Merry Christmas everyone!

I wish you and your family the best on this very special day.

God bless,

Peter

TAGS: Christmas | XMAS | Holiday | Santa Claus

Thanks to this post by Matthieu Croce I’ve done a bit more research on Social Funds. His post points to SocialFunds.com which is a website dedicated to providing information on socially-responsible investing. I found the site to be incredibly useful in aggregating related funds and was pleased to find one of my investments on there (the Ariel Fund [ARGFX]). I remember choosing the fund first for it’s potential return, but after reading the prospectus, I was determined to hold the investment due to it’s focus on socially responsible companies.

Here’s the fund’s summary from Yahoo Finance:

“The investment seeks long-term capital appreciation. The fund invests primarily in the stocks of smaller companies with market capitalizations generally between 500 million and 2.5 billion. The fund typically contains no more than 45 stocks and seeks socially responsible, undervalued companies; in particular, it seeks those whose primary source of revenue is not derived from the production or sale of tobacco products, the generation of nuclear energy, or the manufacturing of handguns.”

SocialFunds.com lists a large amount of information on socially responsible investments and also has daily “social investment” news. Here’s a snippet from their homepage:

“SocialFunds.com features over 10,000 pages of information on SRI mutual funds, community investments, corporate research, shareowner actions, and daily social investment news.”

I’ve pulled out a few of my favorite social funds and have listed them in a ticker box in the sidebar. You can view each fund’s Yahoo Finance page by clicking on the ticker symbol.

TAGS: Social Funds | Mutual Fund | Investing | SRI

We’ve been using Basecamp for several months to manage projects for our photography company and I have also been using it for a new company that is in the works with a few great friends from Cal Poly. We have nothing but positive reviews for the software and would recommend it to anyone who is in need of web-based project management software.

TAGS: Basecamp | Project Management | Web 2.0 | Base Camp

U.S. Ranks Sixth Among Countries Jailing Journalists, Report Says [NYT link]

Here’s an excerpt:

“The United States has tied with Myanmar, the former Burma, for sixth place among countries that are holding the most journalists behind bars, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Each country is jailing five journalists. The United States is holding four Iraqi journalists in detention centers in Iraq and one Sudanese, a cameraman who works for Al Jazeera, at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. None of the five have been charged with a specific crime.”

TAGS: Democracy | Journalism | Us | China

I wish it were really hard to find news about China that ruffles people’s feathers. And I find it increasingly more sobering that I will be over there in a little over six months, touring factories and meeting with business leaders…

From today’s New York Times: “China Suppresses news of Violent Crackdown on Demonstration”

“One week after the police violently suppressed a demonstration against the construction of a power plant in China, leaving as many as 20 people dead, an overwhelming majority of the Chinese public still knows nothing of the event.

“In the wake of the biggest use of armed force against civilians since the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, Chinese officials have used a variety of techniques to prevent news of the deaths from spreading - like barring reports in most newspapers outside the immediate region and banning place names and other keywords associated with the event from major Internet search engines, like Google.”

TAGS: China | Democracy | Violence | Freedom | Capitalism

It has been a while since I have posted about my son specifically in the context of “On Being a Father…” but I’m ready now.

The past few months have been incredible and utterly exhausting. I finished the Fall quarter of my MBA program on Friday afternoon and promptly attempted to have a proper celebration with my wife and son. The late night sleep interruptions, seemingly constant distractions that managed to appear whenever I had to write a paper, the baby+school+business work load, and the dwindling of my ability to be patient in direct correlation to how few hours I would sleep each night, all finally came to a close. I make it sound more dramatic than it was, but honestly, during my last week of school, I averaged well in excess of 4 cups of coffee per day.

The most disappointing thing for me over the past few months was how little time I was able to spend with Caleb, watching him grow, loving him, teaching him new things, and just being a dad. It felt like every time I was home and free from school work or trying to grab a few hours of sleep, either he was too grouchy for quality time, or I was. Thankfully, I still made an effort and managed to spend some time with him every day, some days far more than others. Admittedly, some of it was not as pleasant as it could have been, Caleb at the end of his patience, crying every few seconds, and me well beyond my capacity to handle such communication, holding him out to my wife for periodically increasing breaks.

