On the masthead of the blog we used to say "We shill for nobody" and that is mostly true... except for the Comedy Central show Reno 911! which stars the inept sheriff deputies of Washoe County in Reno, Nevada (not really, it is fake, of course).
I love Reno 911! and here are some of my posts about them including the clown car and an interview with the real comic behind Lt. Jim Dangle and their movie (which wasn't so great, but pretty funny).
To whet your appetite here is link to a short video of the best of Terry, that scene stealing roller skating male "man of the night". I especially like meeting his girlfriend.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Chicago Parking Meters - Attack of the Quarters!
With the new Chicago meter sale, the cost to use a meter has gone up dramatically ($3.50 / hr in the Loop, $2 / hr in River North) and the meters I've seen only take quarters. If you do the math, to park for a few hours you could easily use 20-30 quarters.
I visited my local JP Morgan Chase bank branch and bought a couple of rolls of quarters to put in my glove box, because you can't just drive around and raid your loose change anymore or you won't be able to leave your car for long. I asked the teller if it was common for people to request rolls of quarters and she said:
So I'm not the only one... maybe we will have a run on quarters in this town!
Given Chicago's high crime rate you might think that our police would be on to more critical tasks but I saw this guy who seemed to be checking meters. Maybe he wasn't, I am not sure, but I have been seeing the usual parking tickets plastered on cars.
I visited my local JP Morgan Chase bank branch and bought a couple of rolls of quarters to put in my glove box, because you can't just drive around and raid your loose change anymore or you won't be able to leave your car for long. I asked the teller if it was common for people to request rolls of quarters and she said:
Every other customer seems to be buying rolls of quarters!
So I'm not the only one... maybe we will have a run on quarters in this town!
Given Chicago's high crime rate you might think that our police would be on to more critical tasks but I saw this guy who seemed to be checking meters. Maybe he wasn't, I am not sure, but I have been seeing the usual parking tickets plastered on cars.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Fried Walleye - Hard To Find, Tough To Beat
I love seafood of all types but walleye is my favorite fish of all. Since I was ten years old, the many trips to Canada fishing for walleye are burned into my brain. Each night we ate fried walleye until it was coming out of my ears. That’s not a complaint.
Walleyes aren’t easy to catch. Bass are a lot easier. Walleye make seasonal movements to different areas of a lake. Time of year, knowledge of the lake, the right tackle and some patience often bring success. In the spring they are near shore while in mid summer they go deep and spend time on rocky sunken reefs, which can be hard to locate. In mid June when the mayflies hatch they can have lockjaw for a few weeks.
I am not a catch and release kind of fisherman but we never over harvest so I see no problem keeping plenty to eat. In most states and provinces regulations have made fishing better. The best thing to happen has been the “slot” limit. This is a size restriction that allows larger fish to remain plentiful and the smaller fish to become larger. For instance, Ontario allows only one walleye over 19” to be taken per day and all fish kept must be between 14 and 19”. They also allow only four fish per person in possession. This really riles my dad, who in his early days was allowed to keep many more to bring home.
Walleye can be bought in stores for anywhere from $7-$9. per pound. If I ever figured out the cost of boat, fuel, equipment and lodging it would cost much more than that. Store bought is not as fun and at least I know where my fish came from.
Native Indians in Canada are allowed to harvest fish with a net commercially but the Canuckistanian government also restricts their permits and harvest. Where we go in Ontario an Ojibwe reservation is not far away. Since our limit is restricted we usually purchase a large amount from them to be taken across the border legally. I usually purchase ten pounds from one of the braves at about $6. per. To make the fish last we freeze the fillets and vacuum seal them in plastic with a FoodSaver.
I highly recommend the FoodSaver. On Sunday I took out the last bag of walleye from the freezer and fried them up. The taste is probably not quite as good as fresh caught but I couldn’t tell without a side by side comparison. After ten months there was no sign of dehydration or freezer burn. They tasted fabulous.
Fish and game never goes to waste when vacuum sealing and buying food staples in bulk saves tons of dough.
For instance, at my local grocery store I can buy a 5lb. brick of cheddar for under $10. When I divide it into .5-1lb. chunks and vacuum seal them it can save me up to 40% over the smaller packaged 8-10 oz size packages. The cheese will last up to a year in the refrigerator, no need for freezing.
Walleyes aren’t easy to catch. Bass are a lot easier. Walleye make seasonal movements to different areas of a lake. Time of year, knowledge of the lake, the right tackle and some patience often bring success. In the spring they are near shore while in mid summer they go deep and spend time on rocky sunken reefs, which can be hard to locate. In mid June when the mayflies hatch they can have lockjaw for a few weeks.
I am not a catch and release kind of fisherman but we never over harvest so I see no problem keeping plenty to eat. In most states and provinces regulations have made fishing better. The best thing to happen has been the “slot” limit. This is a size restriction that allows larger fish to remain plentiful and the smaller fish to become larger. For instance, Ontario allows only one walleye over 19” to be taken per day and all fish kept must be between 14 and 19”. They also allow only four fish per person in possession. This really riles my dad, who in his early days was allowed to keep many more to bring home.
Walleye can be bought in stores for anywhere from $7-$9. per pound. If I ever figured out the cost of boat, fuel, equipment and lodging it would cost much more than that. Store bought is not as fun and at least I know where my fish came from.
Native Indians in Canada are allowed to harvest fish with a net commercially but the Canuckistanian government also restricts their permits and harvest. Where we go in Ontario an Ojibwe reservation is not far away. Since our limit is restricted we usually purchase a large amount from them to be taken across the border legally. I usually purchase ten pounds from one of the braves at about $6. per. To make the fish last we freeze the fillets and vacuum seal them in plastic with a FoodSaver.
I highly recommend the FoodSaver. On Sunday I took out the last bag of walleye from the freezer and fried them up. The taste is probably not quite as good as fresh caught but I couldn’t tell without a side by side comparison. After ten months there was no sign of dehydration or freezer burn. They tasted fabulous.
Fish and game never goes to waste when vacuum sealing and buying food staples in bulk saves tons of dough.
For instance, at my local grocery store I can buy a 5lb. brick of cheddar for under $10. When I divide it into .5-1lb. chunks and vacuum seal them it can save me up to 40% over the smaller packaged 8-10 oz size packages. The cheese will last up to a year in the refrigerator, no need for freezing.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Hilarious Business Books
I enjoy going to used book stores and could probably just sit in there day and night, perusing the selections. Recently I was in the "After-Words" book store in Chicago and picked up some interesting books, and saw these used books on the shelf, that made me laugh out loud.
The first book is about Jurgen Schrempp, the former CEO of Daimler, who presided over the disastrous acquisition of Chrysler in the United States. Of course the book is the usual puff-piece and it is hilarious given the complete value destruction caused by this merger. Eventually, Daimler basically gave away Chrysler to Cerberus, the private equity firm, which continues to run it into the ground to this day. Even now I can't imagine how anyone thought the Mercedes / Chrysler merger was a good idea. Don't forget that Schrempp also presided over the collapse of Fokker, the Dutch airplane maker (remember those WW1 planes?). It is unclear what he ever did to warrant such a book and its existence is pretty ludicrous.
The second book is about John Sculley, who came on in the 80's and into the early 90's to Apple, famously bringing his marketing ideas from Pepsi into the computer firm. At the time Apple was having problems and it seemed like some new leadership would help; but in the end he left in a cloud and is now completely and utterly forgotten. Steve Jobs is seen today as a genius, the fore-runner of the iPod and now the iPhone, along with the continually evolving and chic line of Apple computers. This puff piece too is a relic and hilarious - look at John Sculley's bio on Wikipedia - by the end he is in a 2 man firm that is going nowhere. He is a famous example of the "Peter Principle" where a man who invented the Pepsi Challenge (a very good idea) peaked and then went into a long slow decline.
The fact that these two books are fronting the business section at After-Words either means the clerks have no idea what they are doing or have a supremely intuitive sense of irony.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Post Earth Hour Storm
Last night was the Earth night here in Chicago when they turned out the lights for an hour. I found it slightly ironic that the next day we had a big blizzard here in Chicago, and we have been sorely lacking in any of the promised rise in temperature with another brutal winter.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
What I've Learned About the Stock Market
Anyone who has a retirement fund or personal investments has an interest in the stock market. I have an additional interest because I am the fiduciary in charge of trust funds I set up for my nieces and nephews and track at trustfundsforkids.com.
When the stock market started cratering in 2008, I didn't take immediate action, for the most part (I was going to say didn't do anything "rash" like sell off, but in hindsight of course probably that would have been under the category of "smart"). I did sell off financials (owned ICICI, an Indian bank, and GE, which is essentially a giant financial conglomerate with a few businesses stuck in there) immediately, and although my exposure to that sector was limited in those funds, those stocks had not done well.
Now I am trying to re-visit the stock market and do some research to consider what to do next. I am starting out with what I've learned from this debacle. As always, do your own research, this is just my 2 cents based on my experience and body of knowledge.
1. Watch the level of debt, and the timing of debt - for many years there was an absence of a risk premium, which meant that newly emerging (risky) companies could raise debt very cheaply, such as only a couple of points above the treasury rate. Today, it is unlikely that these types of companies can raise any money AT ALL, and if they did it would be at a rate perhaps 10 percentage points above Treasuries (i.e. if Treasuries are at 4%, they would pay > 14% for financing). Companies are moving into bankruptcy rather than try to refinance at these rates - companies like Charter Communications, for example. Even if bankruptcy is avoided (or deferred) the company would have to be highly profitable to earn enough to cover that level of interest payments - and most companies can't profit when their cost of capital is that high. I won't even comment on the 33-1 leverage used by investment banks because we all know how that turned out
2. Guessing the actions of the US Government is important - during the cold war, "Kremlinologists" attempted to divine what was occurring at the top levels of the Soviet government, since it had a direct bearing on our policies. For example, the Feds let Lehman die and saved AIG, although in both cases their equity value evaporated to the point that a 100% equity loss and a 98% equity loss were a toss-up either way. The subtle way in which by saving AIG they benefited Goldman Sachs (since AIG was a major counter-party to Goldman Sachs) would be something worth understanding, for example. The Feds also didn't bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred shares, which caused whole ranks of smaller institutions to fail. In general, if you are investing in an industry that looks likely to need government help, you should get out now, because whether or not you have a few equity crumbs or go to zero is a Hobson's choice you don't want to face
3. Correlation between asset classes is higher than you expect - Basically unless you were 100% in gold or treasuries you were likely hurt badly in this market. Foreign stocks, US stocks, many debt instruments, preferred stocks, real estates and most commodities (excluding gold) all dived together. One of the "core" beliefs of "modern portfolio theory" is that if you spread your investments across classes with lower correlation to one another, you will do better over time. Modern portfolio theory basically didn't save anyone in the time frame we are talking about here
4. Liquidity can evaporate, and if you depend on liquid markets, you are in trouble - Not only did the risk premium (see #1 above) go up quickly, liquidity in the market evaporated, meaning that if you counted on liquid markets, you were in big trouble. Illiquid markets mean that you can't "roll over" debt and if you do have to sell, you will receive a distressed price for those assets (a big loss, in real terms). One of the first items to fail were the "auctions" in the municipal area which were a sign of bad tidings to come
5. Real estate is no bulwark - For individuals, there was often an assumption that real estate is a "safe" investment, but real estate values have proven to be anything but. Real estate losses for individuals were semi-spared because the government has set a very low rate for mortgages and nationalized Fannie and Freddie - without that floor mortgages would be illiquid and subject to #1 and #4 below. Now, however, the mortgage market is basically subject to government fiat - see #2 above. If the government decides that condominiums are too risky and pulls back on guaranteeing mortgages on half built condominiums, those investments will fail. For real estate companies that specialize in building new homes, those stocks are basically dead, since demand won't catch up with supply for years. The government is definitely working to prop up the home market, with tax incentives for the new buyer (and likely no more talk about not making home interest deductible)
6. Complexity is dangerous - Another early warning sign was the fact that Citicorp and others had to bring in "off balance sheet" entities onto their balance sheet when liquidity failed (see #4 above). Those companies were incredibly complex, and their financial statements were incomprehensible even to me, a financial professional. These counter-parties, off balance sheet entities, and WAY too much leverage made a toxic stew. In general, companies that have a very complex "story" will likely have a harder road to travel when trying to show their value to the equity community, since people have been burned by what they don't understand
7. Dividends provide little shelter - over time a significant portion of the total "return" from stocks is driven by dividends paid to stockholders. Many companies paid dividends at a steadily growing rate for decades, and constantly re-emphasized the importance of dividends to their strategy (giving investors confidence that these dividends would continue in the future). However, virtually everyone gave up on their dividends, from the financial companies that are sliding to the edge of oblivion to GE (who really is a financial company anyways) to many other industrial companies. There are exceptions to the rule (companies that are not facing dire straits) but the fact is that strong companies can pay dividends and weak companies cannot, so betting on a dividend independent of the underlying financial structure is a fools errand. The dividend is nice to have (and starting from a solid one is better), but counting on it in the future has proved to be devastating
8. For the most part, no one (who talks) knows anything - yes you can point to the occasional seer who cried doom and certainly many, many smart and rich (and tight lipped people) made tons of money shorting the entire market all the way down, but for the most part the conventional wisdom was completely and utterly wrong. There are people or firms that understand the market well and can profit in down times, but you aren't getting their thoughts from Jim Cramer on CNBC or in the WSJ or Barron's or anywhere else, much less the popular magazines like Time, Money or your local paper columnist. Look at how their stock ratings performed, and generally it was terrible. A lot of this is institutional bias because those magazines and paper can't just tell you to short everything and get out of the market because those same companies buy advertising and those sorts of negative messages frankly sound un-American when explained out loud.
