The Richter Scale^®

While on our travels in Fiji recently, a small creative streak overtook us, and we (the Bonaire-based Richters) decided to assemble an image for Christmas time and our annual greeting to friends, family, and associates alike. See below.

The above image is composed using the bark of a coconut tree, flower blossoms (including that of a Plumeria/Frangipani on top), and shells of small cowries found while wandering the beach, as well as a cork we found). The result is our Tropical Christmas Tree.

With that, we’d like to wish you all (early) a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Jake, Linda, Krystyana, and Bas Richter

My wife and I attended the Miami Beach Gift Show last month to see if we could find some new wares to offer on our http://www.BonaireStuff.com on-line store. While the theme of the show was mostly tropical goods (we found a number of new flamingo products), we also came across The Wink Toy Company, which has taking the emoticons we all know and love in our e-mails and embodied them in plush form (photo below).

Emoticons are the cutesy little things many of us put into our e-mails, text messages, and even on web pages, typically composed of a combination of punctuation marks viewed sideways. For example, a smile can be represented as a colon-dash-parenthesis, i.e. : - )

Change the parenthesis to the letter “O” and you have a look of surprise, or a “U” to have your emoticon sticking its virtual tongue out, or replace the colon with a semi-colon for a wink.

The list of variants is nearly endless. And some software programs, such as AOL Instant Messenger, will even convert those text emoticons into graphical ones (especially useful for those who need things more clearly represented to understand them).

Emoticons have been around for about as long as there’s been e-mail, and that’s decades.

But now, Keith Jaehnert has given emoticons physical substance in the form of his Wink Toys. These come in two sizes (regular and “Bittywinks” - the latter are what’s stuck to the cactus in my yard in the photo accompanying this post), and five colors (baby blue, green, red, yellow, and light pink) and designs (wink, shock, grin, smile, and tongue). The 3-inch Bittywinks retail for $4.50 and the regular 5-inch Wink Toys for $8.99.

Keith told us his inspiration in creating the Wink Toy line of plushes stems from Ty (the makers of Beanie Babies) and frequent exposure to emoticons. One day it came to him he could combine the two. He is planning on following some of the Beanie Baby strategy with his Wink Toys, retiring certain combinations of colors and designs after a while, and then introducing news ones. He even has hopes for a cartoon series to be based on his Wink Toys (somehow I can’t get the image of the Pac-Man Saturday Morning Cartoon show out of my mind here).

Wink Toy launch in July of 2006, and Keith tells us things are already going strong with sales in his home state of New Jersey. Certainly, making emoticons tangible is a fun idea, and the Wink Toys are well made and soft (both key features for plushes). I hope he does well with it.

Keith did drop me a post-show e-mail incidentally, with an offer of a 25% discount for anyone buying off his web site - the special coupon code is “mia206” and good through Sept. 30, 2006.

I celebrated my 42nd birthday yesterday by not working (and yes, I usually do work on Sundays, so this was unusual). Instead, I sat on my couch and played video games with my children for most of the day (Tomb Raider on the Xbox 360 with me at the controls and my kids helping me figure out how to get past the variety of interesting puzzles).

I don’t feel particularly old, and in fact I feel more alert and alive in some ways than I did (or think I did) a decade ago. Sure, my eyesight is slowly deteriorating from the 20/15 vision I used to have, and my hair is grayer (or whiter) than it used to be, but those changes are minor. It’s what’s inside that determines youth, or at least so I think.

And my wife today sent me a quote attributed to General Douglas MacArthur which I think beautifully underscores that:

Youth is not a time of life--it is a state of mind.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years;
people grow old by deserting their ideals.
Years may wrinkle your skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles your soul.
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts;
as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear;
as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

In the central place of your heart there is a recording chamber;
so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, and courage
--so long are you young.

When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snow
of pessimism and the ice of cynicism,
then--and only then--are you grown old.

Douglas MacArthur

I don’t know if MacArthur penned those words, but they certainly are poignant. I’ve already asked my wife to smack me around to shock me back to common sense and reality should I ever lose my enthusiasm for life and learning. I, for one, would prefer not to have a wrinkled soul.

