Industrial Park Wildlife

Click photo for larger.

I have written many times about how amazing I think it is that wildlife can thrive in urban settings. In my industrial park I have seen all types of crazy things that seem certainly out of place. This time of year the geese show up, migrating from the north. We are near several bodies of water and I think they use this area to take a break from flying.

I have seen woodchucks, skunks, tons of rabbits, squirrels, racoons, coyotes, deer, ducks (etc.) and just last week these two.

This is a baby red-tailed hawk. GREAT rodent control. He is sitting on top of my eco-friendly H3. We have these on our farm property. Hopefully this guy will grow up to be as big as those - I would guess the full grown ones that I have seen are about three times this size. I absolutely love birds of prey.
My wife needed to come to the 'hood the other day and snapped this photo - this is right around the corner from my workplace (again, in the middle of an industrial park). It is a giant red fox.

We have these in my residential neighborhood as well. I would be interested to hear of wildlife that you have seen that seems out of place.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz.

A Profoundly Depressing Book

I enjoy perusing bookstores and recently saw this book that caught my eye - The "SAS Urban Survival Handbook". Readers of the blog know that the SAS are the British equivalent of the US special forces military units.



Since the book's theme is intentionally downcast and "worst case" (i.e. urban survival) I was prepared for a list of disasters and potential bad things that could happen to you. The book spares no situations, focusing on getting attacked and what to do when everything goes awry.

Through the book they also offer "sensible" solutions to avoid getting in harms way in the first place, such as not frequenting dangerous areas and particularly for women and the elderly, who are likely to lose in a typical encounter with an angry urban male, to practically stay at home or only go out in groups. And why is this? Because no one is armed, so in Britain if something goes wrong and you are smaller or outnumbered you are in big trouble. There are certainly clubs (the mayor of London recently went after someone with an iron bar) and knives and similar-type weapons but no firearms.



And here is what the book has to say about firearms, after showing page after page of fighting techniques (noting that you are in big trouble if faced with multiple attackers, or someone with a knife, or are physically smaller than your assailant):

Firearms represent more of a risk than a serious form of protection... attitudes to arms vary enormously around the world... the legal requirements in Britain, however, probably give the safest guidelines for owning and storing weapons.

This paragraph would offer more comfort to those that aren't martial arts experts and physically dominant if it wasn't preceded with page after page of dire outcomes for those that aren't big and trained to fight. Violence is certainly not rare, and it is a strange society that basically tells you to run for it and hole up in your home with extra deadbolts and not even to be outside in the first place in many situations. These are "safe guidelines"?

A sad book, indeed.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

State Tax Policies

Tax rates vary significantly by state. The states with the lowest income tax rates, and most importantly the lowest "marginal" rates (the tax rate on your last dollar of income) tend to attract the wealthy and entrepreneurs and have higher rates of growth. Florida, Texas and Nevada in particular benefit from this type of tax regime. As an Illinois resident, virtually the only positive element of the tax situation in Illinois is that we have a "flat", non-graduated state income tax rate at 3%. In all other areas (property taxes & sales taxes in particular) our rates our onerous and damaging to the business community. To see the income tax rate on a state-by-state basis, check out this site here and put in your state to see the tax brackets and the marginal tax at the highest income rates.

As states get into financial trouble, the situation is getting even worse. California has very high marginal rates, and continuous attempts to raise taxes (although the fact that tax increases must be approved by 2/3 of the legislature gives Republicans some say in that state), at a top rate of 10.3%! Admittedly this is a bit of a simplification, because states with progressive tax brackets like California typically allow for more deductions, while Illinois at 3% pretty much just takes your Federal taxable income and applies the rate with few distinctions. Changing Illinois to a graduated rate requires changing the state constitution, which is a big barrier to never ending schemes to move to this type of arrangement. Another factor on state taxes is that they are deductible against Federal taxes, although in fact the amount of the deduction is lower than it may appear because you have to cross the standard deduction before you can deduct the taxes, and there may be other income limits on deductions.

For wealthy individuals, the problem is acute. If you live in California, you may be taxed at up to 10.3% on your last dollar of income, while across the state border in Nevada you face ZERO state income taxes. This can be a big difference.

