The reason I get my news online.

Also, after Toronto, I prefer Yahoo.ca to Yahoo.com.

Time to Relax

I got back from Toronto Dec 14th, we have fixed most of the issues and things are starting to go well.
Then we went to Boston for a few days to see my family, and had 2 snow storms with about a foot of snow each (but missed both power outages). We were lucky our flight home was one of the few not canceled.
We went to Matt and Shannon's for Christmas eve and hosted Christmas day here.
Now we get a little time to do nothing before I head back to Toronto on Jan 3rd.


Amsterdam looks nice this time of year:

Bad Day at MSNBC

Canada Day 5

Best Food: The Keg and Montana's
Worst Food: Wayne Gretzky's and Tuckers

I love listening to Canadian's opinions of the US and learning about how their systems are different.

I am convinced the US needs to modify our 401k system to be similar to Canada's Registered Retirement Savings Plan.

It is very similar to our plan, but has a few basic principles that I think are lost in our plan:

While very Socialist, Canada (the Govt') does not want to pay for your retirement, so they make it very easy and risk free to start or catch up saving for your retirement.

The key differences are:
-You can contribute up to 18% of your salary (minus any pensions to a specified maximum)
-If you don't contribute your max one year don't worry, you can carry over that amount you did not contribute to next year...or over and over forever until that one great year where you can make a big investment in your retirement.
-And to make it low risk, if you ever need that money back, you can do so at any age without any penalty aside from paying current income tax rates (it is your money right?)

Canadian RRSP

This keeps people off of goverment assistance for retirement because there is literally no risk to maximizing your retirement savings.

How many Americans are gun shy about saving in a 401k because it is gone until you are 59 1/2?
"I'd contribute more, but what if we buy a house in a few years, or what if we have a baby, or what if we get sick, or get laid off?"
All of these concerns go away when you can constantly maximize your savings and still use it as an emergency fund if needed.

This is the only system I have ever heard of that guarantees you will retire with the maximum amount possible while still being able to have some funds to cover you if you are out of work or have some tough years.

Here are 2 other crazy benefits:
Special withdrawal programs

Home Buyer's Plan (HBP)
While the original purpose of RRSPs was to help Canadians save for retirement, it is possible to use RRSP funds to help purchase one's first home under what is known as the Home Buyer's Plan. Canadians can borrow, tax-free, up to $20,000 from their RRSP (and another $20,000 from a spousal RRSP) towards buying their residence. This loan has to be repaid within 15 years after two years of grace. Contrary to popular belief, this plan can be used more than once per lifetime, as long as the borrower did not own a residence in the previous five years, and has fully repaid any previous loans under this plan.


Lifelong Learning Plan (LLP)
Similarly to the Home Buyer's Plan, the Life-Long Learning Plan allows for temporary diversions of tax-free funds from an RRSP. This program allows individuals to borrow from an RRSP to go or return to post-secondary school. The user may withdraw up to $10,000 per year to a maximum of $20,000. The first repayment under the LLP will be due at the earliest of the following 2 dates:

1. 60 days after the 5th year following the 1st withdrawal

2. The 2nd year after the last year the student was enrolled in full-time studies

Toronto Day 1

After eating at Wayne Gretzky's downtown, we stopped in to grab some quick groceries.
Before paying the 13% sales tax, we noticed a lot of the products were identical to what we have but with different names.
We do this as well, the Arctic Ice Gillette deodorant is named Storm Force for Canada.
Junior Mints are...Juniors.
Caramello's are.. CaraMilks.
Hot Pockets are...Hot Stuffs(They taste just like a hot stuff).

Much to my co-workers dismay, this is our 6th trip to Toronto and we have yet to find any Diet Mountain Dew.

Polish Horse Shoes

We had a work off site this week and I learned a great new game.
Game play was stale until I showed up and brought out the hammer to knock the bottle (Gatorade) off the pole.
Here is a video I found on You Tube explaining the rules.

Bailout

I have no idea how changing the AMT rules or adjusting the tax cap on rum imports will help the bailout...but it's in the plan that passed the Senate.

