Heady ideas about beer

Russell Ackoff died Oct. 29 at the age of 90.

I've highlighted some of the comments I really liked.








* Management - November 11, 2009

Russell Ackoff: 1919-2009
A Management Philosopher With Heady Ideas About Beer
By STEPHEN MILLER

An evangelist of the big picture, Russell Ackoff was a management theorist who helped U.S. corporations by reimagining their challenges as opportunities to restructure.

Mr. Ackoff, who died Oct. 29 at age 90, was an expert in conceptualizing problems. He liked to say they came in three flavors: problems, messes and puzzles, and each needed its own distinctive toolkit.

Mr. Ackoff was one of a small group of management-studies pioneers who changed the way corporations thought about their businesses. Peter Drucker once wrote to Mr. Ackoff that his early work "saved me -- as it saved countless others -- from descending into mindless 'model building' -- the disease that all but destroyed so many of the business schools."

No fan of most business education himself, Mr. Ackoff nevertheless ran a business graduate center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. There, he trained generations of management graduate students in an unconventional program that he said had "no curriculum, no classes, no examinations, no admission requirements -- only exit requirements."

Acerbic and aphoristic, Mr. Ackoff was fond of sayings such as "All of our social problems arise out of doing the wrong thing righter. The more efficient you are at doing the wrong thing, the wronger you become. It is much better to do the right thing wronger than the wrong thing righter! If you do the right thing wrong and correct it, you get better!"

Mr. Ackoff published such sentiments in a series of books. He also wrote about how to manage in the face of extreme uncertainty, such as the crises presented by the oil shocks and inflation of the 1970s.

Mr. Ackoff implemented his ideas through consulting with hundreds of companies, and later in his career, with governments. He helped General Motors create its OnStar navigation system, and had a three-decade association with Anheuser-Busch in which he helped the St. Louis brewer achieve national dominance.

Working with August Busch III, later Anheuser-Busch's chairman, Mr. Ackoff in the early 1960s helped design an expansion strategy that included building new breweries and warehouses, after potential sites were identified via computer modeling, a highly unusual approach at the time.

Mr. Ackoff also studied Anheuser-Busch's marketing strategy, and came to the conclusion that increasing advertising budgets had little effect on sales. (Neither did the taste of the beer, he found through blind taste tests.)

Yet Busch markets very heavily.

"This was incredibly valuable," says Bill Finnie, a former director of strategic planning for Anheuser-Busch who studied for his Ph.D. under Mr. Ackoff. "It gave Anheuser-Busch the confidence to maintain its marketing budget flat from 1961 to 1976. We quadrupled sales."

According to Mr. Finnie, reduced marketing costs were passed on to the consumer, making Budweiser inexpensive compared with local brands that had dominated the market through the 1950s.

In Mr. Ackoff's more than 30 years working with Anheuser-Busch beginning in 1960, the company's national market share grew to more 40% from 7%.

In return for his insights, Anheuser-Busch sponsored Mr. Ackoff's academic pursuits, including Wharton's Ackoff Center for the Advancement of Systems Approaches.

But Mr. Ackoff grew frustrated with management studies, which he felt were too limited in their focus on private industry rather than looking at organizations in the public sector as well.

At the same time, academic departments objected to qualitative approach that lacked statistical backing, and Mr. Ackoff disappeared from reading lists in the 1970s and 1980s. Yet he remained in demand by corporate clients and increasingly by governments, such as Iran, where in the 1970s he helped design a way of clamping down on cigarette smuggling.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Ackoff sometimes credited his undergraduate studies in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania with sparking his interest in holistic systems.

After serving in the Army in the Philippines during World War II, he completed a doctorate in the philosophy of science at Penn in 1947, and in 1951 joined with his Ph.D. supervisor, C. West Churchman, to found one of the first schools of operations research, at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, which later became Case Western Reserve University. In 1964, the Wharton School recruited Mr. Ackoff and a handful of colleagues from Case.

In a field he regarded as littered with charlatans, Mr. Ackoff rejected the term "guru," favoring "teacher," in the belief that he was helping his clients design their own solutions. He delighted in crossing discipline boundaries, and his influence sometimes turned up in unexpected places -- Mr. Ackoff was part of a team that redesigned the White House Communications Agency during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

"He is representative of what I fear is a dying breed -- management scholars willing to tackle big and broad business themes," says Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

Beer's glory days fade

Lack of marketing imagination at home is one reason why Femsa, the company that makes Dos Equis, has been overtaken south of the border by archrival Grupo Modelo SAB, maker of Corona beer. But some industry watchers also say Femsa—whose formal name is Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB—has lost its love for the beer business, with its convenience stores and Coca-Cola bottling business moving front and center.

