Roofing

I was trying to get to the shade shelters today, but gave up when I realized it was getting late and I had a bunch of writing and other stuff to do.

Then Kyle said he didn’t have to work, so that freed up about 90minutes that I was planning on getting ahead with editing. Instead I did my run and then went outside.

My plan was to drop the metal and tools off by the shade shelter to get them out of the trailer and then get started. In between getting the back of the trailer open and dropping the metal I had to walk back for snips (couldn’t drag all 11 pieces out at once), the saw to cut the edges down to 18 ft, and the dogs.

Once I get set up, I lifted a piece up on the roof, grabbed the drill and screws, climbed up, carefully aligned the top and sides and …

climbed back down and took it down. The screws were hex drive, not Phillips, so I had to the garage for the nut driver. From there it was getting dark, about 6:00pm, so I raced back, put my piece up there and screwed it down in about 5 minutes. It was so quick I decided to go ahead and do another one, putting the second one up there and getting into two rafters and securing it. I think it looks pretty good, but of course I can’t tell because it’s dark. My guess is when I walk down Saturday it will take about 20 minutes to get everything done on this shelter.

Then my guess it will take longer to get the 4 pieces to the other shelter than it will to screw them in.

AC

It’s the end of the summer and we’re getting the AC hooked up. We had paid to be a part of the service company last year with the furnace replacement and part of that service is a free set up checkups. So I had the furnace and electrical guys yesterday and the plumber next week.

When they replaced the furnace they didn’t hook the AC back up last winter. We found out when we called someone this summer because the AC wasn’t working and they came out. They wanted about $1500 to hook it up and we declined. When the guy came yesterday he was actually annoyed and said they should have hooked it up. He scheduled someone and a new guy came today and got it hooked up.

It’s 70+F, not quite warm enough, but it’s good to know we have it ready for next year.

The Wood Whisperer

I’ve seen this before, but thought this first episode on the Gadget Station, something I want to build, was pretty good. Watching it as I do some busy work.

This is the type of site I’d like to do.

Attention

The kids are home today, no school for teacher conferences, and it’s tough. They are demanding some attention, asking for help, needing a bit of management.

And I’m trying to get stuff done so I can ski tomorrow.

grumble, grumble.

All 4

All 4 major sports are in season here in the US. With the World Series not completing and the NBA opening last night, we have quite a bit of sports vying for attention. I’m really only interested in 3, and mostly football. Basketball has too long a season, though I would have liked to see some of the Laker’s game last night if I weren’t so tired. Football is the weekend, though I have the Giants/Pitt game on TiVo that I want to watch a bit of.

There’s been a lot of talk about the World Series being suspended in the 6th inning. If the Rays win, I can see the Phillies being upset, and rightly so, but you can’t end the World Series because of rain. I didn’t see the same, and  I don’t want to second guess the decision. Sure you could have ended it in the 5th, but I’m sure they were hoping things would continue as is and they’d get the entire game in.

In any case, I’m not sure the Rays can come back. I could see them winning 1, maybe 2, but I’m not sure they can win 3 in a row. The Phillies look good.

Twirl

Hit 33,000 on Facebook this morning while taking a break. A new personal record.

Tia introduced me and it's rather addicting. I played a bit last night, trying to get over 10,000 a few times, but was on a roll today. It's like quick Scrabble, taking a series of letters and coming up with all the possible words. I wonder if it will make me a better Scrabble player.

Early Starts

It seems like I'm up early every day lately. With Tia out of town, I'm up at 6 each morning (or earlier) as I make sure Kyle is awake and get him to the bus, then the little ones up and out the door.

On one hand I like getting up early, I feel like I'm getting a jump on the day and these mornings are a time I'm fairly productive. I tend to work quicker and get more done early on in the day.

On the other hand, my eyes hurt. They're sore and my body reminds me of my age as I try to get up and move around. Not that a later start would help that, but it does mean that last hour of the night I'm beat. I really feel worn out, and maybe that's not a bad thing. It definitely prevents me from working too late into the night.

