Posted in General on Sep 17th, 2009
On the day before Labor Day my wife and I went down to the Don Pablos restaurant in Covington to eat, drink, and watch the fireworks. I was not interested in the drinking part so I tried some night time photos using the HI-ISO setting. These are the photos I found most interesting.
Posted in General on Sep 13th, 2009
I was actually amused by the whole “You Lie” affair. Like most Americans I was watching “So you Think You Can Dance!” at the time of the speech. When I heard about the interruption I thought the President had said something no one expected like, “No public option”. I immediately envisioned the Democratic legislators rising and shouting in anger, “Bush-Hitler!” Oops! My bad! My bad! When I heard that an obscure Republican congressman yelled, “You lie!”, I was disappointed. Republicans are notoriously bad at theatrics. Joe should have at least thrown a shoe at the President. Considering the President’s basketball skills I have no doubt he would have avoided the shoe and could then proceed to taunt his opponent with a victory dance. In a moment of political unity both legislators from both parties would then rise and start jiving to “You Bad! You Bad!” Now that’s entertainment!
Posted in General on Jun 6th, 2009
On Thursday at an end of the year award ceremony my son accepted his ROTC scholarship. His award was sandwiched between awards for admirable accomplishments in athletic and scholastics. Yet in a touching display the audience rose and clapped. Even though I know that they rose and clapped in previous years for students who accepted [...]
Posted in General on Apr 21st, 2009
Slate has a pretty cool dramatization of the unemployment trends in the United States. Click here to go to their site to watch the animated graph. I have an image copy of the last page below. I think the graph does a great job of showing the impact of the collapsing real estate bubble and [...]
Posted in General on Apr 10th, 2009
Posted in General on Feb 24th, 2009
Great article on one of the primary reasons we have a financial crisis. With the Gaussian copula function Wall Street traders finally had the ultimate tool to calculate risk. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and The Black Swan are two good books that help explain that these events occur periodically throughout history. [...]
Posted in General on Dec 29th, 2008
My son received a nomination to West Point from our Congress woman, Jean Schmidt, this month. She was gracious and had a little party to celebrate all of the nominations. After she handed out the certificates she was peppered with questions about the recent bailouts. The questions were friendly but pointed. It has been a [...]
Posted in General on Dec 2nd, 2008
For those interested in e-commerce statistics, the folks at Chase Paymentech provides us with the Pulse Index. They say that the average dollar value for an order is a little smaller than last year but there are more orders. When you look at total sales, the Internet retailers should be seeing slightly better than last [...]
Posted in General on Oct 5th, 2008
I think that the Wall Street Journal has finally noticed the crisis affecting local government for the next couple of years. In the article titled, California’s Dilemma, they point out the problem with the northern California city of Vallejo going into bankruptcy court to break labor union contracts. When you combine the price of real [...]
Posted in General on Jul 27th, 2008
With the imminent signing of the housing bill you have to wonder when the financial situation is going to improve at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I think it is fair to say that the stock prices fully incorporate the lack of faith the stock market has with these organizations. If you look at stock [...]
On this day, the Virginia Tech community reflects on the vibrant lives of the 32 students and faculty who were tragically taken from us a year ago. Through light, art, and music we pay tribute to each and every person we lost. We gather to honor our friends, colleagues, and family members. We will never forget.