The Real Lesson of Cisco's Billion-Dollar Flip Debacle

Cisco announced that it's closing down the Flip camera business and revisiting its other consumer products.  With a purchase cost for Pure Digital (maker of Flip) of over $600 million, and now restructuring charges of $300 million (link), the total cost of Cisco's failed consumer experiment is probably north of a billion dollars, making it one of the larger business debacles in Silicon Valley in the last few years.

Most online analysis of the announcement doesn't really explain what happened.  The consensus is that Flip was doomed by competition with smartphones, but that says more about the mindset of the tech media than it does about Cisco's actual decisions.  I think the reality is that Cisco just doesn't know how to manage a consumer business.

There are important lessons in that for all tech companies.

Here are some samples from today's online commentary:

Gizmodo (link):  "The Flip Camera Is Finally Dead—Your Smartphone’s Got Blood on Its Hands."

Engadget (link):  "Cisco CEO John Chambers says the brand is being dispatched as the company refocuses, done in by the proliferation of high-definition sensors into smartphones and PMPs and the like."

ReadWriteWeb (link): "Single-purpose gadgetry has no place in today's smartphone-obsessed world."

ArsTechnica (link):  "Flip can't be faring well against the growing number of smartphones with built-in HD cameras. The quality of your typical smartphone video camera is comparable to the Flip, and people have their phones on them all the time."

Computerworld (link):  "More and more people are using their smartphones to take lower-quality video...the market for low-cost small video cameras that produce quick-and-easy videos is dead."

There's an old saying that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.  We need a similar proverb for news analysis -- when you're obsessed with smartphones, every market change looks like it was caused by them.

But did smartphones alone kill Pure Digital?  Two years ago, it was the most promising consumer hardware startup in Silicon Valley.  It had excellent products and a rabid customer base.  Two years later, it's completely dead.  That's a lot to blame on phones.  Plus, Cisco appears to be moving away from driving consumer markets in general.  The Umi videoconferencing system is being refocused on business, and Cisco CEO John Chambers said, "our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network's ability to deliver on those offerings."  In other words, we'll be working through partners rather than creating demand on our own (link).

Smartphones didn't cause all of that.  But they did play a supporting role in the drama.  They commoditized Flip's original features, putting the onus on Cisco to give it new features and innovations.  As Rachel King at ZDNet pointed out (link), Cisco failed to respond:

"The technology of Flip never really evolved since then, making it a very stale gadget. Sure, even once Cisco picked up Flip, new models continued to come out each year. Yet Cisco dropped the ball by never pushing further with Flip. It never moved beyond 720p HD video quality, and it never got HDMI connectivity."

Presenting a stationary target is enough to doom any consumer electronics product.  For example, what would have happened if Apple had stopped evolving the iPhone after version 1?  You'd have no app store, no 3G.  Today we'd be talking about iPhone as a cute idea that was fated to be crushed by commodity competition from Android. 

Just the way we're talking about Flip.

The important question is why Cisco failed to rise to the challenge.  Why didn't it innovate faster?  I don't know, because I wasn't there, but I'm sure the transition to Cisco ownership didn't help.  It was not a simple acquisition.  Cisco didn't just buy Pure Digital and keep it intact, it merged the company into its existing consumer business unit, which was populated by consumer people Cisco had picked up from various Valley companies in the previous few years.   Some of the key Flip managers were given new roles reaching beyond cameras, and there must have been intense politics as the various players jockeyed for influence.

Then there was the matter of Cisco's culture.  I had a great meeting at Pure Digital several years ago, prior to the merger.  They were housed above a department store in San Francisco, in a weird funky space with lots of consumer atmosphere.  The office was surrounded by restaurants and shops.

