TIME TRAVEL FORWARD | Advice for Future Todd

“If you could go back in time, what would you tell your 20-year-old self?” is a fun self-reflection question. At the heart of the question is what do you know now, that you wish you knew then?

While backwards time travel isn’t currently available, forwards time travel is. I can communicate with Todd 20 years in the future. The 43 folder Tickler system was a tool I valued early in my career for talking to future Todd. It helped me remember key information I needed anytime from tomorrow up to a year away. Then the Franklin Covey planner showed me a similar “note to future self” system.

I even used that methodology at home. One year after spending more time than I needed to string and restringing Christmas lights down the banister, I created a just-in-time Christmas light job aid. I wrote myself a note with a hand-drawn diagram and placed it in the storage box with the lights. When I opened the box the next year, I had instructions from last year that saved me a ton of time.

Giving blood last week, I learned a few tips that I want to share with future Todd that will make his next donation appointment faster. The Community Blood Center was the busiest I’d seen it. Everyone working was hustling, but I had been there 45 minutes and I still didn’t have a needle in my arm.

The double red blood cell process usually takes 45-60 minutes, and I was getting close to my hard stop. When I checked with my phlebotomist, he said not a problem. I’ll get you out of here on time.

Him: Have you donated on this machine before?

Me: I don’t think so, I’m usually on one of the machines over there.

Him: This one is a little different. Down there it does many pulls and returns. This one does 3 bigger pulls and returns, so you might feel more of a difference.

Me: Does that make this machine faster than the other? Him: Yes. In this machine, I input your height, weight, and hemoglobin, and it calculates how much to pull each time.

After 27 minutes, it’s time for the needle to come out.

Me: So how do I make sure I get one of these machines next time.

Him: It’s called the ALYX.

Me: I’m not sure how I can remember that.

Him: You could ask for the blue machine, or the faster machine.

Me: The other thing I noticed was it was fairly busy when I came. When are the slowest times?

Him: Day of the week is tough to predict. But time of day makes a big difference. The plasma appointments are every 2.5 hours. We open at 8, so 8, 10:30, 1, and 3:30 we often get a huge influx of 8 plasma donors.

Me: Thanks!

Excellent! I now know 2 insider tips that will speed up my next donation:

1. Ask for the ALYX
2. Schedule at an off time to the plasma times

I’m eligible to donate again after 112 days. How can I share these insights with future Todd to schedule my next donation more effectively.

My first thought is to send myself an email using the reminders feature in a service I use called sanebox.com. I can send an email to any date or time in the future and sanebox sends me the email at that time. It’s a great way to talk to future Todd.

But I decided to try something more direct. I went to the Community Blood Center website and scheduled my next appointment (for 9 am). When I added the appointment on my calendar, I added a note to ask for the ALYX. Of course, I already need to reschedule that appointment.

I’m looking for more ways to keep in contact with future Todd. He’s much nicer than past Todd who I rarely hear from.

Top 5 Movies of 2022

I love movies. Which may mean I was a litte generous with my ratings this year. Out of the 35 2022 releases I watched, I gave 16 of them 4 stars or higher. Here are my top five:

1. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Title lives up to its name. Kick-ass martial arts, absurdist comedy, thought-provoking “what is reality,” and also one of the sweetest and sincere love stories.

2. DECISION TO LEAVE I was captivated by the well-constructed visuals and rhythmic reveals. We watch as seeds of curiosity mature into obsession and bloom into love. Park Chan-wook earned a spot as one of my favorite directors.

3. MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON Delightful. Adorable. Lovely.

4. RRR Loved this revolutionary buddy comedy! The exaggerated, comical graphic core of Kill Bill or Django Unchained + “No Way” physical movement of The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon + the scale of an extravagant Tollywood production + a dash of corny wild animal CGI.

5. THE NORTHMAN Primal, sinewy, gnarly 10th century action epic.

You can check out the full ranking on my Letterboxd ranking.

Review of Nothing Last Forever

De Beers created and marketed the modern concept of an engagement ring to sell diamonds. In recent years, man-made diamonds have improved so much in quality that it requires sophisticated equipment to tell the difference between natural and lab grown diamonds. Unscrupulous diamond cutters have been mixing lab grown diamonds with natural parcels.

The director of Nothing Last Forever, Jason Kohn, weaves these events into a story of deceit in the standard documentary format - a series of interviews with experts enhanced with B-roll and music.

