Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

I’ve had a lot of people email me and ask me to post photos of the Christmas presents I painted.

Here they are below. You can click each thumbnail for a larger version. A limited quantity of lithographic prints of the works (signed and numbered) are available for purchase. When inquiring, be sure to reference the name of the desired painting in the comment box. IMAGES COPYRIGHT 2006-2007 M. Ryan Byrd. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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I just got an email from Kelly over at Start Up Princess.com (who, among other things, sells princess stuff; if you stopped by Carolynn‘s^* kiosk at the Provo mall (and I hope you did), you’re already familiar with her wares). Kelly is interested in gathering women entrepreneurs together for a littl’ conference and I think that’s a great idea. Let me explain why. I’m in favor of diversity in the business community (of the fortune 500 companies, only 10 are run by women). Speaking of women in business, did you know that they are, on average (in many situations), better negotiators than men?^**

You probably have your own thoughts on diversity and given the largely conservative base of my readership, perhaps the word connotes a disagreeable image for you. I, too, once felt likewise. Stories of affirmative action quotas disenfranchising meritorious college and business applicants irked me beyond measure; “it’s unfair”, I wanted to scream! It was only during my MBA program that I began to see the matter a little differently. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m still bothered by many aspects of affirmative action.)

Here’s the deal: If you’re searching for the best solution to a dilemma, having a homogeneous problem solver pool is disadvantageous. As an illustration, we studied a case at the U where (some time ago) a certain shoe company (Reebok perhaps?) was having poor luck selling its running shoes to women. Their marketing team was largely male and the advertising campaigns focused on the technical superiority of the new line of shoes. Strangely, women weren’t really moved to buy the product.

A new team was created to study the problem and this new team included several women. They quickly discovered that, as it turns out, many women don’t really care so much about all the nifty features in a shoe (or at least they’re bored when ads cover that topic). On the other hand, if the commercial features montages of emotional experiences had in those shoes (the exhilaration of running through a park on a nice day), women really seem to resonate with that. The TV spots were re-filmed and shoes began to sell.

Now, the story might be trite and even apocryphal, but the lesson is true; it’s not probable that the first group of guys would have really understood how a woman feels about shoes. There is power in heterogeneity!

So ladies, go to the conference. You get lunch and you get to hear from Kristen Lamb (Designit Boutique) and Rachael Herrscher (Today’s Mama). Let me know how it goes as I’m not likely invited.

* I met Carolynn in person, BTW. She’s at once severely focused and energetic and gracious. Quite the amalgam.

** I’ll look up the reference for this. I’ve heard it several times in my negotiation classes.

2006 has been an action filled year for Ryan Byrd dot net. Here are a few of the highlights from this blog, a month at a time:

January: my visit to Texas, two book reviews: Black Hawk Down, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, and a few photos taken up Provo canyon

February: Thoughts on the Mohammad cartoon controversy, Paul Rusesabagina (the hero portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda) comes to speak, and some of my Cƒ´te d’Ivoirian Art

March: Pictures of rural Cedar City, my plan to eliminate the polygamists, free software to manage collections, Totally Awesome Computers shuts down (check out the video) and Geomag (the coolest toy ever!)

April: invented a new word “dihomograph”, started Open Willow Genealogy, a book review (Affluenza), and my lengthy thoughts on House Bill 4437

May: Conspiracy theories, and Don’t Know Much About History

June: Utah Arts Festival Photo Log, Diamonds and Death, Thoughts on Google, First Annual Utah Blogger Conference, Fun with Mentos and Diet Coke, South African Americans, the Mormon Church Experience, More Utah Rural Photography, Morning Pep Talk, and Splatter Painting

July: plot your travels on a world map, Warped Tour SLC review, Pickles on fire, Warp the President of North Korea, Why America is Different (essay), Heber City Photographs, Current Creek Photographs, Silver Lake Photographs, Pulling the plug on TV

August: Chief Polygamist captured!, Dancing and Yoga, Five Star Cancun Vacation, Dumb Jokes, Competitive Eating, Bees baseball, Minimum Wages and Nudists, Highland Fling 5k, and the Critical Defects (my indoor soccer team)

September: Two goats and a car, Machine guns, Mongolians and Logical Fallacies, Talk Like A Pirate Day, Critical Defects win a soccer game!, Paintball Adventures, Remembering 9/11, Gangrene Film Festival, Death of the Crocodile Hunter, and the beginning of Podcasting

