Michael Makis

200 posts and 20,000+ pageviews in my first 4 1/2 years.  Not overwhelming by any means but still chugging along.


I apologize for any broken links and trouble surfing to and around my blog for the coming weeks.  I have made a decision to realign my online digital presence by creating a new simple homepage to serve as a menu for my online profiles and activity.  This change forced me to commandeer my domain of michaelmakis.com to point to my new landing page instead of my blog.  My blog will retain its original michaelmakis.blogspot.com address for now until I can find a way to claim michaelmichael.com (owned by someone else who is not currently using it and doesn't want to sell it) or michaelmichael.blogspot.com to match my blog's title with the URL.

Thanks for reading!

Here are two ways to fix the out of date floundering United States Postal Service (USPS).

It's disappointing to hear the gloom in the news about the Postal Service, a service that we expect as a right in the United States of America, and how it is failing and making decisions on which local branch offices to close, which days to stop delivering mail on or how much to raise the price of a stamp.  These are not the best options and will only extend their problem and continue to destroy the brand.

Americans have been proud of the Post Office brand for years.  With few exceptions, someone can pay a minimal amount (+/-44¢) and have an envelope or small package delivered in less than 3 days to someone within the 50 states.  With all of the labor and fuel involved this is a good deal relatively speaking.  As most people know, technology advancements like email, blogging, micro-blogging, discussion forums and online bill payment compounded with social media and social networking explosions have made a significant blow to the traditional communication and financial transactions previously reserved for traditional mail.  Regardless of significant changes and improvements, the Post Office's brand is still the same.  They get important messages and packages to recipients quickly (relatively speaking) consistently.

Companies need to change just like people.  Small, medium and large companies change all the time.  They adapt by creating better products and delivering new services every day or end up going out of business when their products and services are no longer needed.  Why should this be any different for the Post Office?  There is no need for the Post Office to die off nor should the great people of the United States let it.

USPS made the necessary changes to stay competitive with shippers like UPS, FedEx and DHL over the past couple of decades.   But USPS has failed to stay competitive now that communication has gone so much more digital.

Here are the answers:  email and file transfer.

If you have the least bit of technically savvy, you are probably thinking, how would this work?  These aren't new products?

Email
The Post Office needs to get into the business of email.  Email is the communication vehicle that people have been choosing and will continue to trend into for at least a few years to come.  The use of blogging, micro-blogging and discussion forums are definitely increasing, but email is something most people need in today's society.  There is money to be made off of the (regulated) advertisements parked on the side of email web based applications.  And who better to provide email security than the government?  People are born everyday that will need new email accounts and if they don't want to wait there are students in public schools that could benefit from their first email accounts.

File Transfer
The second part of the coupled fix is file transfer.  People need to get large digital files to recipients immediately every day in today's business world.  The Post Office's current best option is overnight or express mail, which just doesn't cut it for most.  They need to get into the file transfer business.  The quantity, size and frequency of transferred files is increasing all the time.  Eventually the infrastructure (application servers, server disk space, bandwidth, associated databases, etc...) of existing vendors will not be able to provide free services for transferring files and will either charge outright per file, per license or by term; or trade free file transfer services for advertisement ridden applications.  Again, there are several companies already in this space but this is consistent with the USPS brand, a lot of opportunity remains and would be easy for them to transition in customers as well as convince those advanced in the technology spectrum into digital transactions.

Innovation doesn't always come from brand new ideas as it can also come from a different application of what exists already.  Altering the USPS's product landscape with these new directions would make them drastically more applicable to today's instant communication consumer.  It's time for the Post Office to start acting outside of their proverbial box and instead of making cuts looks to redefine a well known brand.  Good Luck USPS.

Up until tonight I was tracking all of my burger stops on the right margin of my blog home page.  I'm removing all of them and only plan to retain my 'top' cheeseburgers.  The ones that never had their own blog posts and pictures somewhere else on my blog are listed here.

• 301 Bistro - Louisville, KY
• Red Coat Tavern - Royal Oak, MI
• Ercole's - Manhattan Beach, CA 
• Cafe Lido at The Lido Beach Resort - Sarasota, FL 
• Vic & Angelos - Delray Beach, FL
• Theater Square Marketplace - Louisville, KY
• The Grille on Congress - Boca Raton, FL 
• Mr. Bartley's - Cambridge, MA
• Jack's Old Fashion Hamburger House - Ft. Lauderdale, FL 
• Steak n Shake - Midwest, South, and Southeast, U.S. 
• Bristol Bar & Grille - Louisville, KY 
• Jack Fry's - Louisville, KY
• Country Pancake House & Restaurant - Lakewood Ranch, FL
• Stand - New York, NY
• Tobacco Road - Miami, FL
• Jaxson's Ice Cream Parlor & Restaurant - Dania Beach, FL
• Corner Bistro - New York, NY
• The Sports & Social Club - Louisville, KY
• Fuddrucker's 
• IN-N-OUT Burger - CA, NV, UT, and AZ
• Kahuna Bar & Grill - Deerfield Beach, FL 
• R. F. O'Sullivan & Son's - Somerville, MA
• Wolfe Burgers - Pasadena, CA
• El Cap - St. Petersburg, FL
• Kaelin's - Louisville, KY
• Ollie's Trolley - Louisville, KY
• Red, Hot, & Blue - Irving, Texas
• Banana Boat - Boynton Beach, FL
• brgr - New York, NY
• Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien - New York, NY
• Fairway Sports Bar & Grill - Eastpointe, MI

My third stop for the best cheeseburger in the Lansdale, PA area was at The Clubhouse Too and has left me thinking:  "Is there a great cheeseburger in this area?" Almost the same as my last two local experiences - mediocre.