Kohn called his film “a character-based essay film with a plot.” He added, when picking experts, “you’re actually looking for characters. You’re not looking for people.” Which characters made the cut?

THE GEMOLOGIST. From his research and experience, Dusan Simic is concerned about lab diamonds being passed as natural which is a legit concern. His patented solution is to have diamond growers infuse a compound that would make their diamonds display pink fluorescence when exposed to ultraviolet light.

THE AUTHOR. Aja Raden wrote two books: Stoned: Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World and Truth About Lies: The Illusion of Honesty and the Evolution of Deceit. She gets in several snarky quips and urges us to believe nothing, because everything is a lie. Speaking of illusion, Kohn lists her as a jewelry designer instead of an author. She was a designer at Tacori for almost eight years, but it’s her book and opinions that landed her a role in the movie.

THE WEATHERMAN. Martin Rapaport is founder of the Rapaport Diamond Report and the RapNet online diamond trading network. He standardized diamond pricing and publishes current values in the marketplace. In the movie, he says he doesn’t set the prices, he merely publishes them. He compares himself to the weatherman who doesn’t make the weather, but only reports it. As lab grown diamonds continue to emerge, the extra supply will likely have an impact on diamond prices. De Beers is offering their Lightbox lab grown diamonds at a fixed price of $800 per carat. With an estimated worth of $14M, Rapaport has a personal interest in making sure diamonds don’t shift to a flat-pricing model. Rapaport’s status quo position to dismiss advancement doesn’t only apply to solely selling natural diamonds, it also applies to his outdated perspectives on gender roles.

THE EXECUTIVE. Stephen Lussier, the now-retired executive vice president of De Beers Brands, works to tell the other side of the story. Lussier shares the pluses for the local economy on a diamond mine, which he refers to as a two-kilometer hole. Mining those two-kilometers provides a greater return on investment than farming or any other use. In describing the economic benefits to Botswana, he details the increase in roads, teachers, and doctors. The filmmaker undercuts Lussier’s points with outdated information about De Beers and unrelated B-roll.

The two outdated facts that Kohn shares are that De Beers market share is 80-90% and that executives cannot travel to the US due to antitrust issues. Times change and the truth is today De Beers represents less than 25% of the market and execs have been coming to America for the last decade.

But it’s the bad B-roll that made my eyes roll. When Lussier is talking about real benefits, Kohn shows a shot a lion eating an elephant. When asked about the elephant at the Hamptons Film Festival, Kohn said they went on safari and wanted to use the cool footage.

Additionally, he showed dilapidated buildings in China as his lead in for showing the diamond factories. In providing background on De Beers he shows clips of Dan Rather and Mike Wallace from much younger days.

The funniest B-roll was Simic getting his hair cut in preparation for his presentation revealing his plan to mark lab grown diamonds. We see his eyebrows clipped, his nose hairs trimmed, his scalp massaged - must be a big day! Simic comes across as a tragic hero in the film. He resorts to driving for Uber after his proposal isn’t accepted by the industry, and we see plenty of footage of him as a driver selling his concept to passengers. When Rapaport won’t return his messages, Simic changes his tactics and begins to create a lab grown diamond to fool the testing equipment. The final scene shows him walking down the road on his new quest. As of writing this, he has not yet grown a diamond that tests as natural.

The technology for detection continues to improve, and reputable jewelers test every diamond to ensure they are selling what they say they are.

The film raises three questions that consumers should feel comfortable asking:

• How do I know the value of the diamond I’m buying?

• How can I be certain that the diamond is natural or lab grown?

• Is a lab grown diamond a real diamond?

All three have easy answers, but unfortunately, the film doesn’t answer any of them.

The best way to know the value of anything you buy is to shop around. Value is more than price. It includes service levels, trust, and quality.

To ensure the truthful origin of your diamond, buy from a reputable jeweler who has a rigorous quality assurance program in place. They should be using state-of-the-art equipment to test every diamond they sell. Additionally, have your diamond tested by an independent grading laboratory like Gemological Institute of America (GIA), American Gem Society (AGS), or Gem Certification Assurance Lab (GCAL).

Grown diamonds are real. They are the same chemically, physically, and optically as natural diamonds. A diamond is a diamond no matter whether it is grown in a lab or comes out of the ground.

Back to the movie, I grew tired of hearing Simic saying “synthetic,” of Raden claiming something was a lie, and of Rapaport mansplaining what a woman wants. I would have preferred not to hear Kohn ask behind-the-camera questions to his characters, and to hear directly from diamond consumers.