Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge

When I visited Hoover Dam for the first time, back in 2007, I remember the slow moving traffic over the dam wall. 18-wheelers, busses, cars... and in between tourists like me trying to snap a shot of the dam. I had exactly one minute to jump out of the tour bus, take my picture (while trying to not be run over), and be back in the vehicle. No parking, no stopping. It’s a main road connecting Nevada and Arizona, after all! It’s like stopping to take a picture at the A4 in Germany... Simply not a good idea.

This time around, I got to appreciate yet another engineering wonder which sprang up between 2005 and 2010. The “Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge”. Roughly 500 meters down from Hoover Dam, this magnificent 600 meter arch bridge bridges over what is known as the Black Canyon.

Again, I was absolutely fascinated how this bridge is not only a display of engineering genius but also esthetic. Despite its size, it beautifully blends into the nature and its surrounding. It builds an esthetic unit with the Hoover Dam. Two amazing structures built some 74 years apart. Just imagine the engineering advances! Computers, materials, technologies, experience...

The bridge not only connects Arizona and Nevada and relives Hoover Dam of its traffic jam. The sidewalk gives adventurous pedestrians (I guess the ones not suffering vertigo), and hobby photographers an unprecedented view of the Hoover Dam.

Others might take the opportunity to measure the bridge’s apparent height considering the battling forces of gravity and wind affecting a blob of spit during its downward travel... (Author’s note: Spit far out, otherwise your measurement object will travel under the bridge and you won’t see it hit the water or rock surface. Hold your glasses! Don’t lean too far over the railing! Consider wind speed! Never spit into the wind!).

Eurozone Meltdown

For the longest time I wasn't sure if I felt offended or amused by this Greek restaurant's "Eurozone Meltdown Special" here in Manila. Tax-exempt but receiving my salary in Euro, I have two hearts beating in my chest when I follow the news about the "Euro Crisis".

Now the new $173 billion bail out package for Greece has been signed off on. This money will safe the country of the Gyro (which ironically sounds an awful lot like "Euro") to default next month. And then?

Greece is supposed to trim it's current debt of 160% to its gross domestic product (GDP) to 121% by 2020. 120% government debt is what "International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank have deemed acceptable". Wow! Spending 120% more annually than you make is "acceptable" to be granted a huge bail out? My bank would throw me out the door laughing if my track record would spell: Currently, I spent 160% more money than I earn, I promise I'll only spend 120% more than I earn eight years from now, can I please get a loan? And, I don't really have a plan to a) curb my spending by 40% or b) how to get by trying to do so.

The monetary "stability" provided through this bailout is supposed to "give Greece space to improve its competitiveness" and "create growth for the Greek economy", according to Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

I'm not an economist so please excuse my blunt observations on the subject matter. I'm just wondering how a bailout, which keeps Greek from defaulting next month, is supposed to stimulate economic growth in a country which is in a recession for the fifth consecutive year. Just wondering out loud...

One of the government's great plans to be more financially lean is to write down 100 billion Euro "worth of Greek government bonds and swap existing debt for securities with lower interest rates, a deal that would result in losses of 53.5% of nominal value for the private sector." What a great business model! Invest here and receive a 50% value loss instantly! I'm not so sure whether this will provide the right incentives to trigger the desperately needed economic growth.

I made up my mind about Stavro's Euro Meltdown Special. I love it! The restaurant is successfully competing with at least ten other food choices in a prime location, attracts customers with a witty promo, and stays in business. Maybe something the Greek government could learn from.

Evanescence life in Manila!

Who says cool gigs don't stop by Manila? The Stone Temple Pilots,
Kylie Minogue during her sexy "Aphrodite Tour", and now Evanescence with opening act Bush - buy 1, get 2).

I missed Incubus due to travel which I deeply regret. That would have been just awesome!

Lined up are Avril Lavigne, The Cranberries, and Vertical Horizon.

Not too bad for the capital city of the Philippines, with no direct access road to the airport and airlines like Air France threatening to pull out due to the red tape by airport authorities. Given these obstacles I myself am already happy to be able to exit and enter this archipelago without further trouble (not throwing wasted time into the equation...).

Just imagine bands' considerations, bringing in all their stage equipment! I'm sure Amy from Evanescence wouldn't have wanted to find out her beautiful black piano is stuck at Customs because some of the crew didn't follow "local protocol".

The crowd at Araneta Coliseum was cheering when the piano was rolled on stage and the rock tunes became mellow and classic. The life Cello on stage together with Amy's incredible voice gave me goosebumps!

Bush's lead vocalist Gavin Rossdale was less subtle in turning the crowd on. During one of his songs he suddenly abandoned the stage, and started climbing up the lower and upper box of the stadium! The crowd was frantic and his bodyguards huffing (to keep up with him and the girls off his sweaty body!).

And then, he passed right by my friends Jeff, Tess, Maria and Joe, who all had to get up from their front seats to let him pass. Me, "behind the scene" in second row, had the best view and most importantly, the camera rolling!