In contrast, visiting Cisco is like visiting a factory.  Every building on their massive campus looks the same, with an abstract fountain out front, the walls painted in muted tans and other muddy colors.  The buildings are surrounded by an ocean of cars.  The lobbies are lined with plaques of the company's patents, and the corridors inside have blown-up photographs of Cisco microprocessors.  In the stairwells you'll usually see a couple of crates of networking equipment, shoved under the stairs.  And all of the cubicles look the same.



The Cisco campus.



A typical Cisco building.

Cisco is an outstanding company, and an excellent place to work.  But it screams respectable enterprise hardware supplier.  To someone from a funky consumer company, going there would feel like having your heart ripped out and replaced with a brick.

Then there were the business practices to contend with.  As an enterprise company, Cisco is used to long product development cycles, direct sales, and high margins to support all of its infrastructure.  A consumer business thrives on fast product cycles, sales through retailers, and low margins used to drive volume.  Almost nothing in Cisco's existing business practices maps well to a consumer company.  But it's not clear that Cisco understood any of that.

The transition to Cisco management happened at a terrible time for Flip.  Just when the company's best people should have been focused obsessively on their next generation of camera goodness, their management was given new responsibilities, and Cisco started "helping out" with ideas like using Flip cameras for videoconferencing -- something that had nothing to do with Flip's original customers and mission.

If Pure Digital had remained independent, would it have innovated quickly enough?  Maybe not; it's very hard for a young company to think beyond the product that made it successful.  But merging with Cisco, and going through all of the associated disruptions, probably made the task almost impossible.

I'm sure that as the Flip team members get their layoff notices, we'll start to hear a lot more inside scoop.  But in the meantime, this announcement by Cisco looks like a classic case of an enterprise company that thought it knew how to make consumer products, and turned out to be utterly wrong.

That's not an unusual story.  It's almost impossible for any enterprise company to be successful in consumer, just as successful consumer companies usually fail in enterprise.  The habits and business practices that make them a winner in one market doom them in the other.

The lesson in all of this: If you're at an enterprise company that wants to enter the consumer market, or vice-versa, you need to wall off the new business completely from your existing company.  Different management, different financial model, different HR and legal.

You might ask, if the businesses need to be separated so thoroughly, why even try to mix them?  Which is the real point.

The other lesson of the Flip failure is that we should all be very skeptical when a big enterprise company says it's going consumer.  Hey Intel, do you really think you can design phones? (link)  Have you already forgotten Intel Play? (link)

I'll give the final word to Harry McCracken (link):  "You can be one of the most successful maker of enterprise technology products the world has ever known, but that doesn’t mean your instincts will carry over to the consumer market. They’re really different, and few companies have ever been successful in both."

Right on.

DOWN ON THE BORDER----PART TWO

WHERE COYOTES HOWL----AND PROWL. I've been invited to the deep hinterlands of Arizona's border area with Mexico. I'll go---I've learned to say yes when new experiences beckon. Directions given me: South of Tucson---find the giant Steer head at Amado and turn West.

Drive about 30 miles into the boondocks--the road will turn to gravel--but keep driving.

Drive past the billiondollar "electronic fence" ---motion detector designed to pinpoint the location of illegals moving up the valley so that the border patrol can go scoop them up. Well what could go wrong with such a well-thought-out plan? HOW ABOUT COYOTES--THE FOUR LEGGED KIND SETTING OFF A HUNDRED FALSE POSITIVES---CRYING WOLF, WOLF--(was told they just turned it off---another billion down the drain)

There's where I'm going---that ranch house in the distance. It's an old ranch--from last century. A popular novel was written in it. Can you imagine living there?

Gotta get across this arroya---it's worse than it looks and would stop large motor homes---likely twist their frames and break a windshields. Those contemplating the RV lifestyle should factor in where the assorted rigs can and cannot go. I like my 21 footer---

Got across with no real problem.

And there's my destination.

No electricity out here---everything is solar powered---lights---water system--fridge. A bank of deep cycle batteries stores up power from these panels.

My host takes me on a long walk as soon as I am settled.

