Visit to Central Park

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In my third trip to New York, I finally went to Manhattan’s Central Park. It has been featured in many movies and I wanted to check it out for myself. I only visited a small part of the park and do want to tour it thoroughly. The park is quite impressive and a big space, but I was surprised at the large number of people in the park. There were some bits, especially as you got further in that truly were bucolic, but it is hard to escape the city’s noise and man-made structures.

There was a pretty competitive softball game between teams of Broadway actors on the beautifully kept softball field. (photo below) There were also too many vendors, bike rickshaws, “buskers” and general riff raff in the park to take away from the peaceful experience.

I also thought about the super expensive luxury apartments with central park views. Yes it is nice, but not worth what you get from it. An apartment on the ocean or in the mountains is much more valuable in the pleasure one would receive from it.

The photo on the top of the blog is looking west across Sheep’s Meadow. I want to run completely across the park on one of my next visits.

I also met my friend Melissa for lunch. She spent the day with me in my workshop I had at the Jazz at Lincoln Center, and she talked about moving to Manhattan. The Columbus Circle area and the Time Warner Center is very beautiful. New Yorkers are also very friendly – one guy offered to help me find Central Park when I looking obviously lost at the map. This is not the first time it happened.

Me and Melissa at Columbus Circle

Probably the most impressive thing about New York is the amazing number of experts that congregate there. The best and brightest musicians, actors, businessmen, scientists, etc. all work in the various museums, institutes, offices, etc. There is an endless amount of experiences and things to learn. It truly is the capital of the world! I have yet to see Beijing or Tokyo, but I have been to London and it does top that in my “Capital of the World” rankings.

 

Lehigh Canal Bike Ride

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One of the nice things about being away from my family is the opportunity to go on long, solo bike rides. This is one of the items that went by the wayside when I started having children. I would rather spend time with them than alone.

This afternoon I went for a ride down the Delaware and Lehigh National Historical Corridor trail. The trail follows the former towpath and the section I rode down today runs from Allentown to Easton. The Lehigh Canal used to be the superhighway in the mid-1800’s and was used to transport the coal of the Pocono Mountains down to the steel mills of Bethlehem and beyond. The canal lost prominence with the rise of trains and finally ceased to function in the 1940s. You can still see the old locks, that allowed boats to go back up to the Poconos. As with the rails to trails in Michigan, I am glad that the communities here got together and made this initiative. It provided me some exercise and a lovely day watching the turtles and birds, and the flowing Lehigh River.

A group of Red-eared Sliders enjoys the sun with me!

I am a huge proponent of more bike and hiking trails and preservation of wilderness. This is a wonderful initiative an d I hope more trails are developed in the Lehigh Valley. I might even try to bike to school this week, leaving from Allentown.

These obnoxious Canadian Geese were very rude while I was trying to go by them.

A Pennsylvania Dutch Fourth of July

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I had an interesting Independence Day celebration here in south eastern Pennsylvania, the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch cultural region. The Pennsylvania Dutch were immigrants from Switzerland, Germany, and the Czech Republic who settled this area in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were seeking religious freedom, as many American immigrants. Over 300 years later, Pennsylvanians still affiliate with this culture, but most has been lost through the generations of American life and modern influences.

I attended the Kutztown Folk Festival, a celebration of values of these settlers. The Pennsylvanian Dutch are still evident today in the Amish settlements here, as well as private church affiliated universities like Moravian College. At the fair there were many old fashioned crafts, livestock shows, and a quilting competition. We stopped at an Amish farm (wheat field shown above) and bought some corn and tomatoes.

The Lehigh Valley Historical Society has done a good job in preserving the sites and promoting the teaching of history. It is amazing to think that this region was once on the frontier of America. The farmhouse below is from 1756 and is typical of the early frontier Pennsylvanian Dutch farms.

The Troxell-Steckel Farmhouse – 1756 – Ironton Rail Trail

It is nice that people recognize their heritage and remember the historical roots of America. With modern American culture, so much is homogenized that most US cities and towns are indistinguishable from each other. There is a lightly distinctive feeling of uniqueness here and the rolling hills of corn and wheat, the Mennonite horse carriages and the beautiful stone farm houses bring back memories of the first American settlers. It was a good way to spend birthday number 237 of the United States of America. Here in Pennsylvania, so close to many sites (Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Philadelphia) that played an important role in forming our nation.

