Cohiba Red Dot Robusto Cigar Review

Vitola: Robusto (5" x 49RG)
Price: $10 +/- stick

Wrapper: Cameroon
Binder: Indonesian
Filler: Dominican grown Cubano Piloto

Aged in Humidor: One Month


Appearance and Construction:

The Cohiba Red Dot in a Robusto size seems tiny, but sometimes I don't like fat and long ones because I don't like going over an hour smoking, no matter how good. Pleasure only last so long before it becomes ordinary. The wrapper appears to be a nice dark shade of brown. The cap and body are clean and smooth looking. The end of the cigar where you light it does not have a perfect filled oval layer of filler, there are three tiny nooks. There is also a white string like stem from a tobacco leaf amongst all the brown layers but I have seen this in other cigar endings, no biggie this may be just the stick I am smoking. It has a slightly oily shine to it. To me, it looks like someone took a stick of wood emptied it out, sanded it out to a uniform cylinder, filled it with tobacco filler, put a dark polish on it and lightly lacquered it. The cigar is firm and bounces back ever so slightly on squeezing the body. This appears to be a well built stick. Even the band is designed smoothly and stays on there well, it moves only ever so slightly.

Set of Photos of the Cohiba Red Dot Robusto

Tasting Notes:

On prelighting I get only a tad aroma of that sweet and earthy smell. I do this four times because I like the scent of a cigar as much as the smoking part. Each time I only get a light aroma, possibly because it has been sitting in my humidor only a month.

I light it up. In my opinion of the one I smoked, this is a mild to medium flavored cigar. The Cohiba Red Dot would be nice for an average day relaxing or lounging. The price range for these are for ten dollars, I think not worthy, maybe for a lower price. On initial light it starts off soft burning with light smoke. I easily detect tiny hints of spice and sweet earthy flavors. The mediocre tobacco flavor is there, sometimes just that, tobacco flavor, no sweet or complex flavors. It burns slowly with that light spice and sweet earthiness appearing and disappearing.

At the second of third stage is when it becomes slightly interesting and the flavor of sweet cinnamon on woodiness comes into play. This is when it becomes good. At this point I can see that this Cohiba Red Dot is nicely rolled because it is still burning at a very tranquil pace, the ash reaches the one inch phase and drops off, but it was like a white and grey tater tot with parts of it's shell lightly flaking off. It comes and goes, that hint of sweet cinnamon on wood flavor. I can also detect a nutty flavor, like hazelnut or almond. I would say this is the nicest part of the cigar and I float down stream with this aroma until the third stage where it's just mostly tobacco flavors and a hint of coffee. I smoke it all the way to the nub as I do often. The before and the aftermath smell of the cigar are good: a lightly sweetened earthy aroma.

I would rate this a 85 because I sure had worst and far better. This is a good kind of mild cigar. Maybe another in the future or a XV

 Set of Photos of the Cohiba Red Dot Robusto The End

 Photo of the Cohiba Red Dot Robusto against a background chilies in my yard

Comparison:

I can only slightly try and compare the original Cuban Cohiba to the Dominican Cubano Cohiba Red Dot. I tried to detect similar flavors that came from one to see if the same flavors were on the other but the similarities in flavor and construction were only so slightly present. Why? Because besides the name, I believe that's where it ends. They are two totally different brands, two totally different companies and totally different in growth and manufacturing. I have to say the Cohiba Esplendido cigars were of course much better than the Cohiba Red Dot cigars. I don't think the size had anything to do with it because the Esplendido is a Julieta No. 2 (Churchill) sized cigar and the Red Dot was a Robusto. Regardless of the size, say if the Red Dot had been a Churchill size, I think it would have been the same outcome. I think the darker wrapper of the Red Dot cigar versus the lighter tan of the Habanos S.A. cigar had a low significance on how the cigar smoked and how tasty it was or will be. If you look at the photos below, both have similar appearances.

The love affair of the Cuban Habanos S.A. brand comes from the flavor and a bit of how it smokes, in my opinion. Could it be due to the hype of an awesome object far away forbidden and harder to get because of the embargo, yes, that too. But then again other countries don't have this embargo with Cuba, it's just the U.S., so no, it's not hype. If you smoked one and then the other, you can then experience for yourself the complexity and how it smokes (draw, burn, ash, aroma...) differs quite a bit from one to the other.

You take the Cuban version, I assume like most people, all it's parts (filler, wrapper, binder, cap) are from Cuba and made (original seeding, harvesting, fermenting, blending and rolled) in Cuba by Cubans. Meaning usually but not always a product made by it's original people and crafted in the culture it originated from will have it's heritage and refinement through the years. Thus, even though cigar smokers want that product, the access to the product is not there due to the embargo or limitation. To meet that desire, they created Cohiba Red Dot, baring the same name and attempted to be crafted or marketed to be just like the Cuban version. Even with part of the filler with the Cubano seed, you're not getting the same thing. The parts come from the Dominican Republic, Africa, Indonesia... It's not the exact seeding, aging, blending or rolling. Due to legality of branding, it's just the same name, not the same product, no matter how much the attempt or marketing.

Set of Photos of the Cohiba Habanos S.A. compared with Cohiba Red Dot

Cohiba Esplendidos Cigar Review

I've been smoking cigars since I was as young as I could remember, 18. I do not consider myself an aficionado because I don't smoke them on a constant basis, just an enthusiast. My curiosity was why do usually honcho type figures do it. The icon is of an older gentlemen, usually, laid back with a sophisticated appearance. One example is Hannibal from The A-Team: "I love it when a plan comes together". At the young age of 18 without much money, I went to the local grocery store and picked up a Phillies Blunt for fifty cents. The Phillies Blunt price would eventually rise to seventy-five cents and recently a dollar, now some retailers dare sell it for one dollar and a quarter or more. The Phillies Blunt is a terrible cigar, even for a beginner because it puts a bad impression on what a decent cigar should be like. Though giving it a positive note, it is good for a beginner to compare. Secondly it's not that bad if you have nothing to compare it to. I have not had one in years but recalling the taste being coated with a sugary substance but then there's no flavor or aroma to it, just a bit on the stinky or bitter tobacco flavor, in a way just like a big cigarette.