October: Is Halloween Evil?, Green paperclip adventure and ToyShare, the power of Makeup, Getting Down with the Hare Krishnas, TeamBuilders (an MLM) sucks, a Utah Blight: in condemnation of MLMs, Photos of Big Cottonwood Canyon, and the Indoor soccer donnybrook

November: essay on higher education– a CBA, no longer homeless, robbing armored cars, Foreign Animal Onomatopoeia, four wheeling in the desert, and the soda vs pop breakdown

December: puttin stuff in blenders, my birthday bash, more problems with google (an essay), ringside at ultimate fighting, Liberal quiz, Why vegetarians are weird, MLMs stink, the Hundred Dollar Business Blog Carnival, and Christmas Wishes

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.“

ISAIAH 9:6

Merry Christmas! JOYEUX NOEL A TOUS! Feliz Navidad!

Some of you will remember my post earlier this month breaking the news of the Hundred Dollar Business experiment. As you must have assumed, Ryan Byrd dot net was the *first* weblog in the WORLD to mention the experiment. That should come as no surprise to you. Here at the Ryan Byrd corporate headquarters, we hold ourselves to rigorous reporting standards and nearly impossible levels of execution, all with the goal of better serving you, the highly intelligent, discerning blog reader.

To that end, Ryan Byrd was selected to participate in a business blog carnival. I know what you’re thinking, “Carnival! isn’t that a raucous, drunken fest held down in South America?” Yes, yes it is, but we’re talking about something different: [kahr-nuh-vuhl] not [kahr-nee-val]. When I think of non-Brazilian carnivals, I think of small, rickety, rusty rides with peeling paint, twirling their frightened patrons about at tremendous speeds, threatening death at every turn. I think of the shifty-eyed, unshaven felons with leery gazes who operate the rides with bored disinterest. I think of the overpriced corn dogs and cotton candy, the small families with their children, the packs of goth kids with their angst and piercings, the incessant carne music, the Siamese twins, the strong man, the bearded woman… Good times. Good food. Good memories. …

So… Carolynn D., over at that Hundred Dollar thingy emailed me the following business blog carnival question: “How is resourcefulness vital to a new business?“

And that got me to thinking about what I’ve really learned during my MBA program at the U. Here it is, in a nutshell (and you can quote me), “No one knows how to make a successful (ethical) business. What we do know are quick ways to sink a business. Is in the avoidance of those bad actions plus lots of hard work plus good luck and serendipity that businesses make money.” Because we don’t have control over happenstance, we can’t reliably produce a fail-safe business every time. Still, we can stick to proven principles, know our goals, avoid the pitfalls and through a lot of work, hope for the best.

That said, I think we can influence our business luck by careful planning, synergistic networking and, once again, continual hard work. I think, as the thirty days comes to an end, Carolynn knows something about hard work.

Part of good business planning should involve a resource assessment; finding answers to the question: What do I have already that I can use: ideas, skills, things, and tools?

Here’s Are some quick thoughts on Resource Assessment for the Budding Entrepreneur:

Ideas: Though basic ideas are important, a perfect idea is not essential. Let’s face it– there are a lot of ideas out there. If you take a mediocre idea and put a lot of work and energy into *doing* it, you’ll make much more money than if you just sit around thinking and pondering. For example, my parents live next door to a multi-millionaire who made his fortune painting gun safes with automobile paint. That idea won’t win him any genius awards, but he went out and sold lots of his pretty, shiny safes for lots of money. Now, for fun, he races Porsches in Germany on the weekends. List ten good ideas you have.

Skills: What can you do well? Do you have an eye for design? Can you pick up new technologies rapidly? Are you a good salesperson? Do you know how to cook? make candles? Are you a natural teacher? All of these skills can be parlayed into viable businesses. If nothing else, there’s always the possibility of writing how-to guides or books describing those skills. Make a list of your talents and skills and abilities.

Things:with the international ubiquity of the Internet, your trash really is someone else’s treasure. Here are two examples: people in Europe are buying boxes of old books at estate auctions and then removing and selling each page of the book (suitable for framing.) My brother David recently bought a few pages of an old medical textbook for 30 or 40 dollars each on ebay. Another example: a friend’s mother visits thrift stores and garage sales and with her internet-ready cellphone checks the value on the items. When she discovers something good, she puts it for sale on her website. I’m told she makes several thousand dollars each month, mainly on out-of-print children’s books. Write down the items you have, or have access to, that can be sold.

Tools: whether it’s a skill saw, a Dremel, a soldering iron or a laser engraver, you’ll likely be able to put those devices to work for you. The goal is to add value be it through repairing, building, creating crafts, etc. Even better, train a friend work *for you* to add the value and then go drum up business. What tools do you have?

