The Point of the Journey...

And...

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:19:11 GMT

Happy Birthday Fitfool!

In case I don't make it back by tomorrow....

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:18:35 GMT

Happy Birthday Ruthling!

So freakin' busy

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:28:56 GMT

Classes start today and I'm frantically getting everything ready. Proud of myself though...kept with the running even with the cold snap. On one of the days last week I did 6.4 miles in below 9 degree weather. The wool sock was critical in that kind of weather. Yes, THE wool sock. A single one. Plus two on the feet.

I want to write about the enchanted forest. T's term for our walk in the woods after an ice storm, everything coated in a shimmering crystalline coating.

Yesterday was a magnificent day for the U.S. We've shown that we still believe in our foundational principles. But President Obama is in an unenviable position with the economy. I continue to have strong beliefs about what is coming and I can't believe all of these smart economists can't see it.

Well, off for a quick run, shower, then to the PhD stats class. How fun! I have more students auditing than enrolled. How does that work? And my Master's level class? Totally packed. Overfull. Have to change everything up to make it happen.

I will be positive. I will be positive.

One more thing

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:47:20 GMT

T stuck a coin in a socket at school today and nearly electrocuted himself. He didn't even get shocked but the dime is now melted and blackened. WTF was he thinking? He really knows better. We've told him a thousand times...

He promised, promised, promised never to do that again. And R promised to never put anything in a socket. I've heard that before....from T.

Alive to 25, that's our motto.

Happy Merry New HannuKwanzaaChristmasukah Year!

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 05:36:13 GMT

I tried to squish all of the holidays into one happy greeting. Time is flying. Time has flown. We didn't get a letter out this year although we did send cards. Last year we did neither. Where did December go?

Thanksgiving was quiet, spent with the boys. Neither of them like turkey, smoked or otherwise. We ordered a smoked turkey from Greenberg. People seem to either love or hate smoked turkeys. J and I love them. Made the usual fixings plus steak for the kids. Opened a 2000 Bordeaux. Nice meal, warm fire. I've been a soup making fool lately so i made a smoked turkey soup out of the leftovers. Delicious. Turkey makes me flatulent. J too. Can you imagine what the soup does?

We went to Hershey Park twice on a 2 day pass. The first day the park was desolate. We nearly had the entire amusement park to ourselves. We thought "so this is what it is like to be Paris Hilton or Miley Cyrus." About a week later we returned and it was busier but still slower than past years. The economy strikes again.

Set up our tree on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Avoided the blue spruce Christmas tree of a thousand tiny daggers this year. Got a fir but don't know what kind. Nice tree though. Kids still decorate the lower tiers...I'm going to miss that. We redistributed some ornaments but kept some of the branches laden with far too many ornaments for one branch.

December came in a rush. Shopping, wrapping, letters, Nutcracker show, final exams, projects, grading, Plus we have been working extra hours on numerous projects, trying to keep some irons hot.

T lost his first tooth in the first week of December. A couple of days later he earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do. That night he said it was the best night of his life (for the belt and for the visit by the fairy for his tooth).

As an aside, have I mentioned that R has been potty trained since around his birthday in May? He was a little more challenging than T because he just didn't seem interested but once he decided it went smoothly. Rare accidents since then.

We played in the snow with the kids and built a snow wall. I want more times (and memories) like that.

T & R love Christmas. It's a magic time. T has been asking more questions about Santa, especially about the department store/photo op Santas. After hearing the Beach Boys' "Santa's Beard" (http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/Santa%27s-Beard-lyrics-Beach-Boys/7D7915172C26304C48256982002A2DC9) T concluded that they were all helper Santas. I have some internal conflict about misleading T or R, even about Santa, so I'm careful not to lie to them. So far I have given answers such as "Santa's magic comes from love and imagination" and I have remained evasive about specifics. It's a magical time but I always want our kids to believe what I tell them.

We left a sparkling dust imprint of a boot on the fireplace hearth. The kids loved it -- the pure joy on their faces was something to behold.

On New Year's Day we went to see the Mummer's Fancy Brigades in Philly. Amazing! We saw the sneak peek 2 or 3 days before and decided to go back and see the real thing. Made marvelous hats at the sneak peek too. Made Pad Thai for our New Year meal. Perhaps that will be a tradition. I also cleaned the upper and lower oven. What a mess!

To demonstrate my manliness and offset my domesticated tendencies, I also installed new ceiling tiles in the basement during December, wirewheeled the rust off the oven and painted it, shoveled ice and snow, installed window shades, and did a lot of pushups.

I closed 2008 with 829 miles of running for the year. Short of my 1000 goal but a vast improvement over 2007 (only 503 miles). I'm slowly getting back into shape. I still drink too much at night so I'm cutting that back. I was up to the equivalent of 3-4 drinks almost every night. I know why I drink -- my brain thinks too much about everything and I'm trying to sedate it. Plus escapism. I have a lot on my mind -- and heart. Not good. Carrying too much weight from excesses (food and drink), underexercising, and sleep deprivation. I'm improving on all fronts. Ran 4 (M), 4 (Tu), 6.2 (W), 3.3 (Th) miles this week, even in ice and snow.

I've been reading books. "The Hyperinflation Survival Guide." "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." Confessions is a striking insight into how the world really works and why so many countries hate the U.S.

I''m also still reading "On Food and Cooking." I read just a page here or there and I'm around pp. 270 now. I'm still learning so much about cooking. I made some rocking gingerbread cookies for the holidays but crumbled my sugar cookie shaped like a gingerbread man because I tried to move it when it was still too hot. I didn't know you had to let cookies cool before placing them on racks to cool.

The other day was went to a b-day party at a tumbling place. T and R both ran around like crazy and R jumped up on a bar and began swinging his legs around in the air, inverted. Then he rushed over to us, eyes flashing, red-faced, and said "I can do amazing things!" J and I heartily agreed. He can do amazing things. It will be interesting to see how he develops. He is a very even personality -- most of the time. And he is physically strong and coordinated.

Well, it's late and I have lots of work for Friday, plus dinner out and shopping on Friday night. Saturday is busy with T's basketball and a birthday party. How will I get the report and analyses done? Good night!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:35:19 GMT

I have so much to be thankful for.
The boys
J
Mooch
Murphy (yes, the oaf)
A warm home filled with love
My health
My family's health
Life
A good paying job for both J and I
Opportunity
and so on...

I'm writing the next part not to whine or complain. It's just a remarkable string of recent events that deserves documenting. Things became pretty crazy around or right after the last post. I had been having trouble with my wireless connection to the Internet so I hadn't been able to check e-mail or do any of the things requiring access. This put me severely behind in my class management. Then we had a heavy snow that required a day of shoveling. It was heavy, wet, and hit the trees while they still had leaves, so a lot of trees were damaged and branches fell. It was windy as well. Power went out. Then the phone and Internet went out. Glad we had a generator! A day later power went back on but the phone and Internet were out for several days. Just about the time everything came back, it was Halloween. Of course we celebrated with the kids, trick-or-treating and going to parties. What happened next?
- furnace went out
- dryer died
- flat tire for the van
- dog had terrible hot spots (staph infection)
- trees needed to be pruned or brought down
- Virtumonde infection on my computer that took 3 days to eradicate (most people have to reformat their hard drive)
- R got sick
- I got sick

There's more but I can't remember right now. Don't care if I do,. It was such a crazy string of events and it put me so incredibly far behind in everything. I'm still scrambling to catch up.