9. Timing IS important, as is re-investment risk - I resisted timing in favor of "buy and hold" for years but then I moved into selling stocks when I thought that they had peaked on the upside, or they had huge down side risk (financials). Buy and hold really hasn't done anything for anyone in the last decade or so except rack up huge losses. That doesn't mean that I have a better strategy, but it is a fact that the central issue is timing. Tied to timing is re-investment risk - which basically hits you in that even though you sell at a gain, you have to re-invest in something else that has increased in price (due to strong correlation) and you don't mitigate your risk that much by selling one overvalued stock for a gain and trading it for a new one.
10. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is - I am not a seer but I think that all these people piling into municipal bonds for the tax benefits and historically low default rates are in for a rude awakening when bad things start happening to the states. I know that there are many ways to bail out a state including the Federal government but it just seems like the municipal financing is going to fall apart and I don't want to be holding the bag. This applies to "free lunches" everywhere...
Now with all these "lessons", what is a forward looking investor to do? The stock prices are down, and this could be an historic time to "buy in" to the market, rather than sitting on the sidelines licking your wounds. I am trying to figure that one out now, but thought it made sense to take stock of what, if anything, I learned so far.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz and Trust Funds for Kids
When the stock market started cratering in 2008, I didn't take immediate action, for the most part (I was going to say didn't do anything "rash" like sell off, but in hindsight of course probably that would have been under the category of "smart"). I did sell off financials (owned ICICI, an Indian bank, and GE, which is essentially a giant financial conglomerate with a few businesses stuck in there) immediately, and although my exposure to that sector was limited in those funds, those stocks had not done well.
Now I am trying to re-visit the stock market and do some research to consider what to do next. I am starting out with what I've learned from this debacle. As always, do your own research, this is just my 2 cents based on my experience and body of knowledge.
1. Watch the level of debt, and the timing of debt - for many years there was an absence of a risk premium, which meant that newly emerging (risky) companies could raise debt very cheaply, such as only a couple of points above the treasury rate. Today, it is unlikely that these types of companies can raise any money AT ALL, and if they did it would be at a rate perhaps 10 percentage points above Treasuries (i.e. if Treasuries are at 4%, they would pay > 14% for financing). Companies are moving into bankruptcy rather than try to refinance at these rates - companies like Charter Communications, for example. Even if bankruptcy is avoided (or deferred) the company would have to be highly profitable to earn enough to cover that level of interest payments - and most companies can't profit when their cost of capital is that high. I won't even comment on the 33-1 leverage used by investment banks because we all know how that turned out
2. Guessing the actions of the US Government is important - during the cold war, "Kremlinologists" attempted to divine what was occurring at the top levels of the Soviet government, since it had a direct bearing on our policies. For example, the Feds let Lehman die and saved AIG, although in both cases their equity value evaporated to the point that a 100% equity loss and a 98% equity loss were a toss-up either way. The subtle way in which by saving AIG they benefited Goldman Sachs (since AIG was a major counter-party to Goldman Sachs) would be something worth understanding, for example. The Feds also didn't bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preferred shares, which caused whole ranks of smaller institutions to fail. In general, if you are investing in an industry that looks likely to need government help, you should get out now, because whether or not you have a few equity crumbs or go to zero is a Hobson's choice you don't want to face
3. Correlation between asset classes is higher than you expect - Basically unless you were 100% in gold or treasuries you were likely hurt badly in this market. Foreign stocks, US stocks, many debt instruments, preferred stocks, real estates and most commodities (excluding gold) all dived together. One of the "core" beliefs of "modern portfolio theory" is that if you spread your investments across classes with lower correlation to one another, you will do better over time. Modern portfolio theory basically didn't save anyone in the time frame we are talking about here
4. Liquidity can evaporate, and if you depend on liquid markets, you are in trouble - Not only did the risk premium (see #1 above) go up quickly, liquidity in the market evaporated, meaning that if you counted on liquid markets, you were in big trouble. Illiquid markets mean that you can't "roll over" debt and if you do have to sell, you will receive a distressed price for those assets (a big loss, in real terms). One of the first items to fail were the "auctions" in the municipal area which were a sign of bad tidings to come
5. Real estate is no bulwark - For individuals, there was often an assumption that real estate is a "safe" investment, but real estate values have proven to be anything but. Real estate losses for individuals were semi-spared because the government has set a very low rate for mortgages and nationalized Fannie and Freddie - without that floor mortgages would be illiquid and subject to #1 and #4 below. Now, however, the mortgage market is basically subject to government fiat - see #2 above. If the government decides that condominiums are too risky and pulls back on guaranteeing mortgages on half built condominiums, those investments will fail. For real estate companies that specialize in building new homes, those stocks are basically dead, since demand won't catch up with supply for years. The government is definitely working to prop up the home market, with tax incentives for the new buyer (and likely no more talk about not making home interest deductible)
6. Complexity is dangerous - Another early warning sign was the fact that Citicorp and others had to bring in "off balance sheet" entities onto their balance sheet when liquidity failed (see #4 above). Those companies were incredibly complex, and their financial statements were incomprehensible even to me, a financial professional. These counter-parties, off balance sheet entities, and WAY too much leverage made a toxic stew. In general, companies that have a very complex "story" will likely have a harder road to travel when trying to show their value to the equity community, since people have been burned by what they don't understand
7. Dividends provide little shelter - over time a significant portion of the total "return" from stocks is driven by dividends paid to stockholders. Many companies paid dividends at a steadily growing rate for decades, and constantly re-emphasized the importance of dividends to their strategy (giving investors confidence that these dividends would continue in the future). However, virtually everyone gave up on their dividends, from the financial companies that are sliding to the edge of oblivion to GE (who really is a financial company anyways) to many other industrial companies. There are exceptions to the rule (companies that are not facing dire straits) but the fact is that strong companies can pay dividends and weak companies cannot, so betting on a dividend independent of the underlying financial structure is a fools errand. The dividend is nice to have (and starting from a solid one is better), but counting on it in the future has proved to be devastating
8. For the most part, no one (who talks) knows anything - yes you can point to the occasional seer who cried doom and certainly many, many smart and rich (and tight lipped people) made tons of money shorting the entire market all the way down, but for the most part the conventional wisdom was completely and utterly wrong. There are people or firms that understand the market well and can profit in down times, but you aren't getting their thoughts from Jim Cramer on CNBC or in the WSJ or Barron's or anywhere else, much less the popular magazines like Time, Money or your local paper columnist. Look at how their stock ratings performed, and generally it was terrible. A lot of this is institutional bias because those magazines and paper can't just tell you to short everything and get out of the market because those same companies buy advertising and those sorts of negative messages frankly sound un-American when explained out loud.
9. Timing IS important, as is re-investment risk - I resisted timing in favor of "buy and hold" for years but then I moved into selling stocks when I thought that they had peaked on the upside, or they had huge down side risk (financials). Buy and hold really hasn't done anything for anyone in the last decade or so except rack up huge losses. That doesn't mean that I have a better strategy, but it is a fact that the central issue is timing. Tied to timing is re-investment risk - which basically hits you in that even though you sell at a gain, you have to re-invest in something else that has increased in price (due to strong correlation) and you don't mitigate your risk that much by selling one overvalued stock for a gain and trading it for a new one.
10. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is - I am not a seer but I think that all these people piling into municipal bonds for the tax benefits and historically low default rates are in for a rude awakening when bad things start happening to the states. I know that there are many ways to bail out a state including the Federal government but it just seems like the municipal financing is going to fall apart and I don't want to be holding the bag. This applies to "free lunches" everywhere...
Now with all these "lessons", what is a forward looking investor to do? The stock prices are down, and this could be an historic time to "buy in" to the market, rather than sitting on the sidelines licking your wounds. I am trying to figure that one out now, but thought it made sense to take stock of what, if anything, I learned so far.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz and Trust Funds for Kids
"Benefit?" of the Real Estate Collapse
Many stories have been written about the victims and losses in the collapse of real estate values, but few about the "winners". Here's one:
Coyote Ugly! This fine establishment (I am reminded of the line in Animal House when the fraternity representative is defending the Delta house by saying that it has "A long history of existence") sits on what would appear to be a very valuable tract of land in the River North area of Chicago. Given that the Coyote can't be a high rent tenant and it takes up a lot of a city block, you'd figure that some real estate developer would knock it down (wouldn't take much, the damn thing is practically a tent and it is a wonder that it doesn't just blow over)and put up a big condominium or the like.
But now that NO ONE can get financing for any type of new construction (and the existing construction is at risk of sitting there, half completed) the Coyote will be protected, likely for many years, since this bust will take a while before the animal spirits of capitalism rise again in the form of easy bank loans to finance condominium construction. In the interim period we will have to rely on the low power of that scavenging, mangy Coyote animal on this prime piece of real estate.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Coyote Ugly! This fine establishment (I am reminded of the line in Animal House when the fraternity representative is defending the Delta house by saying that it has "A long history of existence") sits on what would appear to be a very valuable tract of land in the River North area of Chicago. Given that the Coyote can't be a high rent tenant and it takes up a lot of a city block, you'd figure that some real estate developer would knock it down (wouldn't take much, the damn thing is practically a tent and it is a wonder that it doesn't just blow over)and put up a big condominium or the like.
But now that NO ONE can get financing for any type of new construction (and the existing construction is at risk of sitting there, half completed) the Coyote will be protected, likely for many years, since this bust will take a while before the animal spirits of capitalism rise again in the form of easy bank loans to finance condominium construction. In the interim period we will have to rely on the low power of that scavenging, mangy Coyote animal on this prime piece of real estate.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Vom Fass
Last night the wife and I had a date night and she said we were going to Vom Fass here in Madison. She needed a gift for someone for a party we were going to. I said sure (admittedly grudgingly).
This is what the now empty casks look like.
The help at this place was very friendly and full of information. My wife and I started out cold to this idea, but in the end were trying all sorts of different things and had a great time. I told the help that when they get in their spirits he would see me every day on the way home and he laughed about that. But I literally can't wait for those scotches and cognacs to show up.
I didn't know much about the place besides the fact that they let you taste stuff before you buy it. So we went in and wow did I have a great time. We had fun tasting all of the things they had laid out.
Vom Fass translated means "from the cask". They had oils, vinegars and wine that you could sample. I saw a section for spirits and immediately went there, but apparently they won't have those items until summer - I was disappointed since a scotch or cognac tasting is right up my alley. This Vom Fass location is apparently the only one in the entire United States we later found out, and from what the help told us there is some sort of issue getting an approval for spirit tasting. No such issue with the wine tasting.
We didn't try the wines, but we did sample lots and lots of oils and they were absolutely fantastic! They put a drop or two on a plastic spoon for you and the quality was very high. We ended up buying a gift, and then a couple of bottles for our home use. The best olive oil we tried was infused with basil. I can't describe how good it was. We bought some of that and also took home some olive oil infused with garlic to finish pastas with as well as a small container of toasted sesame oil - it is wonderful to fry salmon in.
I tried three different types of balsamic vinegar. We didn't feel the need to buy any of that. We use balsamic vinegar when eating fresh mozzarela with basil, and are pretty happy with the store bought junk.
The prices were very reasonable, I thought. Oils you see in the stores are pretty damned expensive, and you don't even get to try before you buy. Here is the general idea, from some photos I stole from the intertubes. The store we were at had those pottery looking things that held the oil, but not the green keg looking things.