That’s all for now. I’ll add some more thoughts soon.

(Of course, it already looks a lot like Hanukkah, though it’s not yet looking quite like Kwanzaa.) … Because legions of you know me only through the very skewed lens of my blog, perhaps you think that I’ve already done my holiday shopping. You, kind sir or madam(!) are quite mistaken. I have not yet begun to shop! Nor do I intend to *start shopping* for that matter. I’ve rethought the concept of buying Christmas presents and I’ve decided I’m against it. Before you cast me off as an eccentric curmudgeon, allow me to explain.

When you buy a present, particularly when given a wishlist to buy from, you are essentially acting as that person’s personal assistant (a maid/man-servant if you will.) The gift recipient will know (or will quickly estimate) how much the gift costs and, given a guesstimation of how much you make, will determine if you are a cheapskate^*. If your annual income is greater than 50k, for example, you are not allowed to give a Walmart $.99 bobblehead doll or a $5 bargain-bin-florescent orange-hunter-vest as a present — even if you’ve been really, really busy. They (my sister Kristen) will hate you for it. Or so I’ve heard.

So, if you are fiscally conservative and wish to save a few bucks while preserving your reputation this festive season, I strongly recommend this course of action: give gifts that are impossible to value in dollars. My strategy? Make stuff. Previous years I’ve constructed and given: a huge clay buddha, a reproduction of a famous painting done in acrylic on canvas and books of compiled poetry. They’ve been real crowd pleasers.

Giving homemade artsy gifts has an additional bonus; people will have trouble determining how much time you spent. That’s an important aspect because if they know the invested time, they’ll quickly convert the time into dollars. Don’t provide them that advantage!

To that end, a few weeks ago I purchased a number of stretched canvas boards alongside a couple of buckets of paint. This year it’s Jackson Pollock-esque works all around!

* This general theory of gift giving first proposed by Ze Frank

Way back in October, I promised I’d talk about MLMs. True to my word, I’ve blogged about the devil’s vomitus: Quixtar and Utah’s pride and joy: TeamBuilders. I even managed to offend some of Lennon Ledbetter’s swinish multitude. Since those fun times, I’ve come across a number of individuals (one) who insist that MLMs are legitimate enterprises. Those people (Roberto) are dreadfully wrong of course, and I’ll tell you why.

But before I launch into a carefully crafted exposition, I should note that my last blog entry generated 15 comments as of this posting. That’s a record. Given the belligerent (bellicose?) tone of some of the recent comments, a lesser man might be tempted to avoid controversial topics and blog on banal news events. Not I! Particularly not in the face of an estimated semi-regular blog readership of upwards of three people! I can’t let them all down. I will stay the course!

Ok, where was I? MLMs. Let me define an MLM for the uninitiated. MLMs involve hard-selling a consumable (exotic, foul tasting beverages, cheap lotions, Brazilian dark chocolate, etc.) through a network of your “friends.” Those people become your downline. They’ll need not only to drink, lather and eat the product, but they’ll need to be “connectors” themselves; gathering their own friends. Those friends of your friends also are part of your downline. Downlines are important because you get a percentage of what they buy. The higher up the pyramid you are, the greater downline you have and the more money you get off other people’s consumption. The goal of all MLMers is to get such a massive downline that they no longer have to work for themselves. It’s a classic get-rich-quick scheme and it’s guaranteed to take your money while losing your friends. Sign me up!

The problems with MLM are numerous. First of all — it doesn’t scale (nor is it meant to, though it is advertised that way.) Let me explain. MLMers will tell you how rich everyone is becoming, but that’s not at all true. Your only chance of becoming rich is to amass a huge downline (lots of “legs”, etc, etc.) And, in case you didn’t know, not everyone can have a huge downline (because people have to be in that downline!) Most of the research I’ve come across, for example, reports the average Quixtar monthly earnings at about $100. That would be great were the monthly Quixtar membership fees not also $100. That means an awful lot of people are wasting a lot of time, buying crappy products, all the while netting *nothing*. MLMs, like other scams, only really work if they are constantly growing. I’m reminded of a old scam wherein you send in $300 dollars for a “membership” and in three weeks you get $600 back. The idea is that if people are constantly joining up, and there is a three week delay in getting money, you can use new memberships to pay the previous people. What a great idea!

The second problem is the highly touted MLM promise of not having to do any work. “Join Quixtar/Teambuilders/Noni/Xango and in three to five years you won’t have to work ever again!” What a great idea! No work! No work! lah, lah, lah, lah, laaaah, lah! Let’s all go to France. No one works there! Look how happy and productive the French are!