Through it all I have managed to continue running, even when I first became sick. I finally had to give it up while I tried to recover from some respiratory virus I caught from R. I'll be back at it next week. I'm getting faster and healthier. I heard that a large scale study suggests that for every 2 inches of extra waist size I would have a 17% increased chance of dying over a period of about 10 years (13% for women). Well, I think I can probably shave 2 inches so I'm working on it. Last year I really let things fall apart. Part way through last year I was depressed and I simply quit exercising. I think I logged about 500 miles total. This year I will probably hit 880 or so, less than the 1000 I normally work toward. I didn't get started until well into the year because I was still struggling with my attitude. I think I've turned the corner.

This year, I have been trying to focus on positive things, think positive thoughts. I've been keeping myself disciplined about exercising and work. It's beginning to pay off.

I'm thinking positive thoughts despite what I REALLY think is going to happen with the economy. I've warned my sister and father to prepare for deflation/depression in the economy, followed by inflation or hyperinflation. At home we have installed a wood burning insert for heat, and a generator for power. We've bought a lot of canned goods. We have withdrawn all the cash we can from the bank. We, the pacifists, now own 3 guns. A 12 gauge, 20 gauge, and .22.

Does it sound like I'm wearing a tin hat and digging an underground shelter for when the aliens come? Probably. I'm okay with that. I know it all sounds extreme. I hope I'm crazy. I hope I'm just paranoid. That would be far better than the alternative. In a recent post I pointed out that we had made conservative moves with our investments long before the economy unwound. Two years before the economy showed any signs of stress I stood in front of my classes and said the average person has no idea what is coming. Since then I've had several students e-mail me about my ability to predict the current debacle. It wasn't actually my prediction. At J's urging I'd been reading a lot of sources on the real undercurrents of the economy and found the analyses compelling. I still do.

At the time we got out of stocks and into gold. We seemed just as crazy then. I have a long list of reasons for my prediction, including current debt structure at the individual, state, and national levels. The foreign ownership of our debt, especially China. China's move to acquire 4000 tons of gold. The moves by the Treasury and Federal Reserve to pump unprecedented amounts of liquidity into the economy and market. The failure of that liquidity to solve anything. The complete failure to address the root cause of this mess (OTC derivatives). I could go on and on. But the reality is that crises are crises precisely because no one expects them to happen int he way that they do.

I'm glad Obama won.but I told my father and sister that it doesn't matter a whit who gets elected.

Despite all of this, I'm going to enjoy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

My legs are already cramping -- it's going to be a long night

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:08:35 GMT

Whenever I truly abuse my muscles I get muscle cramps later in the day. They often hit while I'm asleep, thighs, calves, quads, going into spasms that result in rock hard painful knots that make me writhe in pain. I'm already cramping so I know I'm in trouble. I'm typing this while stretching...

Kids are asleep

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:48:00 GMT

Both boys are snuggled in their beds. We've had a great summer and a wonderful fall. Summer included summer camp for T and trips to Ocean City (we rented a condo on the beach), Anaheim (to visit family, go to a conference, go to Legoland, and visit Disneyland), and a trip to Chicago. We went to 6 Flags, Franklin Institute, and Sesame Place a number of times. Fall has included birthday parties, fund-raising auctions, more trips to 6 Flags and Sesame Place, Halloween decorations, art projects...so many fun activities.

Among my favorite moments in life are the few minutes I spend carrying T and R to their beds after a long and fun day visiting an amusement park or engaging in some other fun activity. I carefully pluck them out of their car seats, hold them close with their arms instinctively wrapped around my neck, and carry them inside and up the stairs. They usually sigh and hold me close as I carry them. I can remember the feelings I had as a child when being carried to my bed. I remember feeling happy and tired, feeling secure and well-loved by my parents. I'm happy that I can share that particular memory with our kids. I carefully place them in bed, remove their socks and shoes (why do little boys have such stinky feet?), tuck the blankets around their necks, place stuffed animals in their hands, and give them warm hugs and kisses. They usually respond, even from a deep sleep. They are both getting so big I wonder how much more time I'm going to have to do this with them.

I made green curry chicken with fresh Thai basil tonight. I've loved curry as long as I can remember. My mom used to make it with boxes of curry mix stirred into the food. I ate as much as I could, nearly addicted to the stuff. Much later in life I was surprised to discover that there was no curry herb, no curry tree, and no curry nut bush. I was truly astonished to learn that curry was a mixture of spices. Jean and I have made curry from scratch and curry from jars or boxes of mix. It's all good in my book. Tonight I made it with a jar of Thai green curry. I browned the chicken at high heat until Maillard reactions flavored everything, then added coconut milk and curry. I used half the coconut milk listed in the recipe. I knew this would make everything thin, but I had a plan. Reducing coconut milk is a good thing for health. Once everything was boiling again, I tossed in bamboo shoots, baby corn, green peppers, and eggplant. Shortly after I could tell the sauce was thin so I thickened it with corn starch. Finally, I served it with fresh basil for J and me. Delicious. T and R had meatballs and chicken nuggets, respectively. They have not yet developed a passion for curry -- far from it. I'm stuffed and ended my night with 18 year Macallan scotch, distilled in 1979 (we've had the scotch for some time).

Moving all that wood and playing kickball with the kids afterwards has sealed my fate. My ass hurts. I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

I have 15 minutes...

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:29:41 GMT

J and I moved about 3,200 lbs. of wood today. We were supposed to do it this weekend but things got crazy. Sunday morning I was supposed to mow the lawn and then move the wood in the afternoon. We woke a little late, I took the dog for a 1.6 mile run, and then I ran out of time to mow. We headed off to Chester to a do-it-yourself art shop where T and R were able to make art projects of their choosing. It was originally supposed to be a birthday present for me but after we visited the studio we decided it would be much more fun if each of us helped the kids make a project. R made a green glitter-covered paper-mache cat that he called Oscar. T made a wooden chest with copper paint, a foil decoration for the top, and decoupage on the front, back, and sides. Both projects turned out great and we had a lot of fun.

We headed straight from the art studio to a birthday party that T was invited to attend. R napped in the van and I drove around, eventually parking in front of 5 Below. I napped briefly and when R woke we went into the shop and bought a bunch of cheap and fun Halloween decorations. R was so thoughtful -- he even asked to get duplicates of some of the better decorations so that his brother could have them too. What 3 year old has that kind of insight? We headed back, picked up T and J, then went to Michael's for the Halloween half price sale. Bought our first two Halloween Village decorations. One is a "Pirate's Pub & Grub" and the other a "Hillside Mausoleum" by Lemax. Both have lights, sounds, and animated creatures/characters. The pirate one was a demo and had some broken features. We bought it for half price plus another 10% off. The mausoleum we bought for half price. I think they were a good purchase. T just sat in front of them for about an hour, watching them, R joining him from time to time.

I went out and started mowing after getting the dinner set up to be cooked. J finished up dinner while I mowed in the dark. Ironically, I could see okay except when cars drove down the road because their headlights blinded me. Needless to say, I didn't move the wood yesterday.

Also, it turned out that the chicken was underdone. Why? Because R was fiddling with the probe. At least that's what we think happened. We nuked it in the microwave to finish it up and it was still pretty tasty. For the second time, we made soup from the leftovers. The first time was pretty good. This time -- wow, was it ever good! We used basil, lovage, thyme, salt, carrots and smoked chipotle peppers. We'll have to do it again.

Today was supposed to be a work day. Unfortunately, moving and stacking wood, meeting with an electrician about having recessed lighting installed, meeting with a tree person about some trees in the yard, fielding a few phone calls, playing kickball with Aidan and T and R for a play date, walking the dog, and writing here pretty much used up my day. I'm SO behind. But I will smile and think positively. I can do it. I can do it.

Time is up for this post.