There are tiendas, convenience stores, everywhere in the Mexico I've seen: Ajijic, Melaque and Guadalajara, in Jalisco state; Zihuatanejo, Troncones and Taxco in Guerrero state; Oaxaca City and Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca state.

In the past two decades, Femsa—which makes Sol, Tecate, Indio, and Bohemia as well as Dos Equis—has seen its share of Mexico's beer market fall to 43% from a once-dominant 55%. Modelo overall has a 57% share, with its Corona brand accounting for 31% on its own.

This caught my eye in this story: Femsa has 43% market share, Modelo 57% market share; that adds up to 100% of the market.

Femsa is one of Mexico's storied companies. The city of Monterrey grew up around Femsa's predecessor company, Cerveceria Cuauhtémoc, founded in 1890. Most of Monterrey's modern companies are offshoots of Femsa, whose name translates as "Mexican Economic Development Inc." —a name that hints at the company founders' ambitions and purpose.

Femsa has been partners with Coca-Cola Co. since 1993. That relationship was strengthened in 2003, when Femsa acquired Panamerican Beverages Inc., in the process becoming Coke's second largest bottler world-wide, and the largest soft drink company in Latin America.

Soda in Mexico is far sweeter than in the US.

Femsa, Rivals Discuss Beer-Business Merger

Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB, as Femsa is formally called, has held discussions with beverage companies including SABMiller PLC and Heineken NV, the people said. It is being advised by NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. The talks, which the company confirmed in a press release, have recently become more formal and serious, the people said, adding that no deal is imminent.

Femsa, which traces its roots to a brewery founded in 1890 in Monterrey, Mexico, is comprised of three businesses: soft drinks, beer and a retailer. The beer operation produces and distributes such brands as Tecate, Sol and Dos Equis and has roughly $4 billion in annual sales.

Old, Heavy, Bitter and Divine

Colm Tóibínis the author of the novels "Brooklyn" and "The Master."

In Dublin, one simply has open the front door to be reminded of the importance of the Guinness brewery in the life of the city.

The bartender at Nearys pub in Dublin holds out a pint of Guinness.
















The visitor’s entrance to the Hop Storehouse at St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin.
















An 1886 poster featuring St. James’s Gate Brewery.















1850 portrait of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness.

Beers

During Hardball with Chris Matthews, the Sergeant held a press conference; the program broke to cover it. I watched it, and was quite impressed with his savvy, aplomb, and comportment. Some liberals and many conservatives are still playing out the matter, for they are convinced the world can not do with their opinions.

A guest on the Rachel Maddow show contended that the beer summit was not a teachable moment, for teachable moments can only take place in academe, after significant and laboured research; I think that is academic nonsense. Most people aren't interested in what Brown University or any other institution says or does. It was a teachable moment: the President is a conciliator, the Sargeant and the Professor are reasonable men who agreed to disagree and talked about it with one another. That is important.

And there is more.

Brewing Up the Best Headlines

The arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the black Harvard professor, and the ensuing racially charged contretemps presumably were not much fun for the people involved. But it was a boon for headline writers in the dead of summer. Here are some of the takes on Thursday’s White House meeting over beers featuring President Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Sgt. James Crowley and Professor Gates:

• “Over beers, a taste of what’s to come” — The Boston Globe
• “Happy hour” — Chicago Sun-Times
• “Obama cheers a ‘teachable moment’ over beer with Gates, Crowley” — Los Angeles Times
• “TOUCH OF GLASS” — New York Daily News
• “BREW-HAHA” — New York Post
• “A sippable moment” — The Philadelphia Inquirer
• “Controversy Comes to a Head Over Drinks in the White House Beer Garden” — Wall Street Journal
• “It Wasn’t One for the Guinness Book” — The Washington Post
• “Lager-Heads No More” — The Washington Times

And there is more still. A blog entry in the NY Times about the Professor's point of view. Alas, I have not found anything about the Sargeant's POV.