The bigger issue is there is no bailout that will fix the economy quickly. And it will not address those who cannot afford their current homes, which will continue to hurt the economy for a while. I think the bailout plan needs to allow those who can't afford their current loans to switch to a fixed loan at no cost. That is the only hope of them being able to keep their homes and no hurt the economy.
There is no sense in placing blame, some were sold bum loans from greedy banks, others over extended themselves thinking house values will make them rich quickly. To Dale's point, their money is now tied up in a house at a lower value than they paid, and it prevents them from doing other things to help the economy.

There are 3 players in this.

The Lending Banks who are about to fail because these bad sub prime loans are preventing them from loaning new money or even staying in business. They are making this worse by not lending new money to people with good credit who could help the economy grow.

The owners of sub prime loans, who can't afford their mortgage especially since many are ARMs or Interest only and about to increase. They are making it worse by not making payments or defaulting on loans.

The rest of us who are the real victims, who just want it to be over to fix the economy while keeping the banks open to keep our retirements safe. We are making it worse by panicing and taking out money out of the banks, leaving them less money to loan out or keep them in business.

What the Bailout would have to do to fix our behaviors that are making the situation worse:
1. To help the majority of us, the bailout would have to restore confidence that the banks will be OK or are protected. This will prevent the majority of us from making a run on the bank and keep our retirements safe (for those in mostly bonds, the stock market will have to wait for the economy). Really anything that prevents the bank from failing should restore enough confidence to prevent a run on the banks.

2. To help out the Banks, the bailout would have to stop people from taking money out of the banks AND free them up from these bad loans to allow them to lend people new money for cars, credit cards etc.

There is nothing I have heard currently that will help those who can't afford their homes. These people will continue to hurt the economy for a long time because all of their income is tied up in the mortgage vs being able to contribute to the economy.
The economy will not turn around quickly until these people get help OR are left behind as the rest of the economy will eventually start to grow again without them after a painful recession. Either way house values should not increase until after the economy and stock market start to grow.

All this being said, I do not agree with the bailout being funded 100% by taxpayers. I heard an idea early on of the Gov't using taxpayer money for the bailout, then issue bonds to cover it so effectively only those who opt to buy those bonds (hopefully at decent rates charged to the banks) pay for the bailout. I like that idea better than throwing tax money only at the issue.

Bailout

Let's not forget the small companies in need of a bailout, like Dave's Retirement LLC.
$5MM or 0.0007% of the bailout should keep this company afloat.

Lessons from the Blackout

After 80 hours, we have power.

Here are some of my observations.
1. I don't NEED too much on a daily basis to survive.
I live close enough to work that I only need gas every week, so I never had to wait in any big lines. For only 2 w/o a baby we didn't need too much food. so I never felt anything was a crisis.

2. The iphone was plenty to keep me in touch.
Sure I missed some of my TV shows and a whole week of football, but I never really felt out of touch because I could keep my phone charged enough to get all the news I needed.

3. I have never slept better.
I think it must have been hours of relaxing candlelight w/o TV that made me sleep like a log. I'm sure the fact that there were no streetlights or houselights helped too.

4. It was interesting how much people tried to carry on life as usual, when most of our basic needs were not being met. "No food or power? Lets hop in this room and talk about deodorant."

5. It's fun to be resourceful. I brought our laptops to work to charge them for the sole purpose of using USB cables to charge the iphone from the laptop at night (what good is a laptop if your internet is down?)

6. We did have a good supply of batteries, flashlights and LED crank lanterns.

The two things I really wish I had:
1. A grill. After dragging my feet all summer after enjoying our grill at Hocking Hills I should have had one for cooking.
2. A solar powered backpack w/ all the phone attachments etc. We saw them in Yellow Springs for cheap.

Other things I will probably be sure to have on hand:
3. A battery powered radio (not named my VW)
4. A broad disaster kit including water purifying tablets, and some form of heat maybe my gas fireplace.

But overall it reinforces what I thought during Katrina which is the government cannot take care of you so you have to be able to fend for yourself.

Fact: Big Foot is REAL

Looks like I've been wasting my time on Aliens and Loch Ness:





I heard his DNA is 96% Opossum.