Pesto and soccer

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:46:07 GMT

We needed to harvest our basil because of a frost advisory for tonight. J and I talked about it and agreed that perhaps I should stay home with R today and make pesto. J and I also talked about the possibility of having me drive to T's soccer game after his practice so I could watch him play. We both know that he's been getting better and better and he's come close to scoring a goal several times. We figured out that it wouldn't be practical or possible for me to make it to the game. We joked that if I stayed home T would be sure to score a goal today. Realizing that it was a real possibility that he would score his first goal, J brought the vidcam with her.

I stayed home and made three quadruple batches of pesto using basil from our garden, fresh pine nuts, garlic grown in our garden, and high quality cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil (we give some away and it freezes pretty well). R was making me crazy, getting into everything, but I managed to get him to help with the blending process. It was fun at first but I was pretty tired of the process by the end of the day. I hope I don't have to pick a single basil leaf for a whole year.

When J and T came home I immediately asked, "did T score a goal today?" J said, "no -- he scored two goals." Later we viewed the goals on the tape. The tape of the first goal showed a lot of grass and it caught his foot hitting the ball just before he scored the goal but you can't see much of him or the goal. It turns out J was so excited that she was shouting and moving so the shot was a bit off (an understatement). But we did get to see his foot hit the ball and the joy on his face right after the goal. That was pretty cool. The second goal was missing. J thinks she taped over it by accident. I'm a little disappointed but joyous I was able to see T kick the ball that scored his first goal. I was also joyous that I wasn't the one who shot the tape. J would have been pissed at me if I had shot that tape, I know it.

We went to the Field of Screams in the afternoon. It was a playground with Halloween decorations, suitable for the young. R and T were able to trick-or-treat, play on the equipment, and look at all the fun decorations. T wanted to keep playing the sledgehammer and bell game for kids. I think he liked the idea that he could make it ring every time. I had to swing pretty darn hard to make the adult bell ring. Fun afternoon. In the evening we ate burgers that I made. J and I had bleu cheese with ours, T and R, cheddar. Watched another episode of Addams Family. I never thought about it before, but after watching two episodes, I think Morticia is kind of hot.

Ran 1.6 miles w/ the dog. That's all I had time for. Tomorrow, mow the front lawn (equal to about 2 miles).

'night.

T's Pick

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:26:06 GMT

I forgot to mention, we've been discussing the idea of a democracy with T and explaining that we get to elect the next President (we haven't explained the electoral college yet). We talked about the candidates and the strengths and weaknesses of each. In my opinion, we presented a pretty balanced explanation. Then we mentioned that if elected, Obama would be our first black President. T was curious about that. Why the first? So we explained slavery, civil rights, etc. in a fairly brief fashion. We continued discussing the candidates. Finally, we asked T, "who would you vote for?" He said "the dark skinned one." We explained that many people would find it offensive to call someone dark skinned and he was completely perplexed. Why would people be upset if it was true? At the end he said he would vote for Obama but not call him dark skinned.

Personally, in terms of the economy, I don't think it matters one whit who is elected President. Right now, it's all about the economy. Social patterns are influenced by economic conditions. So are security, health, retirement funds, etc. Whomever ends up in office will have an unbelievable host of problems and I don't believe for a second that either of them will be able to control the runaway train. Going back to mark-to-model for the banks only masks the rotten assets they have at the core, which is part of what got us here to begin with. You can hide it for a while, but eventually the leverage against bad assets has to be unwound. And flooding the market with global liquidity will have some severe unintended consequences. Ben "helicopter drop" Bernanke is a keen student of the Great Depression and he knows that the failure of the government to open the taps to liquidity magnified the troubles of the economy in the 1930s. He imagines that flooding the market today will save us from that fate. Most likely it will. But as brilliant as Ben is (1590 on the SAT), he misses the other consequences. In the economy, as it is in physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well, it is not that precise in the economy, but I do know for sure that flooding the market with liquidity will have strong and unintended effects. The only question is "how long will it take for us to see the effects?"

I laughed at this letter from a former hedge fund manager who made 866% last year betting against the financial houses.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27239479

"I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

Enough...time to go make pesto!

We all have our unique talents

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 14:06:39 GMT

Yesterday was a good day. It was a regular work day but I received so many nice e-mails and messages saying Happy Birthday that it really made my day. I ended up losing about an hour and a half to conversation with J's parents. Pleasant conversation but I had so much to do! In contrast, I spoke to my sister for about half an hour, with her talking about the challenges of getting their house in order and getting the daycare set up. I spoke to my mom for about 2 minutes (her choice) but we rarely have much to talk about so that was okay. The only two things that bothered me were the fact that I only managed to run 2.1 miles because of the phone call with J's parents and R was being a pill late in the evening, which was an extension of how he had behaved at school.

In the afternoon we picked up the kids, went to Tae Kwon Do for T, then picked up a pizza for dinner. After dinner we watched "Addams Family" on a Netflix DVD. I love movie nights with the kids and lately we've been watching a lot of old sitcom reruns. Our kids are going to be the only ones who know what the original Batman looked like, who Gilligan is, why the Munsters and Adams families are creepy, and so on.

I've always known T is not interested in playing catch. I've tried since he was quite little to play catch with him, even as early as 2, but he never wanted to play more than a couple of turns. In contrast, he's always had a love of spinning things, gears, wheels, etc. He liked spinning things even before he could speak. I'm still trying to get him to play catch, if only to build his skills and reflexes. There's a friend of his, Aidan, who can throw a small football about 25 yards with a spiral. His other friend, Connor, can throw one about 10 yards. So T is ready to learn, except he is not interested. On the other hand, T is physically strong and pretty good at Tae Kwon Do. He also wants to learn to fence. Also, T is very good at Legos. He has assembled 8 year old thousand plus piece kits all by himself. Aidan cannot do the basic ones. I want T to be able to play catch but I'm happy he is interested in other things and has a talent for them.

R is interested in everything. Or is it nothing? He doesn't seem to have a single passion. He doesn't care about trucks or cars but he will play with them. He likes dressing up as a pirate for a few minutes. He will play catch for a couple of turns. We don't watch a ton of television but even when we have it on, he doesn't seem that interested. When we asked his teachers about his interests they pretty much said the same thing. It seems his greatest interest is doing whatever his brother is doing. He seems to have a natural art and music inclination but I think that's true of a lot of kids.

It will be fascinating to see where their passions go.

Long-winded ramblings about oil, the economy, and so forth

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 13:51:19 GMT

My dad sent me an e-mail claiming there were 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation and that Democrats, environmentalists, left-wing Republicans have blocked efforts to help America become independent of oil.

My father and I have long disagreed on matters of race, environment, religion, and so on. He's from deep Mississippi. I am not.

For some reason his e-mail twitched a hair on my head and I went on a wild writing spree in response to the e-mail he sent. I wrote all of this before Congress approved the bail out -- oops, rescue plan.

Here is what I wrote:

E-mail 1:

Well, it does make me mad. It makes me mad when people use misinformation to drive political agendas.

First, let us address the Bakken claim. It is false. If you follow the USGS link it shows that instead of 500 billion barrels, we have 3-4.3 billion barrels. The problem is that the oil is locked and difficult to extract so the technically recoverable oil is currently much, much, much smaller than the claim. This can be verified using other links, including the EIA.

Second, it makes no difference if we get more oil if we cannot refine it. That is one of the key issues we face as a country. According to the EIA and other sources, we currently consume approximately 21 million barrels a day of oil. Guess how much we can refine? According to the EIA and other sources we have the capacity to refine approximately 17.6 million barrels a day (see for example: http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/rankings/refineries.htm). Guess what happens if by some miracle we tap into huge oil reserves? Nothing. Because we are near capacity at refining and until we build more refineries drilling for more oil won't help. How long does it take to build a new refinery? By then, the oil crisis will have morphed into something else. More about that later.