A recent Wall Street Journal article was titled "Wealthy Eye Rising State Tax Rates" and describes the impact of these policies:

The topic of high state-tax rates come up most often when a client is selling a business. Though a hasty move to low- or no-state-tax states such as Florida, Texas, Washington or Wyoming can be tempting, advisers say states have grown more aggressive about tracking down and collecting from former residents.

If you KNOW that you are going to have a high-tax event, such as selling a profitable business for a lot of money that has a low tax basis, then the wealthy are considering moving out of state at the time the taxable event occurs. This makes a lot of sense depending on the size of the gain and how the deal is constructed. Rather than being more competitive, this article points out that states are just getting more aggressive at counting the days in-state for people claiming out of state status and trying to shake them down for additional taxes.

The Tax Foundation is a great site that is highly recommended and has many excellent articles about tax policy. I am going to send them a donation tonight, since we are coming up on year end anyways and it is time to start getting my tax records and donations in order. If you are interested in this topic check it out and recommend that your elected representative do the same.

Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

Trust Funds for Kids

Over at another site I run called Trust Funds for Kids which is conveniently located at

http://www.trustfundsforkids.com

I updated performance on the portfolios that I run for my nieces and nephews when they get to be at an age where I figure that they can understand investing.

Portfolio One has been running the longest - a decade - and I am pretty proud to have a 4.6% annual return on that one, considering that the DOW has been flat over that decade (of course they have some international stocks in there so that the DOW isn't a perfect comparison group, but it is still decent).

If you are interested in investing you might want to head over there and check it out. I also have spreadsheets that I built that are pretty complicated - they measure performance including dividends, interest on money market, factor in commissions, calculate returns, etc... and a nice summary page.

Also throw in a comment or two. I built that site using Word Press and per Dan's instructions I turned on Askimet, their spam comment catcher. That service is amazing - it has caught over 1400 spam comments to date. I literally have had like 1 legitimate comment in over a year. Sigh.

Around Chicago

The guy in the Rubik's cube costume caught my eye and when I got home and blew up the photo I realized that they were protesters. Note that they were covering their faces.



It is about the season when the Christmas lights come on. Caught this photo in the North Loop.



Recently I have seen a lot of wedding parties about. This was on Saturday in mid November and the temperature was 65 degrees, which is highly unusual. I feel good for them because they could have been in snow given how lousy the weather was last winter.



This one caused a big laugh for Dan and I at the last Bears' game. Miller Lite is available in "select" bars... ha ha about 600 of them within 3 blocks of my condo.



They had an interesting display of art at Millennium Park, including these dinosaurs from China. Everyone was out for a nice Saturday.

Coyote Ugly Replacement

The Coyote Ugly franchise went dark here in Chicago. It used to be a lot of fun (no cover charge) and packed and then it fell apart and I think about 1/2 the franchises are dead now. The funny part was that they had a "closed for remodeling" sign up for a while which is hilarious because there was literally no furniture in there just a banged up bars where boots "scooted" and some tables that looked like they were garbage picked. The bathroom was pretty much a hole in the ground but they had an attendant sometimes, which also was ridiculously out of place.



So where to go when you just want to have a couple of bars without a lot of frills? Well there is the Boss Bar. First off, most everyone in there is "eyes back in head" drunk, which makes for entertainment. There are about 5 bartenders packed in a tiny bar so you can get a drink quickly. And they have a pool table, too.



I played a great few games of pool there after the pre-season Bears games but now my game has fallen on hard times. I went with a friend of mine and we got smoked on doubles. Lots of goofy characters there I think a few of them are outright professionals. Also decent jukebox someone always gets hammered and puts on lots of hardcore and metal, which is good while drinking the corn water and shooting stick on a battered pool table.

That pool table is one of the better pictures I've taken, quite a shot in the dark for me and my crappy tiny blog camera.

City of Chicago Sweats the Details

The city of Chicago seems to be replacing every curb on every corner. When I wrote about this recently someone commented that it was part of a legal settlement to make the curbs more wheelchair friendly by fixing the angle and installing these bumpy red squares on the end.

In typical City of Chicago fashion, they are hardly sweating the details. They obviously didn't guard the pavement while it was drying or put it up late on a Friday when a million drunks were going to stumble by so this is what was carved in the freshly drying cement.