An old fashioned corral made of desert debris. Actually a cool inviting place---enjoyed poking around--feeling its history.

That's a lot of water---still services the cows and horses that wander about. Can you read the message on the tank? It says "PLEASE DO NOT SHOOT AT THE TANK".

Here's where the water comes from.

A very surprising sign---only in spanish--directed at the illegals--requesting that they turn off the faucet after drinking---and that they not damage the pump because others' lives may depend on it.

Then this comes by---The Border Patrol---they were everywhere down here.

Their horses are saddled--ready to go roundup humans.

A major route for border crossers. My host points to that old abandoned trailer down there--we will investigate.

A tiny surprise is barely visible between the tree and the trailer---I'll go closer.

There---clearly visible---and re filled frequently I am told---a gallon of good water--placed conspicuously----by sincere humanitarians. Many many others dot the entire route----I wondered if the infiltrators grasped the irony and the ambivalence of us Americans---sympathetic and caring all the while we are hunting them down and sending them back. On another occasion I watched the interaction of Captors and Captives---a group of eight--rounded up by horsemen----There was no shouting or abuse--each was searched, given water, seated in the shade till a truck came to transport them. I detected an easy familiarity and even some humor exchanged. Seemed to be a game---the rules understood by all.

Inside the trailer---some furniture--a bed--and this sleeping bag.

RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: I'm chiding myself: ENOUGH ALREADY with the illegal immigration thing. What interest me more in this setting are my feelings as we wander for some days up the mountains and down the washes. Normally a chatterbox--I begin to calm down---speaking less often. The silence out here really is golden. We watched from the back porch as the super moon rose from the mountains. Great moment. Tomorrow I hope to share with you an incredible dinner party my host arranged---drawing in extraordinary intellects from as far away as Alaska.

DOWN ON THE BORDER----PART 1

DENTAL APPOINTMENT IN ALGODONES, MEXICO---Begins in Yuma, AZ parking lot--- Taking note of the labor busses that bring Mexican braceros to the nearby vegetable fields. Note that each bus tows behind it two porta johns-----and something more----

Sanitation facilities for handwashing. Farmers really want to prevent contamination of their harvest.

Dr Fernando Dominguez works on me. I've used this dentist for years---a root canal specialist affiliated with the Rubio team.

Afterwards I bike the back streets of Algodones catching glimpses of the impressive steel wall separating two nations.

I'll follow it to the edge of town.

Until it disappears into the sand dunes west of town.---Keep in mind that it's 14 feet high.

Mexican Cemetery also out there.

Struck me as curious--a gloved guy--seemingly de-fleing his pet. Surprising because dogs are generally not pampered over here.

Broad dirt streets on the south end of town.

On the very fringes of town---shacks like these.

and this one in a salt-crusted field.

RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall comes to mind. "Something there is that doesn't love a wall"---He challenges his neighbor to consider why there's a wall separating them. His neighbor's classic reply: "GOOD FENCES MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS". I agree with this sentiment----and more!!!---walls help define us---create managable environments--give us a bit of security--(like the Israeli wall)--keep out the unwanted (like gated communities or rabbit fences in Australia)--provide cozy comfort like the walls of my trailer----but, most subtley and important, are the walls of our personal armor (those behaviors---projections and deflections to ward off painful and scary others)---a scowling face and defensive manner will keep the gentle world outside--but condemn the defensive scowler to loneliness. I guess I'm arguing for useful walls and aginst useless ones.

The wall we put in Mexico's face is deservedly offensive. It says to them we do not wish to absorb your surplus population---we regard you as an irresponsible neighbor forcing US to defend ourselves against what amounts to national theft. Have you noticed that no such "in your face" wall is necessary with responsible neighbors like Canada?

The Five Most Colossal Tech Industry Failures You've Never Heard Of

The tech industry is famous for forgetting its own history.  We're so focused on what's next that we often forget what came before.  Sometimes that's useful, because we're not held back by old assumptions.  But sometimes it's harmful, when we repeat over and over and over and over the mistakes that have already been made by previous generations of innovators.