A&W

On the way to Bloomington yesterday we stopped at an A&W for lunch.

I have a very clear memory of eating at an A&W with my Mom and my Aunt Char on Cape Cod when I was a kid. Why no one else was with us I do not remember, but I remember really liking the food.

I have told this to Rachel on our visits to the Jug etc so she is the one who spotted the A&W. This one had to have been one of the originals, since it was made to be a drive up.

Overall it was not as good as I remembered, the burgers were good (but nowhere near as fresh as the Jug) and the root beer was actually terrible (tasted like diet).

But it was nice to revisit a good memory.

Be Kind Rewind

Rachel and I rented Be Kind Rewind last night (A).
She said some of the remakes reminded her of stuff her and her brother's would have done, I said it looked a lot like the movies the kids on our street made.



Link to their other Sweded movies

Their version of Lord of the Rings didn't even make the movie but it is outstanding.

I was lucky to grow up on a street with a lot of kids. Our bus stop was packed (that is Tom on the left) to the point where it required organization.
You dropped your bag off in the order of your age, played some tag, then got on the bus. (Me and most of the people I played with growing up are to the left and out of the picture).


Some of our old neighbors created a facebook group for our street and posted some old photos and movies similar to Be Kind Rewind.
Here is my brother Mike from 1985.


I don't think kids grow up like this anymore.

Canada Trip #5

Toronto is a great city to visit during the summer.
Downtown was packed unlike Cincinnati.
Too bad I'll be spending weeks there in Oct once it starts to get cold.

Seeing the price of gas in liters ($1.22/l currently) does not confuse me too much.
What does confuse me is how they calculate our version of fuel efficiency (mpg).

In the newspaper ads for cars they use the number of liters it will take to drive the car 100km. So a good car is under 9 l/100km while a bad car is over 12.

30 mpg is about 8 l/100km.

Presentations

This week on National Geographic is Earth: The Biography (A-). The series is hosted by Ian Stewart (the host of "Hot Rocks") who is quirky yet interesting. I really like this series because it is somewhat filmed like Planet Earth (maybe not as good) but it also contains some of the most recent scientific data and insights that are missing in a lot of the older specials still on TV.

So far the most interesting part for me was during the Atmosphere show. I have never considered skydiving because I think it would be a minute of pure terror, however I never knew that at the start of the space program around ~1960 someone jumped out of a special balloon 90 miles above the earth. It took them 15 minutes to fall back to the ground and they were so high that when they jumped there was no wind resistance of any kind blowing on them until they reentered the lower layers of the atmosphere.

The series has reminded me of the importance of a good presentation. More impressive to me than the HD images has been the sequence of the presentation. If you had to do 1 hr on Ice, what topics would you cover and how would you flow between them?

The book Made to Stick should be required reading before being able to install Power Point at work. I would grade the avg presentation at work to be a D with some of the better ones a C or C+. It does take a lot of time to create a good presentation and it makes some of the best, like An Inconvenient Truth, so interesting to watch.

Here is a great presentation on 3rd world myths.

Flipping Out

NBC, ABC and CBS are terrible (except for the office).

Cable, specifically A&E and Bravo have some great shows.
Flipping Out we've discovered through watching The Soup.
It is about an OCD guy who flips houses for a living. At first I thought he was part of a big team like Landmark, but it's just him.
He does have 3 full time personal assistants to take care of him and his home.

Enjoy some of these clips...

Good Morning...

This week, the battery in the remote of our Bose alarm clock died.
It is impossible to shut of the alarm without the remote, so I have been using a travel alarm.

This has ended my streak of over 2 years of waking up to this song:



Any new suggestions?

I'm writing about Coach purses...

In Toronto, I read a great article about Coach (purses, etc.)

Most luxury goods hold up well during a recession because recessions don't impact the highest earners to the same degree as everyone else.

Coach looks to be an exception to that. The article talked about how terrible their sales were this year. (Only Jim may be interested in this) Sales have been impacted to the point where they no longer report separate results for their main stores (expensive) and their discount outlets, they now lump those sales together. (Jim Cramer would say Sell, Sell, Sell).