7 Weeks

Day 49 in the books. Jammed up on time and the other blog is down, so here's the deal. 1.26mi, 13:30min, 247 cal. Trying to fit everything in before Girl Scouts.

Down

Imagine my surprise when I found out that my Daily Runner blog is down. Apparently Google thinks this is a SPAM blog, or rather one of their automated tools does. I reported it as a real blog, and hopefully it will come back. If not, I'm seriously ticked about this. 48 days of blogging, noting my runs, tracking data and it's gone.

Grrrr.

Here's what I got from my request:
Your blog is disabled

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on October 28, 2008. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.

Recognize the Crisis

If any of the candidates would recognize that we have an energy crisis and truly point the US towards independence, I'd vote for them. Watching the T Boone Pickens short below from 60 minutes, I don't think he's a great person, don't really agree with what he's done in life, but I do think he recognizes this crisis and it's not about money for him.

It reminds me of Kennedy challenging the US to put a man on the moon. Someone needs to seriously push to remove at least 50% of our dependence on oil, not foreign oil, oil period, in the next decade.

Security Tradeoffs

Interesting commentary from Bruce Schneier on Obama's words about security and trade-offs. Note this is not an Obama endorsement from me or Mr. Schneier.

Sidekick

I got a new phone going yesterday. Actually I'd snagged it off ebay last week, but it didn't arrive before I left for Orlando. A busy Monday means I didn't get it set up until late in the afternoon and even then I'm not sure how half the buttons work.

Tia and I talked on the way to the airport yesterday. I said the iPhone, which I'd seen a few of them over the weekend, just worked better. It's mostly the browser, but it's also just very intuitive, something Apple seems to do well. The Windows Mobile devices aren't bad, but they have a bad battery life. Blackberry's don't make sense to me, at least not off the bat. The Sidekick isn't a lot better, but I'm catching on quicker.

We'll see how well it works. Perhaps I ought to consider moving off TMobile to ATT.

Editor

I'm an editor. That's the title I give to people, it's what my job is, or at least part of my job. I get to write, but I also have to dig through the submissions that come to SQLServerCentral and somehow determine if they're worthy for publishing and get them scheduled.

I used to get relatively few submissions, 2-3 a week and for the longest time that meant I had to solicit or find 1-2 a week on my own. We've rerun content on Fridays, so I had 4 new ones a week that I needed to get. Things have changed now and I tend to get at least 4-5 a week from all over the world and in all levels of quality.

That's good in many ways. I don't have to write my own, or bother Andy or Brian to write one each week, which is the way it was for quite awhile. We scrambled on some weeks trying to get something done for the newsletter. It also means I don't stress about it since I'm typically a few weeks out. Actually I scheduled content today (I batch it up) and I'm scheduled through Dec 1.

However the quality has gone down. With so many people sending things in, I find that most of them don't write well, especially those from outside the US. I can't say I blame them since English is very hard with all it's inconsistencies. I do need to go over the articles more carefully and often results in 2-3 drafts from them with me sending it back with comments. I hate to rewrite their article and try to give them hints, but when I'm sending back almost as much as they wrote (by character count), that's frustrating. It does make me feel I should rewrite things.

I went through lots of content last week, sent a bunch back for rewrite and then thought I was good to go to Orlando on Thursday. When I checked my queue on Friday afternoon, there were about 15 articles in there and I dreaded going through them. Actually about 6 of those were videos from Red Gate, so those were easy and I went through them first this morning.

Since then I've been editing articles, making comments on some, cleaning others up, and I wound up with about 6 good articles to schedule, along with 4 that I'd edited last week. So I got a good schedule of stuff done, but I still need to get through 2 or 3 more that I can send comments back on. So more work tomorrow before I can put articles to bed for a few weeks.

The Cube Hits It Again

Mark Cuban is right. We need to remember the spirit of America and ensure we promote that. People that make the country work well and grow it aren't concerned about income taxes. They might be concerned about deductions and taxes they pay on employment, benefits, etc. as a business, but they're not going to start or not start a business based on anything else.