Nonetheless, while I remember many such challenging times, many of which happened between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am, I also remember the really happy moments. There were the times when I would catch him smiling at me when I wasn’t paying attention to him. My heart would melt in an instant, and we’d coo and laugh together for a bit until he became bored and needed a change of environment. Or the first time he started cuddling when I held him. I remember one morning when he insisted on having some interaction at 4:30 am or so — I carried him around the house tidying up, making coffee and eggs, cleaning the kitchen, and kissing him on the head. The whole time he was utterly content being held and watching what we were doing together.

But it wasn’t until yesterday morning that my emotions finally hit a zenith and really smacked in the bottom. We had just arrived at church for the 11 o’clock service and I found myself extracting Caleb from his car seat within a few minutes. Our strategy of seeing if he would sleep through the service needed to be re-evaluated already. He seemed content though, and I was happy holding him, even if I had to stand and rock him the whole time.

At the front of the church there was a large stage area to which a group of young adults and children started to filter down the aisles and flock to. Caleb had fun watching the people pass by and head down the aisle. As seems customary during the holidays, we were treated to a number of songs, all of which were far more entertaining to watch than to listen to (the youngest children were masterfully singing and doing a free-form rendition of chaos theory with their arms, legs, bodies, and vocal pitch). Everyone was smiling and each song received a boisterous applause. It was perfect.

Then came The Little Drummer Boy (iTunes link). I am not sure how many of you have heard the song before, but I guess it was a big part of my childhood holiday memories. As soon as the voices from the front of the church started to make their way out across the congregation, tears started to well up in my eyes. I pictured myself sitting in front of a 1980’s record player in our living room all by myself, looking at the album cover, and playing the song over and over and over. It seems loneliness was a big part of my childhood, at least in my memories.

As the music built and the voices became more sure of themselves, I found myself clutching Caleb closer, kissing him on the head, and letting the tears flow. I was overcome with the combination of some weird childhood longing while simultaneously being so utterly attached to my son. I was unbelievably happy and deeply sad at the same time. I kept thinking about all of the times Caleb and I have had smile wars, trying to see who can smile the biggest and for the longest period of time (he always wins). Or about how much I loved holding him, at that moment, standing there in the back of the church, rocking him side to side and crying quietly.

From the tears came a kind of strength and determination. I knew in that moment that my biggest fears about being a poor father were never going to be realized. I felt in that moment that nothing could pry Caleb out of my arms or stop that feeling. I am now certain that those moments are going to be many in our relationship, that I will always be there for him, no matter what, and that nothing can stop that.

Nothing.

I love you Caleb.

Merry Christmas.

TAGS: Family | Christmas | Church | Father | Son

…and then there’s this.

TAGS: China | Freedom | Democracy | Technology |

Here’s an interesting blog about China from Lonnie Hodge: “OneManBandwidth: An American Professor in China”

I found the content to be very interesting and written with a refreshing and fairly positive agenda. I particularly liked the China Editorals posts and also enjoyed reading a bit about Lonnie (he’s got a fairly dry sense of humor with an off-beat candor that makes his writing pretty fun to read…):

“Lonnie does SEO for corporations and bloggers large or small. To date his clients hold over 30,000 keywords indexed in #1 positions on major search engines world-wide.

“He was one of the original members of Delta Force (not the special forces group) the Army war College’s experiment in 1979, via genius Dr. Bob Parnes, that really became the backbone of the Internet. That means he is really OLD!

“He doesn’t use spell-check on his own blog and it shows.

“Lonnie also helps source, factory direct, any unique or private-labeled products or other wholesale item our business might need made in China: from linens to pens and from car parts to luggage.”

TAGS: China | Blog | Outsourcing | SEO

My son is mobile now…

…happy four month birthday Caleb.

Love,

Dad

TAGS: Father | Son | Baby | Infant

This may be old news to some, but for those of you who missed it the first time around, the hosted blogging service called TypePad (from Six Apart) came under fire recently for some performance hiccups. Site downtime and related performance issues can be a real turn-off, and understandably many of their users were annoyed. Rather then dance around the issue, or try and keep it quiet, check out what they did…

• They publicly acknowledged it
• They kept the conversation open as they worked to resolve the issues
• …they continued to maintain an open dialogue (I am sure there are more links regarding that aspect of the situation, but I’ll stop there )
• Then they offered their customers the choice of a service refund to hopefully compensate them for any frustration
• And, in a very healthy and open manner, publicly reflected on how the whole process turned out.

Hat’s off to Six Apart! If only all businesses operated with such humility, openness and customer-focus. What a great model to strive for.

TAGS: TypePad | Six Apart | Business Strategy | Communication | Ethics