I think what was missing from this article is what the company's performance says about those who actually buy their products.

If Coach can't hold up during a recession it means their target shopper isn't really the luxury segment, it was those aspiring to be or giving that appearance.

I think this is a great case study of how to ruin a brand by running a public company that has to report to the street.

I'm not into fashion, Coach may have been a luxury brand at one point. Somewhere they started using tricks from Trading Up to broaden their buyers from just affluent to those who are aspirational and willing to trade up beyond levels they could afford in other categories. Now they are impacted by a bad recession and respond by increasing sales at their outlet stores which will only dilute the value of the brand.
They claim to be responding this fall with a premium bag collection that has a lot of "bling" on it.

The only question is which Brand will replace Coach as the next luxury purse to have if you and your friends happen to be on The Hills?

Toronto

First, 2 movies:
Lions for Lambs (A) - A must see movie from Robert Redford about the different angles of the war. Basically a series of conversations between a politician and a CNN reporter, a student and Poly Sci professor etc. It's kind of sad that a movie like this that should be made, probably was only able to be made because Robert Redford has enough pull to do it after making a lot of money for the people who think a new Incredible Hulk movie was long overdue.

Day Zero (B) - I don't know why we are in a war theme at home, but this movie asks what if we brought the draft back now. It follows 3 people who were just drafted and you see how they handle it.

I spent most of the week in Toronto. We were delayed a day which gave us the first opportunity to run around the city. We went to a Blue Jays game:

We did the tour behind Niagra Falls:

We saw a nice rainbow that I had to send to my wife:

On my brother Mike's reco, we ate dinner 800 ft in the air at the revolving restraunt:

(I'm just waiting for Mike to sign off on my $110 dinner)

And learned something sad about the falls:

In the picture you can see the huge cloud of mist that rises out of the falls. The falls used to be clear of most of this mist as it stayed down low. They did a study and found that all of the construction around the falls (hotels and casinos) changed the airflow over the falls. Now instead of blowing out any mist that comes up, the air dives into the falls and causes it to rise higher blocking the view.

Indy 500

Last weekend I went to my first Indy 500.
I am not a big racing fan but I have won my Fantasy NASCAR league.
The track is so much bigger than I had expected, only by walking into the infield do you get a sense of just how big it is. Even then the cars make a lap in about 45 sec at 200mph (they reached 222 mph).

The race started and at first I was a bit disappointed:

Then I found out they do 2 slow laps before they actually start racing:

The sound is very impressive and walking along the wall you get very disoriented as they go by.
Everyone ended up being safe so I can say it was neat to have 2 wrecks right in front of us. It is crazy to think that these drivers survive at 200 mph when the first casualty of a car accident was hit at 4 mph.

As a new type of sporting event for me, the main thing I really enjoyed was being able to bring your own cooler. Rachel's Dad packed some sandwiches and drinks. At first I thought this was a very American, Non Commercial, gesture by racing to let you bring your own stuff but I imagine the logistics of trying to feed 400,000 people would be impossible.

The only downside to racing is despite 400,000 people you feel somewhat isolated. The sounds and earplugs make casual conversation impossible. During a yellow flag when they slow down most people take out their ear plugs and start talking.

The strategy of Indy racing also interested me. From casual NASCAR experience I know teammates like to draft off each other. However in this race the first 2 cars were on the same team and they never drafted each other. In fact after yellow flags the #2 car would drop back quite a bit from the #1 car. I figured this could only be true if the Indy cars were so aerodynamic that drafting was irrelevant. And the #2 car was just trying to keep the #3 car back off the #1 car to prevent him from being passed in a restart.

It was a good day and a must see event like the Kentucky Derby.

Freakonomics - Gas

I am a big fan of the Freakonomics blog I have in my list here.

Not too long ago they had a blog about gas prices and how maybe we should lower the speed limit to save gas.

I disagree. Lowering the speed limit may slightly lower your gas consumption but will cause you to increase everyone else's gas consumption by making traffic worse.