Third, it takes time to set up extraction operations, pipelines, transport, etc. So even if we want to start drilling, we won't feel any benefit for years to come, and little or no benefit if we don't build refineries first. Oil doesn't help in raw form unless we can refine it. Drilling in Alaska and Bakken will not help us much, and if it does, not for years and years (while we get the operations set up and even longer for us to build new refineries).

Fourth, what determines the price of oil? In a closed market, supply and demand. We can increase supply of raw oil, but as noted above, it has little benefit until we build refineries. It takes a number of years to build refineries and pipelines to process and transport oil and its derivative products. However, even if we produce more, including refining, if global capacity does not meet global demand, then the price will still rise. More on that later too. More importantly, we can reduce demand. If our oil demand were 0 (purely hypothetical) we wouldn't even care about the price of oil and, by the way, the price of oil would also plummet for a number of years because we are a huge consumer. Well, the demand will never be 0 (we use oil for too many things, not just gas) but if we could reduce demand it has several positive effects. (a) It reduces the price. (b) It reduces the effect of prices, whatever they may be, on our economy. (3) It reduces the control other countries have on us through our energy needs (think Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, etc.). Ask Germany how it likes to be an energy pawn to Russia (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e9336464-523f-11dc-a7ab-0000779fd2ac.html; http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-01-08-belarus-oil_x.htm). So the key is not just to increase supply but to reduce demand. How? New energy (solar, wind, hydro, nuclear). Energy efficiency (insulation, building design, reduced drving, better engines, public transport, etc.). We are fat energy gluttons, producing 25% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and it's time for us to go on a diet.

Fifth, people have COMPLETELY missed the boat on the "oil" crisis. It is not merely an oil crisis. It is a currency crisis. In a global market, oil prices are determined by global currency strength, global supply, and global demand. Many emerging and growing economies are driving up demand so even if we cut back, it won't stop prices from rising over the long term. And even if we are able to produce and refine more, unless our ability to produce and refine oil offsets the global increases in supply/demand deficiencies, prices will continue to go up. That is very unlikely to happen in the next 10 or 15 years. But, the key is the currency. The current debacle in the financial markets is not unrelated to the price of oil. Not only is oil getting expensive but so are gold, silver, palladium, platinum, steel, wheat, aluminum, nickel, etc. At times these commodity prices dip (or even plunge) lower as fears about global recession make traders fear reduced demand will lower prices but in general everything is getting more expensive. In the meantime, the dollar weakens week after week. Compare the dollar today to almost any currency a year or two years ago. [Edit: I would add that now the dollar is gaining strength because other economies are meltiing down too -- but eventually the dollar will crash again, I'm sure of it]. When our dollar is strong against other currencies, oil and everything else is cheaper, when it is weak, oil and everything else is more expensive. Now, the current value of the dollar is connected in a real way to the turmoil in the financial markets. Remember when I said financial houses were going to fall? Remember when I said we could slide into a major economic depression? Now you see the dots that have been connected. If the government doesn't bail out these financial houses our economy will seize to a grinding halt, no financial liquidity in the system, with one financial institution after another going bankrupt. The FDIC is severely undercapitalized to bail out as many banks as could fail. On the other hand, if the government bails out the financial houses, it puts a huge debt burden on all taxpayers, now and in the future. Trust me, 700 billion is likely to be just the beginning [Edit: And I was correct here. They are flooding the markets globally with liquidity, including direct buying of rotten assets, direct lending, and so on -- it is the biggest socialization and nationalization of the financial system we have seen since, when? The Weimar Republic?]. And Paulson and company don't even know exacty what they are going to do with the 700 billion, if they can even get it. And if they do bail them out, they are essentially letting greedy risk taking bastards walk off scott free and rich while the average person loses his or her house, job, and/or way of life. But the government will do anything it has to do to keep everything from melting down, even if it means flooding the market with liquidity (i.e., money). And what happens to the value of the dollar if you endlessly flood the market with dollars to keep it afloat? Inflation. I basically predicted all of this nearly a year ago. I still don't know what the government is going to do. [Edit: The inflation will take a while to catch up with the current deflationary pressures due to a weakened economy -- but you can't get something for nothing and if you flood the markets with money you get inflation.]

Drilling for oil is not going to save us, not by any stretch. Cleaning up the financial markets, regulating the "shadow" financial market with its unregulated dark pools of liquidity and the associated financial weapons of mass destruction (http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Business/pdf/2008/09/15/2002pdf.pdf) such as OTC derivatives, CDOs, CDS, and so on, will fix the problem, but only if there is enough time on our side. We are in deep, deep doo doo and the financial houses have leveraged themselves into disaster. Don't you wonder how WaMu, Bear Sterns, Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, IndyMac, Goldman Sachs, all get rocked or go under in various ways? What's next? I expect GM is crippled because of GMAC. The greedy bastards lost on the equivalent of horse track bets, but then they pocketed the money they've been paid, and are now walking away while leaving the government (and you and I and all other taxpayers) with the mess. If more houses fall, wait until you see what happens. One of two nasty scenarios: (a) Hyperinflation due to dollar devaluation because of flooding the market with liquidity (oil will be really expensive then and drilling will not save us, never mind the refinery issue) and a huge future debt load on taxpayers; or (b) Deflation due to a great depression.If (b), oil will be cheap but no one will be able to get it and if they can, no one will have money to buy it.

Neither McCain nor Obama, and especially not Palin, are even remotely prepared for what is about to hit the fan unless by some miracle government intervention actually stops the deleveraging and unwinding of highly leveraged and sometimes nearly worthless derivatives. It's going to hurt in some way, even if it is isolated in the taxpayers' pocketbooks. You do know that whomever is in office will have to tax us mercilessly to even out the growing deficit and the tremendous national debt that exists, right? Saving the financial system will exact a cost, and if we can't save them or if we won't pay the cost, there will be economic hell to pay. Oil ain't nuttin' as a problem then.

Yes, I'm mad, but not for the reasons intimated by the e-mail. It's a red herring with a political agenda. I'm mad because the government didn't watch the fat cats play dice with our future. And both republicans and democrats are to blame, although I blame the republicans slightly more. But they are both culpable.

I hope, really hope, the bailout works.

E-mail 2:
Quick follow up on just the oil part of that e-mail you sent.

Check out:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp

The article focuses just on the inaccuracy about the Bakken formation but it ends with:
"...3.65 billion barrels of recoverable oil..." and "It would only be enough to wean the U.S. off crude oil imports for one year."

Now let's think about ANWR. First, check a reliable source on how many billions of barrels are likely:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0028-01/fs-0028-01.htm

"The total quantity of technically recoverable oil within the entire assessment area is estimated to be between 5.7 and 16.0 billion barrels (95-percent and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 10.4 billion barrels. Technically recoverable oil within the ANWR 1002 area (excluding State and Native areas) is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels (95- and 5-percent probability range), with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels (table 1). "

Note that estimates for ANWR are between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels and if Native lands are excluded, even less. The 16 billion is an upper estimate, outside the range of likely probabilities. Let's assume a generous 10.4 billion, the most likely value if the Native areas are included.

We import around 10,000,000 barrels a day (http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html). That's about 3.65 billion barrels a year . So for between 5-10 years of work to set up and drill ANWR we get...10.4/3.65=2.85 years of buffer against foreign imports.

So I was almost asleep and thinking about the statistics on oil production that I've read over the past year or more. For some time I've been wondering why the oil companies keep wanting to drill, drill, drill when refineries are acknowledged to be at or near capacity and it would have little impact on long-term U.S. prices. To be fair, the oil companies have been pressing for refineries too but not as hard as drilling.