This is what the now empty casks look like.The help at this place was very friendly and full of information. My wife and I started out cold to this idea, but in the end were trying all sorts of different things and had a great time. I told the help that when they get in their spirits he would see me every day on the way home and he laughed about that. But I literally can't wait for those scotches and cognacs to show up.We immediately signed up for their frequent flyer club - spend $200, get $20 free. Why not - these will be great gifts. If you have a place like this where you are, give it a try. It was fun and opened our taste buds to some different ideas. And it is relatively cheap.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Comments
Some a$$hole spammer or spambot is leaving garbage comments in the posts like the one you see in my Reception$ post. I have probably cleaned up 20 over the past few days. Until further notice, word verification is turned on for comments, hopefully only for a few days or so. Sorry about the inconvenience.
Reception$
Ann Althouse is getting married. She evidently started interacting with one of her regular commenters, and got to know him - and they are a gettin' hitched. Pretty cool if you ask me.
She is blogging about certain parts of the wedding and asks the interesting question of how you would celebrate your 2nd wedding. Both Ann and her mate have been previously married.
The comments in that post have a wide range of responses (predictably) but a few got me to thinking. The ones in particular that got my mind to dust off some memories were ones bashing modern day weddings and receptions. I couldn't agree more. Most of them are very expensive, and if the parents of the bride and groom can't puke out for some of the cost, the (un)lucky couple gets to start out their life in wedded bliss with a big fat credit card bill. Yikes.
My wife and I only had to deal with part of that bill, since we skipped the wedding. We eloped to New Orleans and had the time of our lives. We used to go back every year for our anniversary until my wife got herself pregnant (twice!). The times we had there. Whoa.
Oh yea, when we got back we found out that we weren't legally married. But how? The Louisiana marriage license required two witnesses that were not the pastor. So we had the photographer as one, and forgot to get another. Truth is, there wasn't anyone else there. So we mailed it back to the company that we procured our horse drawn carriage from, they found the driver and he signed it and sent it back! We "lubed" this process by attaching a $50 to our begging letter. In New Orleans, money talks, and bullsh1t walks.
Anyway, we had a nice party when we got back for everyone (I think the parents puked up for most of that cost) but it was still much less costly than most weddings/receptions, and we had a great time. I am fairly certain that nobody who attended could remember what we ate, the songs that were played, or any of that other crap that seems important at the time, but really isn't in the big picture.
I honestly hope that both of my daughters do the same thing as I don't want to deal with all of the theater of planning (and paying for!) weddings. Then again, I am the type of guy that will just tell everyone to leave me alone and just tell me when and where to show up...I will bring the checkbook, I promise.
To go off on a tangent, I should tell you about the very worst wedding I ever attended. It was here in Madison, and was before we had kids. It was at a house in the country, and they had their animals in the wedding party (a horse and a dog, I believe). The wedding and reception party were at this house, using the garage as the buffet area. For dinner they had set up their own buffet, all Hormel products (beenie weenie, stew, etc) simmering away in Nesco ovens. Horrific. Why the Hormel? The whole family came down from Minnesota where they worked at Hormel plants. I don't remember if I ate there or not. I probably did to be polite.
But looking back, maybe they were the smart ones - they saved a boatload of money on that little horrific bash. And there is a possibility that they or their parents just didn't have any cash. And I can't make fun of anyone for that.
She is blogging about certain parts of the wedding and asks the interesting question of how you would celebrate your 2nd wedding. Both Ann and her mate have been previously married.
The comments in that post have a wide range of responses (predictably) but a few got me to thinking. The ones in particular that got my mind to dust off some memories were ones bashing modern day weddings and receptions. I couldn't agree more. Most of them are very expensive, and if the parents of the bride and groom can't puke out for some of the cost, the (un)lucky couple gets to start out their life in wedded bliss with a big fat credit card bill. Yikes.
My wife and I only had to deal with part of that bill, since we skipped the wedding. We eloped to New Orleans and had the time of our lives. We used to go back every year for our anniversary until my wife got herself pregnant (twice!). The times we had there. Whoa.
Oh yea, when we got back we found out that we weren't legally married. But how? The Louisiana marriage license required two witnesses that were not the pastor. So we had the photographer as one, and forgot to get another. Truth is, there wasn't anyone else there. So we mailed it back to the company that we procured our horse drawn carriage from, they found the driver and he signed it and sent it back! We "lubed" this process by attaching a $50 to our begging letter. In New Orleans, money talks, and bullsh1t walks.
Anyway, we had a nice party when we got back for everyone (I think the parents puked up for most of that cost) but it was still much less costly than most weddings/receptions, and we had a great time. I am fairly certain that nobody who attended could remember what we ate, the songs that were played, or any of that other crap that seems important at the time, but really isn't in the big picture.
I honestly hope that both of my daughters do the same thing as I don't want to deal with all of the theater of planning (and paying for!) weddings. Then again, I am the type of guy that will just tell everyone to leave me alone and just tell me when and where to show up...I will bring the checkbook, I promise.
To go off on a tangent, I should tell you about the very worst wedding I ever attended. It was here in Madison, and was before we had kids. It was at a house in the country, and they had their animals in the wedding party (a horse and a dog, I believe). The wedding and reception party were at this house, using the garage as the buffet area. For dinner they had set up their own buffet, all Hormel products (beenie weenie, stew, etc) simmering away in Nesco ovens. Horrific. Why the Hormel? The whole family came down from Minnesota where they worked at Hormel plants. I don't remember if I ate there or not. I probably did to be polite.
But looking back, maybe they were the smart ones - they saved a boatload of money on that little horrific bash. And there is a possibility that they or their parents just didn't have any cash. And I can't make fun of anyone for that.
My Lost Purchase
Virtually all of us have been touched to some extent by the decline in stock prices and asset devaluations (houses). I recently was talking to someone and they mentioned this thought experiment:What if you had spent all the money that was lost in the recent market declines instead of watching it fall in value?I was walking through River North last weekend when my personal answer sat on the curb right in front of me - a brand new Nissan GTR, valet parked by a high-end restaurant and club. Sure it has a sticker price above $70,000, but it is about the fastest thing on the road and has a great control layout and is a Nissan, to boot (so it likely won't end up being a rolling pile of junk after a few years).
Of course, this is now fantasy-land, since reality binds me to the GTR's all-too-practical sibling, a 1999 Nissan Altima, nearing a decade in service but still reliable and practical for the almost no driving I do in the city.
Not that I am encouraging this type of thinking (spend it now because it is falling in value), because it is critical for everyone to keep a long term perspective and to plan for the future. These market losses are discouraging but this is life and we need to keep marching ahead and learn from our failures. It is likely that high government spending and large deficits will mean that relying on social security, always a bad plan, will become even less viable, since all the other spending will crowd out this benefit.
But it is a fun thought experiment, especially when it is sitting on the curb, right in front of you...
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz and Trust Funds for Kids
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Suck It, Hippie Earth Worshiping Scum!
.
This new conflicting information sends a tingle up my leg.
First give a listen to some classic George Carlin to set up my (what seems to be a) weekly rant.
Next Saturday another Earth Hour event will be held. I wrote about this hokum last year.
http://lifeinthegreatmidwest.blogspot.com/2008/03/turn-out-lightsthe-partys-over.html
Earth Hour is nothing more than an awareness event (a call to action so to speak) on behalf of environmentalist groin tuggers who have the arrogance to believe humans actually have the power to alter and control the climate. These hoaxters want everyone to turn off the lights for an hour on March 28th between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm in a show of commitment to stop manmade global warming.
At this time last year I was involved in a contract job at a large Chicago Ad Agency where they were providing pro-bono public relation and promotional support for this hour of worship so my awareness was reinforced daily.
That’s what this modern day environmental cult is all about, religious worship. It’s about people worshiping a large rock that rotates around the sun. Sounds like ancient pagan worship to me. And these are smart, educated people! Then again, consider who is educating them. So sad, really.
The posters and banners supporting Earth Hour were everywhere in and around the high-rise office building on Wacker Drive. Taxi’s driving through the Chicago streets along with CTA busses and trains also carried this vital message last year (this year I am trying to stay away from Chicago due to parking meter tyranny so I have no idea what's going on up there). The idea of Earth Hour is to goad young skulls full of mush and guilt-ridden old hippies into joining their cause in supporting this nonsensical rubbish on behalf of anti-capitalist partisans.
If they wanted to create real awareness this joke would be scheduled on an early January Friday at 5 pm. Since urban types are most susceptible to baseless alarmism such as this the least they could do is make a genuine sacrifice on a weekday evening. How about turning off the heat in your near north Irish Pub for an hour too?
I was reminded of how absurd this environmentalist cult is this morning when I read about another potential environmental disaster on Drudge:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001.300-space-storm-alert-90-seconds-from-catastrophe.html?full=true
The new scientific findings have been provided by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). They predict that another potential environmental catastrophe could be near in the form of a huge solar plasma ball hurling toward the earth capable of mass destruction.
From the article:
It is hard to conceive of the sun wiping out a large amount of our hard-earned progress. Nevertheless, it is possible. The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma - charged high-energy particles - some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection (see "When hell comes to Earth"). If one should hit the Earth's magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.
Got that? You can turn off your lights to create awareness, recycle your eyeballs out, drive a hybrid car, eat dolphin-free tuna and still get wacked by an environmental disaster in the form of a flaming plasma ball.
Something will eventually come along and destroy the planet. Will it be man made global warming? How about Muslim extremists with a nuke or two? It could be a meteor like the one that wiped out dinosaurs that seals our fate. Who knows what will accelerate the demise of this planet?
Me? I’m betting on the flaming plasma ball.
Until then, I’m going fishing.
.
This new conflicting information sends a tingle up my leg.
First give a listen to some classic George Carlin to set up my (what seems to be a) weekly rant.
Next Saturday another Earth Hour event will be held. I wrote about this hokum last year.
http://lifeinthegreatmidwest.blogspot.com/2008/03/turn-out-lightsthe-partys-over.html
Earth Hour is nothing more than an awareness event (a call to action so to speak) on behalf of environmentalist groin tuggers who have the arrogance to believe humans actually have the power to alter and control the climate. These hoaxters want everyone to turn off the lights for an hour on March 28th between 8:30 pm and 9:30 pm in a show of commitment to stop manmade global warming.
At this time last year I was involved in a contract job at a large Chicago Ad Agency where they were providing pro-bono public relation and promotional support for this hour of worship so my awareness was reinforced daily.
That’s what this modern day environmental cult is all about, religious worship. It’s about people worshiping a large rock that rotates around the sun. Sounds like ancient pagan worship to me. And these are smart, educated people! Then again, consider who is educating them. So sad, really.
The posters and banners supporting Earth Hour were everywhere in and around the high-rise office building on Wacker Drive. Taxi’s driving through the Chicago streets along with CTA busses and trains also carried this vital message last year (this year I am trying to stay away from Chicago due to parking meter tyranny so I have no idea what's going on up there). The idea of Earth Hour is to goad young skulls full of mush and guilt-ridden old hippies into joining their cause in supporting this nonsensical rubbish on behalf of anti-capitalist partisans.
If they wanted to create real awareness this joke would be scheduled on an early January Friday at 5 pm. Since urban types are most susceptible to baseless alarmism such as this the least they could do is make a genuine sacrifice on a weekday evening. How about turning off the heat in your near north Irish Pub for an hour too?
I was reminded of how absurd this environmentalist cult is this morning when I read about another potential environmental disaster on Drudge:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127001.300-space-storm-alert-90-seconds-from-catastrophe.html?full=true
The new scientific findings have been provided by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS). They predict that another potential environmental catastrophe could be near in the form of a huge solar plasma ball hurling toward the earth capable of mass destruction.
From the article:
It is hard to conceive of the sun wiping out a large amount of our hard-earned progress. Nevertheless, it is possible. The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma - charged high-energy particles - some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection (see "When hell comes to Earth"). If one should hit the Earth's magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.
Got that? You can turn off your lights to create awareness, recycle your eyeballs out, drive a hybrid car, eat dolphin-free tuna and still get wacked by an environmental disaster in the form of a flaming plasma ball.
Something will eventually come along and destroy the planet. Will it be man made global warming? How about Muslim extremists with a nuke or two? It could be a meteor like the one that wiped out dinosaurs that seals our fate. Who knows what will accelerate the demise of this planet?
Me? I’m betting on the flaming plasma ball.
Until then, I’m going fishing.
.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Colder Than A Well Digger’s A$$?
.
Most folks take their water supply for granted. In the city you can simply turn on the spigot and water pours out, hot or cold. Take a shower or wash the dishes. The toilet flushes. Bye-bye, swirling turd! The waste water drains through the pipes into a municipal sanitary sewer system with never a thought about where it goes from there. Indoor plumbing is a modern convenience most urban and suburbanites take for granted. In rural and remote areas it’s not that simple.