In the spirit of preventing those repeated failures, I spent time researching some of the biggest, but most forgotten, failures in technology history.  I was shocked by how much we've forgotten -- and by how much we can learn from our own past.


5. Atari Suitmaster 5200

Video console manufacturer Atari was notorious for its boom and bust growth in the 1980s.  The company's best-known failure was probably the game cartridge ET the Extraterrestrial, which Atari over-ordered massively in anticipation of hot Christmas sales that never materialized.  Legend says that truckloads of ET cartridges were secretly crushed and buried in a New Mexico landfill.

What's much less well known is that Atari was also involved in the creation of an early motion-controller for home videogames, a predecessor of Microsoft's Kinect.  Since video detection technology was not sufficiently advanced at the time, the Suitmaster motion controller consisted of a bodysuit with 38 relays sewn into the lining at the joints, plus 20 mercury switches for sensing changes in position.  The suit was to be bundled with the home cartridge version of Krull, a videogame based on the science fiction movie of the same name.

A massive copromotion was arranged with the producers of Krull, and Atari made a huge advance purchase of Suitmaster bodysuits and cartridges.  Unfortunately, development was rushed, and late testing revealed two difficulties.  The first was that the suit's electromechanical components consumed about 200 watts of power, much of which was dissipated as heat.  That may not sound like much, but imagine jamming two incandescent light bulbs under your armpits and you'll get the picture.  There were also allegedly several unfortunate incidents involving mercury leaks from broken switches, but the resulting lawsuits were settled out of court and the records were sealed, so the reports cannot be verified.

The Christmas promotion was canceled, but Atari didn't give up on the Suitmaster immediately.  The next year, it was repurposed as a coin-op game accessory, allowing the user to control a game of Dig Dug through gestures.  Sadly, Atari's rushed development caught up with it again.  Due to a programming error in the port to Dig Dug, under certain obscure circumstances when Dig Dug got flamed by a Fygar the suit would electrocute the player.  (The bug was discovered by an arcade operator trying out the game after hours, in what is now memorialized in coin-op gaming circles as The Paramus Incident).  That was the last straw for Atari's corporate parent, Warner Communications.  To limit its potential liability if a Suitmaster were to fall into public hands, Warner arranged to have the entire inventory chopped up and mixed into concrete poured into a sub-basement of the Sears Tower in Chicago, which was then undergoing renovation.   A small bronze plaque in the third sub-basement of the Sears Tower is the Suitmaster's only memorial:


 

4. eSocialSite.com

Before Facebook, before MySpace, even before Friendster, the most successful social networking site on the web was eSocial.  Largely forgotten today, eSocial thrived in the late 1990s as usage of web browsers took off on PCs.  By 1998, it had reached more than 50 million users worldwide, an unheard-of success at the time.  Its Series A fundraising in 1999 raised more than $132 million from a consortium of VCs led by Sequoia Capital.  Many people still cite eSocial's Super Bowl ad in January 2000, which featured a singing yak puppet, as a classic of the dot-com bubble era.  When the company went IPO in February 2000, its stock price made it the 23rd most valuable company in North America.

Unfortunately, just two months later, it was revealed that 99.999974% of eSocial's registered users were fake people simulated algorithmically by a rogue eSocial programmer.  The other 13 were middle school students from Connecticut who were technically too young to sign up for the service.  eSocial was sued for allowing underage users, which delayed critical service upgrades for several months.  By the time the litigation was resolved, Friendster had seized the initiative, and eSocial was quickly forgotten.

eSocial found a second life overseas, though, and today it is still the leading social site in several former Soviet republics in Central Asia.  The founders of eSocial have long since left the company, and today are active in Wikidoctor.org, a promising new site that enables people to crowdsource the diagnosis of diseases and other chronic health problems.
   