The biggest waste of gas is sitting in traffic. Yahoo had an article a while ago that a distracted driver (cell phone) only needs to slow down 2-3 mph to have a significant impact on the flow of traffic.

Rachel's new car is the first I have ever owned that gives your instantaneous mpg. I love measuring anything, so I pay attention to this. We have fun contests to see who can drive more efficiently (last date night, I was totally about to win until I hit the train in Glendale). On the highway her car gets 30 mpg (great for an SUV). I have yet to see the mpg drop due to increased speed, I'm sure it is true but I have not seen a significant impact (I'll let you know after I test cruise control on our trip to Hocking Hills).

If anything we should all speed up.

Or support as many people as possible to work from home 1 day a week reducing their gas consumption and decreasing everyone else's by having less traffic.

In general, I have to physically be at work to make product (unless the FDA allows a PRL in my basement). However, Thursdays are my day of meetings (all day CPS scheduling meetings). It would be possible for me to call in and net meeting.

Movie Scenes

Sometimes when I am on the computer, Lucy likes to peek in at me even though the door is wide open. It reminds me of the Christopher Walken movie Communion. And the scariest movie scene I ever saw growing up.

Here it is on IMDB

I had no idea this movie only made $2 million in 1989.

Any other scary scenes?

Lucy and Missy

Last weekend, I got to spend the day with Lucy and her sister Missy.
Both are very sweet dogs who love attention.

First Missy gave me a dirty look for being left with me:

Then she asked if she was really stuck with me for a while:

Then Lucy took a nap:

Missy asked for a sip of my Coke:

They asked about their friend Biscuit from Concord:

Lucy asked if we liked her hair long:

Or short:

They laughed about the 2 days with "Henry/Gene/Max":

Then Lucy took a nap:

Yahoo

This will be interesting.
Shareholders potentially suing a company claiming they are taking the side of their employees over shareholders.

*****
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) walked away from its bid to buy Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) on Saturday after the Internet company turned down its offer to raise the price by $5 billion to $47.5 billion.

Microsoft's offer was for $33 a share but Yahoo would not lower its demand below $37, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said. The software company initially bid $31 per share for Yahoo more than three months ago.

Laura Martin, a senior analyst at Soleil Securities, said she expected a number of shareholder lawsuits against Yahoo.

"The Yahoo guys want too much money for their company. We think $33 a share is fair in the context of the weakening economic environment and adverse advertising trends," she said. "They've prioritized employees over shareholders in the hopes that someday they can create more than $8 billion of value, even if they have no track record of doing so," she said.

Analysts say Yahoo has overplayed its hand and they expect the Web pioneer's shares to fall as much as 30 percent to $20 levels when Nasdaq trading resumes on Monday. The stock rose nearly 7 percent to $28.67 on Friday on hopes of an agreement between Microsoft and Yahoo.

Maps

I like Maps.

I have no use for this, but this is an interesting map:

This map concerns me:


This is my favorite:

Map of the US (Streets Only)

How would you do on a test to draw the US by memory?

What Earthquake?

I woke up to find a txt message from Tom asking about an earthquake.
I felt nothing.
There are many things about this story that don't make sense:

1. I am a light sleeper, if my bed was shaking I'd be in the know.
2. Lucy "Thunderclap" would have jumped right into bed with us if she even heard an earthquake let alone felt it (she slept right through).
3. Zach was up getting ready for work and felt nothing.
4. My house is between Tom's and the earthquake.
5. It just seems weird that a 5.2 earthquake SW of Louisville would shake houses in Ohio.

So I started doing some Geology searches on Google and created this map.
I used a Geology map of Ohio and Google maps to eyeball our locations as best I could. I'd really need some long/lat data to confirm this.


My theory is this earthquake traveled this deep vein of bedrock that did not go by our house. Based on this map I made I would predict that ONLY Tom and Meghan would have felt it (which is true now that Dale confirmed he didn't feel it).

Most of the people at work who felt it live near Lawrenceburg, IN which looks to be close to this vein as well as a lot of the west side.
This map includes roads and towns which may help or be too much info:

What would be neat is I bet the new owners of Karen and Jim's old house had a good chance of feeling it since it looks like this vein runs close to Fairfield.

