1.5 billion of them! The attack on Osama Bin Laden's compound was a small, covert, and successful mission. That single mission was more useful than years of occupation. We have ruined literally decades of progress and permanently scarred our nation's reputation, all on the quest to protect American corporate interests.
Ron Paul Republicans will not tolerate, much less support a candidate interested in waging these kinds of open militaristic conquests around the world. We have a Congress to make declarations of war so that the people can control the war. The President of the United States is not a military dictator contrary to what President Bush and President Obama may have led you to believe.
The recent Romney victory in Washington State pretty much showcased the general mentality of the party. Romney was hated by the Washington Caucus in 2008, placing last in almost every county. Now four years later he is miraculously the top pick by a substantial margin? It's pretty obvious that the majority of you are only interested in voting for the predicted nominee rather than who you believe is a good candidate. That's a pretty sad state for a democracy, especially considering it's only the primary process.
So having written all of that, and knowing how much I'd love to see a change in D.C. next year, I truly wish you'd wake up to the reality of this election. If you forcibly continue to exclude and ignore these people and ideas, you cannot win this election, period. Every one of the so-called swing states is going to be gift-wrapped and handed to the Democrats. If your only goal this November is to unseat Barack Obama, then it would seem that ignoring this population does your cause a grand disservice.
Please feel free to email me anytime with your questions on the topic; I'd be more than happy to respond. In the meantime, keep looking for that birth certificate, because that's sure to fix our problems.
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