I’ll be posting a few more E3-related items here in the next week, but at present I am on a short vacation in Ft. Lauderdale with my family. The purpose of this vacation is a bit of rest and relaxation, eating, spa-ing, and binging on new and recently released movies. On Bonaire we have only a one screen movie theater and movies shown there are typically 2-4 months old. And the seats are horribly uncomfortable.

So, we look forward to our U.S. trips, where we generally squeeze in as many movies as possible in the comfort of plush reclining stadium seating. It’s not a cheap activity these days, but if you’re a movie-a-holic, it’s well worth it. We’ve only been in Ft. Lauderdale 28 hours, but have already seen three titles: Over The Hedge (6.0 out of 10.0), The Da Vinci Code (6.0 out of 10.0), and M:I3 (7.5 out 10.0) - and all at the Sunrise Cinemas Stadium 15 at Las Olas Riverfront.

And that brings me to the topic of this blog. Each of these visits, for a family of four - two adults, two children - runs $30 for movie tickets (less for a matinee) and then a bunch more for even simple munchies and refreshments.

When we went this evening to catch the 8pm showing of Mission Impossible 3 (MI3) at the Sunrise Cinemas, I asked, as I had the last two times, for two adult and two child tickets. The cashier/ticket seller, a young man named Martin, rang it up. I had already handed him $40 at this point, and was surprised to get only $8 in change, knowing from last night’s movie that I should have gotten $10 back. Turns out he made a mistake and charged me for two student tickets instead of two children’s tickets, and that’s why I got charged $2 more. $2 isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I also don’t think I should have to pay for something I didn’t ask for.

When I asked Martin for the additional $2 back, he politely explained that he had issued me student tickets, and those were a $1 more each. I politely explained in return that I had asked for childrens’ tickets and those were a $1 less. He then informed me that as I had paid and the tickets were issued, he could not correct the matter without there being a shortfall in the cash register attributed to him. As it was at this point a matter of principle, I insisted on getting my $2 back, at which point he gave me a small piece of paper with all sorts of information I would need to fill out (like my name, home address, phone number, etc.) - all to get back money which was the result of a mistake HE made in the first place.

As the movie was about to start I told him to just forget and that I would simply blog the incident. And here we are.

There are two customer service issues here that should be addressed:

1) The Sunrise Cinemas appear to have polices in place which burden the customer in the event of a staff error. That’s a major inconvenience to the customer, who only wants to pay for his or her tickets, maybe buy some refreshments, and then watch their movie.

2) The staff of the Sunrise Cinemas is either not empowered to resolve customer service matters, or not capable of coming up with solutions that would keep the customer happy. Either one is something that could be easily resolved.

These two items are classical flaw in customer service in most any business, and the businesses that have overcome them tend to stand out among their peers. The businesses that succumb to these customer service flaws lose customers.

In my case, we still have at least another three or four movies to catch before we fly home on Sunday. That’s at least another $90-120 in ticket sales alone that I will gladly give to some other movie theater in the Ft. Lauderdale area, even if I have to drive a bit further from my hotel, because I will not give any more business to the Sunrise Cinemas Stadium 15.

The lesson to be learned here is that a couple dollar mistake that is not quickly and easily corrected can cost a business a whole lot more in lost revenues and reputation.

For several years now it has seemed to me that there’s been a real shopping void on-line. Tough to believe, eh? After all, there are sites dedicated to buying most anything on-line, right? Well, the void I refer to are products from and related to particular Caribbean island destinations.

Considering I live on Bonaire in the southern Caribbean, it was a no-brainer to start with trying to figure out how to get Bonaire originated items on-line. The idea was easy, but the execution was not because selling tangible products requires fulfillment, and shipping stuff directly from Bonaire would make things prohibitively expensive.

So, last summer, my wife and I got together with old friends in New Hampshire and founded Caribbean Stuff, LLC, based in New Boston, New Hampshire, with friends Tracy and Mike Griffin, to provide both the U.S. presence for any future on-line store, as well a distribution point. New Hampshire is one of the few states blessed with no sales tax, and that’s an added bonus.

My wife and I launched http://www.CaribbeanArt.com last fall to test out Caribbean Stuff’s distribution and fulfillment processes, and that worked (and continues to work) great.