We have the ability to build tremendous businesses here in the US. To me the thing we need to stop doing it protecting every large corporation from competition, which is what a lot of our patents and copyrights do. Limit those protections. We'll always do better by having more businesses rather than few ones.

Making a Lid

When I got home, it was just the boys at home. As soon as I walked in, Delaney gave me a hug and then asked if we could make a lid for his project at school. He had a large can that he's putting things inside, and he wanted a lid.

So we measured some space and went to the garage. I cut a semi-round piece of wood and then we put it on the lathe. I rounded it and then let Delaney try to cut it. He did OK for a few minutes with my guiding him, but as soon as I let go he didn't keep his hand on the guard and caught the edge, giving him a little pinch on his fingers.

He decided that holding the vacuum hose was much better and we got a lid turned. I started to cut another smaller piece to glue on top as a handle, but then got the idea to make a pseudo-book to glue on top. I took both to Delaney and he thought the book would be a good artifact for inside and to use the round lid as the handle. So I glued them, sprayed a little paint, and called it quits.

Home

Finally and I am beat. I traveled all morning, getting up at 6:15 to get to the airport, moving through Houston with a long layover (had a bloody mary), then a crying infant next to me on the flight to Denver and nothing would help her. She slept about 15 minutes of the flight and I felt bad for the Mom.

Then home, helping Delaney with his school project, video'ing Tia a little, it's cold, just did a run, had to get an editorial done.

I'm ready to shut things down.

Debating the World

We had an after conference get together and about 30-40 people showed up. We were kind of spread out and really talking in small groups. It was interesting and finally about 6 or 7 of us were left and got going on politics and life.

While many of us disagreed on some issues, and it was amazing to see people disagreeing on one thing, and then agreeing on another as we moved around topics. I found myself disagreeing with many positions, but it was a spirited and interesting debate. I need to write more on it, but I'm too tired now.

My talk went well at the event, better than expected, and now I'm beat, with an early flight. Definitely looking forward to getting home.

Discussing SQLSaturday

It's interesting to sit and talk about the SQLSaturday events that my company has set up for promoting training. I haven't seen one in person, tomorrow being the first one, though I've talked to Andy a lot about what's going on. It's almost deja vu to see things happening in front of me that I have talked about so much in the past.

It was good to also see Rachel and talk to her. She has such a different perspective from me, and a different job, but it helps me to learn more about Red Gate spending a couple days chatting through things.

Tired now, stayed up too late. And I have more to do tonight.

All Day

It feels like I've been in airports all day long. I left the house at 4:15am this morning, not sure I had my cell phone, but in a hurry to get to the airport for a 6:05am flight. Through Houston, arrive a little after 1 in Orlando. Eat, work a bit, waiting for a fellow Red Gate employee, Rachel, to arrive at 3:15. I get about an hour of work done before the battery dies. Don't feel like searching out power now.

There are two flights arriving then, one a BA, one Virgin, both baggage claims on opposite sides of the hotel. Virgin gets delayed, so I go get my car organized, then walk to the BA baggage claim. The lady there tells me it will take about 45 minutes to get through customs. Great, I sit around waiting, eventually about 4:15 I realize she's not on this flight. What to do? The Virgin is delayed until 5:00 and for all I know she's not on it. And they won't be out until close to 6.

I decide to hit the hotel, run, and then come back and get her. I get to the car and realize I don't have my contract. No idea what happened, but I lock my bags in and walk back to get a new copy. That kills time until 4:55 and I decide that I should just wait.

So I do, and she's through quickly, paging me about 5:30 and we head to the hotel.

Slow through traffic, but we get here and I just finished a quick run. Now time for dinner.