 

Latest Reading: Happy Money

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The book “Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending” was a quick read that confirmed much of my intuition and opened my eyes to a few new ideas. Two professors (U of British Columbia / Harvard) wrote this book based on their research and others looking at how people spend their money equates to happiness. It is a great way to look at wealth, and the old saying, money can’t buy happiness, is in someways proven correct and other ways found false. The Founding Fathers of the USA put “In the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence and before reading this book, I never really formerly thought that it was a guiding principle in my life, but in many ways it is. To be happy should be the utmost goal of a person. Fortunately for society, what is good for the individual is usually good for the society and doing good and not harming others, leads to happiness.

The authors give five rules to maximize one’s enjoyment of spending money that goes against common sense a bit.

1) Buy Experiences

  • The biggest investment for most people is there home. The big house in the suburbs doesn’t bring big happiness. There is no evidence that these large homes one sees, actually makes your life better. I certainly found this out when we bought a large house. I found us cleaning and taking care of it instead of devoting more time to my children and each other. The author’s argue that instead of investing in things like expensive cars, boats, and homes, more pleasure is gained through buying experiences that make us feel more connected to others. The research shows that satisfaction with experiential purchases tends to increase with passage of time (stories) while satisfaction with things tends to decrease over time.
  • One of the largest material purchases perople ever make is their home, yet home purchases usually fail to make people any happier.
  • It is easier for people to seek out experiences, from picnics in the park to nights on the town, when the local environment provides appropriate settings. Governments usually provide support for museums, national parks, and culutural institutions.

2) Make it A Treat

  • You enjoy things more in small doses, and overabundance undermines our enjoyment of things. The two salient examples are if you drive an expensive car daily, the thrill wears off, so it is better to treat yourself to a luxury rental and really enjoy and look forward to the experience, and save money on an average car for daily use. The other example is not to “binge watch” television series on line and instead, watch with a gap in between each episode. Thinking about the next episode, discussing with friends, etc. heightens your enjoyment.
  • Banning carbonated soda drinks for a large part of the day will restore children’s enjoyment of the drinks, best regarded as treats.

3) Buy Time 

  • We too often sacrifice free time just to save a little money. Time is valuable and for example, you can spend an extra $100 for the direct flight from LAX to JFK instead of spending four hours in the airport in Dallas. Is 4 hours worth $100 to you?
  • People are in a good mood when exercising, reading, or having sex, but are not in a good mood when commuting, shopping, or doing housework.
  • Research shows 30% of work emails are useless. The average Intel knowledge worker receives 50-100 emails per day (I get this many) and they have instituted an email free Tuesday. This is a sizable workload on a daily basis that takes away from our primary work.
  • As time becomes worth more money (this is true now as compared to 20-30 years ago and as one moves up the corporate ladder) people report feeling more pressed for time, even though they have the same amount of time as before.
  • Taking the time to help others makes people feel more effective and these feelings of competence lead volunteers to feel less overburdened by the multitude of tasks in their everyday lives.
  • Go outside and exercise – there is added value in exercising outside!
  • Premium cable and flat-screen TVs eat up your time! When you buy a really nice TV, you are committing on average 1/6 of the next year watching it.
  • Take less money on a job if it means more time for family.
  • When faced with a decision between multiple products while shopping, ask yourself whether the differences in features will alter how you spend your time. If the answer is no, go cheap.
  • We bought time by moving closer to the school. In the US, 89% of trips are by car compared to 52% in Netherlands. Riding a bike and walking make people feel good!

4. Pay Now, Consume Later

  • Consuming later provides time for positive expectations to develop, delaying consumption also increases our ability to smooth over the cracks, so you won’t remember how much an experience cost, if you do it much later from when you paid for it.
  • What we owe is a bigger predictor of our happiness than what we make. The relationship between income and happiness is weak with Americans, and the key is debt.

5. Invest in Others

  • The effect of a single spending category (prosocial spending) was as large as the effect of total income in predicting happiness.
  • “I feel that my work makes a positive difference in other people’s lives.”
  • Investing in others brings a host of benefits to the giver, affecting not only happiness, but also health and wealth. Giving away money makes us feel like we have more to spare, just like giving up your time to volunteer.
  • When asking for donations, be specific on how their donation will help.

Another predictor of happiness in a country is the income gap between high and low income earners. In the US, the richest 20% of Americans own 85% of all wealth while the poorest 40% earn approximately 0% of the wealth.