I’m pleased to report that approximately one month ago, we successfully launched http://www.BonaireStuff.com with approximately 90 products, and sales have been good. We’re now looking to expand to provide products from other Caribbean islands via a new on-line store to be launch later this year.

As Bonaire is known for its flamingos (presuming you’ve even heard of Bonaire), one my favorite areas of BonaireStuff.com is the flamingo section (just type “flamingo” in the search box at http://www.BonaireStuff.com), where you can get flamingo hats, flamingo sunglasses, and even a “grow-your-own” pet flamingo (just pop it in water and watch it grow). We’re working on further expanding our Bonaire product line as well. If you want to stay abreast of any specials or news from BonaireStuff.com, there’s a place on the BonaireStuff.com home page (near the bottom) where you can subscribe to a newsletter.

Finally back for a few days from lots of travels, but off on my next trip next Monday.

In looking to add a few things to my blog, I learned from a number of folks that my blog software frustrated their attempts to post comments to my blog entries. Had to dig around for a bit, but that’s now fixed.

Also fixed is any weirdness in view my blog via Internet Explorer (I’m a dedicated Firefox web browser user, so I had not noticed the problem).

If any of you encounter any problems with my blog, please drop me a note at jake@richterscale.org.

My wife and I are movie-aholics. Our DVD library numbers in the many hundreds, and whenever we get stateside, we typically will park ourselves at a cineplex and watch every movie we haven’t seen yet. This may be partially attributed to the fact that the only movie theatre on Bonaire is a single screen theatre with ever increasingly uncomfortable seats and two 3-4 month old movies showing each night.

So, on our recent vacation to the U.S. we came across the Martis Village Theatre in Truckee, California, showing Eight Below, a Disney movie starring Paul Walker and eight huskies (dogs), among others.

The premise of the movie is that Paul Walker’s character is a professional musher on assignment in Antarctica at an American research center. One thing leads to another, and he ends up having to leave the dogs behind during the Antarctic winter. Faithful to his dogs, he strives for months to find a way back to Antarctica, during which time we are treated to images of the dogs breaking out of their collars and chains, foraging for food, alpha dog jockeying, and more.

And here’s the thing that really, really, bothered me - all the “lost” dog footage, as well as the “dogs are being rescued “ scenes - and we’re talking the midst of the Antarctic winter here - is in bright sunlight!

I can understand some creative license, but folks, it’s dark - just about pitch dark - at the south pole during their winter (which is summer here in the Northern Hemisphere), not bright sunlight all day long!

The sun goes down for the season in March and doesn’t come back until sometime in late September, as I understand it. During the Antarctic summer it’s like a sunny midafternoon up north during our summer, but 24 hours a day.

And, adding to that lack of reality, is that it appears that the International Antarctic Treaty bans non-indigenous animals in the first place. So the dogs would have never been brought there in the first place, and if they had, they would not have been left behind because of the Treaty’s strict requirement that no refuse be left on Antarctica (and yes, dog-sicles would certainly be on the list of banned refuse).

Disney touts that Eight Below was based on a true story. So were James Frey’s “memoirs”.

Eight Below gets a 2.0 out of 10.0 on The Richter Scale (in addition to the aforementioned blatant flaws, it was a pretty poor movie too).

For some insights from a person who has lived at the South Pole, take a look at http://www.spotsylvania.k12.va.us/nspt/question/chrisfaq.htm

Many people welcome the new year with so-called New Year's Resolutions. Many of the same people break those resolutions before the first day of the new year is over. That makes New Year's resolutions seem rather empty except for the most diligent and faithful resolution makers.

Knowing that I am one of the many who frequently (in the past) did not have the discipline to follow through on resolutions, I instead opt for a different approach wherein I attempt to do two things. First, I reflect on all that went well or went poorly in the year gone by, and second, I try to figure out what the year in advance might look like in a general sense and see what I might be able to do to nudge things in a positive direction.