Cigars are not meant to be cigarettes. In a essence they are meant to be a quality craft, like a good aged marble steak, aged wine or aged cheese. Some people will call it just smoking but no. Just like taking specific plants and making a salad, just like taking grapes and turning it into wine or killing a cow to make a porter house steak, a cigar is crafting tobacco leaves into flavor. That's the answer to my curiosity at a younger age. Cubans, the renown category or class of cigars hard to obtain because of the embargo the United States enacted toward Cuba for being a Communist government, yes there's more to it but this article is not about politics. Not only are Cuban cigars an obstacle and expensive to get but researching there are many imitations to the top Cuban cigar brands, specifically the Cohiba brand. Why? They say head honchos like Fidel Castro determined it to be a top notch blend, so if a head figure like Fidel Castro fount Cohiba(s) to be an ace, then the rest of Cuba and other nation's cigar smokers followed. It is just that bootleggers like that of music and designer wear make money off replicating the desired quality of the legit, on the negative aspect, ruining it for the consumers. Unlike music, which might have distorted sound quality, you can live with it and it's free. But think if you paid four thousand dollars for a fake Louis Vuitton bag worth thirty dollars, cigar smokers don't want to pay for dirt in their puff.

I did my research before I went and bought my Cohiba Espledidio cigars. I learned to look at the clarity and alignment of the label having the embossed golden Cohiba printed as well as the bold in script Habana, Cuba. I read to check for how many squared dots as well as where it is cut off. I checked for anything off about the band. I checked the cap: looked at it's construction and made sure it's a triple cap. I looked over the body and even peaked at the foot but never examined that portion in great detail. I smelt and squeezed one before I paid. I did not get these from the factory in Cuba directly. I did not even get to see the box itself. I bought a dozen. I got them from someone I know as an acquaintance whose mother lives in Cuba and he said he being family is allowed to visit on this account. I read there are only less than a handful of airlines or airports from the United States to Cuba and you need a specific type of visa for visiting, most travel outside the United States and then get a passport and visa and go from there. Analyzing my purchase, each one seems almost perfect: the wrapper has these neat, sort of hidden veins that blend in well, smooth, tan colored sheets of crafted tobacco leaf. The foot: the opening on the bottom where you light looks like an oval of layered tobacco. Based on many of the pictures online of fakes versus real, I determine that I have the legit shit. But only 95% so, there is still that 5% uncertainty that these master bootleggers have cloned the icon. So I smoke it:

Set of Photos of the Cohiba Esplendido Bands

More Photos Below...

Vitola: Julieta No. 2 - Churchill
Price: $30+ stick

Wrapper: Cuban, Vuelta Abajo or Habana
Binder: Cuban, Vuelta Abajo or Habana
Filler: Cuban, Vuelta Abajo or Habana

Aged in Humidor: One Month
(The remainder will age before smoking)


Tasting Notes:

Before even lighting it up, I could smell a light sweet aroma, not a melted or coated with sugar sweet. There are different kinds of sweet. This sweet aroma seems more refined, like from something aged and having it's naturals sugars release. I light it and it takes a moment but I start to detect a hint of woody (cedar like), earthy and cocoa flavor. It is really smooth smoking through and through. So far so good. Now I am on the second third of the Esplendido where the heart of the cigar is and I start to get the hint of a nutty taste mixing in with the cocoa taste, a sort of Nutella flavor, I get this note throughout the cigar and it is the best and dominant flavor I have tasted in any cigar. This is how the remainder of the cigar's flavor will be like with the occasional hint of spicy kick and the mentioned tasting notes in and out, all the way until there is thumb length left. The hint of earth or soil where the filler comes from changes sometimes from a medium to a deep flavor or a mix of flavors.

I had a cup of cheap coffee with it and after I smoked and sipped the coffee it washed away the quality flavors of the smoke, so I kept smoking and stopped drinking the cheap coffee. Remember these are medium to full flavor smokes. I think I would have done well to have gotten a Starbucks coffee, black (no sugar or creamer/milk), to accompany the Esplendido.

Appearance and Construction:

These Cohiba Esplendido cigars are packed on the dense side. In addition to the aforementioned: the foot of the cigar, the hole where you light up looks like waves of the edges of tobacco filler. The wrapper is tan with veins you can barely see, flawless, smooth, and with no blemishes. There was probably one in a dozen that had maybe a smidgen of a tear in the wrapper. The wrapper: a near perfect smoothness like a stripe on the American flag made of cloth, but it's Cuban. The triple cap seemed smooth and bound well. I had two, one on a quiet Sunday afternoon in my yard and another the day after, yeah the yearning for another the next day because the pleasure stuck on my mind.

This is a really good cigar, as many have pointed out, worthy of it's name and price. I fount the draw to be good once I got it going. The ash burnt like the pictures I have seen, kind of like Marge Simpsons hair, instead of blue, as if it were greying out. The cigar never went out on it's own, it clung on for about two inches until I moved and it fell off. I did not have the heart to dissect any of them for CSI purposes but when I was almost done and got to like about an inch and a half way burnt out, I started to tear the wrapper and binder, smelt the great aroma and fount the filler to be quality tobacco leaves, not dried up. The second one, I followed cigar etiquette and let it burn out on it's own. Even when I knew it was coming to an end or didn't want to smoke any more, I didn't want to stop, so I let it burn until almost the very tip. I would rate the Cohiba Esplendido a 92 from a semi-novice cigar smoker.