Then it finally hit me tonight. It's so obvious. They don't care if the U.S. is near capacity. The oil companies serve the profit motive, not the U.S. citizen. If you are the oil company and you can't sell oil to the U.S. despite drilling it in the U.S. because your refineries are at capacity, what would you do with it? Ah. You sell it overseas at high spot prices.Oil doesn't care where it came from and neither do the companies that produce it. The future looks hot for oil and if I were a petro company, I'd want to drill too because those are sure profits in my pocket. German, Chinese, French, Japanese money...it's all good. In fact, even if we build refineries, the companies will not sell the oil for a penny less than they can get elsewhere. So even if we open new refineries, if China is willing to pay and has the means to do so, the oil is going there and the company makes more money. And the price of oil will go up if countries are willing to pay more for it (which they will). It's what happens with steel, rice, and every other commodity in the world. It goes to the highest bidder. If I was a rice producer, I'd want to own more rice paddies and I'd sell to the highest bidder.. If I was a gold producer, I'd want more gold mines and I'd sell to the highest bidder. If I was an oil producer I'd want more...

As for Palin, if I were the Governor of a mineral rich, cash poor state with a weak infrastructure I'd be chanting drill, drill, drill too. Alaska needs the $ and she knows it.

It doesn't matter if you are democrat, republican, libertarian, green, or purple-polka-dot party. Those are the economics of it. So clear to me now.

E-mail 3:
The government has been manipulating inflation and employment figures for decades (both republicans and democrats) so you can't trust the numbers they give you.

There is something odd going on with the government and gold. Here is the Fed Gov site on gold (http://fms.treas.gov/gold/index.html). Check out the current and back reports on working stocks of gold: 2,783,218.656

The treasury department buys, sells, mints, and loans gold. The government states that it can't mint gold eagles. Furthermore, the stated amount of working stocks is the same to the 10,000th of an ounce going back to early 2006.

What are the odds that it would remain identical to the 10,000th of an ounce for so long?

Either the report is (1) accidentally inaccurate, (2) the government is holding gold stock back for some reason, or (3) they are flat out lying about how much gold stock they have. I don't know which it is yet but I think it is 2 or 3 or both.

E-mal 4:
I'd like to add one additional point. I'm actually not against drilling. I just know it isn't going to meet the dreams and goals of the average citizen.

A number of people say we should start drilling now so that in 10 years or so we'll have the oil we need because if we had done that 10 years ago we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. That's flat out wrong. If we had drilled 10 years ago we still couldn't refine it unless we also built more refineries 10 years ago. And if we drilled for oil and built refineries 10 years ago, would that have kept the price of oil from going up? No. Here is why. Three key factors. First, the price is driven by global supply and global demand, not U.S. supply. So unless we produce enough oil to meet or offset global demand increases, the price will go up. Oil goes to the highest bidder globally. Second, oil was driven up in part by speculators (especially in the shadow markets) and speculators are influenced by market trends, not by actual supply and demand curves (was there rationing of gas like in the late 1970s when we hit oil's price peak in 2008?). Third, and most importantly, the oil price was driven up by the weakening dollar. Just as oil was getting expensive, so too was a huge basket of commodities. Gold hit over $1000 at the same time oil peaked. Why? Did we not have enough gold mines too? How about the fact that corn, soybeans, rice, and wheat hit high prices in the same time period? It is true that we had flooding that affected crops. We also had irrigation shortfalls that affected rice. People blamed the use of ethanol for the price of corn and cost of oil for the prices of crops (plus the flooding). Perhaps we should also plant more corn, wheat, rice soybean fields, in addition to our gold mines and drilling for more oil to keep the prices of everything down. All of the causes for higher prices are real but at the root of it all is the weakening currency. If you don't believe the "oil crisis" is actually a currency crisis check out the following report from the American Geological Institute, April 2008.
http://www.agiweb.org/workforce/Currents-007-OilByCurrency.pdf
The graph plots the price of a barrel of oil against two currencies and gold. You can see that the price of oil has gone up in both Euros and dollars (especially the dollar!) but it has remained flat when plotted against an ounce of gold. The graph shows that the cost of oil has not be increasing in "real" terms (if you assume gold has real value) but it has been going up as currencies have weakened. As I mentioned before, the currency crisis is not unrelated to the financial crisis we see on the news every day. That's one of the reasons I've been paying attention to what the government is doing with gold.

Now, if you want to argue that we should drill for national security, then okay. I can actually see that argument. I could support it in some way. Let the government own and set up the drilling and refinery sites, maintain them for years and years, in the event that Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Russia, etc. try to squeeze us. Then we open the oil tap and get what we need for 3-5 years as a buffer against imports. But we already have that in terms of government security stores of oil. We don't have to maintain rigs, pipelines, refineries to have stockpiled an oil buffer. But I can see the argument about national security and we could do the math to work out the economics of it. We need to have a secure oil buffer. But drilling is not going to give us that because it is not government controlled. That's not what is going to happen. Instead, we open the sites up for drilling, the oil companies get "their" oil, they sell to the highest bidder, and prices go up while our financial houses melt down because of currency weakness. Not a good energy plan. Not a good financial plan.

Food Fun

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:40:11 GMT

I saw this in fitfool’s post, which came from webmd's post. I don’t usually do memes. I think I’ve done only one other meme. However, this seemed interesting and I’m always curious about new foods. I had to Google some of the names and I was surprised to discover that I had eaten some of the things I had to Google.

If you want to play:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

I've included some comments in bold as well.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp – At first I read this as crap. Ha ha.
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho – Had to look this up to remember but I definitely had this.
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses – also had to look this one up but I remember it well.
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes – We grow them in our garden. Some of the varieties are amazingly full flavored. Not like the red racquetballs they call tomatoes in the grocery store.
22. Fresh wild berries – Yum. Watch out for the ants.
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese - I suppose I'd try it.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper – I can tolerate a lot of heat in peppers, Thai super chiles don’t faze me – but this pepper fried my brain and tongue.
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl – Perfect winter fare.
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar - Don’t usually smoke but this was a surprisingly good combination
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects- I might try it, depending on the insect
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more – A weakness of ours.
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut – fresh donuts rock
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear – It was straight from the cactus in the wild and we would cut off the spines ourselves. The pears were so tasty -- I had to pick the nearly invisible spines out of my lips. I guess I missed some of them.
52. Umeboshi – I once at an entire jar of them. My mother was not happy with me. My sister did the same. Mom wasn’t happy with her either.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal – I eat one of these or something similar from time to time but I almost always feel ill afterward
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV – Made some ourselves.
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips – Generally not as good as chocolate.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin - Still not sure what this is. The clay used for diarrhea?
64. Currywurst
65. Durian – I can’t believe that I enjoyed a food that Andrew Zimmer couldn’t eat.
66. Frogs’ legs – Taste like chicken.
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake – How good are these? Especially in New Orleans with a cup of chicory coffee.
68. Haggis – No, but I’d try it.
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette - I suppose I'd try it.
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
~~75. Roadkill~~ – Nope. Could never knowingly do it unless it was a survival situation.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail – Better than I expected. Recently, I heard about snail caviar when watching Andrew Zimmer. Really?
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant – It was amazing. But was it worth the price?
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers – anise flowers are particularly tasty
~~89. Horse –~~ Nope. Only a survival situation. Like the horses too much.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab – So very good! Make it at home with Panko instead of bread crumbs.
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I’ve eaten some other interesting things, such as:
Squid
Octopus (sushi style)
Longan
Morton Bay Bugs
Cendol
Crayfish
Ceviche
Fish head stew

I’ve never tried but think I would try:
Turducken (chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey, then deep fried)

I’ve never tried and most likely never will try:
Xinchin (C. and S. America)
Hakarl
Surströmming
Raake Orret
Shiokara
Jeotgal
Roede sild

I guess I have a thing against eating fermented sea food.
Back to work!