Hoover Dam - An Engineering Wonder

Although I’m not an engineer (or maybe precisely for that reason) I am absolutely fascinated with “engineering wonders” like the Hoover Dam. I admire the vision, persistence, and execution of ideas that not only stand the test of time, but more so the test of natural forces.

Standing on top of the majestic Hoover Dam wall, I try to envision the area between Nevada and Arizona before it was build. A stream of water dividing the two US states, rocks and barren land all around, a place subject to nature’s whims of drought or flood.

Someone looked at those parameters in the first quarter of the 20st century and did not find them as hostile and inhabitable as I might have. They saw an opportunity to make the desert fertile, to feed the growing number of settlers flooding the west to cash in on its natural resources. Human benefits aside, I think the engineers saw a challenge to apply known, and develop new technologies to show the desert who is boss!

They sure did! For the next five years, from 1931 to 1936, the Hoover Dam was build. For two years, workers poured concrete eight hours a day to build the dam wall, which at its bottom is two soccer fields wide (appr. 100m). Amazingly, the dam wall is not connected to the surrounding rocks. Rather, it is jammed into them by the water pressure created through Lake Mead (which, by the way is named after civil irrigation engineer Elwood Mead who was commissioner during the planning and construction of the Boulder Canyon Project, which created the dam and lake). After completion of the wall, it took another six years to fill the dam with water.

During my recent trip to Hoover Dam I learned, to my surprise, that the dam’s main objective was not power generation but irrigation. Power generation is a welcomed by-product of the water-security objective. A side-effect that make the operation self-sustaining.

As we crawled into the belly of the dam, we saw the giant turbines. Most of them idle, as the water reservoir levels are rather low these days. Only if there is enough water in the lake, will it be channeled through the turbines to release the pressure and thereby generate power. In his decades long experience working at the dam, our guide had only once seen the floodgates open, spitting out excess water from both sides of the canyon without going through the turbines. Current energy treaties between the surrounding states expire in 2017.

The Society of Civil Engineering selected Hoover Dam as one of the seven “Modern Civil Engineering Wonders of the United States”. I can see why. I think it is also a wonder that the dam, at times, works in two time zones. Arizona does not change its clocks to daylight savings time. I want to see the dam’s time and work schedule for the months of March to November!

The key to poverty alleviation

I had never heard of Indian-born Prof. Reuben Abraham until I stumbled over his article titled "Entrepreneurship key to escaping poverty". Now I'm convinced Mr. Abraham's article is a must read for everyone interested or working in the field of poverty alleviation. For everybody else, supporting charities and fighting globalization, this article helps understand why the only way out of poverty is a business approach.

Mr. Abraham's points at a glance:

• Entrepreneurship is an agent of economic development - no other intervention than economic growth has ever alleviate so many people out of poverty.
• Wealth creation before wealth distribution.
  
• Three kinds of entrepreneurship: a) the street vendor business, b) the small and medium sized enterprise, c) the Apples and Starbucks.
• The street vendor business is not an enterprise, it's a means of survival.
  
• Survival activities should be replaced by employment opportunities with regular income and benefits.
• Government (and international aid) should work on providing conducive framework to attract enterprises able to provide employment.
  

Mr. Abraham soundly voices my honest opinion about how to tackle poverty in under-developed countries: the business environment has to be conducive for companies, either small and medium sized or big internationals, to settle. Why? Jobs. We have to stop romanticizing the image of a street vendor, who is his own boss and makes ends meet. It's not romantic or empowering. This picture portraits survival and coping mechanism.

I've seen it. I've worked with people selling goods at the market to feed themselves and their families at night. They are not risk-loving entrepreneurs. All they want is a regular income, a home, food.

But that's what aid agencies wish to believe and support: making an entrepreneur out of a farmer, a home-based mother, a person with a 6th grade school degree. We provide training trying to install that "entrepreneurial spirit" along with business management & accounting, and product development skills. That's what is then called "enterprise development".

I don't know about you. Despite my education and resources I don't feel attracted by the thought of running my own business. I'm happy in the role of an employee. Entrepreneurs are a special breed. It takes guts to take the plunge.

My take on economic development and poverty alleviation is different. That is, much more in line with what Mr. Abraham says. The key out of poverty is to attract or support the "real" entrepreneurs with the right skills and resources. The goal is job generation.

Where do aid agencies and their support fit in? Well, depending on the level of intervention--grass root support or policy shaping--development resources should help build that conducive business environment. From education and skills training to government policies, they all have to be in line to support local or foreign investment.

The Strategic-Corporate Community Partnership (SCOPE) program, which I'm heading in the Philippines, is designed following this philosophy. Working on a grass root level, we engage with the local private sector to identify opportunities to embed local producer groups into their value chains. This provides small scale producers with an ensured market, and the opportunity to add value to their produce based on market-demand resulting in an increased income. Some of the SCOPE assisted producer groups were able to grow into small and medium enterprises. They are now the ones providing employment and income, supporting Mr. Abraham's idea of promoting (real!) entrepreneurship as an agent for economic development.