@$#$%^#%345 Qwest

We have almost daily issues with DSL out here. Just as I was thinking how lucky we were not to have problems getting boradband out here in the country, I realize we do have issues. It all of a sudden started a couple months ago with flakiness, but now at least once or twice a day we’ll lose connectivity for a few minutes. DSL stays up, or appears to, but we lose connectivity to the Internet.

Sore

I am very sore today, after starting back at karate two nights ago. Between that and running, and being unable to stop myself from pushing hard during "A" week, which is lots of boxing drills, everything is sore. Arms, lats, back, legs, it's been a rough week. I'm thinking a nice easy run tonight, do my 1.3-1.4 miles nothing else.

My plan had been to lift on Wednesdays, but I think I'll hold that off and try for Friday now.

Dauntless

I found this book, and this series, after Amazon recommended them to me because I'd gone thorough Old Man's War and The Lost Colony. I wasn’t sure from the description if I’d like it, but I grabbed a sample on the Kindle and let it sit there for a few weeks.

I finally went through it and got hooked after surviving the first few pages of setting up the scene. I realize now I should have slowed down and enjoyed those first words.

Black Jack Geary was one of the first captains to fight in the war between the Alliance (our good guy humans) and the Sydics, or Sydicated Worlds, a corporate like group that enslaves planets and people. He managed to get a convoy through an attack, saved other ships and remained behind, only to have his ship destroyed and he was killed.

Supposedly.

He managed to eject in an escape pod, which all ships have, and he remained frozen in there for 100 years until he was found by an Alliance fleet. The book opens with Geary summoned to the bridge of the flagship. The admiral is surrounded and is taking all flag officers to negotiate surrender with the Sydics. He puts Geary in charge of the fleet, expecting to be back soon.

When he’s executed along with other officers, Geary has to assume command. He’s a legend and much of the modern fleet’s thoughts, attitudes, and actions are based on his legend and what they know of it. He has many admirers, but just as many captains that are reluctant to follow him. His first action, getting the fleet away from the invasion force is resisted, but they follow and he escapes with the fleet, heading away from the Sydic homeworlds

It’s a great story, reminding me of The Lost Colony in that there’s relatively little action and a lot of interacting with people, trying to lead and convince people of why he does things. We see a lot of Geary’s internal thoughts and struggles and I really enjoyed it.

My only complaint is the book ends after their second light speed jump, still far from home, and it ended abruptly. I thought my Kindle had frozen at first since it wouldn’t go to the next page. Then I realized it was done and immediately bought books 2, 3, and 4 of this series.

Skiing 2008

When Arapahoe Basin opened last week I was wondering what the conditions were like. There were people on the webcams, but really only one run going.

I checked the webcam today and it’s much better, there’s snow there! The third picture down had now on the left side of the trees for a run, but grass, lots of grass, under the lift. 6 days later it’s much better.

Getting a little excited.

A Lunch Trip

After re-shooting two podcasts that were without sound (not much fun), I raced up to north Denver over lunch to pick up metal to roof the shade shelters. I was thinking I could do a little roofing this afternoon and edit things tonight, but I could see a storm rolling in up there and I couldn’t outrun it. By the time I got home it was starting to rain and way too windy to put metal on a roof.

Tia said I should worry about lightning, and perhaps I should, but that wasn’t something I was that worried about. Probably stupid testosterone at work here.

So with cold weather coming and me being jammed up with this trip I likely won’t get to this until Sunday at the earliest.

Politics

I asked for opinions today in my editorial on data ownership and copyright. I wanted them in email, and I was curious (and a little afraid) about what would happen. I’ve only gotten about a dozen and they’ve been interesting.

Surprisingly most of them have been from people that are leaning to the right, supporting McCain and they have ranged from well thought out perspectives to emotional, almost hate-filled diatribes on Obama’s crimes. I even had this site, Obamacrimes.com, which is interesting. Obviously that is a site against Obama, and it seems a little whacko to me. This couldn’t slip through. If President Clinton got crucified for a blow job, you better believe that the GOP would not let this slip by for Obama. He’s a citizen.