3. The cardboard aeroplane

It's an unfortunate fact that wartime is a great stimulator of innovation.  Desperation leads countries to try all sorts of crazy ideas.  The successful ones become famous, while the failures are usually forgotten.   For example, you don't hear much today about Britain's World War II plan to turn icebergs into aircraft carriers (link).

Even more obscure was the effort to create an aircraft from cardboard.  One of the greatest bottlenecks in aircraft construction during the war was the shortage of aluminum feedstock.  Britain could not expand aluminum production quickly enough to meet its needs, so it attempted to substitute the output from the Empire's massive Canadian paper mills.  The idea of a cardboard airplane sounds crazy at first, but cardboard can be incredibly rigid in some directions (as you've found if you've ever tried to smash a box for recycling).  Through the proper use of corrugation in multiple directions, the British found that they could create a material with the same tensile characteristics as aluminum, with only slightly greater weight.

Early flight tests of the cardboard aircraft were not encouraging, as the first two test planes broke up suddenly in mid-flight.  Subsequent investigation revealed that water was infiltrating the corrugations, and then freezing when the plane reached altitude.  The expansion of the ice caused the cardboard to delaminate, resulting in failure of the airframe.

But the engineers persevered, sealing the cardboard with paraffin wax to waterproof it.  These new models successfully completed flight tests in the UK, and were demonstrated for Winston Churchill in 1943, who endorsed them enthusiastically. 

The new aircraft were deployed to North Africa, where another unfortunate problem appeared: the paraffin melted in the desert heat, causing the planes to wilt on the tarmac.  Needless to say, this limited their effectiveness.  The British engineers persevered, eventually creating a new waterproofing scheme utilizing used cooking oil.  This not only waterproofed the planes, but also made them smell like fish & chips, a definite plus to homesick British airmen.  Unfortunately, wartime supplies of cooking oil in Britain were limited, and by the time alternate supplies could be imported from the America South, the war was nearly over.

The cardboard airplane disappeared into history, but its spirit lives on (link).


2. The microwave hairdryer

The 1950s and 1960s were the golden age of innovation in electronics.  Companies like HP, Varian, and Raytheon created amazing new devices, often adapted from wartime technologies.  One example was the microwave oven, which was derived from radar.

But microwaves were once used for a lot more than cooking food.  My dad worked in the electronics industry at the time, and he often told me stories about the remarkable new product ideas he worked on.  One was the microwave hairdryer.

Today we're frightened of microwaves because they're "radiation," and that's assumed to be bad.  But in the 1960s people understood that microwaves had nothing to do with nuclear radiation.  They were just another tool that you could use to get things done, like arsenic or high voltage electronics.  Engineers at my dad's employer (which he asked me not to name) were looking for new ways to use microwaves to solve everyday problems.  Someone noted the number of hours women spent under rigid-hood hairdryers, used to finish the elaborate hairdos that were prevalent in the 1960s, and realized that a microwave hairdrying helmet could do the same job in just 45 seconds -- creating a massive increase in national productivity.

Unfortunately, the microwave hairdryer ran into a series of technical problems.  The first was that the microwaves caused metal bobby pins and hair clips to arc, which frightened customers and gave their hair an unattractive burned smell.  That was solved by substituting plastic clips.  The second problem was that the microwave frequency that couples best with wet hair is very close to the frequency that couples best with blood plasma.  This required some precise adjustments to the three-foot-long Klystron tubes that powered the hairdryers.  If they were jostled there was a very slight risk of causing the client's blood to boil (although this never actually happened in practice).

The technical problems were eventually resolved, but the death knell to the microwave hairdryer was something no engineer could fix: a sudden change in hairstyles in the late 1960s.  The move toward long straight hair, frequently unwashed among younger people, caused a collapse in the hairdryer market, from which it has never recovered. 