Set of Photos of the Cohiba Esplendido Caps

Set of Photos of the Cohiba Esplendido Below the Band 

Set of Photos of the Cohiba Esplendido The End

Jeremy Lin

In everything there is a positive side and a dark side.  Even Superman has his Kryptonite and Bizarro. -Andrew Szeto

When was the last time the New York Knicks won the NBA Championships? 1973.  When was the last time the Knicks won it's highest consecutive games, back in the 70's with 18 consecutive wins, about 40 years ago?  Jeremy Lin didn't do it himself but Lin-sanity definitely brought morale, teamwork and a boost for new and old fans by bringing the Knicks into the Playoffs (even though the Knicks lost in the early rounds of the Playoffs - I wrote this in February 2012 and just finishing off now in June, I'm now rooting for Oklahoma City Thunder).  The Knicks lost to the Hornets to not make eight consecutive wins during this season's win streak. With Stoudemire back from injuries and Carmelo Anthony coming back from his injury, the temperature of Lin-sanity fever might temper down a little. But the question is all this attention toward Jeremy Lin: racial hype or worthy praise?

An article from the Chicago Tribune by Jae-Ha Kim aided in adding viewpoints to this blog
http://www.jaehakim.com/lifestyles/issue-lifestyles/jeremy-lin-matters-to-kyle/

But before that article existed, Lin-anity was already scorching because of what that young talented Chinese rooted, Taiwanese, Asian point guard has done for the Knicks.  His less than one month career with the Knicks has elevated his status to a worthy level by scoring and bringing the Knicks out of the shadows as a losing team.  That ability to get those consecutive wins gave fans hope, he brought back the Knicks and their fans; not only did he bring hope back to the Knicks and their fans, his ethnicity added Asian fans (more so Chinese, but not only Asian fans, he made every ethnicity notice: potential).  All races were cheering, rooting and commenting on his talent.  But as someone who has his similar ethnicity would be even more proud, like a Black person seeing the first Barack Obama, but in a lower pinnacle of success. For those screaming this is on the lines of racism or stereotype, you should go back to the cabin in the woods and knit a sweater for me.  When one minority has reached success in an area dominated by a majority, there will always be fanfare.  There have been few Asian basketball players in the NBA getting such attention since Yao Ming. I'm not saying he is an inspiration and a role model to a New Yorker and Asian only, but especially so. There is a reason to be excited as both a New Yorker and Asian-American.

The first answer is yes he is hyped for being Asian, if you watch him play, he only scores slightly above 60%, he misses a good 40% of his field goals.  Though he is above average, there are many other players that play equally to his performance, yet they do not get as much attention. Comparing him to legends makes him a worthy statistic, it's still too early to tell if he's really that good. But then again, with those statistics and skill comparison, no he is not hyped.  He is a very good basketball player that came out of Harvard.

It is the combination of both hype and actual talent: the rarity of an Asian-American basketball player doing so well in a non-Asian-American field and he's doing it well for a team known to fail in the reflection of the Yankees and Giants.

The Etymology:

If you research his career, his performance was unseen until he was accepted by a coach that honed his skills.  He was undrafted after college and was cut from two teams for supposedly better, more expensive, players.  The metaphoric laugh is with Lin.  After he was traded from the Warriors, the Knicks and all the fans, Asian and even non-Asian alike, benefited from what was dormant.  In the stands you have Taiwanese flags waving and non-Asians wearing the number seventeen.  He's in all the newspapers. Well he was, before he got injured.  He is now living in one of Trump Towers high rise apartments.  I loved the way he and Carmelo Anthony got along.  Can't wait to see what he does next season, but for now it's team: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden in the spotlight.


The Darker Side:

I don't care if people start labeling this topic as having a racial or stereotypical mentality. Facts are facts, history is history, and without them, lessons are not learned and changes not made.  Yes, Black people, no not just African-Americans, all people with black or darker skin are at the top of the list for racism.  Yes it's a bad thing and a topic people rather not touch on because it creates a metaphoric storm.  But for me I am always an open ear and open experience, my experience and anyone else, actually I thrive on culture.  Everyone has heard of racism toward Black people, it is not just America's top history lesson.  But have you considered racism toward all types of people?  Have you heard a White person or a person of Latin decent racially insult a Black person?  Have you ever heard of a Black person or Latin person racially insult a White person?  Have you ever heard a Black person or a Latin person racially mock an Asian person?  I have seen this, mostly growing up and less now.  I'm sure my father saw even worst.  Ironically when a race that has been through so much racial hardship, you would think that there would be no racism, but people remain uneducated.  Would you believe where I grew up, I had more African-Americans and Latins playing the racist card rather than from Caucasians.  Do you know how many times I have seen an uneducated young or even adult African-American say something racist?  I am not pointing fingers, there are racist Asians as well but I'm speaking of what's more widespread.  I don't think that was the idea of what Martin Luther King Jr had in mind when he was fighting for racial freedom or was it equality, not to fight through years of hate to have freedom to hate back but equality.  That's the importance of educating history: teaching that many took whips to the back, water from fire hoses beamed at them, having to sit in a classroom as the only minority being strong against being different, beatings ending up in the hospital or death and the segregation of not being allowed to drink from the same water fountain.

If you read the article I linked above: Jeremy Lin matters to Kyle, in it Jae-Ha Kim mentions a little about how she grew up in a more unaccustomed to race differences part and time of America.  She describes the lack of Asians in the media, how she was treated racially different and had to deal with racism.  She then also goes on to describe her son in a different, more open to the racial divide.  "What a difference a few decades make."  I have a total empathy for the short column because it goes similar for myself and many "Asians" growing up prior to the late 90s.  In the column, the response field only allowed a certain amount of characters and this is in part what I had in mind and responded with:

"In New York where I grew up, I rarely ever got called “chink” but was often taunted with a similar: “ching chong” then people would pull their eyes to the side slanted. I had similar taunts growing up also and it got stuck on my mind a little bit but I believe I arose out of it. I never felt emotional pain from it, just thought the insulters were idiots, but never liked it regardless. These “bullies” I think were more so in the ’80s or prior. They grouped all Asians the same thinking “we all ate cat or dogs”, I mean please, you have tourist seeing a small group of say 1000 or so out of a billion Asians who have done that and they think we all do. Your article is so right, in the 70s & 80s people didn’t see the good, just the poor “dirty” side of the population, never seeing the positive/potential side, so I guess they insult based on the “dirty” side they see. Times have changed in the past decades, there is less prejudice, let me emphasize: less. As Asians continue to adapt & expand more into media the future looks brighter..."