I need to republish some of the stuff I’ve gotten and the responses. However I have to strip out names and stuff first. Everyone has the right to their opinion, but I don’t want to publish someone that does not want to be published.

Back to Karate

Delaney and I went back to karate tonight after about 3 months off. It felt great, I had a good workout and wasn’t too rusty. I worked with one of the older kids and so I had to slow down a bit. Not a big deal, sweat was still dripping at the end.

Back to Karate

Delaney and I went back to karate tonight after about 3 months off. It felt great, I had a good workout and wasn’t too rusty. I worked with one of the older kids and so I had to slow down a bit. Not a big deal, sweat was still dripping at the end.

Got to Suspend This Guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWt1tGTHdkc

Referee tackles QB.

The Rays are in!

I'll admit I was worried. I'd been hoping they'd sweep Boston after taking the first two in Boston, but then thought Boston might pull one out after winning the third with that comeback.

Last night I was watching the 8th inning, just hoping that Ortiz would hit into a double play. He didn't, but they got out of it and then I had to turn it off in the ninth because of a sick girl. I taped it and so I'll try to watch it today after my run. Now I'm rooting for the Rays. They've never been there, they're in a better place than the Rockies were last year and so I'm hoping they pull it out.

The Cowboys are a mess. Romo makes a big difference and it's good to see that since I wasn't completely sold on him, but more I think their defense is the big problem. Ever since the opening game against Philly, who I don't consider to have a great scoring defense, they haven't been able to stop anyone. It seems to me that apart from Ware, they line isn't great, the secondary is slow, and they don't play well together.

Right now I think that Buffalo looks good, though I want to see them against New England. Not that NE is a big test, but psychologically it will be. They have a soft schedule, so they should lead the AFC.The next 4 weeks will be interesting for Tennessee as well. They'll be tough, or should be with Indy, GB, Jacksonville in there.

Indy doesn't look great on defense and I'm concerned they couldn't score on GB. Denver is up in the air, but it appears the the Chargers want to give them the division and Pitt is tough. right now I'd say Buff #1, Pitt #2, Tenn #3 for the AFC.

In the NFC it's the Giants that appear to be the best, but I think Wash is pretty good. They've been susceptible to mistakes and they've had some luck, so I think that GB and Chi might be next in line to the Giants. The South and West have been too inconsistent. So my picks now are NYG, GB, Chi, Wash

Swaying me

Colin Powell endorses Obama. As noted by professor Lessig, a powerful argument.

Two Breakfasts

I had a bar and coffee while doing a touch of work this morning and then Tia came in and asked if I'd like to have breakfast. She had to go meet the painter for our rental and she was thinking we could take the Ks and stop at iHop.

So we did and had a nice breakfast out, something that we used to do a couple times a month but haven't done in a long time. Enough time had passed that I didn't think I was eating too much and it was really like brunch for me, with me not likely to eat for awhile.

I even snapped a few pictures and the lady sitting next to us took one of all four of us.

Quite the Debate

for my poll on The Financial Crisis. The problem I see is that the people posting and crafting good ideas for the solution aren't those that are in trouble or caused the issues. I'm not sure how we get the others involved or to change their ways.

Bailoutsleuth

This is great, Bailoutsleth from Mark Cuban. This is the kind of thing that the government should do.

Perhaps there's a reason to black out the compensation, but I don't think so. This should be listed.

A Kid Day

For the most part it's been a kid day. First we had the football fiasco with the wrong time. So I drove to Elizabeth, didn't play, then picked up feed for Tia and came home. I got to run and then an hour later we drove back to Elizabeth to let Delaney play.

His team did better, and down 13-12 at halftime, they came back to win 25-13. No great plays, but they played hard and stopped the other team on defense. Delaney didn't do a lot, but he blocked OK, he sealed the outside on defense and was kind of cringing as someone got close. Luckily his teammates caught the guy and tacked him. He also freaked a little on a receiving team, but when his team scored he was excited and ran down there to congratulate the kid.