Since my country bunker is located barely within the Valpo city limits we enjoy the luxury of a municipal well and sewer system. Outside the limits all homes need a well and septic system, most of which are installed by professionals.
While on a trip to help install a pier and shore station at a friend’s lakeside cabin in Michigan on Monday morning the bro and I were greeted with that “we have a well problem” smile. After two decades of enjoying clean, clear well water the rustic lakeside cabin well became clogged. The lowest section of the well, called the well point can be treated with conventional treatments when clogged by mineral deposits but those had all failed. The only solution was to drill or drive a new well. Drilling alone costs over $3000 if installed by a professional with power drilling equipment. Driving a well cost $250 in pipe, connectors, pipe dope and raw labor. It’s a simple solution but one that requires time and muscle. I had no idea what we were in for. Our host and his buddy are both past sixty and in no condition to drive a well so out of kindness and gratitude for many fishing trips we enjoy at the cabin we were committed to driving the well for them.
I am three years past working out in a gym daily with free weights. Out of shape big time, I saw this as an opportunity to begin a new workout regimen since the muscle soreness from driving the new well would go beyond the first strength training session after a long gym absence. We would be lifting, curling, twisting and moving large weights and heavy pipe in many positions for hours. I was so busy there was no time to take photos.
The task at hand required pounding a well point (30 feet deep in this case) into the ground backed up by lengths of 1 1/4 “ galvanized pipe in five foot sections connected by screw on connectors. A well point is the pipe with a spiked tip below a hollow perforated galvanized pipe section lined with a fine metal mesh to keep out the dirt and sand. This is the object that allows the natural aquifer to supply the water source for the well pump.
I had a notion on how a well worked but this was going to be a first hand lesson.
In professional drilled wells a larger pipe is lowered into a pre-drilled hole and the pump sits inside the pipe. For our rustic, backwoods well we would pound the pipe 30’ into the soil. The pump resides above ground in an outbuilding along with the holding tank. From there it is piped into the cabin through an underground supply line.
If a well is to be drilled specialized power equipment does the job easily creating a deep hole in which the pipe is lowered into. Driving a well means using a 3-5’ rod that fits snugly within the well point and pipe. On top of the rod is a 50lb. weight and on top of that is a t-shaped joint with 90 degree pipes as handles. It was a borrowed homemade tool. The rod is placed into the drill point and by lifting the driver and dropping it into the well point the pipe is driven into the soil. Each drop drives the well point anywhere from 1/4" to 1” deep. Do the math. Lifting a 50lb weight and letting it go is work, hard work. Standing on top of a picnic table creates an awkward leverage position for lifting 50 lbs. especially when the lifting point constantly changes. as the section of pipe gets driven further we climbed off the picnic table to finish driving it at ground level.
All in all it took three hours to pound enough pipe to reach the aquifer. The second day we connected the well pipe to the pump. Nothing cold about a well digger’s azz. I was sweatin’ with the oldies that played on a nearby radio. It felt good to work hard.
Fortunately, one friend had prescription painkillers (darvocet), which made the day after tolerable but I am aching today without them.
It was an education for me but after all was said and done, it was a very rewarding experience. I’ll tell you what, if we ever show up and he greets us with a “we have a septic tank problem” smile, I am turning around and heading home.
.
Most folks take their water supply for granted. In the city you can simply turn on the spigot and water pours out, hot or cold. Take a shower or wash the dishes. The toilet flushes. Bye-bye, swirling turd! The waste water drains through the pipes into a municipal sanitary sewer system with never a thought about where it goes from there. Indoor plumbing is a modern convenience most urban and suburbanites take for granted. In rural and remote areas it’s not that simple.
Since my country bunker is located barely within the Valpo city limits we enjoy the luxury of a municipal well and sewer system. Outside the limits all homes need a well and septic system, most of which are installed by professionals.
While on a trip to help install a pier and shore station at a friend’s lakeside cabin in Michigan on Monday morning the bro and I were greeted with that “we have a well problem” smile. After two decades of enjoying clean, clear well water the rustic lakeside cabin well became clogged. The lowest section of the well, called the well point can be treated with conventional treatments when clogged by mineral deposits but those had all failed. The only solution was to drill or drive a new well. Drilling alone costs over $3000 if installed by a professional with power drilling equipment. Driving a well cost $250 in pipe, connectors, pipe dope and raw labor. It’s a simple solution but one that requires time and muscle. I had no idea what we were in for. Our host and his buddy are both past sixty and in no condition to drive a well so out of kindness and gratitude for many fishing trips we enjoy at the cabin we were committed to driving the well for them.
I am three years past working out in a gym daily with free weights. Out of shape big time, I saw this as an opportunity to begin a new workout regimen since the muscle soreness from driving the new well would go beyond the first strength training session after a long gym absence. We would be lifting, curling, twisting and moving large weights and heavy pipe in many positions for hours. I was so busy there was no time to take photos.
The task at hand required pounding a well point (30 feet deep in this case) into the ground backed up by lengths of 1 1/4 “ galvanized pipe in five foot sections connected by screw on connectors. A well point is the pipe with a spiked tip below a hollow perforated galvanized pipe section lined with a fine metal mesh to keep out the dirt and sand. This is the object that allows the natural aquifer to supply the water source for the well pump.
I had a notion on how a well worked but this was going to be a first hand lesson.
In professional drilled wells a larger pipe is lowered into a pre-drilled hole and the pump sits inside the pipe. For our rustic, backwoods well we would pound the pipe 30’ into the soil. The pump resides above ground in an outbuilding along with the holding tank. From there it is piped into the cabin through an underground supply line.
If a well is to be drilled specialized power equipment does the job easily creating a deep hole in which the pipe is lowered into. Driving a well means using a 3-5’ rod that fits snugly within the well point and pipe. On top of the rod is a 50lb. weight and on top of that is a t-shaped joint with 90 degree pipes as handles. It was a borrowed homemade tool. The rod is placed into the drill point and by lifting the driver and dropping it into the well point the pipe is driven into the soil. Each drop drives the well point anywhere from 1/4" to 1” deep. Do the math. Lifting a 50lb weight and letting it go is work, hard work. Standing on top of a picnic table creates an awkward leverage position for lifting 50 lbs. especially when the lifting point constantly changes. as the section of pipe gets driven further we climbed off the picnic table to finish driving it at ground level.
All in all it took three hours to pound enough pipe to reach the aquifer. The second day we connected the well pipe to the pump. Nothing cold about a well digger’s azz. I was sweatin’ with the oldies that played on a nearby radio. It felt good to work hard.
Fortunately, one friend had prescription painkillers (darvocet), which made the day after tolerable but I am aching today without them.
It was an education for me but after all was said and done, it was a very rewarding experience. I’ll tell you what, if we ever show up and he greets us with a “we have a septic tank problem” smile, I am turning around and heading home.
.
Monday, March 23, 2009
It's All Relative
I saw a bill board featuring this fly by while I was on the expressway too quickly for me to snap a photo so this is a screen shot from the www.oldstylebeer.com web site (interestingly enough, they don't own the old style URL).
The funny part is - it is probably true that it tastes better - but it starts from a vile level and likely just ekes a little higher up the non-drinkable ladder, near PBR.
Good to start off low - then there is no where to go but up.
Lance Is Human
I see that Lance broke his collar bone in a crash during a race in Spain, which is a tune up for the Tour de France.
This is the first collar bone break for Lance, and believe it or not, collar bone breaks are a very common injury for pro level cyclers, because of the way you crash into the pavement. It is all in the angles.
I know the Tour is just a bunch of thin 'roid pumping, blood transfusing nutcases, but it makes for great TV for a biking fan like me, and I was really looking forward to Lance taking the trophy back. Oh well, hopefully some of our other American riders can make a run at it.
This is the first collar bone break for Lance, and believe it or not, collar bone breaks are a very common injury for pro level cyclers, because of the way you crash into the pavement. It is all in the angles.I know the Tour is just a bunch of thin 'roid pumping, blood transfusing nutcases, but it makes for great TV for a biking fan like me, and I was really looking forward to Lance taking the trophy back. Oh well, hopefully some of our other American riders can make a run at it.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Aerobic and Anaerobic
50 pounds ago I started to pick up biking and get my diet in shape. I did the right thing and didnt call it a "diet". I called it a lifestyle change. I still call it that to this day when referring to the way I eat and exercise.
Distance cycling was the only exercise I was getting, and when I changed my food intake to proper portion sizes and better foods, I shed about 25 pounds. I felt great and was happy. But I knew there was more. I could have kept that tack and dropped the other 25 pounds and everything would have been great.
But then I happened upon Muay Thai. As most of you know I had always wanted to take a martial arts class, and the rest of that is history. If you want to read more, you can always click on Muay Thai on the sidebar.
Now I do distance running, in addition to strength circuits. The circuits are 3 - 6 minute circuits of intense exercises. Typically they are six different exercises for one minute each, such as jumping rope, pushups, crunches, punching/kicking, knees and jumping. We also do these circuits in 30 and 45 second intervals.
So now I am 50 pounds later, and my weight hovers around 175. That is a ripped 175 I might add. My muscles are pretty toned, and I have very little body fat. The temp gets below 50 and I am shivering, since the engine is always shedding heat. I am pretty proud of myself.
But I have stumbled upon the real trick if you want to bring your body out of the doldrums and into tip top shape. It is the combination of Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise. When I was biking only, my body did well, but eventually it got used to that one activity. When you throw the combination of activities at your body, it can't assimiliate itself to any one and the results are great. I suppose there is a book that would tell me this, but I came to this realization the hard way, just by doing more and more stuff.
So my anaerobic activities are all the stuff I do at the gym, such as strength circuits, MT, and training fighters. I do these on Mondays and Wednesdays (and sometimes on Saturdays).
Aerobic (this wiki is very good and also goes into differences between aerobic and anaerobic activity) activities include my distance cycling and running. These are typically done on Saturday and Sunday for me since that is the only way they fit into my schedule. With me ramping up my distance running, I have been dropping weight again. Time to eat more.
On top of all of this, muscle weight weighs more than flab - making my 50 pound loss look even larger on a percentage basis, since I have muscles now and had zero before.
It is a lot of work, but holy cow do I enjoy all of this physical activity.
Distance cycling was the only exercise I was getting, and when I changed my food intake to proper portion sizes and better foods, I shed about 25 pounds. I felt great and was happy. But I knew there was more. I could have kept that tack and dropped the other 25 pounds and everything would have been great.
But then I happened upon Muay Thai. As most of you know I had always wanted to take a martial arts class, and the rest of that is history. If you want to read more, you can always click on Muay Thai on the sidebar.
Now I do distance running, in addition to strength circuits. The circuits are 3 - 6 minute circuits of intense exercises. Typically they are six different exercises for one minute each, such as jumping rope, pushups, crunches, punching/kicking, knees and jumping. We also do these circuits in 30 and 45 second intervals.
So now I am 50 pounds later, and my weight hovers around 175. That is a ripped 175 I might add. My muscles are pretty toned, and I have very little body fat. The temp gets below 50 and I am shivering, since the engine is always shedding heat. I am pretty proud of myself.
But I have stumbled upon the real trick if you want to bring your body out of the doldrums and into tip top shape. It is the combination of Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise. When I was biking only, my body did well, but eventually it got used to that one activity. When you throw the combination of activities at your body, it can't assimiliate itself to any one and the results are great. I suppose there is a book that would tell me this, but I came to this realization the hard way, just by doing more and more stuff.
So my anaerobic activities are all the stuff I do at the gym, such as strength circuits, MT, and training fighters. I do these on Mondays and Wednesdays (and sometimes on Saturdays).
Aerobic (this wiki is very good and also goes into differences between aerobic and anaerobic activity) activities include my distance cycling and running. These are typically done on Saturday and Sunday for me since that is the only way they fit into my schedule. With me ramping up my distance running, I have been dropping weight again. Time to eat more.
On top of all of this, muscle weight weighs more than flab - making my 50 pound loss look even larger on a percentage basis, since I have muscles now and had zero before.
It is a lot of work, but holy cow do I enjoy all of this physical activity.
Energy "Plan" - No New Transmission
DECEPTION
The energy industry in the US is complicated and when I write posts I like to provide a decent amount of background for my thesis that we are allowing our energy infrastructure to deteriorate and not doing anything constructive about the situation. One critical element of this is that the greens and left-leaning individuals, who decry "old school" solutions like building new coal plants and promote complicated and unproven alternatives to these known, sensible and cost-effective solutions - are being disingenuous when they counter propose their "solutions", because in the end they don't want to do anything constructive at all to re mediate and solve the issues. This opinion article, in the New York Times, neatly encapsulates their duplicity by clearly stating that they don't WANT to solve the transmission problem, even if someone could wind their way through the rats nest of financing, legal issues, and permitting. Thus it represents an important piece of evidence as a "confession" of their duplicity.