Not Just Another Day

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:40:37 GMT

I love the seasons, and fall is one of my favorites. Of course, if you ask me in any particular season, it is likely to be one of my favorites. Fall is truly wonderful. I like pumpkin picking with the kids, the brilliant palette of leaves, the crispness of the morning air. I hope we have a chance to pile up leaves like we did last year so the kids can take flying leaps into them.

Today, I'm wondering if I'm in the summer or fall of my life. I don't really mind either way. They are both one of my favorite seasons. But I'm certainly not, as they say, a spring chicken. On Facebook I've reconnected with some old friends and two of them mentioned the flying kick breaks I used to do in karate demonstrations. I'd begin with a running a start and then jump as high as I could, breaking boards 3 feet over my head, falling into a roll on the ground. In the seasonal metaphor of my life, that's a spring activity. I won't be doing anything like that anytime soon. So I'm definitely in late summer or early fall, both beautiful times of the year -- and beautiful times of my life.

T made up a joke.
T: Knock, knock.
Me: Who's there?
T: R.
Me: R who?
T: Why do you sound like a werewolf?

I've been sticking with the running but the amount is below my personal goals. M: 3.7, T: 4.2, W: rest, Th: 2.1, F: ?
I hope I can find the time to do a 5 or 6 mile run today, but I'll take 3 if that's all I can get.

R is the sweetest child and he gives the best hugs. We have a routine that I hope to remember forever. In the mornings, both kids have to ask to be excused from the table (or else they run around like wild monkeys while we are trying to eat). The routine happens at the end of the breakfst meal.
R: I want to get down.
J or me: Sure. What do you say?
R: Thank you for the delicious...what was it?
J or me: What do you think it was?
R: I don't know.
J or me: It's morning. What do we eat in the morning?
R: BREFUKAST!
J or me: Right.
R: Thank you for the delicious BREFUKAST. May I please be excused?

All of us, T included, love the BREFUKAST part. It's so cute.

And now for darker news: the economy.

I'm no happier about the wild upward swings in the market than the downward swings.

The flooding of liquidity into the global markets will have a cost. You can't flood the market and expect only credit lines to ease up. Where do we get the money? Borrow it? Create it? Tax people? Each option (and all three are being used) has consequences. I predict at some future date that we will see a spike in inflation. I expect to continue to see volatility in the market and in gold. I hope I'm wrong.

In other news...Friday's workshop went well. I wish J and I could be paid $5000 every day for sharing what we know.

T has been asking where the spirit goes after people die. It seems to be associated with Halloween and ghosts. We've gone over the major belief systems in the world. T asked more questions about who God is. We described the various perspectives, including the idea of a father figure who exists in the heavens, who knows all and who created the world. T said, "that's pretty silly, isn't it?" We explained how important it is to try to understand and respect everyone's perspective. He's asking a lot of good questions these days.

We see what we focus on

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:09:16 GMT

I often think about how reality is defined in large part by what we perceive. If we only think about the negative aspects of a spouse or partner then it is not surprising to find that we begin to dislike being around him or her. If we only think about the negative aspects of the world, such as the economy, supergerms, global warming, etc. then the world is a dark, scary, and forbidding place.

On the other hand, if we think in positive terms, then we find we enjoy being around our spouses and partners in life. We enjoy the fall colors, the taste of a freshly picked apple, and the joy of a child drawing a face on a pumpkin.

Study after study shows that people with positive attitudes enjoy many benefits in life. They are healthier, have more friends, heal faster, are better adjusted, more motivated, promoted faster, etc. Being a social scientist, I sometimes wonder about the direction of causality. Is it that healthy people, with more friends, more money, more promotions, and a more supportive family are more positive? Or is it that the positive attitude drives these outcomes?

Research on core self-evaluations suggests that people have a stable personality component that determines whether they feel they have self-worth, control over their lives, ability to achieve goals, and ability to control their emotions. This work has repeatedly demonstrated that people higher in these evaluations maintain motivation, have more job and life satisfaction, have more positive attitudes, and achieve more.

In another area of research on the powers of positive thinking, Emmons and McCullough have shown people who feel grateful for the good things in their life exercise more, feel healthier, achieve more goals, feel more enthusiasm, and sleep better. This was true even when participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Participants focused on either: 1. everything that went wrong or was irritating 2. aspects of their lives for which they were grateful 3. recent everyday events They found people who focused on gratitude were happier, reported fewer negative physical symptoms such as headaches, and were more proactive in their lives. For example, they exercised more. People around them also noticed that the grateful group showed more joy, optimism, and energy. This did not happen in either of the other two groups.

Why do I write about this now? Because these are challenging and scary times. I will not be a person with rose-colored glasses. I see the reality for what it is. I'm even a bit paranoid, in part, because many of my paranoias have come true. But I will remain optimistic and grateful for that which is good in my life.

We are teaching our kids. Every night before we go to sleep we have T and R think of 5 things in our lives that make us happy or for which we are grateful. Family regularly appears in the list. I hope that is always true.

Off for a short run now.

A Post from December 11, 2004

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:06:12 GMT

In 2004, I was just beginning to understand what was happening to our economy. I had just learned about OTC derivatives, changes in money supply, and the incredible debt load at the individual, state, and national levels. The more I learned, the more I feared. J taught me much of what I learned. Now I know quite a bit. J and I are both amazed that people never learn how the financial system really operates, even if they get MBAs. I decided to write a short post about the meaning of money and I hinted at a potential financial meltdown in the future. At the time J and I were uncertain but we both felt strongly enough to act.

I think I know where we are headed now but I don't want to write about it. Or talk about it. Or think about it.

12/11/04 01:45 am - Economics of the future

Thought for the day:

Money is worth only as much as everyone agrees it is worth.

People have too much faith in money. Money has no meaning beyond that which we accord it. Some people just don’t get this. I have had conversations with many people who don’t understand that a dollar is intrinsically worthless. This is particularly true in a system that is based on fiat money rather than a system backed by something, anything, meaningful. The U.S. began the slippery slide when we got off the gold standard, but even gold is only worth as much as we decide it is worth. I can see why people argued that gold is irrelevant. But it forces the government to be honest when influencing the money supply. Gold and silver are more substantial than the current slips of paper we call dollars, which are backed by nothing more than the word of the government, which happens to be in fiscal crisis. Do people even know that we aren’t on the gold standard and that there is an unknown amount of gold in Fort Knox (possibly a very small amount)? The problem is that money is worth nothing unless we agree that it is exchangeable for something of value and without a standard to adhere to the value is undefined. Digital money is worse. The electronic blips that make up a bank account are a fiction if others decide the electronic blips have no value. The minute that there is a crisis of confidence the entire system fails. It’s useful to treat money as a tool for conveniently transmitting value but it is worth remembering that it is only as valuable as we all agree that it is. History has repeatedly demonstrated that currencies based on fiat money can and do fail. Read about the crisis of monetary confidence during the Revolutionary war. Look at the worthlessness of the currency notes from the Confederacy during the Civil War. More modern examples include the Deutschmark and the rupiah. A particularly deadly combination occurs when a government is off the gold or silver standard, heavily laden with debt, engages in expensive warfare, and then produces a heavy supply of fiat money to cover the debt. Seem familiar in 2004? Who knows what will happen. All the same, we have decided to move to a more conservative position in our assets.

Time passes quickly

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:36:09 GMT

9 or 10 months since my last post? Incredible. So much to say, no time.

R turned 3, T is now 6. Funny kids. They both have Halloween brain. They can't focus on anything. I love their passion for life. We should all be like kids.

J and I are together. I'd like to think we are growing stronger.