Cube Life

My work group moved across the street into open office cubes for increased collaboration.
I'm adjusting OK, Bose QC3 headphones certainly help. But some people are still ridiculous despite our etiquette training. They still talk loud and have conference calls on speaker phones and cell phones not on vibrate.
So I created a Demerit system (using a Whammy from Press Your Luck) and this sliding scale from the Office:

Movie Endings

Movies with the best endings (my opinion, please add):

Usual Suspects

Ocean's 11

Fallen

Sixth Sense

Se7en

Memento

2 Days in the Valley

23


I'm sure I am forgetting some really good ones...

Last Lecture

This is really good if you can make it to the end (Thanks Henley)



Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium.

Auto Salon in Sharonville

I love my car. I wouldn't even know where to look for a new car if mine was stolen. My plan is to keep my car for at least 10 years (I'm over 4 now).
With softball and the winter my car was pretty dirty.
I had seen this detailing shop in downtown Sharonville (near Blue Goose) and thought about going for years. This weekend the weather was so nice I cleaned everything out of my car and made an appointment to have my car detailed.
I couldn't be happier with the results, my car hasn't looked this good since I bought it. The guy who owned the shop was really nice too. He called me during the day to let me know it was taking longer than he planned due to other deliveries. He even called me at home after because he forgot to tell me he put my XM radio in the globe box and didn't want me to think that he lost it.
If you need your car done, I highly recommend this place.

SkyScout

Back from Vegas and Toronto. I think Lucy got used to me being out of town because she is a bed hog again.

Vegas was great and Toronto went very well for my new process that had never been run on plant scale equipment. Vegas was mostly about college basketball and the only thing on TV in Toronto was the World Curling Championship. You know you are watching too much curling when you can see the flaw in their shot selection before the TV announcers mention it.

My first trip to Toronto came back in Dec. At the time Rachel told me she had already picked out my Christmas present. It turned out to be the Bose Quiet Comfort 3 noise canceling headphones (5 out of 5). I am actually wearing them right now w/o an ipod. I like to wear them at night on the computer to help me relax before bed.
Anyways...back on the plane in Dec, I was trying to guess what Rachel chose for me. I no longer guess out loud after our first Christmas together when I thought the "guess the presents while they are still wrapped" game would be a lot of fun. It wasn't.
Seriously back to the story... there was an ad for an item in the magazine I was reading on the plane. For some reason I thought this was possibly the present that Rachel had picked out for me. It was a great item but very far removed from anything I had ever discussed needing. The Bose noise canceling headphones I had talked about before. Really anything Bose is safe.

So, when I discovered we were getting a tax refund, I decided to buy this item.

It is the SkyScout by Celestron, a hand held planetarium. Using GPS and Accelerometer technology it knows exactly where you are and in which direction you are holding the SkyScout.
To make it short, I looked through the viewfinder at a bright star in the sky and hit "target" and it told me I was looking at Saturn. It then gave me some scientific data on Saturn's distance, period etc and an audio on the history of Saturn.
The other thing you can do is ask it to locate an object for you like Mars, and using red directional lights it will guide you around the sky until you are looking at Mars. It also has a mode where you can see Today's highlights and see what objects are in view for you at the time you are looking in the sky.

Rachel and I have been talking about going to Hocking Hills this summer for vacation, I can't wait to try this out in a really remote, dark, area. I was using it in our front yard and we have a lot of light pollution from Cincinnati. Using the Sky Scout I would guess the Apparent Magnitude limit in our neighborhood is about 5.0. The Spiral Galaxy was in in my field of view but w/ an Apparent Magnitude of 9.0 it was too faint to see. This is going to be fun this summer.

You weren't meant to have a boss.

As I jump from Vegas to Toronto (giving up 40°F), I found this great essay...

You weren't meant to have a boss

This picture is bananas...