Afterwards they had a small celebration at Sonic. They still have a party, and their coach was saying that they could practice next week and he'd try to have them a game, but a few parents said they weren't coming and I'm not sure Delaney should. I'll be gone and I don't really trust the coach to keep kids safe. He threw a pass at a kid today way too hard. I had to say something to him, as I thought it was way out of line.

In any case, on the way home Delaney fell asleep and then we saw the school packed with cars. Kendall realized it was Trick-or-Treat street, so we ran home, let her change, let Delaney stay home and went back to spent 90 minutes of her walking around getting candy and playing in the gym on the jumpy stuff.

I finally got home around 4:30, a friend here for me and we chatted a bit before he headed home. Then a beer, some homemade guacamole I made, and I'm ready to call it a day.

Football - Delayed

Our coach is an idiot. We show up, walk around trying to figure out which of the four fields we're playing on, only to encounter 8 other teams. No space for us.

The coach tries to figure it out and one of the other Dads talks to a few teams and figures out we're playing at noon. So 13 kids were out there early, with perhaps 10 parents. Not a great turn out and I wonder how many will come at noon and how many might show up after we leave and then not come back.

It's annoying to me, but disappointing to the kids and it makes the experience less enjoyable. I did talk to Delaney a bit and try to pump him up a little for next year. He's not necessarily thrilled and when I mentioned playing for the Hawks, he said he didn't want to play competitive. I tried to explain that I don't think he'll play much, but I like their organization and that it's good for him to learn to work with a team, something he's not getting much of this year.

The Fall Carnival

Last night was the annual Scout Fall Carnival. My kids like Halloween, but it's not a huge deal. That's good since we don't want to spend a lot of time or money on costumes. This year Kendall wore her glitter girl soldier costume from last year, which just about fit. It's still a touch large, but she likes it and looks cute with her hat pulled down.

Delaney wanted to be a soldier as well, though for the first time in a long time he didn't have any camo clothing. So I bought him the pants and shirt seen her yesterday so that he'd be ready to go. With gloves and a hat, he was more of a hunter, but he liked it.

The carnival was in a local high school gym, a little subdued and quiet, but the kids had fun. Kendall loved the rope swing, the old climbing rope hanging for the ceiling. Delaney seemed to have fun with a few friends, walking around and talking more than anything.

I thought they'd want to leave early, but they were having fun and stayed, even asking if they could keep swinging as we cleaned up. A nice, quiet time and I got to talk to a few parents that I haven't seen much this year.

Moving the Blog

I've been starting to use more offline tools, want to save drafts, get feeds and more. So over the last month or two I've been looking at trying to upgrade the blogging engine at dkranch.net to something else, but there hasn't been a simple solution. In fact, there hasn't been one that I really liked or thought I could put in without a lot of work.

I've set up a couple blogs on Blogger (The Daily Runner and Contact Hitting in Business) for a few subjects that I've wanted to keep track of. I also had one on Live Spaces for Energy, but I'm not thrilled with Live. As a matter of fact, I think that blog is moving over here ASAP.

Finally today, in trying to create some links, I decided to just move the dkranch blog to Blogger. It works well, it has Adsense so I can try to offset some of the costs of doing things, supplement my Amazon habit, etc. I looked at Wordpress and Typepad, and wouldn't mind trying them, but it's hard to justify paying for their services and this is a great loss leader for Google. Plus it just works better.

So I'm updating the dkRanch to come over here, eventually I might update the code there to read this feed, but for now, since that's in ASP and not ASPX, I'm leaving it alone.

Old Taxes

Apparently taxes aren't put to bed yet, at least not for the immediate time. We got a collections notice a few months ago from the Commonwealth of Virginia. I called them and it turns out that our 1998 taxes had a difference from the IRS.

That's 1998! So much for seven years and from what I saw in a search on the Virginia site, amounts owed last forever. No statute of limitations.

