Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

John, I really don’t care who wins any of these NFL games. I’m just hoping for some good games with no major injuries.

I think I started watching BREAKING BAD when it was in the second season. I did watch it from the beginning, however. It’s a video that I think that Shakespeare would have enjoyed as a classic tragedy. I’ll watch the whole thing again at some point.

It is very cold here. Only 24 degrees shortly after noon. We got about four inches of snow yesterday, and the timing of it was enough to close the schools in the area. I’ll stay inside today, read and listen to music … and then watch some of the football games.

Ron, this just popped up on my Facebook feed. It's good for all of us:

"”I was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing I noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for me.
He handed me a laminated card and said: 'I'm Wasu, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.'
Taken aback, I read the card. It said: Wasu's Mission Statement:
To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.
This blew me away. Especially when I noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wasu said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.'
I said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.'
Wasu smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, lassi, water, and orange juice.'
Almost stuttering, I said, 'I'll take a lassi since I’ve never had one before.'
Handing me my drink, Wasu said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have Good Housekeeping magazine, Reader’s Digest, The Bible, and a Travel + Leisure magazine.'
As they were pulling away, Wasu handed me another laminated card, 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.'
And as if that weren't enough, Wasu told me that he had the heater on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for me.
Then he advised me of the best route to my destination for that time of day. He also let me know that he'd be happy to chat and tell me about some of the sights or, if I preferred, to leave me with my own thoughts.
'Tell me, Wasu,' I was amazed and asked him, 'have you always served customers like this?'
Wasu smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard about power of choice one day.'
'Power of choice is that you can be a duck or an eagle.'
'If you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. Stop complaining!'
'Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'
'That hit me right,' said Wasu. He continued and said, 'It is about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'
'I take it that has paid off for you,' I said.
'It sure has,' Wasu replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on it.'
Wasu made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.
Have an eagle life ahead.....
—Adapted
I hope we all decide to soar like an Eagle and not quack like a duck 🦅🦅
thank you Patti Huckaba for the share"

Ron, here's another story. I have a Ph.D in Economics with a minor in Statistics (it's really a Ph.D. in Economic History but that's too elaborate of a story). One of the professors on my Masters committee was a professor named Ron Gallant, who was the most amazing person I encountered in the eight years I was at N.C. State.

Gallant had a major problem with spelling ... you know that when a Statistics professor would spell "bias" as "bais" and not even get the word "Statistics" right all the the time. But he couldn't do arithmetic either ... not very good in addition or subtraction much less multiplication or division. I first had him for the second course in Mathematical Statistics (a master level course) and then for the second course in Econometric Theory (a doctoral level course).

I eventually learned he grew up on an avocado ranch (in most states we would call that a farm, not a ranch) in California and that very early in his education, his public school teachers discovered he was brilliant ... but really different. Through the years, in math classes, he would just explain how to do the problems without having to actually do the arithmetic.

What he could do was amazing ... he pretty ignored what he couldn't do. He accepted help from his teachers and professors ...and he did the same for his students. A few times when I visited him during office hours he would stop doing whatever he was doing and would me with my problems.

From the Wiki, just a few of his accompishments:

"He received his A.B. in mathematics from San Diego State University, his M.B.A. in marketing from UCLA, and his Ph.D. in statistics from Iowa State University.

He is a Fellow of both the Econometrics Society and the American Statistical Association. He serves on the board of directors of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served on the board of directors of the American Statistical Association and on the board of trustees of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences. He is co-editor of the Journal of Econometrics and past editor of The Journal of Business and Economic Statistics.

In collaboration with George Tauchen of Duke University,[1] Gallant developed the Efficient Method of Moments (EMM). He is one of the leaders in nonlinear time series analysis, nonlinear econometrics, nonlinear dynamic systems, and in econometrics theory. "

SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._Rona...

My final thoughts. You are great Ron at finding good and important books to read and you actually read them. Follow your head and your heart, connect with a few professors, make friends, and keep moving ahead. Cynda said it differently, but I really agree with her thoughts. You can be a great success, and being different is just not that bad,

Ron wrote: "We're really destroying our planet.

Now I have to think about the future. I worry about my sister's (unborn) son who will have to deal with the mess. I mean just think in 60 years or so I believe..."


Ron, there are so many real problems connected with what we are doing to the environment and with especially global warming. But there is this also: Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. It is not Pollyannish but it talks about the good things that are going on and what we can do to make things better.

John wrote: "I have been on a Charles Dickens jag lately. It is funny, in a way, because I seem to enjoy reading studies about him as much as I do the actual works. Perhaps the old English major in me is still ..."

John, do you know this book, What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist—the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England? I've had it for a bout 20 years. Good information and a lot of fun.

Ron, based on my own quick reading of what that means, it's pretty good. It may help you explain yourself to you and to others ... but it's a statement that you have few limitations on what you may accomplish. I think your friends here already realize that.

A review of two books in Sunday's NYT Book Review ... a bio of Anthony Hecht and a new edition of his collected works. The review is subtitled, "Anthony Hecht was a poet of his time, for better and worse."