I have a deep secret, a sacrifice, that I'm making for my family. Because I love them so. I will never reveal it to them. But it's a conscious choice as opposed to a hidden unhappiness that led to poor attitudes and behaviors on my part.

I'm still running but struggling. Time demands. Lately is has been challenging because I was sick for the last few weeks -- it's no fun to run while sick. But I've been staying with it. Lost some of the weight I had gained. Feeling a bit more fit. But not like when I ran the 6 minute mile. I want to get back there -- it felt so good. I'm not posting times yet because it is more important that I do the runs on a consistent basis.

Big news -- J is running with me now. Or I'm running with her. It's the same thing. After so many thousands of miles running alone or with the dog, I finally have a running partner! I'm happy about that.

J and I have finished our book and it's out. We can be Amazoned! We are editors of another series and have two different proposals in the works. The infernal chapter I was working on two years ago is finally coming out in print. Yay.

I remember years ago having conversations with Thunderslug and others here on LJ about the triple deficits, problems in the financial sector, and so forth. We talked about the need to buy gold for insurance back then. I was telling my family last fall that the big one was nearing. I took all of my retirement savings out of stocks and placed them in the money market and i-bonds. And I waited for the tsunami of bad investments and debt to hit.

Here it is. These are historic times. Not always a good thing!

J and I will weather this storm. We'll find a way, even if the entire state goes bankrupt and we have to find other means to support ourselves. I'm confident.

But I'm not optimistic about the economy or the stock market.

I will keep running. Stay fit. Maintain a positive attitude.

I think I might have a little SAD (seasonal affective disorder). We'll see this winter, right?
I also have determined that if I begin to drink more than 1 drink a night it becomes a vicious self-medicating cycle.
And I'm prone to addictions. I'm not alcholic. I'm not doing drugs at all. I don't smoke. But I can sense within myself that I'm prone to addictions of all types.
So I have to manage my emotions, attitudes, behaviors.

Be positive! Set and achieve those goals.

Bye for now. I apologize in advance for my failure to reply to comments. I have little windows of time and so much to do...life just keeps going and I have to keep up.

Forgot something important...

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:53:12 GMT

My sister (Sh) gave birth on October 31st so I'm an uncle now. My sister should be on Jerry Springer. Here's a quick review of her love life:

8 or so years ago going out with...I forget his name...oh yes, Gry. Gry seemed a very nice guy but had no direction and ambition.

She abruptly ended that relationship and started dating someone named Gbe. Gbe was very into karate and so too was my sister during that period. Unfortunately, Gbe didn't treat her well (no physical abuse but...) and he didn't know how to manage his business (always in severe debt). After 1-2 years, she left Gbe.

Shortly after leaving Gbe she met Jms. He seemed pretty cool, they went out for a several years. Then he finally became a firefighter (as he had been trying to do for all the years they were together). She said he seemed to change. Sh didn't like the changes and the loss of herself as a person to his career. She left Jms. He suddenly turned from nice guy to world class jerk (to our mom too, who is probably one of the nicest people who have ever lived).

Right after breaking up with Jms, Sh met Rb. Rb was in the military and scheduled to go to HI in only a couple of months. After two months of dating Sh dropped school and moved to HI with Rb even though only two people in the family had met him. None of us really knew anything about Rb and she was moving overseas with him. It was a scary time for us, watching from the sidelines. It turned out that he seemed a decent enough guy. He seemed to adore her and treated her well. The main problem was that he wanted children and she did not because she wanted to finish school and start her career. Despite this major difference in life goals, they seemed on track until he had to go to Iraq. Later my sister accidentally learned that he had been cheating on her with his ex-girlfriend (and potentially others) in the months leading up to his deployment. Things came to a head while he was still in Iraq and they broke up. Rb turned out to be a world class jerk upon break up. This took place fall of 2006 or something like that. The divorce just recently became final (I think).

Before Sh had completed her divorce with Rb, a co-worker named Jf proclaimed his love to Sh. He was a dear friend and Sh had never thought of him romantically. Apparently he had always had feelings for her but kept them hidden. There were two windows when he could have let her know of his feelings because she was between relationships. At the time he decided not to rush to approach her. Unfortunately for him, the windows were open for a short time and he missed both opportunities. This time he said "carpe diem" and told her of his feelings right after he heard about the problems with Rb. By January 2007 they had dated several times. They began slowly, going out first as friends as my sister considered the possibility of a relationship. Later Sh learned she was pregnant despite use of condoms and birth control. She knew she was getting older and if she was ever going to be a mom this might be the time. Despite the newness of her relationship with Jf she decided to have the baby. Thus, I became an uncle on All Hallows' Eve 2007.

Time to run (3.1 miles) and shower before picking up the boys so T can go to Tae Kwon Do.

I have to write something positive

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:01:23 GMT

The boys are amazing and amazingly funny.

T is still bent on becoming a robotic engineer. He regularly says things like "my robots will make things to help the earth" and "my robots will protect us" and so on. I've been impressed with his ability to assemble fairly complex Lego sets with minimal help. He can add 2 or 3 low numbers together, he understands very simple multiplication, and he can read simple books now. He wants to learn to read and do math so he can learn to build robots. He also started Tae Kwon Do over the summer and tested and earned his purple belt a couple of weeks ago. J and I felt happy and proud. The other day he called the paper shredder a paper blender -- funny and true.

R is an abstract thinker. You can see it already at the age of 2 1/2. He does more pretend play than his brother ever did and he seems to be the master of one trial learning (which is a problem if you let him see how a seat buckle works). He have a very sweet and compassionate disposition and amazing athletic skills (he's fairly ripped for a 2 year old). He adores T and it's fun to see the two of them playing together. The other day we went to the Natural History Museum and the kids were able to pretend to be paleontologists with a chisel, brush, and safety googles. R looked up with a huge grin, held up his hand, and said I have a CHEESEL! Somehow that was hilarious and we all laughed for a bit (including the employee who was overseeing the exhibit). R pooped in the potty for the first time on 11/25, then again a couple days later. We thought great, we'll be potty trained in no time. No dice. He hasn't done it since.

The boys do love Santa.

Being honest...

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:42:47 GMT

If I'm being honest with myself, and I suppose I should be honest here if I'm going to be honest anywhere, I've not been doing a good job of living life. The lack of posts are symptomatic of a deeper issue. My conditioning and overall health have waned and I've put on more pounds than I care to admit. I'm nowhere near my terrible state of health when I first began running but I am not taking care of myself.

The reasons for the current state of affairs are many. Fundamentally, it is because I have been untrue to myself. I'm still not sure exactly what that means but I'm determined to fix it this year. I'm not one for New Year's resolutions because I believe you should live life well every day not the first month of the year but given that I haven't been doing such a good job lately with the living well part I think I should start somewhere. Jan 1st is a good place to start.

I've been working my tail off. Every spare moment is accounted for in some way or another -- fun trips with the family, meetings, reviewing, Tae Kwon Do for T, etc. That's part of my problem. On the outside I live the life of a successful academic -- money, tenure, wine, good food, consulting with top executives, etc. On the inside, I feel suffocated by all the demands on my time. I don't have time to simply sit. Day dream. Read a good book. Write in my journal.

I came within a hair's breadth of walking out on J. You can't believe how hard that would have been to do -- I love her and the boys so very much -- with all my heart. So how could I have contemplated leaving them? I felt disrespected by J. I will never stay in a relationship in which I feel I am not treated with respect. She didn't take me seriously at first but after a bit she realized I was dead serious. We had a long talk (not an argument) and it turns out she's felt disrespected too. So we are working on that. We should probably talk again. When we have the time, ha ha.