• A "Malt Shop" sign
• A diner appearance
• Old school mini juke box music machines at each table

After a long day of sightseeing with my wife and good friend we walked to Marquis Cornwallis while staying at the St. Pancras Renaissance to get something to eat.  We came here a couple of days earlier on a similar hunt to fill our stomachs but since the kitchen was already closed we only enjoyed the beer.  This time the kitchen was open and I ordered a burger.  I was definitely disappointed to learn that all burgers are cooked well done.  Too bad I didn't know this before ordering.  My friend told me that apparently all beef gets cooked well done to avoid mad cow disease.  The lesson learned:  don't order beef in London.

Not bad food.  But not my style burger.

My first of my three stops so far in the Lansdale, PA area for a great cheeseburger was at The Sumney on Sumneytown Pike.  The hunt must continue.  This burger at The Sumney was not bad, but nothing to get the burger fanatics to come out to Lansdale for.  As shown, it came with the standard components.

Check out this fantastic burger cake I was given for my birthday!  A double cheeseburger  and poppy seed bun made of cake accompanied with lettuce, tomato, cheese, pickles, mustard, ketchup, and potato chips made of icing and fondant.

Pictures of bicycles in Brussels, Amsterdam and London.

reblog:  The Best Blogs of 2011 from Time Magazine

Check it out...lots of good finds here.  I was alerted from my favorite burger blog, AHT.

My personal favorites:
A Hamburger Today
The Everywhereist
EDC
Cool Hunting
Get Rich Slowly

Keep an eye out for information on Bar Codes here at Michael Michael.  Quite an interesting way to capture, store, and share information.  more to come...

Unicycles are not easy to ride.  A healthy combination of balance, bravery, practice, and continued effort is necessary when learning to ride a unicycle.  Be prepared to get hurt along the way.  It's obviously not impossible but it isn't even close to riding a bike.

Are you trying to figure out how to apply your skills as a Mathematician?  Do you have a math degree and are not sure what to do next?  Not sure if you want to keep doing proofs the rest of your life, become an actuary, or a math teacher?

Then what are you good at? 

If you have made it to at least the 3rd or 4th year of an undergraduate Mathematics program one of your top 3 answers is surely:  Solving Problems.  Right?

Well, where in the real world can you solve problems as a career?  The answer is everywhere.  Of course there are the 9 to 5ers and operational staff whose jobs are to push the pencil and do routine work.  But seriously, the world goes round and round because we are continually solving new and more complex problems.

If you are some form of capitalist and have at least an inkling of figuring out how to make money doing this then you may be wondering where do the premium problem solvers work?  There are of course the James Bond type positions one would see in a Hollywood movie - who knows how to land those jobs, probably networking at its best.  And then there are the droves of consultants.  You'll have to pick the angle you'd prefer:  working with organizations to only set strategies, working with groups to execute a plan and show tangible results, coming in after the last consultant left to fix things, or the premiere firms that do all of the above.

Just figure out how to employ your skills with solving problems...at least explore Consulting.  Good Luck!

Burger pic from dinner.  Two small smashed and blackened Steak 'n Shake style personally ground Chuck patties blanketed with American cheese.  Topped with a fried egg plus 3 mini slices of bacon and a few pieces of fresh spinach.  Sandwiched between a toasted sesame seed bun.

I have been failing my self challenge to not mention myself in my recent blog posts.    

After reading a post by Geoff Livingston on 26 December about 'not talking about myself' I agreed and thought, how obvious, but yet I still am floundering.  I guess I need to put a sticky note on my computer screen with instructions.

Back to the drawing board.  No, or at least less, references to myself.

HERE is a link to the article.  You'll probably enjoy it too.

I printed out a few snapshots of my wife from our honeymoon this past weekend and have posted them next to my desk.  It's turning out that it may have not been the best idea as I continue to reminisce about the wonderful places that we traveled to.  I miss those honeymoon destinations and want to go back.  After leaving from Detroit last June where we got married we traveled to San Diego and Santa Monica in California, then flew to French Polynesia and hopped from Bora Bora, to Moorea, to Tahiti.  And then we finally ended up going home through Hawaii too - story below.


I quickly picked a few images to share.  Each has a note below to help identify them.

I have really been enjoying the 'Stats' feature enhancements included now with Blogger.  They serve up stats on all time, monthly, weekly, and daily views.  They also provide details on referring sites, origin country, browser and a bunch of other great data points.

My blog doesn't yet follow the best practices of gravitating my articles around a particular topic or area of expertise.  But at least I am still chugging along over two an a half years later on posting my public rants and journal type entries.  So far I have taken enough time to add 175 posts which have yielded only 71 comments - 10 or more are probably from me.

This is the real stuff though.

• I have had over 7,300 total page views. And interestingly enough, roughly 40% were from out of the country.  I guess I am not that interesting.
• Over 630 of those views have been for a single article.  It seems that there are lots of people searching for how to create a Green Email Signature everyday.  You can click HERE to see this post I made back on 8 August 2008.
• I have had over 500 viewers take a look at the huge burger I had at Genny's Diner.  HERE is a link to that post from 13 October 2009.
• The next top four posts all have around 250+ page views each.  Two of them are on burgers and the other pair are about beach cruisers.