Moneyball and 80/20 - American Idol

Moneyball is a great book. If you aren't a baseball fan it may be tough to get through, but has so many lessons for business. I guess the best way to sum it up is there are so many inefficiencies in popular opinion, that if you can identify and find hidden value you will succeed beyond those who can't.
A great example that (even though I benefit from this) boggles my mind is how the Celtics could have made a couple "equal value" trades and go from one of the worst teams in the past 15 years to having the best record in the NBA.

But I digress to American Idol. How is it possible that even after hours of free airtime and hype, only a couple idol winners have actually produced any form of a career? Most years at work we have an American Idol pool, similar to Survivor (which died) pick some Idols and you get points for each week they stay.
This week I was offered a bet by our Idol pool organizer that really got me thinking (thanks Henley). He would offer me the eventual American Idol winner (with months of hype and a big record contract) vs Josiah Leming (who didn't make the top 24), bigger career wins. I didn't take the bet.

My thoughts on Josiah were:
1. He is talented and different, kind of like Cold Play.
2. He gets annoying and cries too much.
3. Maybe not mature enough yet.

Apparently free from the Idol machine, he is leveraging his 80/20 time on idol into building his own independent following on MySpace music. He writes his own songs (anyone picture Kady Malloy doing that?), has over an album worth of material he created and plans to tour this summer.
Here he is on Ellen:

Meanwhile, the Idol hopefuls are stuck on the show until May, then they have to tour for a year to make money for the Corporation, then some will get signed and forced into some pop mold by record companies who think they know music better than those who consume it.
Case in point: Carly Smithson (Hennessy) when she was signed, does this seem like her or a big corporation vision for her?

How could people successful in the music business really think there were 12 guys more talented than Josiah?
(Quick name the 6 guys that were kicked off?)
(Anyone want to buy any of their albums?)

I think this is good news, there is a theory that the stock market is 100% efficient. All the info available is immediately priced into the stock. I don't believe that and I see how inefficient the business world is at work and in sports. It gives me confidence that if you know what you are doing and don't get caught up there are endless opportunities out there to explore.

PS Does anyone think our methods are efficient for picking the leader of our country? Or even worse how me make decisions on how to run the country?

Elections

We tried a new restaurant this weekend with some friends, El Coyote. It was good Tex/Mex with very good salsa, but how many times have you ever been behind parties of 35, 21, and 14? On the way back I was driving Rachel's car and a guy was following me pretty close. At the next light he pulled up along side and asked us to roll down our window, "where did you get that Obama sticker?" Based on today, he must have been visiting from another state, maybe Vermont.

Speaking of voting, despite living in my precinct for 6 years, there is no record of me being registered. Despite the fact that I voted last year and back to 2004.

Why are most poll workers condescending and almost try to make you feel thankful that they will allow you to vote today?

Why is online voting so hard, when I can access all of my money online w/o worrying about losing a penny? Maybe we'll be voting at US Bank in the future.

Voting Instructions should read:
Come to America, where you are free to register to vote to influence the delegate who actually gets to vote on your behalf for whoever will benefit him/her politically.

Our country is a mess because more people voted for David Archuleta than any presidential candidate.

Dale is buying a Honda

Jim loves charts so here is a good one on who owns what car companies:

Here is the link to the Map

American Idol brings hope...

My DVR watches American Idol. I just skip past the 30 mins of commercials.
My favorite part of Idol season is:
1. Vote For The Worst
2. Dial Idol

Dial Idol predicts who will get kicked off by testing the phone lines to see how often they are busy for each idol. While not as accurate as it was before the lawsuit, it saves you from watching the results show. Why do we let them drag it out for 30 mins just for the 1 min of info we actually care about?

Vote for the Worst tries to buck the system to gain support for the worst singer. This may help explain why Sanjaya was around so long.

Both of these bring me to my real point. Individuals have so much power these days (ignore 20 years of failed Rock the Vote) and the internet can help people get together. Here are some Flash Mob examples.

But our government is still a mess. They spend more time trying to stay elected than trying to get anything done. These tax rebates are a great example of this. The economy will not rebound out of a recession because we gave people some money to spend on Chinese imports. But I am beyond being frustrated with this situation because 10 years of Survivor should tell us that winners are never the most liked, most qualified, most athletic, most deserving, they are somewhere in the middle.