BACKGROUND
The energy infrastructure of the United States consists of three main components:
- Generation (nuclear, coal, gas, hydro, and other)
- Transmission (the lines that connect power stations to cities, and the utilities to each other)
- Distribution (the local electric lines, customer meter, trucks, etc...)
In general, the US has failed to invest in generation and transmission assets over the last 25 years or so. "Base load" generation primarily consists of 1) coal plants (no one is building new ones because of environmental legislation) 2) hydroelectric plants (no one is damming rivers due to the Sierra Club) 3) nuclear plant (they are far too expensive, regulation is uncertain, and Three Mile Island hasn't gone away). There have been some "peaker" plants running natural gas (more expensive) and some minor "renewable" projects but generally we have just been "running in place" with regards to capacity and utilizing up all the "reserve" capacity that had been built up in previous years, as evidenced by blackouts in places like California.
Transmission consists of the long high voltage lines that crisscross the country. While some of these lines have been rebuilt and capacity upgraded, generally we have NOT built new transmission lines. Transmission lines that cross the country or long distances require permitting and siting and can take decades to build, if you can stomach the endless rounds of negotiating with all parties along the way and an ever changing morass of regulatory issues. Even after a line is permitted and built, the courts can stop them from functioning, such as a famous undersea transmission cable in the East that cost hundreds of millions to build.
Distribution is the third major leg, and there has been some investment in distribution, smart metering, etc... This investment is easier to make because it doesn't have to run the same "thicket" of environmental and legal regulations and is more in the control of the local utility, which is also tied in with local governments. Improvements in distribution have bought us time and allowed us to get by with the generation and transmission grid we have, but it isn't a panacea to our overall problems. Generally if there is going to be conservation it comes out of the distribution area because this is where the "demand management" programs reside which attempt to adjust consumer behavior and incent either lower electricity usage overall or, more importantly, less energy usage on peak.
TRANSMISSION
After improvements in distribution have reached the point that incremental investment only yields marginal returns, the next place that the government will look is transmission. Our transmission grid today really represents the "best guess" of population centers and generation locations as of the 60's and 70's... almost 40-50 years ago - because almost no new lines of any significant substance have been laid down since that time. Thus while it functions reasonably well, if you could target investment you could likely leverage generation assets much better, including linking to areas where renewable power could be located (i.e. windy areas in the great planes, offshore wind farms, deserts where solar panels could be located, etc...).
Like the big false hoopla over nuclear power plant (which I demolish here), there has been big talk of our new appetite for investing in bona-fide new transmission assets. Like nuclear power, this one is NOT going to happen, and here's why.
1) any route has to be circuitous and planned almost decades in advance - here is a blog post I wrote about a fight for a transmission line in the West and you can see its circuitous (i.e. VERY expensive) route, which costs > $1M / mile
2) while the greens claim to be rational and open to solutions, in fact they are against EVERYTHING. This article, listed above, is indicative of their "true" feelings
This article is an editorial in the New York Times basically staking out their conceptual opposition to transmission lines, that they don't want power from other states coming to New York. They are glossing over the source of the power, but if anyone was actually going to DO something about our power situation, they would support some sort of generation increase and then support some sort of investment in a transmission grid to get that power where it is needed, which is cities like New York.
This article lays out bare that they DON'T really support any kind of constructive solution to the situation, they just want to push on demand which in turn ultimately is going to drive any kind of manufacturing or energy intensive activity out of the state, because rates will have to rise to discourage use. They really feel that we shouldn't invest in energy because it is "bad" to do so, and that if we just reduced our energy footprint to zero, the world would be a better place.
FINANCING
On top of all the above problems (that the greens and left will sabotage any constructive solution to the situation), there is the fact that EVEN IF all the forces lined up for going forward with transmission investment (or generation, for that matter), financing is very difficult right now, and the utilities have little incentive to stretch and fund something that the states could invalidate even after giving you all the permits to go forward. Remember, out east, they dismantled a completely constructed nuclear plant on Long Island (Shoreham), pretty much bankrupting the Long Island utility company in the process. Needless to say, you don't get something like that built without permits, but in the end they play so dirty with politics and lawyers they won and had it disassembled.
Lenders would have to have a lot of cash laying around and have no grasp of history to fund these types of investments, for generation or transmission, in the East.
Thus, no solutions on the horizon, and all of the current administration and legislatures' positioning on the issue is just hot air, useless. Their actual platform is:
- do nothing about generation
- do nothing about transmission
- invest a little bit in distribution
- talk a lot about conservation
- dance for a few years, let the problem get much worse, and hand it to the next administration, or really to the states, since the Federal government can't FIX the problems, but they can make them worse (thru legislation)
Very soon you will hear the current administration speak much less of energy, since they don't offer any concrete solutions, and the problems have a longer time horizon than their campaign rhetoric.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Saturday, March 21, 2009
WSJ Article on Illinois Tax Increases
The WSJ recently wrote an opinion piece on the Illinois tax increases which I wrote about here called "The Taxing Illini". From the article:
The sad part about this article is that they failed to mention that Illinois has pretty much the highest sales tax rate of any state in the country, and in Cook County the rate is higher than 10% with relatively few exemptions. I guess they just ran out of bad things to say about the state, or figured that the "slaughter rule" was in effect, kind of like in that recent WBC game featuring the USA team.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
This is a state that does almost everything wrong economically. It is not a right-to-work state and is thus heavily unionized, repelling new business investment. It has the fifth highest minimum wage among the states, the fifth most trial-lawyer friendly legal code, the sixth highest workers' compensation costs, and the 11th highest property taxes. It has one of the highest inheritance taxes, at 16%, so retirees flee to states with no death tax, such as Florida and Arizona. A rare Illinois advantage has been its relatively low income-tax rate, but that will shrink or vanish under Mr. Quinn's increase.
The sad part about this article is that they failed to mention that Illinois has pretty much the highest sales tax rate of any state in the country, and in Cook County the rate is higher than 10% with relatively few exemptions. I guess they just ran out of bad things to say about the state, or figured that the "slaughter rule" was in effect, kind of like in that recent WBC game featuring the USA team.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
More on Chicago Parking Meters
I wrote about the transfer of the Chicago Parking meters to a third party (and one time City of Chicago windfall) here and here.
I noted that this looked like it was going to be a fiasco because 1) the meters are not clearly marked with the new rules 2) the meters require masses (rolls!) of quarters since they (mostly) don't run on credit cards and will fill up quickly and become unusable.
The city may have sold off the meter revenue but they certainly are still all-in for the ticket revenue - as you can see from the ticketed car I saw above on a local street near my house.
This issue has picked up a lot of steam lately with headlines at the Chicago Tribune and the Sun Times.
Business Idea?
I was out walking in the River North area last night when I came upon a bona-fide white Bentley with this sign on the side.
If anyone wants to call the number and hear the "plan" and post it up as a comment that would be interesting.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Separating The Champions From The Trolls
.
The other day I wrote a piece about what Indiana University Basketball has meant to me and why. I also mentioned that our #1 rival, Purdue, was my favorite in this year’s NCAA tournament. It pained me to say it but hey, I need some reason to stay interested.
WARNING: Salty language in some videos may not be approved by the P.C. Gestapo.
Most of what I write here at LITGM is not intended to solicit comments. Dan started the blog and one rule he made is to avoid politics, a subject that draws excessive Troll activity.
At times it happens and most comments are either complimentary or civil or both. Occasionally I am corrected on a fact, fine. Then there are the Trolls who have no motivation in life other than to harass or pick an online fight with one who holds an opposing viewpoint. My favorites are the Trolls that not only disagree but also bring to light the true inner unhappiness that lies within their soul. It’s common Troll behavior.
In the piece I wrote recently I stated my opinion that Coach Bob Knight was “unjustly demonized” by the media. That’s all it took for one Troll to bound out from under his bridge.
As Trolls like to do, this one commented - "Unjustly demonized" - written by someone who can overlook ALL of the megalomaniacal and egotistical men who have walked the face of the earth.”
I assume he was referring to yours truly.
Except I never overlooked anything or anybody because that wasn't the subject. A comeback comment that paints a broad characterization such as that is typical liberal Troll behavior as seen on political blogs.
For the record, here’s how I feel about Coach Bob Knight.
I believe coach is neither megalomaniacal nor egotistical. He’s a fvcking basketball coach fer’ crissakes not Chay Guivera or Hugo Chavezz. Call him boorish or politically incorrect in public, fine. I know for a fact the coach would agree with that. He can’t change and he knows it. He told me, personally.
I can safely say that Bob Knight is not too different from most successful coaches when it comes to his methods in demanding respect, attention and perfection from his players. He knows what it takes to build championship teams. His problem has been leaving his practice and locker room behavior in the locker room.
Public outbursts and bad behavior are not acceptable and I make no excuse for his. I stand by my personal opinion. Coach Bob Knight was “unjustly demonized” by the politically correct media and at times on a daily basis. It got to the point where he was stalked, hounded and baited by the leftist mainstream media. Unfortunately for him, he took the bait. This in no way diminished his incredible success and leadership while building championship teams. He truly was a General, like Patton. The difference is that General Patton led conscripted soldiers and General Knight led scholarship athletes who begged to play for him. His graduation rate was 80% exceeding all major NCAA basketball programs.
Coach Knight is not the only one that has been singled out by the mainstream liberal media. These goons pick their fights politically. Coach Knight is an old school conservative compared to Alec Baldwin for example, who is a serial abuser and loud mouth leftist anti-American pr!ck. Baldwin physically abused his beautiful wife in public and verbally abused his young daughter in a phone conversation. His reward? A starring role in an NBC prime time comedy and frequent guest spots on The View. Bob Knight choked the self-choking Indiana starting guard Neil Reed in practice and as a reward the tape was played for weeks. I would have choked Reed too if given the chance.
The media can be very forgiving, if they prefer the individual’s politics. Why, just the other day on the Jay Leno show, our self-proclaimed Hero and Savior made a blatant slur against Special Olympic athletes claiming that his bowling game resembled the Special Olympics. He was instantly forgiven and his comment was literally purged. If Coach Knight claimed his last practice resembled the Special Olympics the sound byte would have been beaten into the ground for weeks with the media demanding an apology and even then it would not have been good enough.
Coaches can be brutal in practice and in the locker room when necessary. The successful ones have no tolerance for less then 110% effort and perfection. They often single out weak players to make an example in front of the others. I know, I played competitive team sport and experienced this tactic. Competitive team sport is like boot camp. Think "Full Metal Jacket". Humiliation, threatening language and physical violence is part of the game at all levels. But the commenter Troll wouldn't know this because most likely, he never played the game.
90% of the successful team coaches are no different from Coach Knight but are smart enough to keep it where it belongs. The liberal media parasites love to single out a non P.C. boogie-man and flog him constantly with the intent of using him as an example. Sound familiar? I guess it takes one to know one.
For every crybaby player Knight coached there are 100 others who worship the man. His methods made them champions and they know it. Start with Coach K. (who played for the coach at West Point where he took Army to the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament three times and because of West Point's height requirements, he did it without one player over 6 feet 6) and work your way down. Just ask Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah is a superstar and gentleman who speaks from the heart. I almost weep when watching this. It's extremely touching.
The job of a coach is to first thin out the herd, toughen up the toughest, work on the fundamentals, and demand perfection through constant drilling. At times they keep some voluntary jock-sniffing cannon fodder on the team for the starters to feast on. That's just the way it is in competitive team sport, like it or not.
Here’s my advice to the Troll. Stick to gymnastics, synchronized swimming and figure skating. It's probably better suited for a man like you. I'm sure the coaches in those sports are much more sensitive, gentile, understanding and compassionate. I bet some even have warm tender moments in the shower with their athletes.
Here's The General one last time, displaying some of his worst behavior. Just awful, truly unacceptable.
.
The other day I wrote a piece about what Indiana University Basketball has meant to me and why. I also mentioned that our #1 rival, Purdue, was my favorite in this year’s NCAA tournament. It pained me to say it but hey, I need some reason to stay interested.
WARNING: Salty language in some videos may not be approved by the P.C. Gestapo.
Most of what I write here at LITGM is not intended to solicit comments. Dan started the blog and one rule he made is to avoid politics, a subject that draws excessive Troll activity.