The last thing she wrote in that column is "I suspect he rose above it, which is what I hope my son will do, too, should the need arise."  I arose out of it, as well.  For those that can do this and become Jeremy Lin or Barak Obama or even just a role model without such potential gives the next generation a better hope, not just Asians, all races alike.

Yelp!

My friend said "No I don't yelp because it hurts my lung"...

The reason I haven't been posting lately is simply because I have been on www.yelp.com
Feel free to add me at: www.axdrew.yelp.com... if you use it.

No, I'm not abandoning this blog.

Outliers

Think of my writings not as a desultory of subjects but rather random focal points in my life. My pool of knowledge not derived from as if a nomad with a wondering direction but a curious intellect pointing like a magnetic compass toward arbitrary and methodical intellect. -Andrew Szeto


The second book I read completely in the new year, after reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, is Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. I actually heard of and read part of Outliers in 2009 but never completed it, just like his book The Tipping Point, which sits on my bookshelf seventy percent of the way done and partially remembered. Maybe I'll re-read it sometime. Outliers is along the lines of sociology and anthropology, it analyzed culture and how things became the way they are, in this case "The Story of Success" or stories and examples of how individuals became successful. Reading or taking topics from this book won't make you the next Bill Gates, but his example is told within. By the way there are spoilers on topics ahead...


Malcolm Gladwell starts the book by defining the word outlier:
1: something that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body
2: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the other of the sample

"Roseto Valfortore lies one hundred miles southwest of Rome..." and in the late 1800s a large number of the citizens of Roseto eventually migrate and settle to Bangor, Pennsylvania. These Roseto residents in Bangor were noticed by a physician to have better than average cardiovascular health. "In Roseto, virtually no one under fifty-five had died of a heart attack or showed any signs of heart disease. For men over sixty-five, the death rate from heart disease in Roseto was roughly half that of the United States as a whole." The physician, Stewart Wolf, did a study and further examined why this was the case. In his investigation, he fount that this was not the case in surrounding towns very close to the Rosetans of Bangor. It was fount that at the time there were no medication to aide in having good heart health. Residents smoked, were obese and didn't exercise much. The way of life was average, no special diets. Gladwell points out that for this peculiar occurence, Rosetans are an outlier case. In the end it was fount the reason was contributed to that Rosetans had a very strong community bond, having this close family like town contributed to good heart health.


To summarize the book in a simple description, Malcolm Gladwell illustrates that to be successful, it takes the right timing, many hours of practice, unique opportunities, privileges or resources, talent, luck and the culture you are from along with the epoch you're from matters.


Chapter One
The Matthew Effect:

"For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath." -Matthew 25:29

The meaning behind this parable is that resources in life are often given to those who already have advantages and those that don't have some form of pre-existing advantages are put onto a group that do not get help and likely even having what they already have taken away. Chapter one points out that a psychologist's wife, while attending a hockey game with husband, notices the birthdays of the players on the roster, in that most, if not all, the hockey players were born in an early month of the year. This is to give young nine or ten years old children an earlier advantage to grow, practice and get better as opposed to a young hockey player being born in October through December having less time to stimulate. The Canadian hockey teams cutoff date to be accepted into a good program is January 1st. Gladwell then gives examples on how this happens for other sports, as well as education. Sporting scouts will then select the bigger and better, the ones usually given an early start because of their month in birth.

Chapter Two
The 10,000-Hour Rule:

"In Hamburg, we had to play for eight hours."

The Beatles were just another high school rock band. It wasn't until they were invited to play constantly for hours on hours in clubs in Hamburg, Germany. "The Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, five or more hours a night." Gladwell then goes on to explain before coming to the U.S., Lennon and McCartney were already playing together seven years. And Mozart, a genius? Well it seems his earlier "works are not outstanding" cited from the book Genius Explained by Michael Howe.

"the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one: by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years."

In this chapter Gladwell explains how in the late 1960s computer programs were compiled using cardboard punch cards feed into huge mainframes one line of code at a time. These mainframes took up entire huge rooms and were owned only by large companies like IBM. It would take hours or days to have your program completed because the compilation had to be scheduled. The invention of what's called time-sharing allowed multiple access to the same compilation without the appointment which improved speed in getting the program built. In the early 1970s only a few colleges and organizations had time-sharing, guess which? The very same schools like the University of Michigan which Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems) had attended. Gladwell goes on to discuss that in Bill Joy's college education, hours upon hours, days and until the late hours of the night, were spent programming. The 10,000-Hour rule is admitted from Bill Joy stating "So, so maybe... ten thousand hours... That's about right."  In my calculating 10,000 hours in the average American work hours at 40 hours a week, times 52 weeks a year, 10,000 hours is about 5 years.  If Bill Joy had an early unique opportunity to a unique programming resource as time-sharing, then Bill Gates is said to have had an even earlier start. Coming from a wealthy background had the privilege to send Bill Gates to a top private school that also had time-sharing in it's computer program. Not many schools had computer classes back then, nor time-sharing access. Along with a little luck, drive, his share talent, the right connections also spent hours upon hours programming. By the time he had started Microsoft, Bill Gates had 7 years and had over ten thousand hours of programming experience.