In a telephone interview after leaving the White House, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. spoke enthusiastically about meeting Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley on neutral ground, and said the story was not over. He indicated that the two of them would get together again soon in Cambridge.

Mr. Gates, a longtime professor at Harvard, said that he had brought his 96-year-old father to the White House, along with his two grown daughters, his brother and his fiancée. The Gates and Crowley families were taken on separate tours of the White House but met up in the library, Professor Gates said.

“Nobody knew what to do,” he said, “so I walked over, stuck up my hand and said, ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ That broke the awkwardness.”

The professor and the police sergeant have been much in the news of late, ever since Mr. Gates was arrested by Sergeant Crowley at his Cambridge home. Mr. Obama arranged a get-together over beers on Thursday evening, in an effort to ease the tensions that had arisen in the interim. (We live-blogged the event on Thursday.)

Upon their initial exchange at the White House, the professor said that he made a proposal: that he and Sergeant Crowley meet for lunch at River Gods, a popular Cambridge pub, some time in the near future. The sergeant accepted the invitation, he said.

For his part, Sergeant Crowley spoke immediately after the White House meeting on the lawn: “What you had today was two gentlemen who agreed to disagree on a particular issue,” he said, in a 15-minute news conference after the session. “We didn’t spend too much time dwelling on the past, and we decided to look forward.”

Beer Summit

Capitol City Brewing, a pub located a few blocks from the White House, lobbied Obama to serve its 'Equality Ale.'










The president's plan to toss back a few cold ones with some high-profile guests at the White House has the American beer industry hopping mad.
Is the industry all malted up? In a barley?
This afternoon, Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor and race-relations expert, and James Crowley, the police sergeant who controversially arrested Mr. Gates, are to stop by for a round of brews that President Barack Obama hopes will promote racial comity.

The meeting is raising some sensitive issues, such as: What kind of beer?

The politics of beer.

Late Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hinted the presidential cooler will likely be stocked with what he understood to be the two guests' own personal favorites -- Red Stripe and Blue Moon.

At first, the Professor's lawyer said the Prof doesn't drink beer. Blue Moon is a curious choice: a wheat beer, it's a Belgian-style white beer. Not an every-day, common-man type of beer. Were either the President of the Professor to choose that, the right would be apoplectic, charging them with being unAmerican and elitist, not just black.

Last night I caught a snippet of Glenn Beck talking, and offering this nugget: this guy (yup, Beck called the President guy), has shown “over and over and over again, who has a deep-seeded hatred for white people or the white culture.”

What the hell white culture is Beck left undefined. But, back to beer.

"The president will drink Bud Light," Mr. Gibbs added.

The problem is that all three beers are products of foreign companies. Red Stripe is brewed by London-based Diageo PLC. Blue Moon is sold by a joint venture in which London-based SABMiller has a majority stake.
And Bud Light? It is made by Anheuser-Busch -- which is now known as Anseuser-Busch InBev NV after getting bought last year by a giant Belgian-Brazilian company.

Yeah, but it's America's beer.

Among rival brewers, the news fell flat. "We would hope they would pick a family-owned, American beer to lubricate the conversation," said Bill Manley, a spokesman for the Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., a California-based brewer that happens to be family-owned.
Flat as yesterday's beer.

Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer Co., which brews Samuel Adams, decried "the foreign domination of something so basic and important to our culture as beer."
Beer is a part of American culture. What could I add?
Genesee Brewery, Rochester, N.Y., released a statement congratulating the president for having beer at the meeting but adding: "We just hope the next time the President has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers, and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."

Jenny cream ale.

Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Congressman who has also written the White House amid the beer ferment, also hopes the meeting will promote beer-drinking nationalism. In a not-so-subtle dig at Bud, he said he knew he and the president "both share a common interest in fostering the success of American-headquartered companies."



In general, the White House strives to showcase American food, wines and traditional concoctions at official meals and parties. Sometimes, even menu items with a foreign provenance are Americanized. In the George W. Bush White House, a favorite chocolate dessert was referred to not as a French-style soufflé, but as a "chocolate freedom."

Can freedom fall flat if it is taken out of the oven too quickly? [Awmygawd!]

Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew, The Story of American Beer," said that by holding the summit, the President risks criticism from groups working to persuade the public to drink less alcohol.

Some people have way too much time on their hands.

