Stretch the Truth

Apparently, stretching before a workout may actually do more harm than good. Why? According to a recent article in the science section of U.S. News (link here): "One explanation is that stretching muscle fibers makes them less stable and less able to resist the jarring impact of running or jumping. Stretching may hinder performance because a stretched muscle can't produce the same kind of force as an unstretched one. And as muscle fibers lengthen, it takes longer for the brain's messages to tell the muscles to move. Rather than stretching, Blahnik and other experts encourage people to warm up by jogging slowly, lightly swinging a golf club, or doing whatever else they need to do to achieve the range of motion required for their activity. Strengthening and conditioning exercises are also helpful... because fatigue and muscle weakness cause most injuries. The only reason stretching feels so good... is that it results in tiny tears in the muscle fibers. The body then releases hormones that mask the pain." This is music to my ears. I have always hated warm up stretches before running or before a game of tennis. All my life, it had been drilled into me that stretching is absolutely necessary to prevent injury. This is just one more example of conventional wisdom being turned on its head.

Food Fight

A common practice for any financial sales & trading group is to provide a steady stream of free food for the staff. Our group is no exception. This is done primarily to induce traders and other staffers to remain on the floor during trading hours. Each day has its own designated offering. For example, Monday is fresh fruit and yogurt day. Without question, the most coveted of these daily offerings is the Thursday bagel spread, i.e., "Hol(e)y Thursday". Every type of bagel you can imagine with all of the fixings including cream cheese and veggies. Every Thursday morning, I dash over to the bagel table and grab one of the highly-desired Asiago cheese bagels, tossing it immediately into the toaster oven. It has become a weekly ritual. This morning, however, I was alarmed to find, as were the three other early birds, that the vendor had omitted the Asiago bagels. Consciously or unconsciously, what began as a simple gripe amongst the four of us soon developed into a conspiracy of organized dissent and was building towards an all out revolt "to topple the current regime". Sure, office politics is oftentimes petty and counterproductive. But these are toasted cheese bagels damnit! As I have learned in my management courses, motivation in the workplace is a fragile thing. It often hangs by a thread. Or in this case, a strand of Asiago cheese. Expect a revolution next Thursday if the Asiago fails to reappear.

French Connection: Merci et Mercy

Working in financial derivatives, you grow accustomed to fielding calls from overseas, in particular, from trading desks in London and in Paris. Normally, the calls from our French counterparts at BNP Paribas or at Societe Generale don't phase me because everyone there knows to speak English and usually do so with ease. However, earlier today, someone from BNP Paribas phoned in using what was a very heavy, almost over-the-top French accent. "Ah-LO? Eh-que-TEE Deh-reev-u-TEEVS?" It was so thick and comical in fact that for a split second, I was convinced we were talking to Inspector Clouseau, the Peter Sellers character from the Pink Panther series. I had to mute the phone for fear he would hear me choking in laughter. I half expected to hear Cato, Clouseau's wily oriental butler, ambush him in mid-sentence. One of my favorite Pink Panther scenes ever: Clouseau: "Does your dog bite?"... Hotel Clerk: "No."... Clouseau goes to pet the dog: "Nice doggie."... dog snaps and snarls at his hand... Clouseau: "I thought you said your dog did not bite."... Hotel Clerk: "That, is not my dog."