The real painful part of this process is the reflection on the past year, as it frequently dredges up some real bonehead things I did or was involved in. In past years this has included things like scraping up my truck on a fence due to trying to stop in slippery mud, wearing shoes with no traction on freshly waxed floors, the occasional verbal faux pas in front of a friend or business associate, being inconsistent with my children, ruining the Hollandaise sauce I was making from scratch, and countless other things which may mostly seem minor to someone else, but are items that I have lost sleep over or agonized about.

I don’t know about you, but I have kept hoping that as I get older, I get wiser. And in some respects, that has held true with respect to certain stupid things I have done once, learned from, and not repeated. But man’s ability to do stupid things or things one regrets knows no bounds, regardless of age. And one can only hope one recognizes when one has done something stupid, and that the event of stupidity does not hurt anyone else.

Fortunately, the pain of stupidity is usually balanced or outweighed by the good things that have happened and that I have done (at least in my estimation). And I must say, although I would not call it a resolution, I strive to do more good things than stupid things each year.

So, to those whom I have inadvertently insulted, dismayed, or otherwise offended during 2005, my heartfelt apologies.

To those whom I have been able to help in one way or another, it was my pleasure. Truly.

So here’s to 2006 - may it be as good as, or better than 2005!

With all the rampant political correctness out and about these days, people are quick to try and not offend anyone at all because even one lone voice complaining about bias is too much. Pardon my obviously offensive question, but isn’t that taking things to absurd extremes?

According to a recent Forbes article:

BIGresearch estimates that 94 percent of midwinter holiday celebrators will observe Christmas, while only 5 percent will celebrate Chanukah. And of that 5 percent, more than half will also celebrate Christmas. Only 1 percent will observe Kwanza.

That means 96.5 or more percent of the American public celebrates Christmas. Maybe up to 3.5 percent don’t (but the study doesn’t say if they are militantly anti-Christmas or tolerant of others’ celebration thereof).

I’m not a religious person. Were I to join a church, it would probably be a Unitarian Universalist church (they are the ones with the fish symbol with legs and the word Darwin inside), which preaches one should question and not simply take things on faith.

However, I have a lot of friends of all faiths (and even some avid Atheist friends), and respect their right to worship (or not) as they see fit as long as they don’t force me to share their beliefs.

And this time of year, I always wish them all - Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, Hindi, Buddhists, and store clerks with PC brainwashing training - a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas, while derived from religious roots, has transcended those roots to be a time one shares with family and friends, remembering all the good things in life, and simply relishing the presence and thoughts of those one finds dear.

At least that’s what Christmas is for me. This year I even had the ability to send small presents to a number of people who have helped me be a better person, and from whom I have learned over the years, and it has been a wonderful feeling to share a little with them.

Christmas is also a time for thinking of one’s fellow man. My wife and I have helped sponsor a Christmas party for a large group of the elderly living in a local home, donated to create Christmas gift baskets for the people running Bonaire’s foster home, donated food to a local church to help feed those less privileged than us, and done a variety of other small things in keeping with what we feel the Christmas spirit to be, and sharing that Spirit.

I don’t think you have to be a church-going Christian to love Christmas, or even be a purely good person, but you do have to love life and people, and be willing to share a bit of that love.

With the above in mind, bowing to the pressures of Political Correctness to appease the itsy bitsy teeny weeny minority (substantially less than 3.5% of the population per the above cited research data) and wishing people “Happy Holidays” just does not cut it for me.

So, to all of you, have a very Merry Christmas, and a most excellent and Happy New Year!

I have observed a number of things the our new Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner does which I think make for good life lessons, so, without further ado, here’s a list of five things my Roomba has taught me:

1) Don’t give up easily. The path to your goal may not be an easy one, and may in fact require lots of false starts and turns, but if you persevere, you’ll get there.

2) When you get worn out or have finished your job, head home, take a breather, and recharge your batteries.

3) Avoid slippery or unsteady situations by planning ahead. There’s nothing worse than spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, and just wearing yourself out doing it.

4) If you’re going to charge forth to change the world, it’s not a bad idea to give a bit of warning to those close to you.

5) When you’re worn out, and just don’t have the energy to do the job right, don’t let people push your buttons. Let them know you need a small break to get your wind back.

Have any additional life lessons courtesy of a Roomba? Post them in the comments.