At times it happens and most comments are either complimentary or civil or both. Occasionally I am corrected on a fact, fine. Then there are the Trolls who have no motivation in life other than to harass or pick an online fight with one who holds an opposing viewpoint. My favorites are the Trolls that not only disagree but also bring to light the true inner unhappiness that lies within their soul. It’s common Troll behavior.
In the piece I wrote recently I stated my opinion that Coach Bob Knight was “unjustly demonized” by the media. That’s all it took for one Troll to bound out from under his bridge.
As Trolls like to do, this one commented - "Unjustly demonized" - written by someone who can overlook ALL of the megalomaniacal and egotistical men who have walked the face of the earth.”
I assume he was referring to yours truly.
Except I never overlooked anything or anybody because that wasn't the subject. A comeback comment that paints a broad characterization such as that is typical liberal Troll behavior as seen on political blogs.
For the record, here’s how I feel about Coach Bob Knight.
I believe coach is neither megalomaniacal nor egotistical. He’s a fvcking basketball coach fer’ crissakes not Chay Guivera or Hugo Chavezz. Call him boorish or politically incorrect in public, fine. I know for a fact the coach would agree with that. He can’t change and he knows it. He told me, personally.
I can safely say that Bob Knight is not too different from most successful coaches when it comes to his methods in demanding respect, attention and perfection from his players. He knows what it takes to build championship teams. His problem has been leaving his practice and locker room behavior in the locker room.
Public outbursts and bad behavior are not acceptable and I make no excuse for his. I stand by my personal opinion. Coach Bob Knight was “unjustly demonized” by the politically correct media and at times on a daily basis. It got to the point where he was stalked, hounded and baited by the leftist mainstream media. Unfortunately for him, he took the bait. This in no way diminished his incredible success and leadership while building championship teams. He truly was a General, like Patton. The difference is that General Patton led conscripted soldiers and General Knight led scholarship athletes who begged to play for him. His graduation rate was 80% exceeding all major NCAA basketball programs.
Coach Knight is not the only one that has been singled out by the mainstream liberal media. These goons pick their fights politically. Coach Knight is an old school conservative compared to Alec Baldwin for example, who is a serial abuser and loud mouth leftist anti-American pr!ck. Baldwin physically abused his beautiful wife in public and verbally abused his young daughter in a phone conversation. His reward? A starring role in an NBC prime time comedy and frequent guest spots on The View. Bob Knight choked the self-choking Indiana starting guard Neil Reed in practice and as a reward the tape was played for weeks. I would have choked Reed too if given the chance.
The media can be very forgiving, if they prefer the individual’s politics. Why, just the other day on the Jay Leno show, our self-proclaimed Hero and Savior made a blatant slur against Special Olympic athletes claiming that his bowling game resembled the Special Olympics. He was instantly forgiven and his comment was literally purged. If Coach Knight claimed his last practice resembled the Special Olympics the sound byte would have been beaten into the ground for weeks with the media demanding an apology and even then it would not have been good enough.
Coaches can be brutal in practice and in the locker room when necessary. The successful ones have no tolerance for less then 110% effort and perfection. They often single out weak players to make an example in front of the others. I know, I played competitive team sport and experienced this tactic. Competitive team sport is like boot camp. Think "Full Metal Jacket". Humiliation, threatening language and physical violence is part of the game at all levels. But the commenter Troll wouldn't know this because most likely, he never played the game.
90% of the successful team coaches are no different from Coach Knight but are smart enough to keep it where it belongs. The liberal media parasites love to single out a non P.C. boogie-man and flog him constantly with the intent of using him as an example. Sound familiar? I guess it takes one to know one.
For every crybaby player Knight coached there are 100 others who worship the man. His methods made them champions and they know it. Start with Coach K. (who played for the coach at West Point where he took Army to the semifinals of the National Invitation Tournament three times and because of West Point's height requirements, he did it without one player over 6 feet 6) and work your way down. Just ask Isaiah Thomas. Isaiah is a superstar and gentleman who speaks from the heart. I almost weep when watching this. It's extremely touching.
The job of a coach is to first thin out the herd, toughen up the toughest, work on the fundamentals, and demand perfection through constant drilling. At times they keep some voluntary jock-sniffing cannon fodder on the team for the starters to feast on. That's just the way it is in competitive team sport, like it or not.
Here’s my advice to the Troll. Stick to gymnastics, synchronized swimming and figure skating. It's probably better suited for a man like you. I'm sure the coaches in those sports are much more sensitive, gentile, understanding and compassionate. I bet some even have warm tender moments in the shower with their athletes.
Here's The General one last time, displaying some of his worst behavior. Just awful, truly unacceptable.
.
Friday, March 20, 2009
FotoJack
One of the cool things about the Shamrock Shuffle last weekend was that you get your photo taken by a service called FotoJack. I found two photos of me, both crossing the finish line. I was hoping to see a shot of me climbing one of the horrific hills. Note I am carrying my gloves at this point, I was sweating pretty good.
You can actually buy the photos, or a digital copy with the watermark removed, or have your photo superimposed on a famous magazine cover, etc. But I think I will just take these free copy and paste versions for now.
You can actually buy the photos, or a digital copy with the watermark removed, or have your photo superimposed on a famous magazine cover, etc. But I think I will just take these free copy and paste versions for now.Excuses
In MT class as of late we have been practicing "in the pocket".
The curriculum, while helping us develop our skills, also works on different ranges. We have four, and I will list them from furthest away to closest as you approach the opponent.
Pot shotting, combo, pocket, clench.
Of all that we practice, clenching is probably the most exhausting, but the pocket range is the hardest on the body. You see, the pocket is where you can start bringing the heavy firepower, such as knees and elbows. Even when you train these lightly with a partner they leave bruises and marks of all sorts. It is especially tough when you are training with someone who is new or overzealous.
It is always best to train with someone who is experienced when you are throwing knees and elbows in this short range. But even experienced guys get overzealous on occasion. I was partnered with one such overzealous guy last week and I am beat to hell. Oh well, at least I blocked everything.
I have been noticing a decline in attendance in the advanced class. The beginners class seems always packed, but the advanced class is falling off a bit. I am one of the few that hardly ever misses a class - ever, but then again, I am a zealot. Everyone always has excuses - too cold, too hot, weather just right so I don't want to be in the gym, on and on the excuses go.
Any time you make a lifestyle change or commit yourself to do something there will always be reasons to not be able to do it. You have to push all of that aside and, like Nike says, "just do it". Frankly, I am looking forward to more of the beginners moving into the advanced class. Maybe it is time for some new blood in our class. Time will tell. Maybe it is just a phase at the gym, I dunno. The training we receive from the instructor is top notch - I have heard this over and over from new people who have come to our gym from other places.
Oh well, I am happy, and I am furthering myself in my chosen martial art. I guess I can't ask for much more than that. It has been almost two years since I picked up Muay Thai. I wonder what I can do to celebrate that. I will probably just go to the gym and train. I think that those who came before me in my art would want it that way.
The curriculum, while helping us develop our skills, also works on different ranges. We have four, and I will list them from furthest away to closest as you approach the opponent.
Pot shotting, combo, pocket, clench.
Of all that we practice, clenching is probably the most exhausting, but the pocket range is the hardest on the body. You see, the pocket is where you can start bringing the heavy firepower, such as knees and elbows. Even when you train these lightly with a partner they leave bruises and marks of all sorts. It is especially tough when you are training with someone who is new or overzealous.
It is always best to train with someone who is experienced when you are throwing knees and elbows in this short range. But even experienced guys get overzealous on occasion. I was partnered with one such overzealous guy last week and I am beat to hell. Oh well, at least I blocked everything.
I have been noticing a decline in attendance in the advanced class. The beginners class seems always packed, but the advanced class is falling off a bit. I am one of the few that hardly ever misses a class - ever, but then again, I am a zealot. Everyone always has excuses - too cold, too hot, weather just right so I don't want to be in the gym, on and on the excuses go.
Any time you make a lifestyle change or commit yourself to do something there will always be reasons to not be able to do it. You have to push all of that aside and, like Nike says, "just do it". Frankly, I am looking forward to more of the beginners moving into the advanced class. Maybe it is time for some new blood in our class. Time will tell. Maybe it is just a phase at the gym, I dunno. The training we receive from the instructor is top notch - I have heard this over and over from new people who have come to our gym from other places.
Oh well, I am happy, and I am furthering myself in my chosen martial art. I guess I can't ask for much more than that. It has been almost two years since I picked up Muay Thai. I wonder what I can do to celebrate that. I will probably just go to the gym and train. I think that those who came before me in my art would want it that way.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A House Divided
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We see these flags a lot here in Indiana. The image can also be seen on license plates attached to the front bumpers of cars.
She went to Indiana for two years but graduated from Purdue. My son graduated from Purdue. I went to art school in Chicago but my basketball allegiance is with The Indiana Hoosiers for many reasons. We are a house divided.
While she was at IU her roommate was dating one of the starting varsity scholarship basketball players and the two eventually got married. He graduated in '75 and missed playing in the perfect ’76 season and on the eventual national championship team. From ‘75 to ’76 the Indiana Basketball record was 63-1. From then on I watched religiously as IU, coached by the great General himself, went on to enjoy one of the best Big11Ten basketball eras of all time. I am still a big fan and follower of Hoosier basketball.
Many of my friends attended IU so I spent a lot of time on campus during weekends and in the summer. It was as if I went to school there without going to class and paying the tuition. Bloomington has so much to offer for a college town, it’s a beautiful campus and the surrounding area provides numerous opportunities for off campus activities such as limestone caves to explore and abandoned limestone quarries in the wooded hillside areas to swim in. Lake Monroe was good for bass fishing and we rented houseboats there for weekend parties. If you've ever seen the movie Breaking Away you know what I mean. And did they know how to party in Bloomington!
In contrast Purdue was a bit on the boring side. Today there are a lot more bars and clubs near campus but back then there was nothing to do off campus anywhere near Lafayette, IN beside detasseling corn or cow tipping. Boring and flat. Back then Purdue was similar to the University of Illinois with a far better engineering school.
In October of 1987 (the season after the Indiana ‘87 NCAA championship Keith Smart three-point buzzer beater) while working on a marketing campaign for Pratt & Lambert I suggested using The General to endorse their new wood floor care products. The idea sold. My partner Larry and I spent a classic autumn day on campus with the coach along with a professional photographer and a video crew taking promotional photographs and filming trade and instructional videos with him.
Coach Knight was a true gentleman and even took the time to give me pointers while I shot from the three stripe on the Assembly Hall floor, which we had all to ourselves until practice started at 5pm. The coach could shoot for 3’s as if he were a 21 year old missing very few shots. Here’s a photo of the three of us that day. My old partner, Larry, is on the left.
The only time the coach raised his voice was when we first met. He looked at me and very firmly asked, “so why the fvck aren’t you wearing a red sweater?” Thinking quickly after noticing I was wearing a gray sweater responded, “It’s in honor of your playing days at Ohio State, coach”. He smiled and said,"bullsh!t!"
On my shelf in my office is the personalized autographed souvenir basketball that Coach Knight gave me. I have a few Bob Knight stories from that day. Maybe around final four time I will write about them. The man you see unjustly demonized on television is definitely not the man I spent the day with.
We created brochures, specification sheets, sales material, print ads and my favorite, life size cut-out displays of the coach that were used to promote the Fabulon line of floor care products that appeared in home improvement centers. A few years later while visiting Bloomington I saw some of these (obviously stolen) displays in a bar and at the campus bookstore.
During all those years Purdue was one of the few teams close to challenging Indiana for the Big11Ten conference championship. Kentucky was the big rival and Purdue was the Big11Ten rival. I attended a few Indiana Purdue conference matchups at both Assembly Hall and Mackey Arena. One most memorable was in ’75 at Mackey when Scott May broke his arm and went down for the season, crippling the team for a run at the title and losing to Kentucky which went on to the final four.
All that being said (I honestly can’t believe I am doing this) I hope Purdue does well in the NCAA Tournament. I will be pulling for them to go farther than the other Big11Ten teams. The reason? Purdue forward Robbie Hummel is a Valparaiso kid. Everything I see on televised games and what i read and hear locally tells me this is one good kid and a hell of a player.
This kid is only a sophomore yet stood up to the best the Big11Ten had to throw at him in the season ending 2009 Big11Ten tournament. He was named MVP of that tournament. So Go Robbie!
And Go Purdue!
There. I said it.
.
We see these flags a lot here in Indiana. The image can also be seen on license plates attached to the front bumpers of cars.
She went to Indiana for two years but graduated from Purdue. My son graduated from Purdue. I went to art school in Chicago but my basketball allegiance is with The Indiana Hoosiers for many reasons. We are a house divided.
