Senior night

Obligation prevented me from attending the game in person. My eyes had to observe it through the unfree vision of television. Her A isn't the same as her A. Similar, not equal. The team I cheer won. 22 wins and counting. Tears for the seniors and cheers for the team in their final home game of the 2008 season. It was a beautiful night.
Georgia Tech 76
Virginia Tech 43

Peaking at the right time.

800

High congratulations to coach Vivian Stringer. Last night, her Rutgers team held Depaul to 46 points, 34 points below their season average, on their way to a 60-46 win. It was the 800th win in Coach Stringer's career. In the first ever women's NCAA basketball championship tournament, Stringer lead Cheyney State to the championship game against Louisiana Tech in 1982. Last year, Coach Stringer lead Rutgers to the championship game against Tennessee. In 1993, Coach Stringer lead Iowa to the final four. She became the first coach to lead two different schools to the national semifinals. She lead Rutgers to the final four in 2000, after only four and a half years as head coach.
In 2001, C. Vivian Stringer was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

For Mike

#7 Stanford 60- #8 Cal 58

3

Around the bend where the creek babbles smooth and the honeysuckles hang free over a shallow bank, a brick chimney is all that remains from a fire-leveled human dwelling. No one died in the fire. I go there on warm spring days with curious-hearted, insecure people. It's relaxing. It teaches a good lesson about how most things are temporary. There will always be fire. Live your life as though there's fire burning in your heart, mind or soul. Nature loves me and I respect Nature. Rather than being afraid of Nature and trying to crew cut everything that grows or killing everything that doesn't stay in it's pen, enjoy and respect nature. Humans pose a much greater threat to existence. Of course, existing with Nature requires some good sense. Nature is more powerful than any human ever met.

zip

Rainy and cold. Still not spring.
We did a lot of KOAing when we were kids. We never met Marilyn Monroe or saw huge waves. We did see a few Airstreams. I loved the way they looked on the outside. A lot of people talk about how "comfy" they are on the inside. Comfy is a tent and a sleeping bag and a female with an attitude and a "funny accent." Airstreams have a unique look and the story of their company is interesting.
The founder of Airstream was Wally Byam. He was born in 1896 in Oregon. As a teenager, he was a shepherd "living in a two-wheeled donkey cart outfitted with a kerosene cookstove, a sleeping bag, and a wash pail." After a stint with the merchant marines, attending Stanford, and publishing a magazine, he began to make trailers in his backyard in LA. 300 companies were making "travel trailers" during the 1930's. His was the only one to survive the Depression.

"learn to buck up"

Tune in, turn it up, throw back. Living on a razor thin margin of sanity precludes a wide range of social interactions. Making a mess of at least one life requires some blame tossing name games. Danged if you do, danged if you don't, though. We can blame the government, the Christians, the Muslims, the Communists, the capitalists, the socialists, the humanists, the Rastafarians, or just any group we want to for the ills that ill us. Why do they hate us? They don't hate us. They just hate you. Porque demando proque?
Sing with all your heart every song that you love.
there's not enough of it
Look for all your worth at everything that you love.
vision is limited
Smell deep that beautiful scent of the human you love.
they may not stay on earth
Dance with every ounce of energy you have every day.
it's good for the heart

It's not my parade yet, but I'll tag along behind the marching band. Yes, I will dream. Good parents, silk b-ball nets, grass infields, tall trees and shade, creek swims, summer watermelons, and the comfort of autumn fill a lot of my dreams. Gotta practice for Heaven. Just clap yer hands. Everybody, now.

It's raining and it's great. The reservoirs got low last summer, so we need every drop of rain that we can get.

un

Let's start over. We could push that big red easy button a couple of times and laugh about ending up in Uncle Walter's polyester slacks on a rotting dock in Mississippi on a lazy pond. We could laugh about anything. Really. I could laugh a lot about the way my socks just disappear. Nothing disappears, ever. Well, after discounting politician promises and dirty white boy boasts, but nothing past that, nothing actually disappears. That could be the starting point. Points hurt, so maybe it would be better if it were a place. Yeah, some neat place with barefoot dancing and some sick piano and saxophone duo barreling and soothing even the most anxious soul. It's not that I want to go back. It's just that a lot of neat people have died this year and it's just wrong that they died. Their deaths bring out a meanness and a compassion in me. I want to jump on and be mean to the hands of murder. I want to hug and love everyone that I know and don't know. All humans everywhere, we are connected.
Time goes in one direction always. Am I going to miss another moment to be better? The symmetrical and white washed moments televised, crisp and clear, straight into my cerebral mesh laugh a lot about my asymmetrical, unpainted world. Too much goofing off and smiling at dog barks and singing birds, energetic though it may seem, increases my debt to the beauty in life and earth. Earthdog? Lifebird? out of time again ...

throwing it on the fire

It was windy today. The wind had a chill with which it chilled. The sun was bringing the heat for all it was worth. It was an exciting feeling. Maybe similar to St. Thomas in the Alpines. I'm really excited. We have a big target in the sky and the big gun to bring it down. How can you not be excited about that? They ought to call off work on Thursday, have marching bands in every town in America and a big bonfire on every Main street. This is big, Wally! "Sorry folks, sky's closed." Boogie children.