For instance, there is the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which led the fight for Prohibition in the early 20th century. Rita K. Wert, the group's national president, said her organization is disappointed that the president is serving beer at all. "There are so many other beverages he could have chosen that would have served just as well," she said, mentioning lemonade or iced tea.

Brewer Aims to Put Laos on the Map

Recently I saw an episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" about Laos. He called it, and acknowledged it might sound hokey, unspoiled, off the beaten tourist path. This article concurs that Laos is not yet a tourist destination, though does point out that some tourists are there already. Many of them want beer, and the local brand is becoming quite popular.

The nation of six million people is nestled between China, Vietnam and Thailand. It has become a trendy destination for backpackers and adventure tourists, in part because of its slow pace and relative lack of exposure to the West.

Lasachack Sivilay, chief brewmaster at Lao Brewery Co. is counting on savvy marketing to overcome the beer's relatively unimpressive pedigree, in a bid to emulate Corona's rise to global stardom.

That rise began in the 1970s when Corona's brewer, Group Modelo SA, noticed that lots of empty bottles of the beer weren't being returned to distributors for redemption. The reason: After partying the weekends away at Mexican beach resorts, American surfers and college students were taking cases of the beer home with them. In response, Modelo started marketing Corona in a low-key, unconventional way, linking it to memories of sunshine and the beach.

Beerlao's rise has followed an unusual path. Most Laotians aren't big beer drinkers. In fact, Lao Brewery was founded by French and Lao businessmen in 1971 mostly to slake the thirst of French colonists.

What impressed me most was this: Sales figures are hard to come by in Laos's state-run economy, but Lao Brewery currently produces 200 million liters of beer a year, and it is the country's biggest taxpayer.

The country's largest paxpaer is a brewery.

A bike ride around NYC

Saturday dawned, well, for me, though I was up way after dawn, warm and humid. After a leisurely brunch, I slowly got ready and went out for a bicycle ride. My plan was to cross the Queensborough and Triboro Bridges. I got it all done, but not quick and easy. It was a long ride, circuitous, and a lot of work -- and fun.

First stage was from home to near LGA. As I neared East Elmhurst the sky began to drip, and then to rain; espying the roof of a rental car agency, I crossed 23rd Avenue and got under cover just before the rain fell hard. About 4.2 miles. (All distances are going to be approximate.)

As the rain stopped, I got moving. The streets began to dry up fairly quickly as the hot sun came out. The humidity rose. Riding along 23rd Avenue, I went to 80th Street, turned south and crossed Astoria Boulevard, dodging some puddles, splashing up water with both bicycle wheels. The next 3.5 miles to 59th Street and 37th Avenue in Woodside went fairly fast. I stayed on a designated bike route.

Got on to Skillman Avenue (also designated as Lewis Mumford Way). A one-way street, it is four, maybe five lanes wide. Riding along, I spotted a kid of maybe thirteen standing in the bike lane, an earbud on, looking to his left at traffic. He was so zoned in on his music and the traffic that he didn't register seeing me. I had to jam on my brakes and jump off the seat. The back of my bike fishtailed, and I got a mite angry, telling the kid that he was standing in the way and to keep his eyes open. I might've used an expletive, did, and didn't delete it. Crossed Queens Boulevard, went into a Citibank branch, and got money. This stage was about 2 miles.

Doubled back to Skillman, turned right, went up 35th Street, took Honeywell Street to Northern Boulevard, crossed it, went up three blocks, turned right, and approached, then rode across the Queensboro Bridge.

That's the Queensboro Bridge, not the 59th Street Bridge!

The northernmost lane is reserved for pedestrians and bikers. It's uphill to about halfway across, then downhill the rest of the way. Below, the East River moved languorously, as if itself affected by the hot humid day. I was.

Arrived in Manhattan. Rode down to 1st Avenue, got off my bike at the corner of First and Sixtieth, and cooled down some. Sweat was pouring off me head. I was breathing heavily. I just rested a few minutes after a 2.6 mile ride.

Manhattanites seemed content to be in their world. Urban as there is urban, it is all concrete and steel, filled with traffic, buses, taxis, cars, people on cell phones, store after store, everything densely packed, all close-up. It occurred to me how little I care for this sort of thing now. I would much rather be out in the open country, as in Chichester, perhaps in the Mexico I've gotten to know in Zihuatanejo or Puerto Escondido, even Ajijic. Heck, even Queens and Hewlett-Woodmere are much quieter, have much more greenery.