The sad part is that this is the sidewalk directly in front of the Contemporaine, a cutting edge condominium that won project of the year a few years ago (here is the building and the award summary).

Oh and while we are at it someone was apparently thrown out of their apartment or office and all the belongings were just piled along a super busy street on Grand Avenue across from the Humane Society. This stuff sat out there for days and days. Thankfully it wasn't winter or else it would have been covered into a big block of debris-ice and sat for the season.

Hindsight.

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On this night Mr. Cutler had a chance to earn his knipple against the Singletary 49'ers. After all, isn't that what a "franchise quarterback" is paid millions to do? I thought we had one.

The leaves are gone. Apples have been picked. The crops are in. The woodpile is full. Bloody Mary's are being poured. The rut is in full swing. The Bears are cooked.

That does it…I’m going hunting.
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Before and After

Today is Veterans Day, so be sure to give thanks to any vet if you run into them. Technically today is Armistice Day and I am always reminded of WW1 when I hear that term. And when I think of WW1, I think of misery and destruction - below is the famous before and after photo of Passchendaele, click for larger.

Seen and Heard at the Bear Game

As usual, there were a lot of interesting things to see and hear at the Bear game last Sunday. While not everything has the high honor of being posted at the most important site on the internet, Drunk Bear Fans, these are some interesting odds and ends.

Click on any photo for larger.

Below you see a Red Explorer with a guy standing there. These guys made the COLOSSAL mistake of ridiculing a Chicago Police officer while he was clearing traffic. The cop finally said to them "YOU WANNA BE A MAN, COME OVER HERE! YOU WANNA BE A LITTLE BOY, GO HOME". Whatever that means. Anyway, if these guys were sober they are easily the stupidest group of people I have ever seen. And if they were drunk, they are still pretty stupid.
We got to the game early as this year we park at the Adler Planetarium. By getting there super early we avoided 1) the insane cash parking line and 2) got this cherry spot right on the park. This photo sucks, but right behind those out buildings is the beach and Lake Michigan. I don't think there is a better spot to tailgate at Soldier Field than this spot.

Some parents don't even pretend to get their kids involved in the tailgating, just hope they keep themselves busy.

As you exit the lot you can't bring any bottles or cans - not sure if you can bring a cup of beer. Looks to me like Miller Lite is winning this battle royale of the crappy beers. Also, seems that the learning curve is pretty flat - wouldn't want to provide a dumpster for these empties or anything, just keep putting the same old one barrel there to get overflowed in three seconds. Then again, it is the Chicago Park District so what do you expect.

I thought this guy was super creative - rather than buying a new jersey, just get out the old duct tape and magic marker and -poof - new jersey, changed from Berrian to Bennett. Love it.

How Not To Spar

Last night was more interesting than usual at the gym. I did a nasty boot camp and then did MT class as normal. The drills in class were amped up a bit, then we went into sparring. I was out of gas already, then this.

I did pretty well with my first opponent and felt loose. Then I went up against one more guy and the results were not so good. If the round were judged, I probably would have lost 10-9, but felt like I lost by more because I am so hard on myself.

My sparring partner for this round has been around the gym for a much longer time than me but he wasn't sparring like we usually do. When you are sparring you are NOT fighting and are supposed to pull your punches and kicks. He was absolutely drilling me and midway through I asked him "wtf". He didn't reply so I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands and let him have it a bit. He didn't like this as I kick REAL hard at this point in my life. Eventually he caught one of my kicks and threw me - a technique that I utilize quite often.

The problem I have is that I don't want to hurt anyone while sparring. I had previously caught a few of his kicks, but SIMULATED my cut kick on the remaining leg and let his kicking leg go. Of course then he goes and throws me on the deck in a spectacular fashion instead of returning the favor.

Maybe he was having a bad day, I don't know. But I was pissed off. Eventually his lack of conditioning failed him and I gave him a blizzard of techniques in the last 30 seconds of the round.

I did find (yet another) weakness in my game though - my sparring partner hardly ever initiated the fighting, rather counter punched the whole time. I need practice on how to fight this type of opponent better.

The old body is batterd and bruised today, but a lot was learned by getting my butt handed to me for a while last night.

Monday Morning Blues

What An Outstanding Autumn Morning

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This morning I awoke to a sight so familiar and luscious I had to take a photo. This was the view from my home office.


