I met a young man at a bus stop in Edmond this spring who was commuting to South Oklahoma City Community College three days a week.

Nathaniel Martinez was blind, the victim of a brain tumor that robbed him of his sight, but successfully negotiated the long commute for the entire spring semester.  

I wrote a column about meeting Nathaniel at the bus stop across from the University of Central Oklahoma and what an inspiration he was to me. That’s Nathaniel above left with David Kisling, a cab driver who drove him to the Edmond bus stop each day.

On Monday, Nathaniel’s father, Tony Martinez, called to give me an update on his son.

There was good news. Nathaniel finished the spring semester with all As except for two Bs and has been accepted into the political science program at UCO this fall, his dad told me.

But there was bad news, as well.   Two new tumors have been discovered on Nathaniel’s brain and surgery will be required.

“We’re going to have to put the college thing on hold,” Tony Martinez told me. “We’ve been referred to M.D. Anderson in Houston and they’re going to have to do another surgery.”

The surgery is scheduled for July 24. 

When I spoke with Nathaniel, he clutched a white cane but looked me  right in the eyes when we spoke. I had to asked him if he had any vision, and he said “no.”

His dad told me the original brain tumor cut off the optic nerve.

But Nathaniel’s normal appearance fools many people, including some that should know better.

“He runs into that a lot,” Tony Martinez said. “He was at a barbershop once and they held up a mirror and asked him how it looked. He said ‘you’re asking me?’”

Nathaniel is determined to recover in time for the fall semester, his dad said.  My prayers are with him in this fight.

Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter

We love our SUVs here in Oklahoma.  Just drive up to the intersection of Broadway and 33rd in Edmond some afternoon and watch the parade of Suburbans, Tahoes and Hummers roll past.

There seems to be a “what, me worry?” mentality among many Oklahomans when it comes to the price of fuel. It’s either that or the rugged individualist attitude of “you can take my SUV when you pry my cold dead fingers off the …” well, you get the drift.

Now, Men’s Health magazine has confirmed what we Oklahomans already knew. We’re not very “green.”

In an article in the magazine’s July/August issue, Men’s Health grades the 100 major cities in the United States on the “green” tendancies of their drivers, and here’s what Oklahoma City and Tulsa earn: 

Oklahoma City … C-
Tulsa … D

To uncover the best emission-minimizers and the worst gas-guzzling offenders, the magazine tabulated data on gas consumption, measured miles racked up annually, checked air quality (ozone and particle pollutants), logged vehicle efficiency (that is, their size, age, and frequency of tuneups), and incorporated mass-transit quality and usage.

The nation’s worst gas-guzzling offenders?  Arlington, Texas (at No. 100, the absolute bottom of the barrel); Yonkers, N.Y.; El Paso, Texas; Riverside, Calif.; Birmingham, Al.; Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas, all earned “Fs.”

The magazine awarded “As” to 13 cities, including top-ranked Seattle. Also earning an A+ were Burlington, Vt., and Portland, Ore.. Earning As were Madison, Wis.; Fargo, N.D. and Rochester, N.Y. The cities of Minneapolis; Spokane, Wash.; San Francisco; Norfolk, Va.; Boston, Oakland and Buffalo, N.Y. each earned an A-.

Find the complete list at www.menshealth.com.

Jim Stafford
Business Reporter

Among the Oklahomans who came to San Diego for the giant BIO 2008 International Convention this week was one who was seeking a job.  His name is Fadee Mondalek and he is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma.

Mondalek met prospective employers such as Johnson and Johnson, Merck, the Mayo Clinic and the Food and Drug Administration at the BIO Career Fair that was held the day before the convention officially opened. Biotech representatives from countries such as New Zealand, Canada and Scotland also were on hand to meet with potential job candidates such as Mondalek.

“A lot of people really got interested when I started describing what I do,” Mondalek told me when I met him at an informal dinner Monday night for the Oklahoma delegation.