"subprime mess"

Here's a good summary: click. "...he began to observe both fly-by-night mortgage brokers and major banks taking what he deemed "extremely unsuitable risks," using outlandish interest-only and adjustable-rate mortgages to get customers into houses they could not otherwise afford."

"Leveraging original research on which regions, credit scores and home types were most likely to default, Burry pinpointed hundreds of tranches he believed were most vulnerable to a potential wave of foreclosures and defaults. But there was still no way to easily short-sell these tranches, so he asked the broker-dealers who handled his derivatives accounts to let him know when such a method or instrument was created."

"In mid-2005, Burry's contact at Deutsche rang to say that the bank's credit-derivatives desk had decided to offer credit-default swaps on those subprime-mortgage-backed tranches. A credit-default swap is essentially an insurance policy that pays off if its targeted instrument -- a tranche, an entire mortgage-backed security, a collateralized debt obligation or a company -- goes belly-up. Buyers must pay an annual premium, at a rate set by the marketplace, for a contract that pays $10 million, for example, in the case of a default. The buyer can continue to pay the swap premium for years waiting for an expected default, or he/she can sell the swap at a profit to another buyer.

European and Asian pension fund managers hungry for yield at a time of low global interest rates were avid buyers of the type of insurance-premium income that Burry was paying. Because the subprime tranches were rated investment-grade, the buyers thought they were relatively safe and thus were getting money for nothing."

"In contrast, Burry thought it was nuts for someone to take the other side of these trades, believing that in two years enough borrowers would default to make the swaps trigger a payout. If he paid $130,000 a year for the swap for a couple of years, he figured that a $10 million reward was an awesome deal. You could make 12 to 30 times your money -- or more if you borrowed the money that you used to make your payments."

It's going to be a tough few years for real estate. It might be a good time to pick up that vacation home or rental property.

quotes

"Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company."

"I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an Honest man."

"My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual, and physical education that I received from her."

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

These are four quotes from George Washington from an article posted here. So often people drown in their need to socialize and end up hanging out with anyone. The people that we hang out with influence our behavior. What's truly sad about that is not that people end up doing things deemed unacceptable by a code of etiquette that they've rejected as antiquated and irrelevant, but that their own unique individuality is negated. Rather than striving for honesty, we simply accept that people will lie and end up without a measure for examining who we really are. No one is perfect and no one is honest one hundred percent of the time.

"space may be the final frontier"

After the recent shooting at Northern Illinois University that took five vibrant and beautiful lives, I wonder what lesson are we not learning. Maybe "we" shouldn't be in the question. What is it that I'm not learning. Do I love myself so much that I'm ignoring the suffering of others? Am I unclear about how important it is to listen when other people are expressing their needs? Whatever it is, I'm doing something wrong. Death is a reality that we all have to live with every day. Murder isn't a reality that we have to accept as unpreventable. A higher sense of how precious life can be would be a good start. Believing that human life is a beautiful experience is the essential mindset. There is never going to be one hundred percent agreement between everyone ever. Human beings are always going to fight, whether physically or verbally. Fighting isn't the problem. Preventing the final step that crosses the boundary between respect for human life and violence is the essential "lego" to a solution.


"but it's made in a Hollywood basement" Red Hot Chili Peppers

ice cream

There's nothing like reading about ice cream an hour before lunch to get even hungrier. Well, maybe one thing, but nothing else with your clothes on. On the web yesterday at MSN Money they posted an article from Business Week. I didn't know that Ben & Jerry's and Breyer's were owned by the same company. Yep, Unilever. That's a terrible name for a company owning ice cream icons. A few years ago, I couldn't get enough of Edy's. Edy's is owned or produced by Dreyer's, which is owned by Nestle. It seems like they changed their look and it requires some serious investigation after work today. As much I enjoy ice cream, the numbers really impressed me. $59 billion annual worldwide sales is a lot of ice cream being consumed.
Ah, found it. Edy's Dreamery line. Good. Dang. The Dreamery line has been discontinued. There's nothing to work for anymore.