This image reminded me of the many hours, days, weeks and months I spent hunting whitetail deer from a treestand on family owned bottomland along the Indiana side of the Kankakee River this time of year.

Hunting above a swamp provided me with an advantage, I could hear Bambi's dad coming before I could see him. Hearing a distant deer slopping through the watery muck in the foggy morning light always got my adrenaline pumping.

Dad sold the land to a duck club twenty years ago to help finance his retirement so I was out of a private, secluded and productive property to hunt deer. Oh well.

Because of that I went full speed into upland bird hunting to satisfy my autumnal hunting jones. No regrets.

Friends and neighbors often donate venison to my freezer providing me with my favorite protein of all. It also opened up the opportunity for me to concentrate on raising my own gun dogs so I would always have a faithful companion to bird hunt with. Again, there are no regrets.

Those deer hunting mornings sitting fifteen feet above ground level in a cheap rickety tree stand watching the sun rise over that foggy bottomland swamp provided me with eternal memories of being one with nature. But there’s more than one way to accomplish that, I soon learned.

Who knows, one day I may gain access to productive private deer hunting land again. My traditional TC hawken-style .50 cal. muzzleloader is always ready to go. So am I.


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Around Chicago

Out by Big Bowl restaurant I saw this motorcycle and didn't blur out his license plate, either (click on the picture to enlarge).



Walking down the street I saw this white bicycle memorial and looked it up - his name was Clint Miceli and he was killed while riding his bike and this is his story.



It is the time of year when the boats go down the Chicago River towards their winter resting places and here is a shot of the bridge up.

Funny plates

Dan usually tells me to "blur" the license plate because that is good internet etiquette but this time since the owner obviously wants to be known I am displaying it "as is".

Pearl Jam and Incentives

A while back Dan wrote about how the most recent R.E.M. album actually sounded like the band we knew in college, rather than the dirge of their more recent work. The new Pearl Jam album, too, marks an attempt to return to the Pearl Jam "sound" instead of quiet noodling that was the norm for their last few albums.

Why did Pearl Jam suddenly try to become popular again? Because their record contract is over, of course. They signed a deal with Target to distribute their album, bypassing other retailers (although there is an opt out for independent music stores apparently, if there are any of them left) and letting the band earn a bigger cut of any sales. It was interesting that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails gave away their most recent releases while Pearl Jam decided to charge their fans for it.

It would be a new world if rock bands had incentives to sell the most albums and release them in the most efficient way possible. The "old style" deals where the band was signed for a lot of money up front for a number of albums is going the way of other dying "old media" - into the wastebasket. There isn't enough money left in the system with CD sales drying up to support these sorts of dis-incentives.

I do find it almost the definition of irony that Pearl Jam, a band that made their name with their fights against "the man", now pretty much is up for giving the people what they want now that they need to go out and earn their rock star lifestyle.

Those are interesting incentives.

My One Black Helicpoter Theory

Conspiracy theories have probably existed since the beginning of man. The tinfoil hat brigade as of the last decade has many causes - supposed 911 "truthers" are one such example. Of course, the vast majority of these people are idiots.

I have always held one black helicopter theory - that a lot of times sports games are rigged in one way or another.

I think this started with me about 25 or so years ago. After watching a certain football game I said to myself - that just wasn't right. And from then on I have always tried to keep a darker eye on sports.

Tim Donaghy is the NBA referee that is now serving prison time for helping fix games he was refereeing, and for betting on those games. He is writing a book in prison. No publisher has picked it up yet, but an excerpt has leaked and the guys from Deadspin have it. Read this. Even if 20% (maybe even 10%) of it is true, my black helicopter theories about the NBA will have been proven true.

Sadly, the glass is always half empty when it comes to things like this to me. I think that every league, even in college, fixes games to increase revenue. Do you really want to see Boise State in the national championship game with their tiny fan base or do you want a team like Alabama playing if you are an NCAA official? Isn't it better for the Celtics or Bulls to be in the finals in the NBA rather than the Bucks if you are the head of the NBA?