Gladwell then goes back on the importance of dates, birth dates. This time it's not about months, it's about years, specifically being born in the early or mid 1950s (Bill Joy - 1954, Steve Jobs - 1955, Bill Gates - 1955). One of the first personal computers to hit the mass market sold thousands in the mid 1970s. These PCs needed a programming language to go with them, and who is in line to provide this for the revolution? It would seem from the year 1950, one born at this time, until 1960, it would make them 10 years old, not old enough to do anything, but he or she is a seed. In the next several years one would begin his or her starting point in either math, science or technology. Bill Gates and Bill Joy immersed themselves in the world of computers. By the mid 1970s, when the first PCs were being sold, they were in the perfect age, 20s. They had already had a rare background of over 5 years from the age of 13-15 until they were in their 20s, the perfect age to take part in the PC revolution; the perfect time to fulfill the need for programming those PCs. With pre-existing math talent, access to unique resources, connections, 10,000 hours and the right timing made computing success for these individuals.

Chapter Three and Four
The Trouble with Geniuses Part 1 and Part 2:
"Knowledge of a boy's IQ is of little help if you are faced with a formful of clever boys."

Without reinforcement of resources or without the right formula or connections, having high IQ does not necessarily guarantee success, no matter how smart one is. In addition, once someone reaches a certain number in IQ it doesn't matter how much higher someone else is to be deemed a smarter genius, meaning someone with an IQ of 140 is not necessarily smarter than someone 130. It's like a basketball player 6' 6" tall is not necessarily better than a 6' 2" tall basketball player. Success also depends on a factor other than great talent, height or IQ (having analytical intelligence), it also depends on practical intelligence (the ability to work with people and use logic) or even divergent intelligence (using your brain to come up with different usages for things other than it's practical purpose or imagination to create).

Chapter Five
The Three Lessons of Joe Flom:

"Mary got a quarter"

Lesson Number One: The Importance of Being Jewish

(Joe Flom was the last remaining partner of the prestigious Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom.)

A figurative highlight in the book for me must have been in this chapter where the Harvard Law School classmate of Joe Flom, Alexander Bickel, was turned down for a position in Mudge Rosen (another prestigious law firm). The exact reason was because of Alexander Bickel's "antecedents." Antecedent means of the past. In this case having Jewish ancestors. Bickel had already earned his reputation for being an outstanding lawyer. Gladwell goes on to explain two more lessons on the backgrounds of Flom and Bickel. If you're turned down by one group, you form your own. So Jewish law firms took jobs the big time firms didn't want, like at the time big firms didn't like litigation, civil cases or hostile takeovers (1930s-1960s). By the 1970s all that changed, with all these companies booming: litigation and hostile takeovers became a big thing, and based on the 10,000-Hour rule, the likes of the Jewish lawyers were already experienced in handling what prior to 1970s big time firms didn't handle. The game was now switched.

Lesson Number Two: Demographic Luck

A father is a lawyer and his son is a lawyer. One had the potential to be successful but didn't but his son did. The reason behind it was based on the needs and flourishing opportunities of the times. Times meaning during World War II, The Great Depression or our modern war that caused the recession of Bush-Obama. There's less people or more people in need of any given system (welfare, schooling, food supply), less people means more resources and more people means less resources. Father grew up in the midst of the Great Depression so no success and son after, thus successful.

Lesson Number Three: The Garment Industry and Meaningful Work

If you knew how to sew from the old country, bring your skills to the land of opportunity. Even though the long hours and reward is minuscule, the meaningful part is knowing or at least hoping one day the strive to make a poor living off garments will feed and shelter a child who will be a lawyer, maybe a successful one. Jewish immigrants had to work hard from immigrant status to using what they knew from the old country to put forth for those in the field of law to emerge. In this chapter Gladwell describes the importance of ancestry and changes in the times for success to rise from poor immigrants.

Why did Malcom Gladwell put a description of "Mary got a quarter" in the header under the title of this chapter? Because poor immigrants can't afford tickets to such classy events held at Carnegie Hall. Instead if you knew a ticket taker like Mary, you'd give her a quarter and she'd let "you stand in the second balcony, without a ticket." This was a crafty way a poor immigrant and a successful lawyer could afford a bit of culture.

Chapter Six
Harlan, Kentucky
(Culture of Honor is a piece of southern culture, where insulting one's pride can lead to a feud.)

If your great-great-great granddaddy was a bad-ass, you might also be a bad-ass.

"Cultural legacies are powerful forces. They have deep roots and long lives. They persist, generation after generation, virtually intact, even as the economic and social and demographic conditions that spawned them have vanished, and they play such a role in directing attitudes and behavior that we cannot make sense of our world without them.* (Cited, Dov Cohen)

Chapter Seven

The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes
(Korean Air)

I think it was the Discovery Channel or the National Geographic Channel, I forget which but I saw a documentary on Korean Air flight 007, a plane that accidentally entered Russian air space and was shot down killing all 269 passengers. The black box from the crash held for years by the Russians was examined not to be tampered entailed the conversation and functionality of the aircraft. It turns out it was a wrong setting on the aircraft overlooked by the pilots. Both pilots were also not paying attention to details because they are suppose to go over a checklist before taking off. Or it could have been, the First Officer depended too much on the Captain's authority and experience to not take action on making sure everything was correct himself. Gladwell mentions this incident in one sentence in the book but goes on to explain that Korean Air has had other crashes in the time frame of "1988 to 1998" was "seventeen times higher" than United Airlines. Gladwell goes into detail about Korean Air flight 801 to Guam. It would seem Koreans have a high PDI (Power Distance Index). PDI is a term from a Dutch psychologist, Geert Hofstede. The meaning of PDI is how "much a particular culture values and respects authority", meaning how much an individual or the people of a nation respects the government or it's hierarchy based on the power structure or it can also be illustrated in how much lax or how strict communication is between lower ranking individuals and higher power authorities. The black box that monitored the conversation between the pilot and co-pilot on the crashed flight examines and explains that if the lower ranking pilots and engineers have been more assertive and spoken up, then the errors that caused the crash may have given them a second chance in avoiding fatality. In some nations, like Korea, you respect your elders and show meekness toward authority (high PDI), even when your superiors are wrong or not focused to detail that should be focused on. America has a lower PDI, yes there is authoritative hierarchy in the U.S. but it's not as strong, if my boss did something wrong, I would not go uhm, uh, whuh, I would just tell him straight out. The PDI structure in the cockpit was a problem with Korean and other high PDI nations. I have always known the manner in which you communicate with others is a very important thing in how something plays out. By the way since Korean Air's cultural PDI revamp in 2000, their flying record has been impeccably good.

