Er, um, uh, and other useless words

What's with speakers using the phrase "If you will" as generic filler while talking? It's no different from "er" or "um" and is just as useless. I just heard a speaker use the phrase twice to apparently provide greater insight into other words that were already clear!

"What we're seeing is a better - or improved, if you will - habitat." WTH?! Gee thanks. I couldn't have navigated the complexities of that sentence without your critical linguistic guideposts. I didn't even have to use these breadcrumbs I stashed in my pocket for just that purpose.

This is why people like me write speeches, craft talking points and provide media and presentation training. If communicating was easy, everyone would be doing it. :-)

If Ava can't count dollars, it don't make sense

Somehow my daughter had more cash on hand than I did last week. $366. That's how much I found in her personalized piggy bank. I wanted to keep her occupied by hanging with J. and listening to the coins dropping into the bank and couldn't figure out why they weren't making noise.

It turns out J. has been stuffing all her monetary gifts in there, along with periodic loose dollars in his pockets at the end of the week. Cha-ching! So she has her own little savings account now at the credit union.
She enjoyed waving the bills around more than fiddling with the coins, smart investor-in-training that she is. I'm hoping I can teach her to say "miracle of compounding" before she's two.

There's a nifty compounding calculator here that shows if we add just $25/month to her account over the next 18 years and get an 8% average annual yield compounded monthly she'll have more than $13,000 when she gets ready to go off to college!

Clearly, with college tuition costs already in the stratosphere, we'll need to make additional investments for her too, but her little account could help cover the cost of books and incidentals for a couple years, or serve as a down payment on a little condo if she goes to a school where lots of students live off campus. With a couple roommates, she could easily cover the mortgage and finish school with a degree and an appreciating asset, which is still the foundation of wealth building for most families, current housing industry meltdown notwithstanding.

Black Enterprise magazine has a great initiative they've undertaken to help more families of color build generational wealth called the Declaration of Financial Empowerment. As their site explains, the program "seeks to empower you by changing your attitude toward money management and revealing comprehensive savings, investment and consumer strategies."

In the fascinating book "The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality," (PBS review here) author Thomas Shapiro argues that disparities of wealth partly explain "the higher risks of poverty, joblessness and incarceration" in communities of color.

In particular, the relative lack of intergenerational wealth (assets that parents or other family members hand down to their kids to build upon for the next generation) hurts communities of color while helping other communities to lift succeeding generations economically and socially beyond their own achievements. The simple act of being able to graduate from college debt free is a huge leg up for anyone. With no debt, you can take jobs or opportunities that may not pay much (or anything) up front, but provide valuable contacts, insight, and experience. For students with huge loans to pay back, this option is often just not possible. It also means that students from families with intergenerational assets (such as parents who can pay some or all of a student's college tuition) don't begin post-graduate life in the hole financially, which the book points out has its own compounded benefits that grow over time.

We're hoping to both provide a leg up for Ava and teach her to be a good steward of her (and our!) money. The book lays out the academic research for why this matters. But we can look around our own community and see it in action.

Building financial literacy in my child: another important task on my parental duty list.

Presidential politics, technology and the war on terrorists

I saw this image in my inbox and realized a) John Edwards must really be bored now that his campaign is over and b) the Democrats are clearly leveraging social media to connect with younger and more tech-savvy voters. They are at least making sure they have a toehold in that space, regardless of whether Twitter or Tumblr or some other application becomes the next category killer in new/social media.

Conversely, McCain is a self-described "computer illiterate," as referenced in Anna Quindlen's recent article about the importance of technology for today's leaders and even for past leaders. Specifically, Abraham Lincoln, who used the emerging technology of telegraphs to monitor battlefield conditions and make decisions during the Civil War.

