Hashemian Blog

Huh? What?

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Hill Jogging

Jogging addicts have an interesting trait. Wherever they go, the first thing they usually search for is a location to jog. At least that's true about me. Actually it's a nuisance sometimes, much like smokers who run out of cigarettes when they travel and they need to search for a store that can hook them up with their next fix. On a recent business trip to San Diego, I had to use the treadmills in the hotel gym and it's not always easy to find a free one to jump on. I ended up asking the locals and they pointed me to a decent boardwalk by the water.

But one of the locations I've been wanting to try is the neighborhood where my daughter's ballet school is located. After nearly two years of driving her to the school in the next town over, I decided to give that area a try today. Before driving her to the school, I surfed on to Google Maps to get an idea of the nearby roads and discovered a perfect loop to run on. Next I jumped on one of my own pages on this site to get an idea about the distances involved. Doing some rough calculations, I arrived at a total distance of approximately 5 miles. Perfectly reasonable, given my time limit of about an hour. I memorized some of the road names and after dropping her off at the ballet school I was off and running.

Soon I realized a big miscalculation in my investigative method. Google Maps (and other online maps) is great for driving directions, but they are not topographical and that makes a big difference when you are operating on your own power. Serves me right for not paying closer attention to the road names. Just about every road had the word "hill" appended to it. Let's take a sample: Indian Hill Road, Pipers Hill Road, Teapot Hill Road, Mallory Hill Road, Dumplin Hill Road, and Nod Hill Road. At least there was one exception, Mountain Road!

I can’t remember the last time I ran on so many roads whose names ended in Hill. And hills there were, some covering long inclined stretches. To add more adventure to my course, I was lost a couple of times adding more distance to my already grueling course. There was no chance to slow to a walk and catch my breath. I had to be at the school on time and to make matters worse I had no track of time as I don't even have a watch.

Thankfully I eventually found the way and made it back to school with a few minutes left to spare. I was able to complete the course (later on, going back in the car, I clocked it at 7.5 miles) and I came out of it relatively unscathed, save a little leg muscle pain.

Lessons to learn: Don't assume the new area you have chosen to run in would be flat. There is considerable difference between running on a flat course and running on a hilly one. And, when you map out your new course, pay more attention to the road names and the directions to follow. Of course, knowing myself, I won't learn a thing from all this, other than having a new appreciation for the term "uphill battle".
running,jogging,hills
<Hill Jogging>

// posted by rh

Monday, October 23, 2006

Berkshire Hathaway Phantom Stock Split

Common sense and investing wisdom dictates that an investor should look the long run and diversify. Many of us engage in wise investing through our retirement planning via 401K or IRA accounts that are generally contributed to and left alone to compound for years. The diversification portion is achieved, by default, through mutual funds.

There are however some stocks (not counting ETF's) that are relatively diversified by definition, because the underlying companies comprise businesses of various types. General Electric (GE) is one such company. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) is another, headed by the famed Warren Buffet. There is however one problem (at least for the average investor) buying shares in Berkshire Hathaway. Today's closing share price of that stock was $100,000. Now that's a tidy sum, putting the stock well beyond the affordability levels of many investors who would want to own a piece of this conglomerate.

Most companies faced with surging stock prices choose to partake in what is known as a stock split. As an example, a company whose stock price has reached $100 per share, might opt for a 2-for-1 stock split where each share turns into two with the share price at $50. It's a zero sum game. It has no effect on the market capitalization of the stock, and the shareholders see no difference in the values of their holdings at the moment the stock is split.

The general rationale behind a stock split is that it makes owning the shares more affordable and therefore it attracts more demand. In some cases it does work as intended and the stock sometimes surges upward post-split. The increased volume also comes with the side-effect of volatility. Berkshire Hathaway, however, has decided that it can do without the volatility. I suspect most investors in that stock are institutional holdings (such as companies and mutual funds) or very wealthy individuals. Today the traded volume for BRK was a measly 690 shares, with the low and high of $99,900 and $100,250 respectively. No doubt the difference between the bid and ask prices were in the tens of dollars and not pennies as most stocks typically experience.