Chapter Eight
Rice Paddies and Math Test
"No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich."
(...is a chant rice paddy workers would say throughout the day to keep motivation and mind strong in their labor.)

It takes more work, supposedly three thousand hours annually, to field a few small rice paddies than it does larger fields of wheat or corn. The reason is because corn and wheat fields can be done with machinery, more automated than rice. Rice being more of a precise and manual labored crop. Well, let this Chinese person do some math with you again, 40 hours a week times 52 weeks a year is 2,080 work hours a year. With Saturdays and Sundays off, 3,000 hours a year is approximately 11.5 hours a day, that's half your day, I barely want to do my 8 hours a day. Just like a Jewish person willing to work hard from immigrant status so the next generations can become lawyers, so do rice paddy builders. Gladwell then applies that same hard work in building rice paddies to math. In addition to the hard work factor, another reason why Asians are so "prowess" in math is because it's easier to count in Asian systems than in the American system because the American system includes more unfamiliar numbers as it goes up: eleven, twelve, thirteen, twenty, thirty... while Asians system do not. I don't know about that statement because it's not different by that much; the Chinese system doesn't have "eleven or twelve", true, it's said "ten-one or ten-two", does this factor really makes it more faster or easier to count? Gladwell also states in this ease, it makes math more fun, does it? I don't find the ease or fun part true. First: I can count just as fast in the American counting system as I can in the Chinese counting system. Second, I don't find one system more fun to count in than the other. Do you know that in other countries, some math systems are approached differently? I have been multiplying in the American system all my life, by multiplying the furthest multiplier on the right with the multiplicand and putting the product under the line in one row, then as I move left in decimal I would do the same, multiply the multiplier with the multiplicand and put the product below the first product but one space to the left, before adding to get the final answer. Someone showed me another system in doing that, simpler. These reasons could be why Americans and other nations approach math differently. The example he's trying to give with hard work or if you keep on studying then you become good at math is understandable but this theory stating if you are good at building rice paddies is a far comparison and counting system difference has flaws to it. The answer to becoming better at math has nothing to do with how we count or building rice paddies but more practice and the challenge to become better, making it simpler and taking the time to understand or solve, that leads to success in math.

Chapter Nine
Marita's Bargain
"All my friends now are from KIPP."

"In the mid-1990s, an experimental public school called the KIPP Academy opened on the fourth floor of Lou Gehrig Junior High School in New York City.* KIPP stands for "Knowledge Is Power Program." Lou Gehrig is in the seventh school district, otherwise known as the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City."

I have been to the South Bronx over a dozen times in the past several years, there have been major development and improvement since the decades prior to the 1990s. There are only a handful of reasons to go to the South Bronx: a game at Yankee Stadium, heard about a really good Dominican restaurant, for curiosity reasons you just want to check out the neighborhood, cheap rent/hostel, business or friend in the area. The reason is the area is mainly for cheap housing, lines and lines of apartment buildings, some shabby and some renovated. One might pass by a few vacant lots every once in a while, a school, a park, garages, warehouses, a row of small bodegas or restaurants. Until recently, there were few department stores or large chain markets. Nothing wrong with the neighborhood or it's people, it's just undeveloped and if you weren't from the area, it would be an outlier, in the lower income sense. The undeveloped part also goes for the educational statistics in the area, meaning low scores in schools.

A program like KIPP that takes first come first serve, then a lottery for reserve when the limit of acceptance has been reached is a great opportunity for fifth graders looking to get a head start in life (or to escape the statistics), since it's acceptance is not based on prior history in academics or economic background. Meaning KIPP schools are advanced equal opportunity schools. It is based on a strong mathematics program, lengthy hours (7:30am to 5:00pm), extra school days in the summer (occasional Saturdays), teaching formality in behavior and requiring parent involvement.

The reason Gladwell names this chapter Marita's Bargain is because that's the deal, she gives up a bit of her leisure life in the statistics of having low grades in the South Bronx for a better education and head start in life. The comment Marita makes: "All my friends now are from KIPP." means she followed through, her life is surrounded by the KIPP environment. KIPP has had a reputation for getting it's students into ivy league private universities (some with scholarships). This in sense Gladwell is describing success does not matter of the background, it depends on the resource and dedication to hard work that is needed to get to success. In addition, resources and dedication to hard work at an early age. This is an ideal easier said than done. For one, the hard work and extra hours are the easy part, if you are lucky enough to get in to KIPP. The hard part is to feed the family, parents have to work (when I was growing up I saw my father only once a week). The second part of the hard part is that parents have to understand before their children understand then care enough in their children's future.

Epilogue
A Jamaican Story
"If a progeny of young colored children is brought forth, these are emancipated."

Progeny means background of ethnicity and emancipated means to be freed from a form of restraint. Malcom Gladwell's great-great-great grandfather was from Ireland. In other words, when his grandma's great-grandfather settled on his Jamaican plantation in 1784, from Ireland, he bought a slave woman, descendant of an African tribe, as a concubine. Gladwell states that in Jamaica sexual relations between whites and blacks back then weren't a big a deal as it was in the United States, so it was common or accepted. However, the complexion of dark and light skinned individuals did matter. What's described as "White and light" got better treatment and less so as one's complexion got darker. Besides color discrimination, the Jamaican educational system was poor back then, for further education like college, one must leave to the England or America for higher education. Reform was what helped Gladwell's grandmother to understanding the importance of a good education and it was that which allowed the process for Gladwell's mother to get a higher education. These factors in his family lineage in turn crafted Malcom Gladwell to achieve the height of his journalistic career. The reason Gladwell digs into his ancestry is because like the background of greats like Bill Gates, you have to not look so much at the image of success but how it leads there. Malcom Gladwell considers himself an outlier, understandable because without a lineage of opportunities, direction, resources, family history, help, hard work, change in times, maybe he would be selling coconuts in Jamaica or Bill Gates would have programmed a line of really good games for Nintendo, instead of them being where they are; success is not built on share talent.