Sarcasm aside, I think it highly toxic (both to the society and to the individual) to promote an entitlement complex such as “I deserve to be rich” and “I shouldn’t have to work.” In case you’ve forgotten, we need teachers, laborers, and mechanics in order for society to function. People need to work.

To be sure, MLMs reap great benefits for the “early adopters.” Utah Teambuilder’s captain, Lennon Ledbetter, bought a 7 million dollar house in cash not long ago. That’s a lot of money. However, Lennon is profiting without adding anything back to society. A fundamental tenet of capitalism is to add value and Teambuilders does not add value. MLMs rake in benefits for the elite top few all the while ravishing the underlings.

Don’t be part of MLMs! Save your friends and years of your life! Decide now to JUST SAY NO!

So everyone knows about PETA. They are the guys (& gals) who get bent out of shape about the mistreatment of pretty animals like seals, rabbits and puppy dogs (it’s okay to abuse ugly animals; sorry narwhals, manatees and slugs.) Like the “pro-choice” people, PETA likes to misrepresent their intentions. Pro-choice advocates are not about choices, but rather about a woman’s “right” to kill her unborn child. Likewise, PETA has little to do with ethical treatment of animals and a lot to do about vegetarianism. They don’t want animals to just be treated ethically, they want people to stop eating animals. Let’s just tell it like it is, okay?!?

I think people are vegetarian for one or more of the following reasons:

1- Farmers (allegedly) treat animals poorly
2- Eating meat is immoral (or makes them feel sick)
3- Killing anything is wrong (produces bad karma?)
4- Medical reasons/weight loss
5- Killing animals is cruel because it causes those animals to experience pain
6- It’s in vogue

Let’s be clear, I am surely against cruelty to animals. However, I think animals are inherently different than people. I’m of the opinion that nature provided animals for us to eat. It seems very natural and circle-of-life’ish to me. I love fresh Chesapeake crab, a chicken teriyaki bowl and, on the rare occasion, a well cooked fillet mignon. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s okay to shoot a cat with a bb gun, or to hunt animals for “sport”, or to mistreat animals in general. But back to the vegetarians. I’m at loss to understand their viewpoint. Perhaps a few of you readers can enlighten me?

What makes it okay to eat plants and not animals? Because animals are more like people? Because they have a complex nervous system? Where do you draw the line? What about animals that don’t have a complex nervous system? What about those creatures that seem to exhibit properties of both plants and animals? Is coral okay? What about Venus fly-traps or pitcher plants (they eat meat)? Would you eat a freshwater diatom?

Do you think that because animals are more like people, that all animals “feel” pain? Isn’t that an anthropomorphism?

What about fish? Reptiles? Amphibians? Insects? Do they have feelings too? How would we ever know?

What about when animals eat other animals. Is that bad? Would you like to ban carnivorous animals?

Though omnivorous animals might be able to swear off meat (though they’d have to find some locally available high-protein source), lions in the Saharan desert, for example, would have a hard time finding suitable vegetable protein even if they could eat it (a lion’s teeth can’t chew grass well I understand). As well, obligate carnivores (or true carnivores) “lack the physiology required for the efficient digestion of vegetable matter”, if they eat plants, they often vomit.

Cellulose (plant) digestion and nutrient assimilation is simply not possible for true carnivores. (And it can be difficult for humans too, have you ever tried eating grass? Your stomach lacks the enzymes to break it down, unlike a cow, for instance.) “Effective digestion of plant food requires a means of dealing with the most important structural material of plants, cellulose – a carbohydrate polymer which is extremely insoluble and remarkably resistant to chemical attack.”

But I digress… Tell me, why are *you* a vegetarian?

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore
http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/~ALRF/giintro.htm
http://www.entomology.wisc.edu/sabc/biocontrol_biobasis.htm

Here’s a quick political views survey I just made. Let’s see how you do. If you provide your education level, gender, city, state and zip I can plot you’all on a Google Map and segregate responses by demographics. It will be wicked fun!

Instructions: check each statement with which you agree. As soon as I get 30 or 40 responses I’ll throw up the responses.

Take the Ryan Byrd dot net Political Views Survey

If you’d like to take a stab at creating a rubric for grading the surveys that would be cool too. I’m thinking of identifying core liberal values and ancillary liberal values and assigning them corresponding weights. Then we could get a percentage of liberal for each submitter. I’d love to hear from you’all on a better way to do this, however.