Bibliophile from Birth to Burlingame

We finally made the short walk down the street to explore the historic Burlingame Public Library. During a previous dinner, T's friend, a former Burlingame resident and fellow bibliophile, had highly recommended a visit. She could not have been more right. The place is not only a book lover's haven but also an architectural treat. The dark oak-paneled walls, ornate tapestries, period lighting, and Stickley-inspired, Arts & Crafts Movement furniture evoked a time in Burlingame's history when the bluebloods of San Francisco called this sleepy, eucalyptus-lined town, home. On the third floor, hidden in the rear, we "discovered" a wonderful wood-paneled conference room that faithfully replicated the ones I would often encounter at an Ivy League campus, Yale in particular. On the lower floor, we happened upon a box of old black and white photo plates, all depicting some historic moment in Burlingame's past. There were several photos depicting then-President Teddy Roosevelt arriving at the Burlingame train depot (now the Cal Train stop) and participating in a welcoming procession down Burlingame Avenue towards the Burlingame Country Club. Walking down the aisles of books brought back some very old memories. Looking back, libraries have been, in one way or another, a consistent backdrop in my life. Early on, at newly-built John F. Townley Elementary School back in my hometown of Irving, Texas, I was one of a handful of students in my fifth grade class allowed to knock off class time to volunteer in the library; this is where I was first introduced to the Dewey decimal system and also to that particular scent of worn paper that is unique to libraries. The experience was so memorable that I later volunteered a few hours per week behind the circulation desk of our high school library, where I would cause mischief by adding fines to classmates' accounts. And much later in life, I earned a little extra income by working in the law school library, manning the security desk on Friday and Saturday nights; strangely enough, to make sure my fellow law school colleagues, many of them bound for future careers as criminal prosecutors, weren't pilfering fifteen pound federal law digests in their backpacks on the way out. The elegant Main Library at Berkeley, as well as the cavernous New York Public Library in midtown Manhattan, were also memorable backdrops for many hours spent with fellow students or more often than not, alone with a stack of books and magazines. My bibliophilic love of libraries must have rubbed off on my sister, who works for Innovative, the leading database software provider (primarily electronic card catalogs) for public and private libraries. On a whim, T and I signed up for Burlingame library cards. Good thing we did because I may be visiting more often. To steal a quote from writer Jorge Luis Borges, "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

I Left My Heart(burn) in San Francisco, Part I

It all began on Friday with a seemingly innocuous lunch with T's cousin and his fiance, whose wedding, incidentally, we will be attending in Hawaii only three weeks before our own. We met at City View on Commercial Street in Chinatown, just a couple of streets up from my building. All four of us, it turns out, work within blocks of one another. The financial markets were closed for the day, so the restaurant had no trouble seating us within minutes of arrival. It also meant that as soon as we were seated, the carts of dimsum came swarming to our table like moths to a flame. Plates of steamed shrimp dumplings flew off the carts faster than I could say "aiyah". In between bites of tender potstickers, we learned that T's cousin, in his offtime, sang for a well-regarded local acappella troupe, The Richter Scales, and that his fiance, in her offtime, had been learning the traditional Hawaiian hula dance. Very fun and interesting couple, and given the volume of dimsum consumed, our newest partners in crime.

I Left My Heart(burn) in San Francisco, Part II

Later that evening, we made it over to Irving & Ninth near the UCSF campus to have a late dinner at Masala, our favorite Indian restaurant in the City. The onion naan and the poori bread were as good as I remembered as were the lamb vindaloo and the chicken tikka. Unfortunately, it became apparent an hour later that the curried spices were not mixing well with the dimsum from earlier in the day, leading me to fear that the 1962 Border War between China and India had reignited inside my gastrointestinal tract. All I will say further of Friday night is that a small nuclear detonation brought an end to the dispute. Border War notwithstanding, Masala holds a special place in our memories. It was where T and I had our first unofficial date nearly three years ago. That night after dinner, we took a random stroll down the Avenues, planning out the itinerary for our upcoming trip to London along the way; in the process, we walked what must have been a good five to six miles, all the way down to the beach and eventually up the length of the Great Highway to the summit at the Cliff House. I remember looking north up the beach that dark night and seeing countless bonfires strewn out like a long strand of red Christmas lights. Hundreds of San Franciscans huddled together at their respective bonfires to celebrate the weekend and the unusually temperate evening weather. It was quite a scene, and quite a party.

I Left My Heart(burn) in San Francisco, Part III

On Saturday, we walked up Market Street to the newly-redesigned Ferry Building, now a gourmet food hall with rows of purveyors of specialty food items. We sampled a host of items including two varieties of ice cold raw oysters on the half shell at Hog Island Oyster Company, a brothy clam chowder at San Francisco Fish Company, panko-breaded scallop and shrimp croquettes at Delica/rf1, a buttery brioche at Miette, crisp green apple and pear sorbets at Ciao Bella Gelato, and fresh, incredibly sweet white peaches in the outdoor farmer's market at the rear of the building. There were so many more items we could have sampled, but it would have taken a good solid month of visits to exhaust all of the possibilities. And about an entire month's salary as well. It ain't cheap. But the views of the Bay Bridge span from the piers behind the building are spectacular. The entire other half of the day was spent recuperating from the trauma our stomachs endured. Good times.