On top of this, I think many games are fixed due to point shaving either by a player or ref on the take (see Donaghy above). Sometimes I watch football games and say to myself "that just didn't seem right". I am not saying that every game is fixed, but I think scores and perhaps results are manipulated more than is noticed by many. When you have watched countless hours of football like I have done over the years, you notice things that seem "off". It is sort of like eating your favorite food and then eating it again and noticing a slightly off taste. Another example is seeing a behavior change in your mate who you have lived with for 15 or 20 years. What's wrong, honey, you seem down today...

Sometimes it is blatant like the time I heard Brent Musberger make a comment on a field goal a few years ago. He said something like "that gets them under the number" or something similar. I still remember sitting in my living room chair with my jaw agape and asking my wife if I just heard that correctly. Yep, Brent must have had some dough on that one. While this is no big deal (although his contract probably forbids it), the sideline coverage could help out one team if played correctly. See what I mean about the black helicopters?

I am glad that Donaghy wrote that book as it will be absolutely devastating for the NBA - I will be the first one to buy it if and when it comes out. I would look for more of this sort of thing to come out in the future.

Wind Energy

Recently when driving in Western Illinois near the Iowa border I noticed a vast field of wind turbines off Route 20. On the way back to Chicago I got off the highway and started driving on the rural dirt roads to get a closer look.

These are the wind turbines near Lena, IL. The turbines are part of the "EcoGrove" project. A firm called EcoEnergy was the project manager for this effort, and here is the web site describing the project. The project has a capacity of 100 MW and the turbines are between 1.5 and 2.5MW each... so there are at least 40-50 wind turbines at the site. The project cost $200M (per the web site). Per the wind FAQ's section of their site:

How big is a wind turbine?
EcoEnergy’s turbines typically measure 262 feet (80 meters) to the hub height (where the blades meet) and rotor diameters in the range of 246 to 295 feet (75 to 90 meters)..

As you can see from the photos, these wind turbines are huge. They were all turning slowly the day I was there in the wind, with three blades.

Because they don’t produce all the time, aren’t wind turbines an inefficient way to get our electricity?
Wind turbines actually generate electricity most of the time (65 to 80 percent), though the output amount is variable.

This is a strange question. You are wondering what the total output of wind energy is, and this just answers whether or not the turbine is generating any energy at all.

Wind turbines are actually extremely efficient. One of the simplest ways to measure overall efficiency is to look at the energy payback of an energy technology, or the amount of energy consumed in producing additional energy. The energy payback time for wind is similar to or better than that of conventional power plants. A recent University of Wisconsin – Madison study calculated that the average energy payback of Midwestern wind farms is between 17 and 39 times as much energy as they consume (depending upon average wind speeds at the site). Nuclear power plants generate only about 16 times as much energy as they consume and coal plants generate just 11 times as much energy as they consume.

This is another strange question and answer. I guess it makes sense that a wind turbine creates a high multiple of the energy that it consumes, because the marginal cost of fuel (wind) is zero. The issue is that this power is variable in time (possibly off-peak) and in quantity.

In general, wind energy in Illinois makes sense because most of Illinois is damn ugly. It is flat with cornfields and not much to look at. Actually the area near Lena, IL where these turbines are located is probably one of the prettiest parts of Illinois (admittedly, not saying much). But I don't necessarily think that the wind farm is bad on the horizon, it is actually pretty cool. I don't think that the wind farms significantly impact the farm economy; they take up some amount of land but not a lot of total acreage.

The issue too is cost efficiency. $200M was spent for 100 MW of capacity, and this "capacity" is when the wind is blowing at a consistent rate best for the turbines. I don't know what the practical capacity of a wind farm is, it obviously depends on specific circumstances, such as how windy it is. We also would need to understand the useful lives of the gear; they had some trouble with blades made in India but likely they have this figured out in the most recent wind farms.

At least in Illinois we have a decent transmission corridor and it is located near some urban areas in Iowa. We probably will be seeing more of these wind farms in the future.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz

Trump Gets Funky

The Spire atop the Trump Tower in Chicago got "funky" last night and they rolled through a bunch of color combinations. Don't know if this will be a new trend or not in the city.

Monday Morning Blues

I think I am going to start a new feature here at LITGM, the Monday Morning Blues. Since that is what I always have after a great weekend. Today we have Johnny Winter with Key to the Highway. The video can't be embedded so go here and enjoy.