There was an abortive attempt to create a microwave blow dryer in the 1970s, but it was pulled from the market when it caused LED watches to burst into flame.


1. Apple Gravenstein

During the Dark Years when Steve Jobs was away, a rudderless and confused Apple Computer churned out a long series of failed initiatives.  Their names echo faintly in tech industry history:  CyberDog, Taligent, Kaleida, OpenDoc, HyperCard, Pippin, eWorld, emate, A/UX, the 20th Anniversary Macintosh, Macintosh Portable, QuickTake, the G4 Cube (oh, wait, Steve did that one), Newton, and so on.

But the most catastrophic failure was the one Apple worked hardest to hush up, the project called Gravenstein.  Simply put, Gravenstein was Apple's secret project to produce an electric automobile.

In the late 1980s, Apple was growing like a weed, but the driver of its growth was the Macintosh product line initiated under Steve Jobs.  John Sculley and the rest of Apple's senior management team were concerned with securing their historical legacy by doing something completely different.  Sculley, noting the chaos caused in the world economy by the oil embargo of the 1970s, chose to focus on the creation of an all-electric car.  Michael Spindler, ironically nicknamed "Diesel," was chosen to manage the production of the vehicle.  Bob Brunner drove the overall design, but Jean-Louis Gassee was asked to do the interior, on account of he's French and has good taste.

Apple used its Cray supercomputer to craft a unique teardrop aerodynamic shape for the car.  Apple purchased all the needed parts, and planned to begin production in its Fremont, California factory.  To prepare the market for the car, Sculley started working automobile references into Apple's advertising.  The most famous of these was the "Helocar" advertisement (link).   If you watch the ad closely, you can see actual diagrams of the Gravenstein's design and aerodynamic shape, although of course the first version of the car was not intended to fly.

Unfortunately, the public response to the Helocar ad was so overwhelmingly negative that it frightened Apple's Board of Directors.  Sculley was ordered to scrap the Gravenstein project, and all documents related to it were shredded and then burned.  Although Gravenstein never came to market, its legacy affected Apple's products for decades to come.  The Macintosh Portable, for example, used bulky lead-acid batteries that were originally intended to power Gravenstein.  And many years later, Jonathan Ive reused the Helocar's aerodynamic shape in the design of the original iMac.




Those are my five top little-known tech failures of all time.  What are yours?  There are many other candidates.  Honorable mentions should include Leonardo da Vinci's steam-powered snail killer, Thomas Alva Edison's notorious electric bunion trimmer, spitr.com, and of course Microsoft Bob.

You can draw many lessons from these failures, but to me the most important lesson of all is that you can't trust blog posts written on this particular date.

Posted April 1, 2011

MEETING MYSELF ON THE ROAD

---HAPPENS OCCASIONALLY---Meet people "wired" enough like me in values and lifestyle to give me a glimpse of myself---often at an earlier age or stage----Makes me smile inside---congratulate them----compare stories. The guy in this van, for example, reminded me of my Van stage---a very enjoyable, efficient way to live and travel---about midway on the spectrum between hitchiking and motorhoming. This one exquisitly engineered to provide cozy comfort and mobility for perhaps 20 years. For the curious, I will report my Stages In my 30 odd years of travel: 1. Hitchiking 2. railroad hobo at age 12 (just one trip) 3. Motorcycle 4. Car camping 5. a bookmobile specially engineered 6. Volkswagen bug made sleepable 7. An Airstream trailer 8. ford van (several years) 9. BMW motorcycle 10. Winnebago Centauri 11. Isuzu diesel camper 12. small 5th wheel camper 13. The famous Stealth Cargo trailer and 14. My current 21 ft tow trailer. The owner of this rig mirrors me for a different reason.

He has mastered the art of inexpensive living and saving most of his income. He's just finishing nursing school---and he lived in this $3000 rig all the time---shuffling here and there---paying zero rent. He has determined to win his freedom in just a scant 5 to 7 years as he earns the bonus bucks of a short term mobile RN. I introduced him to the book Walden's Pond by Thoreau.

