Monday, November 15, 2010

“Remember the kid who graduated UCI at 13? - msnbc.com” plus 2 more

“Remember the kid who graduated UCI at 13? - msnbc.com” plus 2 more

Remember the kid who graduated UCI at 13? - msnbc.com

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 11:12 AM PST

After all these years, Masoud Karkehabadi can still remember standing with his friends in Aldrich Park, the center of the campus at UC Irvine.

His graduation gown was a tad long, but the mortarboard cap was snug. And as he approached the podium, his face flecked with pink silly string, Masoud remembers the crowd going wild. There was, he says, 16 years later, a lot of applause.

For good reason. If a graduating class can have a star, Masoud Karkehabadi, UCI, class of '94, was it.

He was just getting his undergrad degree, but he'd already performed brain surgery on rats. And he'd helped well-known neuroscientist James Fallon in his then pioneering research on stem cells.

He'd been on talk shows (Arsenio, Conan, Phil Donahue); he'd been written up in magazines and newspapers, (in English and in Farsi.) He was treated like a full-blown celebrity in Australia, of all places.

All the attention was due to his brains and his age. Masoud Karkehabadi had started community college at age 9, and when he graduated from UCI in June of 1994 he was 13.

I'm going to medical school, he soon told a reporter.

But five years later, young Karkehabadi -- 200-something IQ; frequently compared to fictional boy genius Dougie Howser -- was making a living by selling electronics at a Best Buy.

What the heck happened?

FAME FADES

Initially, Masoud tried the medical school route.

At 14, Masoud says, he sent out a dozen or so applications, but the response wasn't strong.

Two years later, he sent out more applications and the response was slightly better. But he couldn't get any scholarships (his grades at UCI weren't stellar, a result, Masoud says, of cramming four years of classes into two years of study,) and there was no school he could get into that wouldn't require him to take on huge student loans -- up to $200,000 or so.

At his age, such loans would require a co-signature from a family member. And that wasn't happening in the Karkehabadi household.

That, Masoud says, (and recent events seem to support), comes back to his father.

In the early 1990s Mahmoud Mike Karkehabadi was, according to a 1992 Money magazine article about the family, earning $100,000 a year selling cars. But that same article also said the family was running debt of about $700 a month.

Part of that stemmed from the expense related to be being a boy genius. Masoud had a governess who took him to classes at UCI. She cost about $2,400 a month.

But there were, apparently, other expenses. Money wrote that Mike's monthly bills included $1,000 on clothing and $500 on entertainment. The car salesman also drove a Porsche 928, albeit an older (1980) model worth only an estimated $14,000.

It wouldn't be Mike's last Porsche.

In August, 2010, Mike Karkehabadi was arrested after allegedly stealing a 1999 Porsche from a Torrance auto dealer. While in jail on that charge, he was charged with 89 felony counts related to an alleged Ponzi scheme in which millions of dollars were raised to finance B-movies. If convicted, Masoud's father -- who could not be reached for this story -- faces up to 25 years in prison.

Still, Masoud, who lives in Aliso Viejo, doesn't blame his father for his inability to get into medical school.

What's more, his father wasn't the only man in young Masoud's life who might have disappointed him.

As a celebrity boy genius with an interest in stem cell research, Masoud, at age 14, became a spokesman for the American Parkinson's disease Association. But the charity's director was charged with embezzling more than $870,000 in donations. Masoud eventually hooked up with another group, the National Parkinson's Foundation.

During that period, Masoud says he also continued to work on stem cells with Fallon, but in a nonpaid capacity.

Back then people said I was a celebrity, he says. It was big exposure to the schools.

So, after he couldn't get into medical school, and after he left his role as a Parkinson's spokesman, the teen genius had to make a very adult decision.

At that point (my fame) began to dwindle, he says.

I tried a different route, a normal route.

REGULAR GENIUS

His first paying job was at 18, selling electronics at a Best Buy. He says he needed to help his family pay their bills.

Later, he says, he found some success in real estate, but he got out in 2005, the same year he left Orange County and had a falling out with his father. He took other jobs, eventually working for Verizon.

As his time was eaten up making a living, Masoud's dreams of medical school faded.

You have a job, so you have bills a car payment a house payment. It becomes very, very difficult.

Definitely more difficult than anything I've ever done in science.

What would he tell his 13-year-old self now?

I'd probably tell myself to learn about the world a lot quicker than I did. I was focused a lot on science, he says.

There are a lot of obstacles in the way. You have to find ways around them The only way to find ways around them is to know how the world works.

Lately, a new plan has been growing in Masoud's still vibrant mind. He wants to earn a teaching degree and teach biology in high school. With time and patience, he says, he plans to earn a master's degree and, later, a Ph.D.

He's also considering work in a local laboratory.

He's encouraged by his belief that everybody has a special ability of some kind. Everyone excels at one thing.

Now Masoud wants to renew his own ability and find a place within an institution doing the work he loves.

I did everything because I wanted to help people, and I still want to help people to this day, he says.

Money is definitely important. You have to have money to live. But, for me, money has not been a driving force. It's the will to help people to make the world a better place.

On June 6 of next year, Masoud Karkehabadi will turn 30.

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Declutter Your Home: Clothing Tips - Associated Content

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 08:41 AM PST

In my house, clothing is a thorn in my side when it comes to keeping things organized. I have three children and between the four of us, we have a large amount of clothing rotating between closets, dressers, hampers,
 washing machine, dryers and laundry baskets. Keeping all of the clothing organized and put away so it doesn't clutter up the house is a challenge. Here are a few of the tricks I use to keep things in order.

Sorting Clothes in the Closet
One of the best tricks I've ever learned for sorting clothes is to tag every hanger in your closet. If you're like me, you've got several clothing items hanging in the closet that you never wear but you hate to get rid of, because, well, you might wear them someday. A good rule of thumb is that if you haven't worn it in a year, you're just not going to wear it.

I have used index card to create a tag for each hanger. Cut a hole in the index card for slipping over the hanger. Write the date on each card then put it on the hanger. As you wear an item, remove the tag. When you're ready to sort and get rid of clothing, anything that still has a tag on it - say six months or a year later - get rid of it.

This trick can help you sort and get rid of clothing to declutter and make room in your closet. Trust me, this is painless and the cards with the date are visual reminders that you really haven't worn the clothes in a long time, so it's okay to let them go.

Limiting Clothing Numbers
It is easy to become overwhelmed with clothing. I keep dressy outfits, casual clothing, summer clothing, winter clothing, favorite pieces, and more. When you have a household that includes kids, you end up with a lot of clothing.

One of the best ways I have found to keep clothing under control and in some sort of order is to limit how much clothing everyone has. It is not necessary for each person in the home to have a dozen or more pairs of socks (in my house that would mean 48 or more socks floating around!), several pairs of jeans, a few dozen t-shirts and more.

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Get Your Good Clothes On, Kids; It’s Time to Call Grandma - All Things Digital

Posted: 15 Nov 2010 10:07 AM PST
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