"should I just get along with myself"

Today on MSN Money dot something, Michael Brush wrote an article entitled, "Follow 2 geniuses into drug stocks." I'm not an active investor in the market, but it's been so volatile that it's captured my interest. I'm so glad that I read this article. "Chemotherapy is incredibly clumsy. The treatment also kills healthy cells, which can create serious problems. Now that's changing. Doctors can use a test from Genomic Health that can determine which breast-cancer patients will be helped by chemo. Patients like the test for obvious reasons. Insurers like it because the test, called Oncotype DX, can save the $30,000 or so that chemo costs per patient." Thanks, Michael Brush. This is very good news. Now it is not that good that people can profit on people being sick. It is good that the incentive for profit can generate funding for research and development. Free market.

"and watch the clouds fall from the sky" the killers

daytime is cool

Nothing brilliant to add after another beautiful day in paradise. Maybe calling someone on the telephone just to say "hello" and actually interacting with a human being outside of work would be a step in the positive direction.

Endymion called me last night.
Why?
Said he was trying to increase his interaction with human beings outside of work.
That sounds like something he would say. Where does he live now?
Tomahawk Street.
In Beauxdean? I never see him.
He says he rarely gets out.
What does he do?
He said he didn't want to talk about work. He works at an ether widget plant, though.
So what'd ya'll talk about?
Remember when my cousin from Wisconsin stayed with me for two weeks one summer?
Sorta.
Well, he did. He said that we were walking by the schoolyard one morning when they were playing baseball. He said that when he saw us, he got "inspired" to do something to get our attention.
Did you remember this?
No. He said that he had seen some guy do a back flip off a pickup truck and thought it was really cool. There weren't any pickup trucks around the school, but there was a tree. So he said that he went running up to the tree to try doing a back flip off of it.
Awww. He did all of that and you didn't see any of it?
Well, he didn't do a complete flip. He said that he got "upside down" but didn't bring his feet back over his head.
Oh no.
Yeah. He said he fell down on his head, cut his ear, got his breath knocked out, and bled all over his shirt.
( )
It wasn't that funny.
( )
Stop it. You're gonna make me sta... ( )
( )
( ) Stop. ( )

today

Today was very beautiful. The wind was cool and the sun was warm. It was a good day to be alive. Right now, the night sky is clear. The stars are warm and bright.
Yesterday was "Think Pink" day at the game. The team wore pink uniforms to raise awareness and give support to families affected by breast cancer. It was a good game and it's a very good cause.


189

rag

I really enjoy rag to riches stories. Today in my email, a guy named Richard told me about how an injury forced him to give up his job in the Navy as a bridge officer. He said that once he was out of the military, he had to take a job driving a truck "just to survive." Things got bad for Richard and he ended up nearly $100,000 in debt. Something really good happened to him though and now he makes $400,000 a year working just three days a week from the comfort of his home. It was really thoughtful of him to share his story with me. If I worked from the comfort of my cave, I'd end up spending all my time blogging rather than doing things to generate income. I don't make near $400,000 a year, but I'm not $100,000 in debt yet either. Heck, if I made that much money in a year, I'd take a few years off and do a little swimming in the Mediterranean.
It's really beautiful outside today. The wind is cool and the sun is warm. My little self is going to be out in it shortly. A girl that I went to school with is coaching a sixth grade team in a tournament today. They won an exciting game yesterday.

Winds

Winds and rain across this unique spinning rock and the pop of sky fire. Some jump and some smile and some try to be counted and some don't ever try at all. Only the rare don't ever have to count. The winds are measured and the gold is balanced but the sweet glory in effort makes most numbers zero. Whether stacking bags of trash or building cathedral walls, everyone can find a purpose. So many things to do, so many opportunities to do them. The rain feels good and even better in spring. One could read the words and move the body against gravity and air to cherish the potential in every moment. Breathe deep and strive. There's an abundance of people waiting to wake up and hear their go word. It's all meaningless unless there's meaning in anything.
Stand and strive.

one chromosome too many

etov

Technical difficulties. Sorry that I can't share any photographs from the weekend.

Our youth team did good on Saturday. Passing and defense. They still haven't picked up on running the offense during game time, but they understand it well enough in practice. We had one player out, but everyone who played scored a bucket. Good day.

On Sunday, we trounced Florida State. 18-4 on the season and now 5-3 in conference. Miami on Thursday and then the stout Tar Heels on Sunday. UNC is undefeated in the conference. They waxed Duke last night at Duke. I'm really looking forward to Sunday. They beat us by more than twenty earlier in the season. Their talent level is higher than ours, so it's going to take some incredible hustle to stay with them.

Virginia Tech played a super game against Maryland. Maryland is just so talented and despite being down by 21 at one point, they beat the Hokies in overtime by three. There was a lot of good basketball on television last night.

There's something important going on today but it seems to be slipping my sleepy mind.

cool

Seems like Resse Witherspoon and I are related.
"From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor. They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA" said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.
This explains my fascination with dark eyed females. Sorta.

we won

They started throwing humans at half
time.
We won 77-59 though. Now 17-4 on a pretty solid season. Florida State is next on Sunday.