Just to compare, GE's closing prices today was $35.53 with a trading volume of 26,087,600 shares. Accounting for all the GE stock splits over the years, the stock's effective split works out to 4608-for-1. If GE had never split, its share price would be $163,722.24 today and the traded volume would be about 5661 shares. Adjusting GE's stock price to that of BRK, the volume works out to about 9268 shares for GE or about 13.5 times the BRK's traded volume. Okay, I admit this is totally unscientific and a stock's traded volume is more affected by the condition of the company, forecasts, analysis, and the mood of the investors, among other factors, than its price per share. But if we were to accept this piece of information as valid for the moment, the conclusion would be that splits do indeed create more interest in a stock. Now we'll just wait for Warren to declare a 10,000-for-1 split. Sure, I might buy a few Berkshire shares at $10 a piece.
stocks,splits,stock splits,Berkshire Hathaway,brk,general electric,ge,investing,trading volume,stock market,mutual funds
<Berkshire Hathaway Phantom Stock Split>

// posted by rh

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Cell Phones and Seat Belts

Who says jogging is a safe exercise? For those of us who like to run outside it's anything but. I can't count how many times I've been chased by dogs, slipped on black ice, tripped over a branch (and one time on a snake), or have had close calls with cars. Tonight's episode involved an SUV driven by a woman chatting away on her cell phone. As I approached a bank's driveway, I noticed the SUV approach, trying to make a right turn. She stopped at the edge of the driveway, looked right and looked left. It was dark, but the street was well lit and I thought for sure she'd seen me in my white T-shirt approaching. I generally avoid cars that are about to make turns by going behind them, but I was sure she'd seen me; more like she saw through me. As I confidently stepped in front of the SUV, she gunned the car and at the last moment made a frantic stop. She'd finally seen me, but only after I had collided with her giant car. Thankfully it wasn't a big impact, but it must've rattled her. That's when I noticed her right hand holding the cell phone up to her ear. I'm not much into confrontation, specially when I have to conserve my energy for jogging. I decided to turn back and circle the car and we both went about our ways. I lived to collide with another car on another day.

There are good laws and then there the bad ones. We've had a no-cell-phone-while-driving law in Connecticut for a few months now. It's a good law, but from what I have observed little is being done to enforce it. It's a good law because it protects people from those who get too distracted to notice their surroundings while chattering on their cell phones or fumbling for a number to dial. Instead the state has decided to put more effort into enforcing the seat belt law, something that I consider a bad law, actually a stupid law. Who is being protected by the seat belt law other than the driver or the passenger sitting up front?

I am not anti seat belt, but people should have the freedom to decide whether or not to buckle up. I don't wear a seat belt most of the time. You are free to label me foolish, but I am not jeopardizing anyone else's safety. You could argue that if I were to have an accident, there is a cost to society in terms of higher insurance premiums, higher hospital bills, or wasted police time. Fair enough, but that argument could be applied to any activity. We'd have to ban skiing because a percentage of people are injured every year and require assistance. Why not ban sky diving, riding motorcycles, swimming, or even marathons while we're at it? That could save on money and resources that go into rescuing and treating those who are injured while participating in a variety of activities. Let's also ban butter, ice cream, and burgers too. Having sex would also make a good candidate, specially for those with advance age. Clearly there has to be a rational line where individual freedom should trump possible cost to all.

Banning cell phone usage, while driving, is rational. Instead, the public is subjected to countless ads designed to scare them into wearing their seat belts or face fines; the so-called "Click it, or ticket" campaign. Thankfully I don't even own a cell phone, so no problem obeying the cell phone usage ban. But if I were inclined to break a law, I'd be wise to get a cell phone, wear my seat belt and yak away while driving. I'd be safe the whole time while putting others at risk, and little chance I'd get a ticket for it.
seat belt,cell phones,driving,cars,laws,traffic
<Cell Phones and Seat Belts>

// posted by rh

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Google, YouTube fear factor

Hard to imagine that a 2-year old company started from scratch could be worth $1.65 billion, but that’s what YouTube is worth to Google. I had never visited YouTube’s site until about a month ago and that was just to see how it compares with Google video. I like Google video because of the simple interface, but it hasn’t been without technical glitches such as congestion and outages. I’m not sure how YouTube’s reliability has been, but I suppose that’s immaterial at this point. It will be one of Google’s products anyways.

