Room 101 La Serie C – Connecticut Shade Torpedo

Room 101 La Serie C – Connecticut Shade Torpedo

This was my Memorial Day cigar.  Room 101 is a brand that I have grown to enjoy quite a bit. Blended and rolled by Comacho, I chose a Room 101 Serie C for Memorial Day because it is owned by Matt Booth, a former Marine machine gunner, and currently a jewelry designer. I lit it up at Beach Cigar Lounge – a Veteran owned business here in Newport Beach, so all in all, it was quite appropriate for the occasion.

I want to preface this by saying that I have really enjoyed Room 101 cigars in the past. They are edgy, and full of flavor, with a bit of spice to the full, rich smoke. That being said, this was my first of the Serie C, and I was a bit disappointed. This Connecticut shade torpedo lit up well, and very quickly, but went out just as fast. This is not a damning characteristic right off the draw, as a wise man once told me “If your cigar goes out, it means you’re talking too much” However, this happened multiple times on the Serie C, despite near constant attention.

On the positive side, the Room 101 had a good draw with a high volume of rich smoke. It was light to medium bodied – not what I am used to with the 101’s – but with a kick there on the finish. The flavor was rather neutral, without much to speak of except a bit of soft wood. Overall, unremarkable.

I don’t make it a habit of judging a cigar off of just one smoke, but with so many other excellent choices out there, many even from Room 101, I may not want to spend money on this one again.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Mural

Found this mural while wandering around on my lunch break. It is on the back end of the Legacy Oceangate Towers and it caught my attention. I just thought it was pretty cool. Pictures were taken on my phone, so forgive the quality, but the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote was also quite appropriate - especially in the Business District of Long Beach.

Enjoy!

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Memorial Day

Memorial Day:

I don’t want to be the typical, token, disgruntled veteran complaining about how Memorial Day is too much about BBQ’s, the beginning of summer, and having Monday off from work. Judging by the two wars we have been fighting the last decade, and if your Facebook newsfeed is anything like mine, then you have noticed that the true meaning of Memorial Day is at the forefront of the minds of much of the country.

Even here in Newport Beach – a haven for both the out of touch bourgeois rich and the naïve, left leaning hipster culture, there are flags proudly displayed, and lunch specials at corner coffee shops offering a free cup of Joe to service-members (shout out to My Galley Café at 5^th street and Balboa – Thanks for the Coffee!) The meaning of the holiday has not been forgotten, it is pounded into us through social media and peer pressure, and many times it feels forced. It’s like saying thank you to Grandma for that hideous sweater on Christmas, or sending a halfhearted gift for that wedding invitation you got from a guy you haven’t seen since high school, and barely knew back then. It is an obligation. It is something we don’t really want to do, but feel bad if we don’t. Those serving in the military make up less than 1% of the population, and true enough, to actually meet a soldier outside of a military town is something of a surprise to many. The wars are half a world away: something you hear about on the news, but that rarely comes into casual conversation (as opposed to say, WWII, where for four years the entire country was tirelessly devoted to the defeat of the Axis Powers.) Everyone has a cousin in the navy (they think…) or has an uncle who fought in Vietnam, or knows a guy from high school who joined the Army when he didn’t get that football scholarship he wanted, but how many of your average citizens actually know someone who was killed in action? The answer is precious few – make no mistake, I hold nothing against the community at large for being kept away from the horrors of war. For the most part, those affected by the cost of American freedom are a warrior caste. We are set apart from the population, willingly confined to military posts and duty stations, occasionally venturing out for Christmas leave or a long weekend. We associate almost exclusively with other soldiers. Many were born to military families, and knew from an early age that they were destined for the profession of arms. It is a point of pride that we bear the burden of our society’s comfort. But even then there is a lot that gets lost in the actual application of that concept.

The men that I served beside did not fight for oil, or land, or riches, or even for freedom, or to keep the country safe. We all have personal reasons for joining up, but no matter what those are; we do what we do for those beside us. We do it for personal pride, for honor – in whatever personal definition that word holds for the individual. We don’t strap on body armor and seek out the enemy for barbeques or shopping malls or the free market or apple pie. Those are some pretty awesome byproducts of our actions, but we do it because it is expected of us. I did it because I didn’t want men like Tony DePetris, Matt Hermanson, Nate Henry, or Brian Knapp to have to face whatever lay outside the wire without me.