I highly recommend reading this entire book.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art – New York City

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The Boxer, originally uploaded by bill kralovec.

What an amazing place! I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located next to Central Park in Manhattan. It is the third largest art museum in the world and one could spend literally months there, studying and appreciating all styles of art from around the world. It is an impressive collection of statues, paintings, rugs, weapons, etc. from ancient history to the modern era. I could have spent a lot longer there. I would like to go back.

Above is one of the featured temporary exhibition called “The Boxer“. It is a statue from ancient Rome and is over 2000 years old. The realistic quality of the bronze statue is breathtaking and awesome to realize that it is that old. In a world before photos or videos, this may be as close as one gets to seeing how it was back then. The life size statue even has inlaid copper to represent blood. It is also interesting to think about how long boxing has been around and the scars and equipment on the statue, show how brutal the sport was, and to some extent, still is. The statue was found in the late 1800’s in Rome, and the experts suspect it was buried to hide it from the barbarian hordes that we overrunning the city. I wonder how many other works are buried?

Claude Monet’s The Manneporte (1883)

Above is a Monet painting that caught my attention. Monet led the Impressionist movement in art which featured thin brush strokes, emphasis on the changing light, ordinary landscapes, and a sense of movement. The painting above is of a rock formation on the Normandy coast. It is amazing to be that close to a world masterpiece.

Finally for my Serbian readers, I was really fascinated with the Ottoman gallery. Below is a helmet from the 16th century workshop of Sultan Suleiman The Magnificent, who personally led the Ottoman Empires to conquer Belgrade in August of 1521. The inscription on the helmut reads “Help From Allah, and a Speedy Victory”. That style of helmet probably inspired fear and loathing for generations of Serbs.

I also wondered how many times nations have asked for these historical pieces to be returned to the home country. I guess this would be often. Judging on the amount and variety of people at the museum, they probably get more exposure here than anywhere else. What a magnificent collection of history!

 

 

 

Summer at Lehigh University

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For my blog readers, I just want to announce that I will be in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania starting work on my Doctorate in Educational Leadership. It is a program geared towards international school leaders and it allows me to continue working full time while studying in the summer and on line during the school year.

I am really enjoying the program so far and feel I made the right decision to start further study. As you can see in the picture above, the campus is really beautiful and inspiring, not only the buildings, but also the setting. The university is set on a hillside overlooking the city of Bethlehem. There are approximately 75,000 people in the city and it is your typical quaint, Mid-Atlantic region small town. The two universities gives it a cultural boost. What sets the city apart from others is the huge complex of steel stacks in the middle of the town, a memory of the once powerful, Bethlehem Steel Company. It used to be the second largest steel company in the world after US Steel, but it folded in the 1990’s. The city has redeveloped the former factory grounds and turned it into a very cool community center.

I will be blogging about my experiences in the area (including New York City) which is a 1-hour drive away. I snapped the photo above last week of the Office of Admissions.

Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs Baseball

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I am spending the summer at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. I am working on my EdD. in Educational Leadership. Last night I had a lot of reading to do so I went to the baseball game to get it done. Baseball (and cricket) are the perfect sports for reading while at the park.

The “Iron Pigs” are a minor league baseball team. The minor leagues are the developmental teams for Major League Baseball (MLB). Every MLB team has several levels, leading up to their big league team. The Iron Pigs are the top level (AAA) affiliate for the Philadelphia Phillies. They were playing last night against the Tampa Rays top affiliate in the “International” League. I don’t know why they call it the international league because all of the teams are located in the eastern and central part of the US. All of the players are just one step from MLB and so the level is quite high, but most of them will not make it to the top team. There are about 800-1000 players in the MLB and about 5,000 minor league players. I would estimate about a third of the players at AAA get at least a game or two with the MLB club.

I was very impressed with the stadium and the large crowd (approx 10,000) people on a beautiful summer evening at the ball park. Americans do know how to make money from professional sports and I wish Red Star and Partizan could come and see what a stadium experience should be like. They were super organized with parking attendants, ushers, and security guards who were friendly and efficient. The experience is designed for families and for extracting money from the patrons. There are restaurants, fast food, really nice beer gardens, BBQ areas, and even a bouncy castle park for kids. In the outfield they have a grassy hill for picnicking. The souvenir shop was also first class and making a brisk business. In between innings they kept the fans entertained by giving away free t-shirts, a bunch of audience participation games, even a mascot running race.