John, I couldn't take seeing that 5,000 development ... the retirement community we're moving to, of course, is a new development also, but we chose an apartment that should offer us peace and tranquillity.

30 degrees F right now (at 2:40pm) in Northern Virginia. It's going to be a cold night ... down to 13 degrees F.

John,

We have been working for years to reduce the number books. First it was thousands of books donated to the library. And for the last year--at an accelerating pace now--my son has been taking boxes of books I've selected for him to sell to a very large used book store. I let him have the store credit that comes from those books to use for buying books for him, his wife, and our granddaughters. Today he's taking two boxes of books and three boxes of CDs.

We will have three book cases in our new apartment. And others that I want to keep will go into perhaps a dozen boxes in our new storage unit.

But our Kindles, iPads, and public library give me great comfort.

Ron, yeah ... it can be very hard. I have a few friends in a similar situation ... they often deal with misunderstandings on their part of comments from other people. Sometimes those comments are just poorly intentioned ... and sometimes they are cruel.

Ron, in moving closer to our son and family, we will be closer to our ten year old granddaughter who deals with autism ... her mother has convinced her that her autism is her super power and it truly is on many days. On other days, it does make life a little harder for her.

Ron, Cynda, and John ... so much honesty in your three posts here. I appreciate your stories about how life is affecting.

Here's my one bit of honesty about myself. I have been very careful about sharing this until we told family and closest friends. Sometime in the early summer we will be moving to a retirement community that is still under construction. It is about five miles away from where we currently live and only about a mile from my son and family. We will be giving up our three level townhouse (John, you are so right .... it's warmer upstairs) for a one level apartment. We have lived in this home for 37 years so it's a major change.

The hardest things? Giving up a lot of books. Moving away from really good friends (we're going out for lunch today with close neighbors and their daughter who goes to college). Oh, and just a lot of work to get this townhouse ready to sell!

More info to come.

Larry

Sarah, thanks for this long message ... and it's not a problem at all to embed a lot of material in any message here. "But I also know that what doctors knew now they didn't know then, and medicine is a very rapidly changing field. Warp speed when it comes to COVID vaccines and flu, since variations of the disease mutate so quickly."

So true .. so that many now live with cancer instead of die from cancer. The powerful treatments, as you say, can come with a high cost ... I know that I speak for all of us when we wish you only the best in your continued struglles with health issues. In my wife's case after CT scans every three months and the concomitant high dosages of radiation that come with the scans, the scans were changed to once every six months. (At one point the amount of radiation in a CT scan was estimate dto be 300 times that of an Xray.)

With respect to your own "differences" it is so easy to say, "Well, we're all different, aren't we?" But that is so dismissive and it is hard to be different when people around us can be mean and pick away at those differences.

Thanks so much for those book recommendations. I'll look at them. I just want to say that you are truly welcome here.

Larry

See this link for the 2022 annual report of Berkshire Hathaway.

https://berkshirehathaway.com/2022ar/...

John, I have the Charlie Munger on reserve at our public library. It looks like I’ll get it this week. One comment about Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. The annual reports (of the Buffett fund) make for fascinating reading and are available for free. They are the only annual financial reports that I read regularly.

Ioana wrote: "Larry, thanks for sharing your experience. Thankfully, my aunt is (so far) in the "not so bad" category, on chemo every other week for maybe a year and a half now, maybe even longer. Low dosage onl...So happy to hear about your wife, I hope her cancer never comes back"

It's the daily PARP inhibitor, specifically Niraparib, that keeps her cancer from coming back so far. Extremely powerful ... and monthly blood work has helped get the dosage right. Modern treatments allow many patients to live with cancer instead of dying from cancer. It usually starts with finding a very good oncologist and working with him or her. Here's one other thing that may surprise some people ... we easily could have gotten a good oncologist at John Hopkins (particularly through my wife's cousin) but we chose treatment of her cancer at the Schar Cancer Institute of Inova Fairfax Hospital (in Northern Virginia). You may get just as good treatment not at one of the leading university medical research hospitals. (Yeah, we talked to my wife's cousin about that decision, too.) If you have a good internist, she can help you with that decision about where to have your treatment ... chemo, radiation, surgery, immunotherapy, etc.

Ioana wrote: "Larry wrote: "I am glad you found it. I do hope that it is useful."

I hope I will never need it for my immediate/immediate family, but one of my aunts is going through chemo right now, and I'll re..."

Ioana, one thing you learn when you are close to a number of people going through chemo is that the experience is totally personal. It can be really rough or not so bad. I think it was the third chemo treatment when we got home and my wife ate a huge pasta meal. She had two six cycle treatments and she ate a sandwich and a snack during most of those. Very little nausea due to the drugs to mitigate the nausea. But other patients are not so lucky. Chemo can be very, very hard on some patients. My wife was lucky. When she started, in the fall of 2020, we hoped that she would make it to see Christmas. She's essentially cancer free now, but we know that it often comes back.