I'm not saying leaders need to be friending me on Facebook and moblogging to get my vote. But we're in a world where the terrorists are using laptops and steganography to encrypt plans for destruction. So I'd rest a little easier knowing the Commander-In-Chief doesn't think steganography is a Jurassic Park sequel and that he has some basic level of understanding of how the world stage has changed, how technology can be used positively and defended against, and the challenges as well as opportunities it presents.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go check my Meetup, Evite and Daily Candy calendars to see if there's anything worth Twittering about so I can write about it on my blog and update my status on Facebook.

Jazz & golf

Me and Ava enjoying jazz at Interbay Golf while daddy works on his swing. Family outings on warm summer evenings after work almost makes up for the 9+ hours away from them during the day.

4th of July family fun

The 4th wasn't that great in terms of weather, but at least it didn't rain as it has in past years and we did get to hang out with family for the day.

Ava has seven first cousins, including the little girl below who, as the only girl amongst five brothers, felt a kinship the minute Ava arrived. She greets me at family gatherings not with "hi, Auntie Natasha" but "Where's Ava?!" It probably helps that Ava's petite build creates more than a passing resemblance to a little doll, as many people have pointed out. So her cousin, who is almost three and definitely into doll-carrying, is totally digging Ava's portability.

Here's another cousin, who although three weeks younger, has outweighed her almost since birth. We all joke that we need a weight belt before we hoist him onto our hip. He is a happy, rotund little laid back baby who's content to go with the flow around him. I suspect he and Ava will be two peas in a pod - make that three, including his sister - once they're both up and walking. It was nice to kick back for some home cooked food and catching up with family after a barbecue disaster that morning at our place. J. inherited his grandmother's barbecue grill and has been trying to perfect her rib recipe, which of course was not written down, but handed down verbally to his mom, then on to J.

He's been slowly adding his own modern kick and flavor to the mix, carefully crafting his own seasoning rub, and even making a sauce from scratch with diced onions, honey and other mix-ins. In the process, he leaves a barbecue sauce speckled mess in the kitchen every summer. But the ends have always justified the means as he enlists me to taste test each effort. His attempts were good from the start, but each iteration improves upon the last. Still, my stock response is, "Oh that's terrible. Simply awful. You don't want to even bother tasting this. Just put it in the fridge and I'll get rid of it for you. Trust me." Which of course means yet another tasty batch.

On the 4th, after a night and morning spent mixing and marinating, pre-cooking and grilling, basting, tending and basically manipulating several slabs of ribs in a manner that would cost you at least $60 an hour at spa, J. prepared to close the grill lid for the last cooking segment.

From another room, I heard J.'s muffled, "Aaghh!" then a loud thump. Fearing the worst or at least a future filled with wheelchair ramps and head sticks, I sprinted to the front of the house expecting to see J. lying in a crumpled heap, seriously injured, or possibly paralyzed, by some unseen menace.

Instead, and happily, I found him staring down in utter disgust and anger at the now dented grill splayed out on the brick pavers and bark spilling its succulent rib contents and still-glowing coals out into the grill lid.

Apparently, as J. released the lid, suddenly, the two wheels on the grill's back legs, which have never rolled when we actually need them to, rolled right off of our back deck to the ground below. He was beside himself with frustration over the now wasted hours and more importantly, wasted food.

Being a veteran of many a campfire mishap, I suggested trying to salvage any slabs in the wreckage that might have escaped the grill's charcoal disgorgement. After cleanup at the scene and an attempt at rinsing the least impacted slabs, one crunchy, grit-ridden bite sealed the deal: the ribs were destined for the trash.

Well, almost. I told my mom the sad tale and she claimed them for her dog, who received quite a stash of lip smacking treats. We didn't even consider giving them to our dog Isis. Although she can lick her own rear with nary a repercussion, eating non-vegetable people food causes her to have violent colonic issues that I end up being responsible for cleaning up. So no, you may not give my dog a treat off your plate, but thanks for asking.

So after that sad morning saga, it was lovely to focus instead on our blessings and kick back the rest of the day with some of our peeps to enjoy each other and the freedom for which so many before us have sacrificed. Happy birthday America!