While she was at IU her roommate was dating one of the starting varsity scholarship basketball players and the two eventually got married. He graduated in '75 and missed playing in the perfect ’76 season and on the eventual national championship team. From ‘75 to ’76 the Indiana Basketball record was 63-1. From then on I watched religiously as IU, coached by the great General himself, went on to enjoy one of the best Big11Ten basketball eras of all time. I am still a big fan and follower of Hoosier basketball.
Many of my friends attended IU so I spent a lot of time on campus during weekends and in the summer. It was as if I went to school there without going to class and paying the tuition. Bloomington has so much to offer for a college town, it’s a beautiful campus and the surrounding area provides numerous opportunities for off campus activities such as limestone caves to explore and abandoned limestone quarries in the wooded hillside areas to swim in. Lake Monroe was good for bass fishing and we rented houseboats there for weekend parties. If you've ever seen the movie Breaking Away you know what I mean. And did they know how to party in Bloomington!
In contrast Purdue was a bit on the boring side. Today there are a lot more bars and clubs near campus but back then there was nothing to do off campus anywhere near Lafayette, IN beside detasseling corn or cow tipping. Boring and flat. Back then Purdue was similar to the University of Illinois with a far better engineering school.
In October of 1987 (the season after the Indiana ‘87 NCAA championship Keith Smart three-point buzzer beater) while working on a marketing campaign for Pratt & Lambert I suggested using The General to endorse their new wood floor care products. The idea sold. My partner Larry and I spent a classic autumn day on campus with the coach along with a professional photographer and a video crew taking promotional photographs and filming trade and instructional videos with him.
Coach Knight was a true gentleman and even took the time to give me pointers while I shot from the three stripe on the Assembly Hall floor, which we had all to ourselves until practice started at 5pm. The coach could shoot for 3’s as if he were a 21 year old missing very few shots. Here’s a photo of the three of us that day. My old partner, Larry, is on the left.
The only time the coach raised his voice was when we first met. He looked at me and very firmly asked, “so why the fvck aren’t you wearing a red sweater?” Thinking quickly after noticing I was wearing a gray sweater responded, “It’s in honor of your playing days at Ohio State, coach”. He smiled and said,"bullsh!t!"
On my shelf in my office is the personalized autographed souvenir basketball that Coach Knight gave me. I have a few Bob Knight stories from that day. Maybe around final four time I will write about them. The man you see unjustly demonized on television is definitely not the man I spent the day with.
We created brochures, specification sheets, sales material, print ads and my favorite, life size cut-out displays of the coach that were used to promote the Fabulon line of floor care products that appeared in home improvement centers. A few years later while visiting Bloomington I saw some of these (obviously stolen) displays in a bar and at the campus bookstore.
During all those years Purdue was one of the few teams close to challenging Indiana for the Big11Ten conference championship. Kentucky was the big rival and Purdue was the Big11Ten rival. I attended a few Indiana Purdue conference matchups at both Assembly Hall and Mackey Arena. One most memorable was in ’75 at Mackey when Scott May broke his arm and went down for the season, crippling the team for a run at the title and losing to Kentucky which went on to the final four.
All that being said (I honestly can’t believe I am doing this) I hope Purdue does well in the NCAA Tournament. I will be pulling for them to go farther than the other Big11Ten teams. The reason? Purdue forward Robbie Hummel is a Valparaiso kid. Everything I see on televised games and what i read and hear locally tells me this is one good kid and a hell of a player.
This kid is only a sophomore yet stood up to the best the Big11Ten had to throw at him in the season ending 2009 Big11Ten tournament. He was named MVP of that tournament. So Go Robbie!
And Go Purdue!
There. I said it.
.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Mind of Maurice Clarett
I would say that approximately 10 years or so I decided to enter the "dark world" of sports. Before then, I was a happy go lucky sports fan, like most. Watch the games, cheer, boo, booze, repeat next Saturday/Sunday.
For some reason, and I can't place my finger on it, I decided to look at the sports glass as half empty. Gone was my hero worship of my younger day. It has been replaced with skepticism, research into gambling rings (some of which I had to stop, but that is another story for another day), wondering why certain spreads and events happened, reading about drugs in sports, and looking at how connections work in the worlds of college and pro sports (you know, the good old boys clubs).
I still remember one day as clear as if it happened yesterday. I was a Cowboys fan when I was a little kid and Roger Staubach was my idol. It was always a BIG DEAL when I would watch the Cowboys on TV. My parents always gave me TV "right of way" to watch my guy. You see, we didn't have cable back then, and there was no satellite. We couldn't afford those things at that time anyway. Not complaining (I never do) just sayin'. I had to rely on seeing the Cowboys on network broadcasts. For some reason, Pat Summerall had a lot of those broadcasts. I wonder if he had a home close to the Dallas area. But I digress.
The day I remember so clearly was one in which I received an autographed photo of Roger Staubach. It was winter, and I would guess my age as being around 9 or 10. I had just played a basketball game against someone and more than likely didn't see much playing time on the floor as usual. My mom for some reason brought that photo along to give to me that day. Maybe it was to cheer me up because I sucked at basketball so much, maybe she had just gotten the mail on the way over. Whatever the reason, I almost sh1t my pants. Here my idol had received the letter I wrote him, and he had taken the time to sign a photo and mail it to me. I still have that photo. It is really signed by a person. Whether Roger signed it or not is a mystery that will probably never be solved, but it made for a great memory for me.
I have no such interest in athletes of this day and age. If someone told me that my favorite player was across the street I would be hard pressed to walk over there and shake their hand. I simply don't care as much about these people as I used to. I don't have as much time as I used to, and the leagues that they work for and things they do off the field, at times, repulse me. I would probably cross the street to meet Matt Forte - that guy seems like a class act so far, although he has only played one year thus far.
This week I read two stories that are far apart, but share the same theme. PJ Hill, the star running back of the UW football team for the last several years, has in the last month received DUI's in two separate incidents, and is lined up for several felony charges here in Madison for leading the cops on a chase and crashing into some property. Reports say he had to be arrested at gunpoint. This is a man who was trying to position himself for the upcoming NFL draft. I saw a funny headline somewhere that said "PJ Hill hates money" and I cracked up. Apparently he does.
The second story is about Travis Henry. Unbelievably, this former NFL player has nine kids, each with a different mother. Henry was an elite NFL running back and was probably raking in some large $$. But now he says he is broke. Nine alimony/child support payments will do that to you, I suppose. Wouldn't you maybe think about a certain surgery after the fourth or fifth one? Still will probably be diseased to the nines, but at least you won't be making any more kids. Oh, Henry is under house arrest in Denver for his upcoming cocaine trafficking trial.
The list of NFL and college football criminals is very long. I don't mean to pick on Hill or Henry, but their two recent stories are part of an all too familiar matter in pro sports. These people simply do not have any real life training. College and NFL teams should do something to try to educate these behemoth athletes that impregnating 9 chicks is NOT smart (just how many did he actually have sex with to get so many pregnant?). Nor is getting a bunch of charges filed against you as you get ready to impress scouts and agents looking for a good RB in the draft.
If you are set up to rake in millions of dollars in a short time frame, it is not wise to have a "posse" or buy a $50m mansion like MC Hammer did. He is broke too. So is Mike Tyson. The NFL, in it's defense, says it tries, but whatever they are doing is isn't working. Hey, don't beat up your wife guys, like Ahman Green did a bunch of times. Stop driving your car at 120! Maybe fame and fortune simply destroys people. But you look at a guy like Tiki Barber - he seems to have done well for himself as have many others. Al Toon locally here in Madison seems also to have done very well.
A theory I have long held, that is simply not provable, is that many of these athletes come from such chaotic and insane upbringings that they have no sense of right and wrong. Can they add? You would think they would be able to see how bad their "posse" is milking them of their hard earned coin and jettison that dead weight. But sadly, no.
Which brings me to The Mind of Maurice Clarett. I stumbled upon this name that I hadn't seen in a while while trolling the intertubes. Lets look him up. Yep, in jail. For those of you who don't know, Clarett was the star running back for tOSU just a few years ago when they won the national championship. To say he got into some trouble is an understatement. Read that wiki for an eye opening tour into the "Mind of Maurice Clarett". He had it ALL waiting in front of him and spiked his own career. Now he sits in a jail cell, and is not able to help raise his almost 3 year old girl.
That last quote is from Maruice Clarett's blog. Yes, apparently in the Ohio jail system you are allowed to blog*. I almost wretched when I read that line. That f*cker is "inconvenienced". Really now. What about society? What about all of Clarett's debtors? If you read Clarett's blog you will see some things that make Clarett out to be a nice guy - he sounds humble and all the rest. But odds are that when he gets out of jail he will be no more of a father to that little girl than he is now. I have nothing to base that last sentence on than my personal opinion. That just seems like it is the way it goes.
The NFL and major college programs should do themselves a favor and try harder to give these guys some life choice classes. Or maybe they just don't care as long as the money is coming in. Either way, it is disheartening to read and see what goes on "outside the lines", as ESPN likes to say.
*The Wiki entry states that Clarett does not have internet access at his prison, and that he sends his entries to family members who post them on his blog. My error.
For some reason, and I can't place my finger on it, I decided to look at the sports glass as half empty. Gone was my hero worship of my younger day. It has been replaced with skepticism, research into gambling rings (some of which I had to stop, but that is another story for another day), wondering why certain spreads and events happened, reading about drugs in sports, and looking at how connections work in the worlds of college and pro sports (you know, the good old boys clubs).
I still remember one day as clear as if it happened yesterday. I was a Cowboys fan when I was a little kid and Roger Staubach was my idol. It was always a BIG DEAL when I would watch the Cowboys on TV. My parents always gave me TV "right of way" to watch my guy. You see, we didn't have cable back then, and there was no satellite. We couldn't afford those things at that time anyway. Not complaining (I never do) just sayin'. I had to rely on seeing the Cowboys on network broadcasts. For some reason, Pat Summerall had a lot of those broadcasts. I wonder if he had a home close to the Dallas area. But I digress.
The day I remember so clearly was one in which I received an autographed photo of Roger Staubach. It was winter, and I would guess my age as being around 9 or 10. I had just played a basketball game against someone and more than likely didn't see much playing time on the floor as usual. My mom for some reason brought that photo along to give to me that day. Maybe it was to cheer me up because I sucked at basketball so much, maybe she had just gotten the mail on the way over. Whatever the reason, I almost sh1t my pants. Here my idol had received the letter I wrote him, and he had taken the time to sign a photo and mail it to me. I still have that photo. It is really signed by a person. Whether Roger signed it or not is a mystery that will probably never be solved, but it made for a great memory for me.
I have no such interest in athletes of this day and age. If someone told me that my favorite player was across the street I would be hard pressed to walk over there and shake their hand. I simply don't care as much about these people as I used to. I don't have as much time as I used to, and the leagues that they work for and things they do off the field, at times, repulse me. I would probably cross the street to meet Matt Forte - that guy seems like a class act so far, although he has only played one year thus far.
This week I read two stories that are far apart, but share the same theme. PJ Hill, the star running back of the UW football team for the last several years, has in the last month received DUI's in two separate incidents, and is lined up for several felony charges here in Madison for leading the cops on a chase and crashing into some property. Reports say he had to be arrested at gunpoint. This is a man who was trying to position himself for the upcoming NFL draft. I saw a funny headline somewhere that said "PJ Hill hates money" and I cracked up. Apparently he does.
The second story is about Travis Henry. Unbelievably, this former NFL player has nine kids, each with a different mother. Henry was an elite NFL running back and was probably raking in some large $$. But now he says he is broke. Nine alimony/child support payments will do that to you, I suppose. Wouldn't you maybe think about a certain surgery after the fourth or fifth one? Still will probably be diseased to the nines, but at least you won't be making any more kids. Oh, Henry is under house arrest in Denver for his upcoming cocaine trafficking trial.
The list of NFL and college football criminals is very long. I don't mean to pick on Hill or Henry, but their two recent stories are part of an all too familiar matter in pro sports. These people simply do not have any real life training. College and NFL teams should do something to try to educate these behemoth athletes that impregnating 9 chicks is NOT smart (just how many did he actually have sex with to get so many pregnant?). Nor is getting a bunch of charges filed against you as you get ready to impress scouts and agents looking for a good RB in the draft.
If you are set up to rake in millions of dollars in a short time frame, it is not wise to have a "posse" or buy a $50m mansion like MC Hammer did. He is broke too. So is Mike Tyson. The NFL, in it's defense, says it tries, but whatever they are doing is isn't working. Hey, don't beat up your wife guys, like Ahman Green did a bunch of times. Stop driving your car at 120! Maybe fame and fortune simply destroys people. But you look at a guy like Tiki Barber - he seems to have done well for himself as have many others. Al Toon locally here in Madison seems also to have done very well.