Went into a pizzeria, ordered a slice of white pizza and an Orangina. Six bucks. 3.25 and 2.75 -- the three and a quarter for the slice, I guessed. I didn't much care for the ricotta cheese on it, but the drink was great.

Rode up a ramp across 1st Avenue, but that turned out to be the way to a concrete park with a concrete dog run. I went back down to 1st, turned north, and finally found the ramp to the promenade running alongside the East River (which is actually an estuary, but that's a whole other thing).

FDR Drive at 81st looking at Triboro. This photo shows a cantilevered layout, with Carl Schurz Park on the top layer, the northbound FDR lanes on the middle layer, and the southbound FDR lanes on the bottom layer.

This stage of the promenade runs above the FDR Drive; to get there I had to carry bike up three stages of stairs, which wasn't that much fun.

Running between the FDR Drive and the River, the promenade was filled with people strolling, with some people pushing baby strollers, many people sitting on park benches, and a few bike riders. Again, all concrete. Looking east, houses did protrude from heights above the other side of the FDR: those are very expensive bastions, and they did have some greenery. Weird to think that it takes wealth to have greenery, but that's how it is in Manhattan.

Along the East 80s the crowd was predominantly young and white. There's a concrete park somewhere around 86th, where there actually is green: lawns, plants. The promenade narrows as it passes Gracie Mansion, then deteriorates in quality as it reaches 98th Street. The look and feel of the people also change. There are no more bunches of young whites enjoying the sun in their leisurely ways; now there are clusters of black and brown men, their fishing poles resting on the iron railing, small groups of brown or black families resting in the shade.

The change was noticeable, but, to me, not startling. That is how it is.

A couple of weeks ago I rode my bike to Flushing Meadow-Corona Park. I rode along the LIE north service road, turned at the Van Wyck, and got into the park. In that part of the park there were a lot of people barbecuing, kids playing, music blasting from a plethora of radios. Clearly these were Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Even without their flags I knew it: I know the music and the food. As politically incorrect as it might sound, this is what PRs and DRs do: barbecue, music, everything loud, passionate, completely unsubtle, obvious. In the center of the Park Mexicans, Salvadoreans, Colombians, were playing futbol, watching futbol, hanging out. Some were eating, but it wasn't as prevalent as with the Dominicans and Puerto Ricans. Curious thing. I've seen Argentinians and Uruguayans, aside from the other Central and South Americans mentioned; and along Roosevelt Avenue I know there are Peruvians and Chileans, which covers the gamut -- except for Brazil, Venezuela and the Guyanas. There are Guyanans over by Ozone Park, Richmond Hill.

So the changeover as the FDR reached 99th Street was no surprise. The same change is obvious in the inner Manhattan: as Madison, Park, Fifth and other Avenues reach above 96th, 98th Streets, there is an obvious change. A prime example is how the East Side IRT emerges from underground in the upper 90s.

At 107th Street a little pier juts out into the River. I saw an ice cart as I passed, decided to stop, and turned back. Right after getting a coconut ice, the rain opened up. I enjoyed my refreshment, stayed under a tree, and stayed mostly dry. The rain slowed some, then came down really hard. I changed trees, and waited it out. After about fifteen minutes, I got on my bike and rode on.

I rode over the 103rd Street footbridge to Randall's Island. It's an old bridge, and not in very good shape. Were it on 73rd rather than 103rd, it'd look and smell much better.

Randall's-Ward Island is a strange thing. The Parks Department lists it as having 273 acres. I dimly recalled it as having a psychiatric hospital. Turning left as I arrived, I rode along a path that was far smoother than the promenade in Manhattan. There has been a lot of landscaping work done: flowers, plants, looking lovely. It got quiet, especially after the constant din of traffic on the FDR.

Drizzle began falling. I kept riding. Saw several jet skis on the River, the same ones I'd seen earlier, racing along at what seemed high speeds. A few clusters of people sat under trees, for shade and for cover from the rain. A couple of families, even a couple of homeless guys. It was quite an idyllic respite.

I rode around the Island. Paved ways ended at construction. I found myself alongside the Hell's Gate Bridge that takes Amtrak trains from Queens to Manhattan, Bronx and the Northern states, a concrete and steel arc built in the early 1900s. Got next to the Icahn (used to be Dowling) Stadium, doubled back. Kept riding, couldn't find a way to Queens, kept riding, and wound up back where I'd started.