I've not been running, partially due to prolonged sleep deprivation from R, our 2 1/2 year old. I think long term sleep deprivation depresses me and that's been part of my problem. It has certainly been very, very hard to get up early to stay on a regular running schedule. I ran half the mileage in 2007 that I did in 2005 and 2006. I'm trying to get back on track but sleep would certainly help.

Work sucks. That's a bad attitude for an assistant director of the PhD program. It's just that we have so many weasels in the department. I'm determined to focus on the good that I can do through my work. We'll see how that unfolds in the coming year.

So that's the bad stuff.

On the other hand, there's plenty of good to be found in my life. I'll focus on that and I'll try to post my 2007 holiday letter some time soon (it's late as always).

Clarity

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 20:04:45 GMT

I was a teenager, full of that teenager angst that makes you feel like you are immortal, you hate the world, and the world hates you. I felt trapped and couldn't see my future through the cloudy haze of my reality. No money for college, no career for life. I occasionally thought about death and how it would solve so many problems.

One night I was at my next door neighbor's house, waiting for Mr. S's daughter to come home. I secretly loved her but she thought of me only as a brother. But I'm not going to talk about her now.

Mr. S was a veteran of the Korean War and more than slightly deranged as an alcoholic. As usual, he was drunk, and he regaled me with tales of shooting people from mountaintops with high powered rifles. He took out his loaded .45 and told me what he could do with it. Then he pointed it at me and cocked the trigger. His bloodshot eyes stared at me and his alcohol laden breath wafted toward my nostrils. I saw a tremor in his hand and I knew he could do it. He asked me what I thought the .45 could do to me. I recounted what he had said earlier. He asked me if I wanted to live. In that moment I had clarity. All my self-indulgent angst melted away and I knew I wanted to live. I knew I loved the world and I knew there was love in the world for me. I told him I wanted to live.

I swallowed hard, reached out very slowly, and asked if I could see the pistol. He smiled, the tenseness vanished, and to my surprise, he handed me the .45. In that moment I became his friend, learning about the pain that could be inflicted on others.

I never liked him, especially when he was drunk. He used to beat his daughters and he put nails under our car tires all the time. But I still thank him today for the clarity he gave me that night.

I didn't run today...rest day. I've been listening to all kinds of music on the Creative Zen V that I won in a raffle over Christmas while running. "Tequila" is hands down the best running song ever. Classical music can create an almost ethereal experience while running.

Monday we went to see Clifford with both kids at the local playhouse. R actually sat and watched the entire thing (unlike The Nutcracker).

On Monday, T's teacher mentioned she liked Josh Groban. T said, "I like Josh Groban too, he's a really good singer." Later that night, as we drove to dinner after the show, T said, "if Miss Vicky likes Josh Groban then she'll like Andrea Bocelli too." So the next morning I told T to ask Miss Vicky if she knew of Andrea Bocelli, so he did. She hadn't heard of him so T asked me if I could bring the music in. Of course he was correct. She loved Andrea Bocelli.

Oh, and T made a multilingual pun the other day. I was making up the bath for R and T said you are huaing the bath for Ryan. Puzzled, I asked him to repeat himself. Then I got it. Hua means draw (as in drawing a picture) in Chinese. I was drawing the tub for Ryan.

R is talking up a storm. We don't always understand him but it's a ton of fun. He's a very affectionate child, randomly hugging any of us at unexpected times.

Beating back the funk...

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:16:39 GMT

Right after my last post, I decided I was going to be happy and I wasn't going to let work or life stress get me down. Then I lost my wallet. I've lost important things my entire life but it still drives me insane when it happens. For two days I searched high and low for the wallet. Finally, I had to accept it was gone. I spent the next few days trying to catch up on work while taking care of all the things that needed to be done because I lost my wallet (e.g., canceling and getting replacement credit cards, getting a new driver's license, etc.). I'm still dealing with some of the ramifications of losing my wallet and I'm still trying to get on top of my workload.

I was actually depressed for about two days. I snapped out of it when I re-remembered that there are more than 6.5 billion people in the world, with about 300 million of them in the U.S. Many would argue that even the worst off of the people in the U.S. are probably better off than most of the rest of the people in the world. I know my life is at least in the upper half of the 300 million. So, there are about 6 billion people who have it worse than I do on a daily basis. After that, I shook myself out of my doldrums.

I'm back at it, working hard to get things done, working hard to stay in shape. I've put on a few pounds but now I'm really focused on working them back off. On Monday I ran 7.1 miles in 11 degree windchill. I was cold and tired when I finished but it felt soooo good. Tuesday I ran 3 miles in 25 degree weather, and today I ran 5 miles in 45 degree weather. I'm back!

It's late so I have to sleep. I'm going to place a link to two things here. The first is to a pdf of an edited version of our holiday letter that we sent late in December. The second is to a thought provoking video.

Letter

Video

Good night.

Happy New Year!?

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 23:07:25 GMT

How can it be the end of January already?

So much going on...

That committee I'm serving on? It blew up politically just as I predicted.

December -- fun Christmas but about 5 weeks of ilness going around in circles in the house.

Didn't make 1,000 miles last year. Still running though. Gained more weight than I care to admit. Working on taking it back off.

More to say but kids to pick up. Got to play in the snow with them this morning.

I have so many thoughts bouncing around in my head -- want to connect with others. I actually feel a little lonely inside.

My life appears good externally. Internally, not so much. Stressed, lack of focus, lack of sleep, lack of direction. Hard for me to write b/c I don't want to whine...my life is certainly better than more than 5 billion other people. How can I complain?

Gotta go, will try to catch up.

Missing friends...

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 06:55:08 GMT

I miss you dearly. Truly.

Life has been insane. It was busy before but now it's a new level of busy. It's 1:45 am. I should be sleeping. I want to be here for a moment or two.

Halloween: awesome, Aunt S came out to visit. T was a police car, R was a clown, I was an ostrich rider, J was Gilligan.
Thanksgiving: a quiet day with the four of us (plus Murphy and Mooch). This is a very good thing.

R is a very happy boy. Loves balls. Loves music. Does a "wiggle the butt" dance that is indescribably cute. Imagine a 1 1/2 year old shaking his booty. That's it. That's the dance. Blows kisses to everyone but has terrible aim (blows them in the air, toward the wall, whereever the hand goes).

Conversations with T:

T: You are taller than dad, right mom?
J: Yes.
T: But if dad eats his vegetables and exercises he'll keep growing and one day he'll be taller, right?
J: *laughing* No, it doesn't work that way for adults.

T: What's this bump on your back?
Me: That's a subcutaneous cyst. It's a minor thing, I could have it removed but it doesn't bother me.
T: It looks funny. What's in it.
Me: Remains from an infection in the hair follicle.
T: But it's gone now?
Me: Yes.
T: I think I like your funny bump dad.

Teacher: What makes you happy?
Kid 1: Trick-or-treating.
Kid 2: Trick-or-treating.
Kid 3: Playing with my friends
Kid 4: Thanksgiving.
T: I'm always happy.

T can count to 10 in English, French, Spanish, Thai, Japanese, German, and Chinese. Usually. His Chinese teacher says he has excellent enunciation. He still wants to be a police robotic engineer.

We went through another tantrum phase with T recently but things seem to be back to normal again. These phases always seem to follow growth spurts.

My sister is probably going to get a divorce. Her husband, R, has been lying to her and cheating on her. As soon as he comes back from Iraq it's over. My sister has taken up running and lost a fair amount of weight. She was getting seriously overweight so this is a good thing. We ran 3 miles, 4 miles, then another 4 miles while she was here.

I'm still running. Will break 1000 miles for the year. Not in as good shape as I was earlier in the year. Too busy, not enough sleep, bad eating habits. Holding steady mostly, but need to get back on track.

Life is good. Crazy but good.

I guess I should get sleep.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!