A theory I have long held, that is simply not provable, is that many of these athletes come from such chaotic and insane upbringings that they have no sense of right and wrong. Can they add? You would think they would be able to see how bad their "posse" is milking them of their hard earned coin and jettison that dead weight. But sadly, no.
Which brings me to The Mind of Maurice Clarett. I stumbled upon this name that I hadn't seen in a while while trolling the intertubes. Lets look him up. Yep, in jail. For those of you who don't know, Clarett was the star running back for tOSU just a few years ago when they won the national championship. To say he got into some trouble is an understatement. Read that wiki for an eye opening tour into the "Mind of Maurice Clarett". He had it ALL waiting in front of him and spiked his own career. Now he sits in a jail cell, and is not able to help raise his almost 3 year old girl.
Incarceration is a huge inconvenience in anyone's life. It has inconvenienced me in the area of having a personal relationship with my little girl.
That last quote is from Maruice Clarett's blog. Yes, apparently in the Ohio jail system you are allowed to blog*. I almost wretched when I read that line. That f*cker is "inconvenienced". Really now. What about society? What about all of Clarett's debtors? If you read Clarett's blog you will see some things that make Clarett out to be a nice guy - he sounds humble and all the rest. But odds are that when he gets out of jail he will be no more of a father to that little girl than he is now. I have nothing to base that last sentence on than my personal opinion. That just seems like it is the way it goes.
The NFL and major college programs should do themselves a favor and try harder to give these guys some life choice classes. Or maybe they just don't care as long as the money is coming in. Either way, it is disheartening to read and see what goes on "outside the lines", as ESPN likes to say.
*The Wiki entry states that Clarett does not have internet access at his prison, and that he sends his entries to family members who post them on his blog. My error.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
It's Not Reform
Illinois, like most states, is in the throes of a financial crisis. Our new governor, Pat Quinn, now is leading the financial and budget process.
One of the few financial areas in which Illinois has a sensible tax policy is with regards to the state income tax. The state income tax is a flat 3%, tied to the Federal form (many other states are very complex, with graduated rates, and they diverge significantly from the Federal returns on key points of logic). Note that the state tax rate is supposed to be 2.5% but a 0.5% "surcharge" was added ostensibly to pay for transit and this was never rescinded. By contrast, Illinois has some of the highest sales tax rates in the nation, with Cook County and Chicago at over 10%, and we have high property taxes, as well.
Pat Quinn has now proposed a 50% tax hike, from 3% to 4.5%. In this requested tax hike, he is extremely deceptive and calls it tax "reform", as noted in this headline from the Chicago Tribune. Mr. Quinn's idea of reform, however, is reform as only a hard-core re-distributionist Democrat could see it - the structure of the tax is now being graduated so earners under a certain amount around $60,000 would pay about the same and high earning individuals and families would pay much more.
Mr. Quinn - here are some ideas for ACTUAL reform, as to how it is defined in the real world, not the act of giving some people the same tax rates and charging others a disproportionate amount:
- Reduce salaries for state employees by 20% - this rate is probably in line with the net reduction in the private sector, when you take into account rising insurance burdens, lack of 401(k) and retirement matching, freezing of salaries, elimination of perks, and elimination of merit bonuses
- Eliminate layers of local government - Illinois has a very large number of government entities, each requiring boards, executives, and tax revenues for support. Streamline and eliminate layers of government and eliminate the revenue requirements for those jobs
- Crack down on false disability claims - government entities are more likely to have employees filing for disability - review the records and purge those that are faking from the roles
- Implement pay for performance, eliminate low performers - require state entities to rank all employees and eliminate the bottom 10% poor performers every year. Unlike a private enterprise, you won't have to worry about having to "force rank" good performers in the next 5 years or so
- Move services to the web - there are myriad government positions standing behind desks or slowly answering phones to provide "service". Move these duties to the web and eliminate the positions where possible, which also will provide better services to citizens
- Review external contracts - review external contracts and also the entities that hold those contracts, looking for conflicts of interest and the like. Pay particular attention to female or minority owned firms that may be fronts for political cronies
- Reconsider licensing and requirements - Illinois has licenses for everything, and a complicated bureaucracy for each one. Eliminate much of the licensing and concentrate resources on areas that are significant for the state as a whole
- Bargain hard with unions - Unions rule Illinois, and extract work rules that are punitive, raises out of line with the private sector, and pension and medical benefits that are bankrupting the state. Bargain hard to reduce these costs, even taking a strike if needed - most services are so inessential no one will even notice
- Eliminate internal inspectors - this sounds counter-intuitive but no important oversight is performed by these bodies - it was the Federal authorities that took down Blago, Ryan, Rostenkowski, and all the rest. They likely just feed information to the miscreants and provide an "illusion" of control. Until the day comes when these agencies actually rival the Federal authorities for "busts" and the like, just get rid of them and let's declare reality, which is that the inmates run the asylum
These items aren't even really partisan - they are just basic good government items. They all apply just as well to Republican or Democratic administrations, both of whom drove the state into its current fiscal spiral.
The newspapers should also hold the governor accountable for the false and misleading rhetoric. There is nothing in a 50% tax increase that meets the definition of "reform".
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Computers and Accounting
Over the years industries change, and are impacted by technology. The famous examples are robots replacing workers on the assembly lines, automated phone systems eliminating the need for manual operators, and the impact of the web on a whole host of systems from journalism to retailing.
One item that has received relatively little attention is the impact of computers on the accounting profession. This article describes the death of a sole practitioner who ran a small firm and was able to do this without utilizing a computer - the rarity of this situation led to the above headline.
When I was interviewing much accounting work was done by hand. Computers were used, but they were mainframes, and they basically held the journal entries that were calculated and supported off line. Accountants had many manual worksheets (21 column paper) where you put down your numbers (by hand), "tied them out" to source documents, and made your calculations. The advent of Lotus 1-2-3 which was ousted by Microsoft Excel and other similar programs eventually automated all of the analysis and workpapers supporting the audit.
For annual reports, they were typed by hand (for smaller companies or pension plans), or sent to an expensive printer for production. Word processors were new and dedicated and difficult to use - we had a print shop full of women (at that time, they were all women) who would take the manual documents and physically type them up and then you'd proof them and send back changes. Obviously this has been passed by with a whole series of programs that allow for this to be done and checked without clerical staff.
For taxes, forms were done by hand. The earliest programs were used for the corporate returns and complex calculations such as depreciation; I remember thinking that there was no way that a computer would be able to automate all the complexities of the tax code. And while the corporate world still is extremely complex, much of the individual tax world can be done with off the shelf programs that allow tax preparers to bring up the prior year return and do them quickly and efficiently, as well as check calculations and for missed deductions.
The interesting thing is that while automation has drastically changed the job of the accountant, eliminating much of the word processing, manual calculations, and forms, the number of accountants has only increased. This is probably due to the fact that computers have allowed the government to come up with more complex requirements for financial statements, and Sarbanes requires myriad more processes to be fully documented. Meanwhile, the tax code has become infinitely more complex, with new laws and regulations coming in a flood.
It seems that Moore's law, the increasing power of technology, has been trumped by the increasingly byzantine power of bureacracy and our elected officials to add complexity. I don't have a name as catchy as "Moore's Law" for this trend, however... but am open for ideas.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Padraig
St. Patrick's Day used to be a HUGE party day for me way back when I was a youngster. I have some Irish in me, as I am a mutt of northern European descent. I also have German, Latvian, and English in my blood (and who really knows what else - hopefully, no French).
Poor St. Patrick - everyone uses the day to celebrate the national saint of Ireland to get totally blasted, especially the youngsters. I especially like the sideshow of eating corned beef and cabbage, and will consume some of that for my lunch today. Well, Happy Padraig to you, and you will notice that we will be green with the text around here today. Since I have to work tomorrow, that is about all the celebration you will get out of me, except perhaps a small scotch later (heh - scots) to toast my Irish roots.
Poor St. Patrick - everyone uses the day to celebrate the national saint of Ireland to get totally blasted, especially the youngsters. I especially like the sideshow of eating corned beef and cabbage, and will consume some of that for my lunch today. Well, Happy Padraig to you, and you will notice that we will be green with the text around here today. Since I have to work tomorrow, that is about all the celebration you will get out of me, except perhaps a small scotch later (heh - scots) to toast my Irish roots.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Shamrock Shuffle 2009
What a great day for a run.
Sunday I ran in a 10k here in Madison called the Shamrock Shuffle. The weather was perfect for this time of year, about 45 and sunny at the start, no wind. My hat, gloves and underarmour kept me pretty warm. As a matter of fact I ended up carrying the gloves to the finish, my hands were sweating so much. My cranium was sweating too, but it was a bit chilly to take the hat off.
I am guessing there were several thousand people running in this thing, many were running the 10k and a lot were running the 5k. They had a staggered start, so the 10k people left first, and about ten minutes later the 5k people left. St. Patrick was even at the starting line to bless us as we left.
It was a very festive atmosphere, and many were dressed in costumes. We had many with leprechaun hats on, those silly antennas with shamrocks on the ends, people in green, etc. I even saw a bunch of easter bunnies running down the street. They had a DJ at the start and before the starting gun they played "Jump Around" by House of Pain. The crowd on State Street all started jumping to warm up. It was pretty cool.
"I'll serve your a$$ like John McEnroe,
If your girl steps up, I'm smackin' the hoe"
Ah, nothing like family lyrics to get the masses moving, I always say.
This race everyone had disposable chip timers - you tie it to your shoe and simply toss it away when you are done.
The course was quite scenic - after we left State Street we climbed Observatory Hill and ran along the southern shore of Lake Mendota for a while, then turned around and ran back. Running back up that crushing hill was NOT fun coming back. Very steep.
At the finish is was very cool - all the way down State Street the course was lined with yelling people, encouraging everyone to the finish. It really helped with a great ending kick.
So I finished in 49.43, averaging 8.01 minute miles. I am very happy with that, seeing that this course had hills - and I usually average 7.5-8.0 minute miles on the treadmill. In my age group (40-50) I placed 31st out of 69, and for all males, I placed 129th out of 301. Upper half, I simply can't complain seeing that I only train for running once a week and that my strength and Muay Thai training probably bring my times down.
Simply a great day, celebrated at the end with a beer for all the hard work. Next up, the Madison Marathon in May, in which I will be running a half marathon. There is also a 20k in between now and then, but I am not quite sure if I will do that one or not.
Sunday I ran in a 10k here in Madison called the Shamrock Shuffle. The weather was perfect for this time of year, about 45 and sunny at the start, no wind. My hat, gloves and underarmour kept me pretty warm. As a matter of fact I ended up carrying the gloves to the finish, my hands were sweating so much. My cranium was sweating too, but it was a bit chilly to take the hat off.
I am guessing there were several thousand people running in this thing, many were running the 10k and a lot were running the 5k. They had a staggered start, so the 10k people left first, and about ten minutes later the 5k people left. St. Patrick was even at the starting line to bless us as we left.
It was a very festive atmosphere, and many were dressed in costumes. We had many with leprechaun hats on, those silly antennas with shamrocks on the ends, people in green, etc. I even saw a bunch of easter bunnies running down the street. They had a DJ at the start and before the starting gun they played "Jump Around" by House of Pain. The crowd on State Street all started jumping to warm up. It was pretty cool.
"I'll serve your a$$ like John McEnroe,
If your girl steps up, I'm smackin' the hoe"
Ah, nothing like family lyrics to get the masses moving, I always say.
This race everyone had disposable chip timers - you tie it to your shoe and simply toss it away when you are done.
The course was quite scenic - after we left State Street we climbed Observatory Hill and ran along the southern shore of Lake Mendota for a while, then turned around and ran back. Running back up that crushing hill was NOT fun coming back. Very steep.
At the finish is was very cool - all the way down State Street the course was lined with yelling people, encouraging everyone to the finish. It really helped with a great ending kick.
So I finished in 49.43, averaging 8.01 minute miles. I am very happy with that, seeing that this course had hills - and I usually average 7.5-8.0 minute miles on the treadmill. In my age group (40-50) I placed 31st out of 69, and for all males, I placed 129th out of 301. Upper half, I simply can't complain seeing that I only train for running once a week and that my strength and Muay Thai training probably bring my times down.
Simply a great day, celebrated at the end with a beer for all the hard work. Next up, the Madison Marathon in May, in which I will be running a half marathon. There is also a 20k in between now and then, but I am not quite sure if I will do that one or not.
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