I called Virginia and they said there was a difference between what we filed and what the IRS sent them. Why it's coming up now I have no idea, but apparently it is. Luckily I had the 1998 taxes, so I copied them and sent a copy to the Department of Taxation in Virginia.

I get a letter the other day that they need a "transcript" from the IRS, not the tax return I have. So I go through automated system heck this morning with the IRS and the system says they don't have 1998 taxes. It could be a glitch, so I'm thinking I'll just send the form in, but in the meantime I called Virginia.

They say the IRS only has one dependent listed. So they look around and say they'll bump it to a supervisor, but that won't be until Monday. So I'm stuck waiting until next week to deal with this.

What I Want in a Candidate?

What I want in a candidate?
- Nuclear power.
- No more drilling until oil companies use their leases.
- All US citizens get to buy into Federal health care
- No changes in benefits for Congress without a ballot
- Digital rights for people, expand fair use for non-commerial purposes
- Drive the transportation industry forward to use alternative energy somehow
- Every person in the US serves the country for 2 years. Military, civil service, peace corp, whatever, but they do this between 18-22.
- Tort reform, limit class actions, limit legal fees.
- CEO pay reform (or executive pay reform)
- Get the @#$@@ out of Iraq
- Free trade agreements with more countries, reducing their limitations.
- Balance the budget
- Election reform, set limits on fundraising, extra funds go to the deficit, not the candidate, term limits, something reasonable like 3 terms Senate, 5 House.
- Zero based laws, pass one, remove one.
- PE in school every single day.


Probably more, but I'm getting tired.

The Election

Both candidates annoy me. Maybe I should run?

Eye Exams

Well my eyes were healthier. The left one needed a slightly stronger prescription, but not by much. With tired eyes, I'm not surprised. I have them wander back and forth between -4.75 and -5.00 the left one hitting -5.25 today, but basically the same as it's been for 15 years.

Delaney had his exam as well, and his eyes are worse. With his glasses he was 20/60 in the left, 20/40 in the right. Without, he's worse, so he needs new glasses as well. Hopefully his don't deteriorate much more. In any case 5th grade is about when mine went bad, so he's tracking well with my life.

Not Worth It

Kent, our UPS guy, brought a couple packages as I was getting ready to head to lunch. I haven't seen him in awhile, so we stopped and chatted for 10 minutes about life, the economy, etc.

I told him that one thing I thought was that no CEO is worth a $10mm bonus or more. No one sways the company that much and they shouldn't be paid that much ever!

I came back from lunch to this story about Larry Ellison of Oracle being eligible for an $13.5mm bonus this year. He's a heavy handed executive and in many ways the face of Oracle, but he's not worth it. It's a waste of money, he doesn't affect the revenues that much, at least not without lots of people delivering other value for him, and he's not worth it. Honestly I'm not sure anyone is worth more than $1mm a year in salary and $1mm a year in bonus tops. Not when most people make less than $50k a year. Even at Oracle there are plenty that make < $100k and I think a CEO making 100x the average is ridiculous.

Where To Put Your Money Now

Interesting post from Mark Cuban. On one hand I hate to disagree since he's the billionaire and I'm not, but I'm not sure this is completely correct. He never spent a lot of time where I a, a job, mortgage, working along. He had a company he owned and got rich relatively quick.

Mortgage provides some good breaks on my taxes, not the least of which is allowing me to itemize deductions. It also allows me to forcibly save on my house while I can still save elsewhere. It's hard to force savings and if I didn't have a mortgage, not sure I could put all that other money to savings.

Discipline is hard.

No Braces

for Kendall today. The brackets didn't fit. Try for next Wed.

Taxes

Done, finally. We filed extensions and delayed, both Tia and I hating the process. Finally the CPA gave us a deadline of yesterday, which is when things got done, actually Tuesday, and Tia drove down to pick them up, sign, and send them off.

Oct 15, when we've been filing the last few years.

The good news is that we have refunds coming. Actually we overpaid on Apr 15, so we'll get money back that we can use to pay off a 2nd on one of the townhouses and also help with Kyle's car.