Fire!

Well at least I hope not.

Maybe I was more enthusiastic about the hype and the purchasing adrenaline of the holidays but I purchased the Kindle Fire in between Christmas and New Years.  When the first Kindle came out I assumed it was just another gadget like the Roomba (robotic vacuum), an electronic device that does serve a purpose but not highly functional and definitely not worth the four hundred dollar price tag (both mentioned were around four hundred dollars at the time).  The other reason is because I wasn't in the market for an e-reader or a tablet at the time, that was in 2009.  In 2011, when Amazon came out with the fourth generation Kindle and lowered the price to seventy nine dollars, it was more reasonable but I still wasn't interested because an e-reader wasn't on my purchasing list, the Kindle was not versatile enough.  You're going to pay seventy nine dollars and still have to pay for the book (maybe less for the e-book but you still have to pay).  However, one of my close colleagues at work has been reading off the original fourth generation version all the time.  She then upgraded to the Kindle Touch and gave the original to her daughter, then she bought the Kindle Fire version and gave the Kindle Touch to her other daughter.  She showed me the Fire and a week later I'm watching Sons of Anarchy season one on it, in which I missed a few episodes when it was being aired on television.  I'm going to start watching season two this weak on the Fire, because I missed season two completely as it aired on television.  I already watched season three and four on television.

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e-Books

The first eBook I read on my Kindle Fire is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I downloaded it for free because a few of my co-workers were talking about it.  Every month with Amazon Prime ($79 annually) you get one free e-Book.  In terms of display for reading, it is excellent, you can adjust the brightness and change the text smaller or larger.  There is even this option where you can touch the screen on that word and the definition for it will popup.  It's very clear.  If you change the positioning while reading on the Kindle Fire, say tilt it upside down or from vertical to a horizontal position, the screen will balance out to the normal viewing position, so that you won't be reading upside down, this goes the same for all other viewing positions besides e-books (This feature should go under Video or Display but I'll leave it here under this category).  It has the touch screen option where you can widen or zoom in by dragging your fingers.

Music

It's good for music at ninety nine cents a song.  There are a few rare free songs available to download.  The volume on standalone mode, meaning without plugging in speakers or headphones is decent you can hear it well but not in stereo volume.  The volume is of course adjustable.

Video

Some movies that Amazon license are free (the really old ones or ones no one ever heard of, possibly just to add to their marketing numbers), others come at a reasonable price ($2.99).  On the Kindle Fire you can view shows from channels like the FOX Network, PBS and a few others (again free shows are old or blah shows, the newer or popular ones like Glee or Pan Am at $1.99).  The video on this little gadget is above fair.  I read the volume depends on the movie or show.  These movies or shows are via streaming video, meaning you have to be connected on a Wi-Fi network to watch them.  I also heard some movies you purchase can be downloaded onto your Kindle for later viewing but others videos or shows are only available on streaming video.  I wish they had a Closed Caption option.

1. That's my Kindle Fire playing Sons of Anarchy.

2. I still have the original clear wrap around it until I buy a case for it)

3. The picture is a bit clearer, blogspot.com formats the photo

Docs

The first document in this section will be the Kindle Fire User's Guide (the guide shows the many basic functions on how to use the Fire).  You can store documents in this category.  You can't create a document in this section.  However, I had a document of phone numbers on my laptop and I was able to email the Amazon provided email address: andrew@kindle.com (example) and that document of phone numbers showed up on my Fire in the Docs section.  The bad side is that it didn't allow me to accept or deny the document, it just appeared there.  This could be bad in the case of spam or malicious inserting unwanted documents on my Fire, even though you can remove them from the carousel.

Apps

The limited Android market.  You don't get access to Google's full Android market due to Amazon not licensing it fully with Google.  They save a few million and Kindle Fire users save $300.00 or more compared to the Apple's iPad.  But the iPad is way more versatile and comes with way more applications.  There is a fun to play App. requiring good balance and coordination called Seven Stars 3D in which you tilt the Fire physically to move this ball to maintain it on a thin platform, one wrong movement and the balls falls off the edge.

Web

The web is via Wi-Fi, no 3G yet.  The browser is nice, it loads small, but you can enlarge it to your fit.  It can be changed from mobile to full view.  The cache can be cleared.



---It has 5.35GB or 5.37GB of usable Hard Drive memory to store content, they say 8GB, but 2.6GB of memory is used for the OS, cache and operation.  If you store over that you can store the rest on Amazon Clouds and start deleting from your carousel to make more room on your Fire.

---8 Hours of battery life, I confirmed this is close to true in watching over 6 hours of movies until the battery bar got almost diminished.

---Dimensions: 7.5" x 4.5"
---Screen: 6.0" x 3.5"

---The only three external button or ports are the:
--Power On/Off
--USB 2.0
--Headphone

---Holding the Kindle Fire is with ease, so far no clumsy dropping it.

---Right now the Kindle Fire is probably in it's introductory phase, I hope they improve on features and functionality because they have been selling like hotcakes.  There are flaws to this device, for one it has a powering flaw where it won't charge and the image for a book on the carousel to display the image of which book it is, won't show.

Link to Amazon's Site Featuring Kindles

In any case I will be picking up Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins this Thursday, the second book in the novel of The Hunger Games, because I enjoyed The Hunger Games, I heard they are making The Hunger Games into the movie.  My friend told me the movie rights were sold before the book was even written.  And this was several years ago, I just heard of The Hunger Games last month.  The Hunger Games is along the lines of Harry Potter and Twilight, which I never got into.  But I do own Twilight (the first version) book, which I started reading half way and stopped. Right now, I'm almost done with reading an economics and sociology book, reading both at the same time, as if I get bored with one I switch to the other.

