Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving

Asher's first Thanksgiving went well until he started getting cranky and wouldn't go down for a nap. I sometimes wonder what Hell could be like and I think about the worse things in life. How about a screaming crying baby who is overly tired and won't go to sleep? And all you do is try to put him to sleep for eternity. Just got him down listening to his Smashing Pumpkins xylophone music. I almost like the xylophone versions better than the originals and I'm a huge fan of the Smashing Pumpkins so that says a lot.

My beautiful wife made me a wonderful T-day dinner. A couple of the highlights were her amazing cranberries that she cooks with Port.....yum, and the Crunch-Topped Sweet Potato Casserole. The casserole is not just a dish but an experience. It begins with the anticipation from smelling it when it's cooking and then on the first taste at the dinner table letting some of that pound of brown sugar that goes into making it slowly melt all over your taste buds. If you haven't experienced the Crunch-Topped Sweet Potato Casserole, you just haven't experienced one of the pinnacles of the Thanksgiving feast.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

200,000 Club

We currently have 214,000 miles on our 1996 Toyota Corolla. I've been a high mileage car owner pretty much all my life. Just recently we bought a 2 year old xB, so that's the newest car I've ever owned. One day I'd like to say that I was a member of the 300,000 club, but the problem is I only put about 15,000 miles on a year. I guess I could just go out and buy a car with 275,000 miles on it, but that's cheating. You have to put in your dues through the 100,000 miles in the 200,000 mile club. So far the casualties on the Corolla in the 200,000+ range is a broken parking brake and new spark plugs and wires. I'm going for it. 6 years to go......

If you would like to join the 200,000 mile club:

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/cars/2007/09/200000-mile-clu.html

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Asher Week 13

I've been extremely delinquent posting pictures of Asher. We are already on week 21. I'll slowly catch up, but for now here is week 13:

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Credit Default Swaps

Anyone fully understand a Credit Default Swap?

"A credit default swap (CDS) is a credit derivative contract between two counterparties. The buyer makes periodic payments to the seller, and in return receives a payoff if an underlying financial instrument defaults. CDS contracts have been compared to insurance, because the buyer pays a premium, and in return receives a sum of money if a specified event occurs. However, this is a slightly misleading comparison because the buyer of a CDS does not need to own the underlying security; in fact the buyer does not even have to suffer a loss from the default event" - Wikipedia

I'm convinced the 700 billion bailout we just went through had much to do regarding Credit Default Swaps. They were illegal on Wall Street for almost 100 years and became legal in 2000. Is it just me or does that definition from Wikipedia sound like gambling? 60 Minutes aired this piece on October 26: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4546583n.

I Hate People

It's amazing what comes out of our mouths when we are at our peak of anger and frustration. Yes, i said, "I hate people" Friday morning. I had an extremely bad morning at work. My laptops hard drive died so I had to reload windows and lost some important documentation that couldn't be recovered. I was also confronted with a slew of problems that I couldn't get resolution in a timely manner.

It didn't help that the biggest problem was caused by another employee in my department who didn't document anything and most likely either remembered wrong, or never checked what the IP address was on the device so he randomly chose an IP address in the lot for that area and knew someone else would eventually be called to fix the issue. I could go further with this, but I have decided I need to confront this person on Monday. It wouldn't be right to sit hear and vent anymore negativity about this individual.