As occasion sometimes presents, I was invited as VIP guest to Club Vortex on Saturday night to watch some no-holds barred^* fighting. The event was put on by the Ultimate Combat Experience, which I gather is some sort of Utah fight club. I’ve only been to one other ultimate fighting competition, and that was years ago at UVSC’s Mckay Events Center (I thought it ironic that such an event was held there given it’s namesake (talk about people turning in their graves…)).

Did blood lust run unfettered? No, actually it was relatively bloodless with the exception of a nosebleed suffered early on by a stocky guy with spindly legs. Not knowing that going in, however, my main fear, given my ringside seating, was being splattered with blood. Thankfully that didn’t occur, though one fighter lost a tooth in the second round and that tooth landed at my feet. (Question: does the tooth fairy bring you money for other people’s teeth?)

The fighters (even the winning ones) were largely physically unassuming, and with the sole exception of “Pocket Hercules” (a small, tough Latino guy), none of them looked like they live at Gold’s Gym (maybe the game *is* 90% mental?) Still the fighting was spirited, and the take-home lesson might be to consider carefully with whom you pick fights.

I know what some of you are thinking, “Ryan, you’re built like a truck, you have a background in the martial arts^**, why don’t you jump in the ring/octagon and try your luck.” That’s a good point; I am well built and I’m tough as a cougar. The problem is this: crazy eyes. The Ultimate Fighters all have crazy eyes. I am afraid of people with crazy eyes. It’s generally an indication of high pain tolerance, a lack of empathy, fierce violence and overall instability. Don’t believe me? You can peruse the Ultimate Fighters pics here. For your convenience, here are a few of the more disturbing fighters: crazy 1, crazy 2, crazy 3, crazy 4, crazy 5, crazy 6

So there they were with their crazy eyes and shiny faces (Vaseline helps mat burn I suppose), fitted with small gloves and wearing mouth pieces, all the while trying to kill each other. The first few fights were the amateurs and those fights involved lots of uneventful wrestling and grunting. In the later rounds, however, greater technique and skill were apparent. In particular, two fights ended quickly through submission moves: specifically the rear naked choke (no actually nudity was involved, thankfully) and the guillotine. Submission moves are anticlimactic because the fights end so rapidly. Still, if the blood to your head, or the future mobility of your joints are in jeopardy, tapping out is good policy.

Even though Senator John McCain recently described ultimate fighting as “human cockfighting“, it’s basically rough wrestling. That’s until a Pacific Islander entered the ring. His Tongan mother shot out of her chair and bellowed encouragement, “hit him in the face, my son!”, she yelled. It was all rather dramatic. I’m sure the mother would have fared as well as the son, given her size and enthusiasm.

Lest you believe this was an unregulated donnybrook, I assure you the athletic commission was there, looking wildly out of place– middle-aged gentlemen with their conservative haircuts and in their white shirts and ties.

The event was sponsored by a bail bondman, a DUI attorney (“motto: because bad things happen to good people”), a flagrantly homosexual real estate agency and a new powdered power drink. Very targeted marketing, if you ask me.

What do the winning fighters get for putting their lives on the line? A handsome one hundred dollar Best Buy gift card (which has a trading value of about 80 dollars on eBay, I’m told). Pretty low take for a night’s work. These guys must love what they do (or else be crazy (see above).)

If you’re into people watching (and I’m not talking about the kind that involves looking in through people’s windows, sickos), establishments such as Club Vortex are the places for you. I thought I was at the bar scene in Star Wars; all shapes and sizes and colors, all completely soused and acting strangely. For thoroughness of documentation, I took some video clips of the action, but given the family-friendly nature of this website, I’ve opted not to post them.

Fact: The Roman concept of Bread and Circuses (think, The Gladiator), was an attempt at stave off unrest and pacify the citizenry through free food and violent entertainment. Last night at the Vortex, there was no bread unfortunately, or any other food there; though sundry libations were in abundance. We being teetotalers, were unable (and unwilling) to take advantage of the many calories alcoholic beverages (such as your domestic lagers) provide. In the end however, David persuaded a capricious barmaid (Natalie) to share some of her behind-the-counter popcorn with him.

* In actuality, there are many “holds barred”, including eye gouging, clavicle ripping and small knuckle manipulation.

** It’s true, I’m no stranger to the world of combat. I hold a green belt in karate (Kobayashi Shorin-ryu), and have studied Tae Kwon Do and Jujitsu. Also, I have two older brothers.

Oh and if you’re reading this: here’s a shout out to Faye.