---I might update on this blog subject, but...

---That's it for now

Diet

One appreciates heaven more once one has seen hell. One appreciates proper nutritional eating more once taught or has seen the bad side effects of improper bodily functioning through over eating processed or synthetic foods. -Andrew Szeto

When I was younger, I improperly defined the meaning of the word: Diet.  The reason is because I would hear this word used by individuals overweight trying to lose weight describing what they eat as eating less food or eating healthier (less fattening or junk food).  Thus I thought the word diet only meant consuming less food or only foods that has no fat or healthy.  It was until I got older that I heard the term diet used to incorporate consumption of fatty and unhealthy foods also.  Yes, eating less and healthier is a form of diet and could be defined as such but there are other forms of diets; thus the meaning of diet can have multiple types or forms.  What does the word diet mean?  In actuality a diet includes everything a person consumes: (including the quantity) the unhealthy, innutritious and fattening foods as well as the healthy, nutritious and fatty.  Before young people are introduced to one meaning of the word diet: the need to eat less unhealthy foods because they are overweight or having health issues they should learn the meaning of diet is everything and how much of it they consume is part of their diet.  A diet effects health and performance.  Parents should learn first, advocate and discipline the need for a more nutritious diet.  But then again most normal young people have a properly functioning body system and metabolism than as we get older.

My diet has always had an intent of being low fat and nutritional full.  In my younger years I have fell short of intent.  My diet as a teenager has always been based on the meals I get at school which I assumed followed the pyramid dietary structure and then it was whatever my parents cooked or bought me after school.  I remember being feed white rice, meats, seafood and Chinese type greens with most meals.  In my twenties I began being able to be free of the school meals and free of parent cooking.  That's when I admit that my diet was at it's poorest.  The reason is because my body structure was built already, I am already raised and healthy; in my twenties begins the plight of drinking, pizza, burgers, fried foods and the such, leaning away from fruits, vegetables and proper protein packed foods.  In my twenties healthy meant a salad and that's it.  The main aspect that kept me well was probably because I was an active person and exercised often.  It wasn't until 26 that I learned the need for the full array of foods in order to maintain good health and yet I still ate pizza, burgers and fried foods.  I still do but much less.  As one gets older, the body doesn't maintain it's healthy structure as one younger including less energy, less testosterone, less bone mass from less time to exercise or eating the proper nutrition that comes from an array of foods.  Sometimes, people just cannot afford healthy foods because of their income, especially college students.  Organic or natural foods are just more expensive or not around their environment.  I am now 31 and have only recently changed my diet to include more whole grain, fiber, vegetables (more greens like broccoli and kale), fruits and healthy protein (been cutting back on red meats).

Ever since I was fifteen I drank soda, many kids do and so do adults (hence the "sugar water" companies being a billion dollar industry full of research and marketing), the worst of it was when I would drink more than a liter a day of Sunkist or Coca-Cola.  My body loved this sugar high and handled it well.  When you're healthy your body should produce enough insulin to convert the high fructose corn syrup into energy your cells use and to aide in muscle building.  If you keep absorbing all that sugar because your body still demands or craves the intake but your body either no longer produces insulin or the body cells no longer respond to the insulin converting the sugar, it's called diabetes.  The recommended daily intake of sodium is recommended at about one teaspoon of salt a day, you need less to function.  Obviously, if you eat commercial foods or foods prepared by others you cannot control what goes in and can easily go over the daily recommended amount, it's called cardiovascular problems, hypertension and can cause muscle cramps.  I had my blood examined in 2004 where everything was normal, my body fat was at 20%.  When I had it checked in 2009, everything was a bit high, so I vowed to eat healthy and I did.  Last month I had my blood and urine taken to the lab and everything about me including my triglyceride levels are fine and my body fat is at 15-18%.  The bad news is test showed my heart rate is a bit lower than it should be and sugar level higher than normal.  I will be going on a lower salt and and lower sugar diet. And I have kept that promise.  For the past three months, I have cut back drastically from red meats and soda, or anything with high sugar content, with only maybe a sip here and there.  I have also cut back on many processed or pre-cooked foods I think may include over kill on salt or chemicals (Nitrates or Synthetics).  I cook much of my own foods now that include greens: Broccoli, Kale, Spinach, Mustard/Turnip/Collard Greens with one dash of salt from from the shaker.  I look at almost every nutritional fact list before I bite into it.  Kids that's the meaning of the word diet: consume less sugar and salt to maintain each at a balanced state.

In addition to the above I was looking at men who have always kept their body physique in excellent condition and the number one person that came to mind is Sylvester Stallone.  Sylvester Stallone is now sixty five and still very well built but in addition to the fact that he's well built, his diet and exercise regimen is what contributes to his appearance and health at sixty five.  I was reading his Nutrition and Regimen (part Two of Health and Fitness) and will incorporate some of his hints into my diet and daily fitness.

Sylvester Stallone's Nutrition and Regimen

I have not thus far elaborated on the array of foods that I mentioned earlier.  If you research the different plants we call veggies including fruits, herbs, beans, meats, eggs, fish and the different types of sugars (glucose, fructose, sucrose, galactose, lactose... etc) you will find that each item mentioned provides a different vitamin or component to them that on the molecular level is part of chemistry.  I am no where near a chemist, I did well in the subject but I don't want to digress further.  Each of these vitamins or chemical components interact with our biology and effects our system.  Along with exercise and toxins in our environment, it makes our health and bodily functions.  There are many sites out there illustrating eating healthier.  Without elaborating any further, here are some interesting reads:

---Natural Vs. Synthetic Vitamins - I highly recommend reading because like many, I use to look for foods in the market that had vitamin supplements or the chemical vitamin equivalent instead of eating natural whole foods.

---whfoods.com - Spinach
---whfoods.com - Kale
---whfoods.com - Collard Greens
---whfoods.com - Vitamin D 
---whfoods.com - Brown Rice

---Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays

---That's it for now