Traveling to Toronto and fielding questions from Canadians about our election process and why it has to take 2 years gives you a good objective view at how out of hand our system has become.

My hope for the future is that there is a web site where people can vote on the priorities and work plans for their elected officials.

This session you will:
Pass an alternative energy bill
Fix Social Security
Repeal the Patriot Act

You will not:
Hold hearings on Steroids or Spygate

And like any good W&DP, if they fall short of their goals given to them by those who elect them, then you vote them out of office.
How much more efficient would our government be if everyone went to work knowing this was their only term if they didn't get things done?

The special interest groups will continue to get their way in the government, because right now they hold the only key ($Money$) to getting these candidates re-elected.

The power people have is to ignore the money and vote out anyone catering to special interests, but we aren't efficient in getting together so we lose that power.

To help bridge the gap until that system is created, I think we need to start with VoteThemOut.com. Where we get together to vote out every single incumbent until the overall satisfaction with the government goes up (is 50% satisfaction really too much to ask of our government?).

HDTV Chart

Sick

I was in Toronto last week with some coworkers.
One wasn't feeling well on the way up and felt terrible by the time we got home.
Another started to be sick on the way back.
I managed to fight through and feel fine...until the weekend.

Toronto also had a foot of snow while we were there and the city didn't shut down.
We did have to push our rental cars out of our parking spots.

Luckily, I think I am done traveling until Mid March.

On the Road Again

Signs you have been traveling too much:

You wake up in Cleveland, drive (ride) to Cincinnati, drive to Dayton, fly to Newark, drive to New Brunswick then sleep.

Tomorrow I head back up to Toronto for a couple of days. By Toronto I mean the airport since my hotel and the plant are within 5 mins of the airport.

The worst part of traveling is knowing that Rachel and Lucy sleep better when I am not in the bed turning every 5 mins.

I know my Mom tracks my flights from home so I found a few more helpful links.

This one shows a map of turbulence reports:
Turbulence

This one tracks something a little more important:
Boo

Hopefully this will be the only trip in Feb.
Good news is I am Silver Medallion again which means... almost nothing.
I am an Emerald member with National rental car which feels like stealing. Sometimes I try to go to the counter but all they want me to do is hop in any car I want and start driving to the check out. I liked my Mazda 3 but my Impala was roomy.

"It's looking pretty good right now" that next week will be my first full week in the office in 2008.

I want to be apart of it...Newark, Newark

I spent the past 4 days in NJ for training w/ 2 guys on my project.
Here are some key learnings:

1. I really underestimated the size of the Newark airport.
2. I am glad I did not go to Rutgers (the town was dead).
3. There are too may toll roads in NJ.
4. A GPS was a great idea but falls apart when there is construction.
5. The turnpike smells, sometimes it is swamp and sometimes it is trash.

The training course was given by 2 professors who have been giving this training for 30 years (Purdue and Michigan). It was one of the best training courses I have attended. The format made the days go by quickly. Each professor talked for about 90 min on a subject then they switched so it really broke up the day and the material.

The first night we decided to hit up Atlantic City.


Atlantic City was 2 hours away but when will I ever be in the area again?
We chose the Borgata, because my friend Ken said it was the closest to a Vegas style casino. It was really nice:



They were filming a World Poker Tour Tourney but we didn't see anyone famous. I also had my first Fatburger which was OK but not great. Overall Atlantic City was bigger than I thought, but nowhere near on par with Vegas. It has the beach, but it seemed like you had to drive more to get to each casino.

The second night we decided to hit up a NJ Nets game as they played Dale's Bucks.



It became an exciting game at the end but overall each team did play well. It was like watching street ball. I had to text Dale to find out how bad the shooting percentages were. I was very close on my guess of low 30's. The stadium held 17,000 and I see why it is used a lot for the NCAA games. It was easy to get in and out and there wasn't a bad seat. This picture was taken from the 2nd to last row on the side.

Now I am glad to be home. I haven't had a full week at work yet, too much travel and training (Toronto, local training, NJ, and Toronto next week).