As if the ghost of travels past wanted me to see more---I find myself drawn to this famous landmark----Picacho peak---will stay the night on its slopes if I can find a free spot.

I settle in behind an abandoned Red Roof business. A campground nearby charges $20 a nite.

Exploring my area after dark, I find these guys---Ryan and Steven---bedding down on the rocks on a rather cold night.

Invited them in for a hot meal---we shared stories. Those guys are Me--thirty years ago.

Steven entertains us with origional compositions----said he earned $50 in two hours on 4th st in Tucson.

Next morning I made our breakfast and wished them well----As did Walt Whitman in 1855--surely he spoke of travelers like these when he said:

Afoot and light hearted---I take to the open road:

Healthy, free, the world before me!

Henceforth I ask not good fortune---I myself am good fortune.

Strong and content, I travel the open road.

I inhale great drafts of space

The East and the West are mine;

The North and South are mine.

All seems beautiful to me.

I can repeat over to men and women:

you have done such good to me.

I would do the same to you.

Whoever you are----come travel with me!

However sweet these laid up stores;

However convenient this dwelling,

We cannot remain here!

However calm these waters;

However secure this harbor;

We must not anchor here.

Together, the inducements shall seem greater!

We shall sail wild and pathless seas

We will go where the winds blow---waves dash;

and the yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.

Foreward!!---after the great companions---and to belong to them

they too are--- on the road.

Onward!!--- to that which is endless---

as it was beginningless.

To undergo much---tramps of days and rests of night.

To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it---and pass it.

To look up or down no road---but it stretches and waits for you!

To know the universe itself as a road---as many roads

AS ROADS FOR TRAVELING SOULS.

THE PAIN OF FADING FAME

HEROES WHO WEAR THEIR HONORS OUT. Of course this strange vehicle attracts my attention.

Towing this! Can you see the racing motorcycle also? What is street racing? And why are the Datona Police involved? I will stand outside photographing till I attract the driver's attention and draw him outside---I want the story!

Meet Big Willie Robinson--- He understands--he emerges--with part of the story in hand.

We introduce and for the next hour he walks me through his life---showing me many photos of his beloved/deceased wife Tomico. He weeps when describing her though she's been gone some years. I flashed on the song Bo Jangles where the man still grieves 20 years after his little dog died.

He's the first and only president of Street Racers International--said he was enroute to California for a meet. I sensed that his club had peaked long ago---but occasional offers still come---and some towns still provide gas money for him to come and organize an event.

I wanted to see inside---without asking!! So I listened politely --- evinced my good will---interest---harmlessness (necessary skills to us travelers who are perpetual strangers) and sure enough he invited me inside. I have something valuable to offer----my attention--that is what I will pay for the story. He's 6 foot 6 inches or so and has to stoop a bit. I expected a bad smell but was pleasantoly surprised. This gentle giant sat beside me on his couch showing me his trophies of newspaper fame. They were extensive.

Looking forward at the console--he said was modeled after that of an airliner.

looking rearward----a giant TV--model race cars. He likes the look of spoilers--so he made a large one for his rig. Did you notice it? The rig seemed well lived in---it was perhaps 30 years old. We sat down and I paid attention while he showed me picts of himself with various notables (e.g. the Mayor of LA) some movie stars--Paul Newman--etc. He seemingly needed a fame "fix". My attention provided it and in return he gave me 3 autographed cd's telling his full bio.

RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: I came away sad and a bit exhausted. Ego on display is tiring. (I let myself be warned) Perhaps a single -themed Life such as his-- leads to a starving ego ---so that exchanges like this one amount to energy theft. Old folks I meet---having lived too narrow a life -- are often unbearably boring. Multi-dimentional--multi-faceted folks are sure to be more interesting---and more giving.