How many miles in this stage of my ride I can only begin to guess at being around 5 miles; just a guess. The distance from 1st and 60th to 1st and 125th is about 3.6 miles.

Crossed back to Manhattan, and rode up the FDR promenade to 125th Street. Had to double back, ride over to 1st, and eventually found the promenade running on the Triboro Bridge that pedestrians and bicyclers can use. After a very short bit, I had to get off the Bridge. I wound up in Randall's Island. And it began raining hard.

I waited out the long, hard rain, and tried to figure out where to go. A sign reading "To Bronx and Queens" pointed in a general direction. When the rain stopped, I tried to figure out what that general direction was: I rode around to the left, got back to the spot I'd started, then went right, all to no avail. The ground was very wet. There were puddles everywhere, and even avoiding them, as I rode both wheels kicked up water. Futilely, I kept looking, searching, all to no avail.

Finally I just went right, and kept going, figuring something had to (I hoped) turn up. Yes! A sign announced "pedestrian walkway to Bronx". If that one wen there, then there had to be one going to Queens on the opposite side. I rode on, and eventually found a sign saying "pedestrian walkway to Queens". Right after, another sign, not blue, but orange, announced "Detour to pedestrian walkway to Queens".

Followed it, and others, and ... I suddenly realized I was mere yards from where I'd been something along the lines of an hour ago: proximate to the Icahn Stadium. Yards.

Finally found the ramp to the walkway to Queens. Covered in mesh, it sloped gently up; I rode in relief. I then had to walk up some stairs, and emerged onto the Triboro Bridge proper. A concrete walkway perhaps four feet wide, with a tiny gap between the concrete and the steel of the bridge on the (my) right side, it rose above the roadbed, and sloped up as I walked toward Queens. And walked I did; no way I was going to ride.

On both sides a wire mesh curved in, supported by steel arms curving in. I walked slowly, glad to be going home. The walkway kept sloping up, further away from the roadbed. Then, as it reached the roughly-halfway-mark, the wire mesh on the left, the river, side, ended. Now there was only a wall about four foot high.

I stopped. I swallowed. I look, and I pondered. Ahead, Queens, Astoria, mere miles from Flushing. Behind me, wire mesh, yes, but miles and miles to retrace my steps, back to Randall's Island, to Manhattan, to the Queensboro Bridge.
View of the pedestrian path on the East River section crossing from Astoria Queens to Randall's Island.

"I can do this," I said, swallowed, kept a hand on the handlebar, one on the seat, my eyes looking ahead, and walked. Gingerly, slowly, I made my way across. At just about exactly the halfway point, up ahead I saw a man. A few wild fantasies and fears skipped across my mind; I released them, and walked on. As I neared him, I saw an anemometer. I nodded to him, and kept going. The wire mesh began again on my left side, and I relaxed enough to take one hand off the bike.

The walkway now slopped down. After some time, the walkway was blocked, I supposed under repair. A temporary way led out, encased in wire mesh, but clearly out over the river, away from the bridge proper. There were a few sets of steps. I manged them, gingerly; up, then down, and finally back to the regular walkway. In a bit, I was back on Long Island, in Astoria.

The ride home was all that remained. By now I was exhausted, my ass sore. I rode along the Flushing Bay promenade, over to Northern Boulevard, up the The Great Wall supermarket, bought a six-pack of Kirin Ichiban beer and a pint of ice cream, and went home.

This last stage of my ride was perhaps 10 miles. So the total ride was at least 31 miles.

I had left over pizza and left over moo-shoo pork, a couple of beers, and some ice cream, and watched the film Water.

This view of the pedestrian path on the East River section crossing from Astoria Queens to Randall's Island was what I saw mid-way across. No wire mesh.

This second view (both pictures from a blog I found) shows the wire mesh that I found so protective.

Sen McCaskill Urges Anheuser-Busch Board To Reject Inbev Offer

Why?

In a letter sent to the board of the St. Louis-based company, McCaskill said the company should retain its independence and that management should work to identify ways to grow the company. "I write to urge that as you examine the financial aspects of the offer, you also consider what this great and profitable company represents to St. Louis, the state of Missouri, and the rest of America," said McCaskill. "In doing so I hope you will reject the purchase offer."

To America? It's a beer company.