 “I handed out my resume to a lot of people and they asked me to e-mail an electronic copy to them so they can send it to other people.”

The Scots and the New Zealanders seemed especially interested in bringing in scientific talent to bolster their medical research industries, said Mondalek, who is a native of Lebanon.

For instance, the New Zealand representative promised to quickly cut through the red tape for anyone with scientific training who was emigrating to that nation.

“The lady there said if you are in the bio field you can get a visa in two weeks,” Mondalek said. “Basically it sounded like she’s saying just come there and don’t worry about anything, we will give you citizenship just like that.”

Mondalek said he has worked toward his doctorate under the guidance of University of Oklahoma researcher H.K. Lin, who is also among the Oklahoma delegation at the BIO conference.

Jim Stafford
Business Reporter

About 30 Oklahomans shared a meal Monday night at a place called Busters that sits dockside just across a walkway from a fabulous marina in downtown San Diego. It was an informal gathering that featured Lt. Gov. Jari Askins as a special guest. 

The Oklahoma group will gather again in a more formal working lunch Tuesday to work out any last-minute issues with the staffing of the Oklahoma pavilion at the BIO 2008 show here.   The show opens at 5 p.m. Oklahoma time Tuesday.

In the photo above, Carl Edwards, chairman of the Oklahoma BioScience Association, welcomes the group to California in brief remarks. A total of about 90 Oklahomans is expected to attend at least parts of the week-long show that showcases everything related to biotechnology and life sciences. 

Jim Stafford
Business Reporter

Don’t go all sappy on us or anything, but this month marks the 30th anniversary of one of the world’s most annoying technology advances: spam.

Yes, according to a Denver company called MX Logic, history’s first unwanted and unsolicited e-mail was sent in May 1978 by Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager for Digital Equipment Co.

Who could Thuerk spam in 1978 when virtually no one had even heard of e-mail? 

Thuerk is credited with spamming government and university computers that were part of what was known as the ARPAnet. He was trying to generate computer sales.

Today there are more than 9 billion spam messages sent every day, MX Logic said in an e-mail, which, by the way, arrived in my mailbox unsolicited from a PR firm trying to drum up interest in an interview.

No thanks.

Anyway, happy birthday, spam.  Let’s hope that your days are numbered.

Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter

Read the release as it landed in my e-mail box and see if you reach the same conclusion:

SALT LAKE CITY — (BUSINESS WIRE) — USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: USNA), a worldwide leader in science-based nutritional supplements, today announced it will be the supplement supplier of the Continental Basketball Association champion Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry.

The Oklahoma-based Cavalry recently completed their championship season, finishing 34-18 and becoming the first expansion team since 2001-02 to win a CBA title.

Former NBA player Greg Minor and his wife, Stephanie, who started a USANA business eight months ago, introduced USANA products to the team in February, not long after Greg was named the Cavalry’s assistant coach.

“I introduced the products to the players at a shoot-around one day and they fell in love with them,” said Minor, who provided his players with USANA’s HealthPak 100™ nutritional supplements, as well as Oatmeal Raisin Nutrition Bars and Iced Lemon Fibergy Bars™. “My vision as a coach is to have a lifelong partnership with USANA. I know from experience that professional basketball players need these supplements not only during their playing careers but also in retirement.”
Minor, a former first-round NBA Draft pick out of the University of Louisville, spent five seasons with the Boston Celtics before a hip injury ended his playing career.

“I wish I had the opportunity to take USANA supplements when I played for the Celtics,” Minor said. “I retired from the NBA in 2001 and began looking for different supplements to take. By far, USANA offers the best nutritional supplements I’ve come across.”

Jim Stafford

Business News Reporter

AP Photo

Wired magazine published a long, fascinating and tragic tale about how the cars were rescued from the ship mishap that stranded them on the ocean.