Unfortunately, the home team lost 3-1, but more importantly for me, I got three chapters read of my homework and I enjoyed working in the relaxing environment of the baseball park. I am interested in the finances of the team. I wonder if it is a profitable business?

Kralovecs Perform

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Yesterday was a big day for performances. Nadia (above) made her debut in the International Belgrade Singers concert. The choir is made of expats and is organized by the Canadian Embassy. The theme last night was “Music of the Immigrant” and took place at the Children’s Cultural Center in downtown Belgrade. All proceeds went to Materinski Dom, a charity that helps children.

It was a thrill to see Nadia perform and I thought she was the best singer, although I may be biased.

Oliver also made his public debut as the drummer for “The Shooting Stars” a group of his friends. Ollie played the drums and had a magnificent performance. I would like to thank Adam for coaching the band. I would like to keep Oliver going with the drums. The video is below.

 

Visit to the Central Trades School in Rakovica

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It was an uplifting experience yesterday to visit the Central Trades School (Srednja Zanatska Škola) in the Belgrade suburb of Rakovica. The school is a government initiative that focuses on social rehabilitation and job training for vulnerable students in the Belgrade metropolitan area. Single mothers, refugees, victims of domestic violence, people with disabilities, Roma children, etc. are the target population. Most of the students are from ages 17-20 and include about 30% Roma.

The school was hosting a school year culminating fair, called, “We Can Overcome the Boundaries Together.”  There were food stands, music and dance performances, judo exhibitions, craft bazaar, etc. I toured the school and met with the teachers and students. I was invited as the representative of the International School of Belgrade. This year our students through the Community Action and Service Program at our school have been regularly working with the severe special needs students in the garden and green house program of the school. The idea stemmed from one of our students, whose parents through their work in the diplomatic community, became aware of the school.

My daughter Ocean poses in the school’s greenhouse

The school’s goal is to train and find job for their students. To that end, they have working auto mechanic garages, welding workshops, beauty salons, and even a small restaurant. Students also do internships with local businesses to help them make the transition into employment. An article in the Studio B web site stated that 40% of their students find jobs.

It is nice that the Serbian government supports these kinds of schools. A society can be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable members. I was also impressed with the positive spirit of the students and teachers and especially, the dedication of the faculty. Everyone I met was very dedicated to students and felt good about making a difference

ISB Students At the Bazaar of the Central Trades School

Bill and Nadia’s Diet

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In April Nadia and I visited Dr. Ana Gifing’s “Anti-Aging” Diagnostic Center here in downtown Belgrade. We both were carrying some extra weight from a long winter and based on a recommendation from a friend, we decided to try Dr. Gifing’s program.

We brought in blood test results, underwent a “Body Composition Analysis” which is basically a device that measures muscle and fat content, and a food allergen test. The staff then put us on a 28-day “chrono-nutrition” diet plan. This was the first time I ever went on a diet and I must say, it really worked for both of us.

The diet consists of eating vegetables and meat, avoiding sweets and carbohydrates. It also gave me some good habits of always eating breakfast and eliminating snacking between meals, especially the late night binges I used to do. My friends compared the diet to the Atkins or South Beach, or Paleo Diets in the US. High protein and low carbs to burn off fat. My results speak for themselves.

April 17, 2013

  • Weight – 76.9 kilograms (169.5 lbs.)
  • Body Fat Mass 18.0 (normal range 8 – 16)
  • Body Mass Index BMI – 25.5 (normal range 18.5 – 25.0)
  • Percent Body Fat – 23.4% (normal 10 – 20)
  • Lean Balance – Over in arms, trunk, and legs)

May 17, 2013

  • Weight 73.9 kilograms (162.9 lbs)
  • Body Fat Mass 14.7
  • Body Mass Index 24.5
  • Percent Body Fat – 20 %
  • Lean Balance – all normal except slightly over in trunk

My 32 waist pants now fit me! Over the Christmas holidays I had to buy 34 inch waist pants. I feel so much better with the fat taken off me. I highly recommend the clinic. It really made me think about what I eat and when I eat it. I will follow the concepts given in the diet. After the first 28 days, the diet is much more relaxed. The chrono nutrition is concerned a lot of certain combinations of foods, when high sugar foods are consumed, and continuing with eating of breakfast, a decent lunch, and small dinner. These are good habits to maintain a healthy weight.