The men I know who fell in battle are too many to name. That is what comes with spending most of your adult life as a soldier. It is a small Army out there, and there is never a time when I am not scanning the news after some tragic story, searching for the name of a comrade. There are times when I hate myself for being stateside while I have friends that are still fighting. These are things that I don’t expect the average American to understand – no service member expects them to. We are a warrior caste so that they do not have to understand them. There is more of a burden to defending the nation than physical scars, but we don’t need pity. There is pride that comes with the job, and when you live a Spartan lifestyle of service to the nation, then pride is often all that you have. Don’t take that away with some abstract sense of guilt or false gratitude. Enjoy your Barbeque. Have fun at the beach on your day off. Our freedom to do so is through of the efforts of the military, so why waste this gift paid for by blood and sweat, toil and chaos! We make these sacrifices specifically so the people of the United States can remain blissfully ignorant of the costs of war. The only thanks that we really crave is from those beside us: a nod of approval from a brother in arms, a pat on the back (literal, not figurative) after a rough day, or a shared drink after a shared hardship.

It is important to remember Memorial Day for the somber day that it is, but do not let guilt or sadness or even gratitude erase the freedoms that their sacrifices bought. Have your moment of silence, fly your flag, and raise your glass to the memory of the men and women you never knew, but also honor them with smiles, laughter, and time with your loved ones.

Dedicated to: Matthew Hermanson, Benjamin Britt, Tom Martin, Nick Dewhirst, Neale Shank, Tim Cunningham, Emily Perez, Jacob Harrelson, Brian Mack, and a host of others who stood beside me and were carried home on their shields.

ICBSC

This past weekend was the intensive phase of the semester long International Collegiate Business Strategy Competition (ICBSC). For those that I have yet to regale with the details of this endeavor, the ICBSC is a collegiate competition at both the undergraduate and MBA level where teams of contestants create a fictional company and manage it through seven years of operations. These operations run the entire gamut of what can be expected of executive level management, from sales forecasts and production management to marketing and finance.

My company, representing Cal-State Long Beach, and manufacturing waterproof and shock proof MP3 players (For the active lifestyle that those of us in Southern California enjoy) was called “Long Beach Sound” (get it?) and I took over the reins as the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) My original goal as CFO was to finance the company through our operating income. This is a risky strategy, as it keeps us from having to pay interest, dividends, or diluting existing outstanding stock, but it also relies on current and existing cash flow in order to expand – which we did, very quickly, and very aggressively. Combine this with the company’s commitment to training and research & development, and we were cutting it close to the wire every quarter in terms of financing our operations.

Decisions were made every quarter (represented as usually once a week and gradually speeding up all the way to once every two hours during the intensive phase.) and I am proud to say that we were completely successful in being a self-sufficient company. We never had to issue bonds, or dilute our stock with a further issue, nor were we forced into emergency bank loans – known as the financial kiss of death in this competition. In fact, Long Beach Sound made a serious dent in our capital structure by buying back about 20% of our shares outstanding, and retiring much of our bond debt, therefore increasing shareholder value and overall stability, all while reinvesting in the company.

Without getting too far into the details of the competition – which may bore many readers (we joked that it was similar to the number crunching Olympics, that we were “Matheletes,” and I even referred to the competition as the Business world’s varsity dungeons & dragons team) I learned a great deal. One of the main lessons learned was that everything depends on everything else. To say business is a vicious cycle is far too cliché, but also very accurate. Finance depends on sales, which depends on production, which depends on forecasts, which depends on infrastructure, which depends on finance. Somewhere in that mix, throw in marketing, training, R&D, advertising, and oh yes, the competition. That is something else that you have to worry about. Much like the old military saying of “The plan never survives the first contact” a business plan depends largely on what your competitors do. Their price points, their capacity, their production, all have to be carefully monitored and kept in mind in order to optimize your own.

In the end, I think we performed well. Long Beach Sound placed 1^st in Business Documents (Strategic Business Plan, Annual Report, 10K, etc.) and 3^rd in Overall Performance. We also stood in a division that had some very stiff competition. We faced down, and ultimately outperformed such illustrious MBA programs as Purdue, and Northwestern’s Kellog School of Business. The program was a lot of work, and a good bit of fun. I am glad that I did it, and it will be a nice bullet point on my resume, but I am glad it is over. It truly was like having another job, in addition to the one I already have, my full time Grad School schedule, and my obligations to the California National Guard. If you are an MBA student or Business Undergrad then see if your school is putting together a team for next year. It will be well worth your time.