This deal has certainly kept the analysts and pundits buzzing. USA Today had a couple of articles about the changing landscape of the online industry. One interesting observation was how fast some of the new startups reach lofty levels these days. I agree, but only cautiously. Sure we’ve had MySpace, YouTube, and now there’s talk of Yahoo going or FaceBook, but I view these as anomalies; jackpots for the lucky few who saw traffic rise to unimaginable levels on their sites.

At this point the Web titans are nervous about being upstaged by younger rivals encroaching on their secondary territories. Google is probably not too worried about a newcomer offering fancy Web searches, but a video site is a different matter. There’s also the fear of rivals snapping up the promising companies, and the helps to feed the buy-up frenzy,

Okay we knew all that, but one wonders if YouTube will ever earn its keep. Did Google give its own video service enough time to blossom, or have their abandoned their patient ways that got them to where they are now? Google wasn’t always the most popular destination for Web search. But having a good product with enough differentiation, a constant drive for perfection, and patience paid off in the long run. Maybe Google could have applied some of the same principles to Google video without having to spend the big chunk on YouTube. But I suppose once you get that big, the fear of losing the number one spot forces you into making frenzied, and sometimes not too wise, decisions.
Google,
YouTube,
startups,
myspace,
Google video,
video
<Google, YouTube fear factor>

// posted by rh

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Half Marathon, 2006

Running a race such as a half marathon is not unlike taking a test in school. Be it that I don't run these races to win (far from it), they still require some preparation and discipline. Some competitors spend months training for it. They follow a strict plan, run a set number of long miles per week, go on a regimented lifestyle, and participate in other races to get themselves prepared.

Not me, and not this time around. Just like some of the exams I used to take, I decided to wing it and, as expected, the result wasn't so rosy. Of course for people like me these races are not about competition. Just like a class that a barely passing grade would do, finishing the course is the ultimate goal. I ran my second half marathon on October 1st and it was an interesting experience. I did finish the race and I never stopped or down-shifted to a walk, but the experience was much more grueling than the one from the previous year.

I hadn't done much training for last year's half marathon either, but I was running longer distances prior to the race on the order of 10 to 12 miles, and I was running them much more frequently with more gusto. This time around the longest trek amounted to about 9 miles that I ran only once one week before the race. Yes, I was running a number of 5 or 6-mile routines, but I wasn't very consistent either.

The morning of the race I was feeling pretty okay. I had a couple of bananas and a few dates and headed for the meeting point. It was a chilly and rainy day and by the time we got on the course, it was obvious that we were going to face soggy day. And soggy, we encountered - a general rain condition punctuated by several periods of heavy downpours. Most runners welcome the dousing, but I'm not a fan of wet running, not that I had much choice in the matter.

Everything started out okay, but by the 7th mile I noticed that I'm feeling tired. I was constantly looking out for the mile markers and I had slowed down considerably, judging by the runners passing me by. I tried to get back in form and get my mind off the fatigue, but there was no fighting it. I wasn't in any pain, my body was simply out of energy and struggling to protect itself from stress and I had no choice but to heed. At several occasions I thought about slowing to a walk, but that would have amounted to a defeat, so I kept it going and kept looking out for the mile markers.

By the time I reached the 11th mile, I figured I might catch a second wind and ride it to the finish line. No such luck, the stress kept on hammering away and getting soaked by the downpours wasn't helping either. At this point I knew I was going to finish the race and that was the only thought that kept me moving, but the few last miles were passing just too slowly. By the 13th mile, I knew I was only a mere 1/10th of a mile away from the finish line, but even that tiny distance felt like an unending mile. And then it was all over. Looking back at the clock over the finish line, I was just relieved to have come in under 2 hours. Not a cause for celebration, but at that point I was happy it was done. I didn't beat my last year's time, but I came close and that was enough. Yeah, I barely passed. There's always the next year and another attempt to improve.

Here are my times from 2005 and 2006:

Year  Place  Age  Age Group    Time     Pace
----  -----  ---  ---------    ----     ----
2005   286   38   50 M 30-39  1:54:05  8:43/M
2006   287   39   66 M 30-39  1:55:52  8:51/M

marathon,half marathon,running,jogging,race

// posted by rh