For more than a year, the 4,703 Cougar Ace Mazdas sit in a huge parking lot in Portland, Oregon. Then, in February 2008, the cars are loaded one by one onto an 8-foot-wide conveyor belt. It lifts them 40 feet and drops them inside a Texas Shredder, a 50-foot-tall, hulking blue-and-yellow machine that sits on a 2.5-acre concrete pad. Inside the machine, 26 hammers — weighing 1,000 pounds each — smash each car into fist-sized pieces in two seconds. The chunks are then spit out the back side. Though most of the cars appeared to be unharmed, they had spent two weeks at a 60-degree angle. Mazda can’t be sure that something isn’t wrong with them. Will the air bags function properly? Will the engines work flawlessly throughout the warranty period? Rather than risk lawsuits down the line, Mazda has decided to scrap the entire shipment.

You can watch video of the destructive process. 

Don Mecoy
Business Writer

okctbirds.com
okcenergy.com
okcoutlaws.com
okctwisters.com
okcbarons.com
okcstallions.com

okcthunder.com actually got snapped up more than two years ago. I’m sure many other domains representing potential franchise names also have been purchased. Still available, however, are okcscissorstails.com and okcflamingchilipeppers.com.

Most of the purchasers have obscured their identities, so we can’t tell which are domain squatters and which might actually be agents of the team’s ownership group.

None of these are going to produce the bonanza of pizza.com, which a fellow bought more than a decade ago and recently auctioned off for $2.6 million. The most lucrative sales of domain names belong to sex.com, sold for $12 million in cash and stock, and fund.com, which sold for $10 million.

Don Mecoy
Business Writer

In fact, almost all of the companies are household names except for Tata Group. That’s the Mumbai, India-based company that is creating a $2,500 “car for the masses.”

Tata came in at No. 6, just behind Microsoft and ahead of Nintendo.

Here’s the top 10 and a link to the rest of the list that goes 50 deep online.

1. Apple
2. Google
3. Toyota Motor
4. General Electric
5. Microsoft
6. Tata Group
7. Nintendo
8. Proctor & Gamble
9. Sony
10. Nokia

Jim Stafford
Business News Reporter

Now I spend more time deleting e-mail than I used to spend online. For many of us, hours of what used to be semi-productive work time are consumed reading, responding and deleting e-mail. The New York Times recently ran a story that doesn’t break a lot of new ground on the issue, but includes a little historical analogy that I found apt.

Today’s advice from time-management specialists, to keep our e-mail software off, except for twice-a-day checks, replicates the cadence of twice-a-day postal deliveries in (H.L.) Mencken’s time.
Ms. Rodgers said that Mencken was acutely disturbed by interruptions that broke his concentration. The sound of a ringing telephone was associated in his mind, he once wrote, with “wishing heartily that Alexander Graham Bell had been run over by an ice wagon at the age of 4.”

Blogger Rex Sorgatz suggests we’re making it more complicated than it needs to be:

Listen people, I get a lot of email too. Probably something like 500 missives per day. But this really isn’t that difficult to fend off. Let me help… Tactic #1: Delete unnecessary items as they come in. Tactic #2: Reply to items when you have free time in elevators, meetings, subways, etc. Tactic #3: Don’t leave work until you’re down to five items. Tactic #4: Stop writing about how much email you get. Done.

If you’re looking for email productivity tips, Lifehacker is a good place to browse.

Lamest e-mail I’ve received lately came from an outfit called “Write It Well,” which offers a book designed to help companies boost their employees’ abilities to write and handle email. An example:

Wasted time affects a company’s overall productivity and financial statements and in today’s increasingly global economy, companies rely on e-mail to allow large teams across various time zones to work together efficiently on projects.

Want to see more? It continues:

When extreme time differences are combined with various languages, poorly written e- mail can be detrimental to a project’s results and deteriorate team dynamics, both of which directly affect a company’s bottom line.

I would argue that blather like this is nearly as much an obstacle to me getting my work done as spam. Just get to the point.

Don Mecoy
Business Writer