Well, its Wednesday now

Well, its Wednesday now
I know that I should have had a post up on Monday or Tuesday. I was side tracked with school and other running around stuff.

Life happens.

I was busy on Monday with getting ready for my Tuesday morning class. I had lecture notes to prepare. I ended up with six pages of lecture notes. Then, I had the class to teach that night.

Tuesday was a long day for me. I didn’t get to bed until a little after 11:00 PM on Monday so that made getting up at 5:30 AM difficult. After class, I ran bunch of errands like going to thhe market and picking up some shirts from the laundry.

I did sleep very well last night. I went to bed around 10:00 PM or so and slept, without waking, until 5:30 AM. I felt refreshed when I got up today.

The Writing Clinic
It looks like my effort to help students with their writing skills and abilities has been a failure. Apparently, they would rather laze around on Saturday and not improve their minds or skills. I had two students show up for the first session and the following two sessions have had no students show up.

I won’t be wasting my time next term on this effort unless the school offers to pay. I doubt the school will so I will find other ways to spend my free time.

Good luck students; you are on your own now.

Giuliano’s
I swung past Giuliano’s on my way home from school on Saturday to pick up some lunch and a small salad for dinner. I decided to have a hot Italian sausage and pepper sandwich with cheese and marinara sauce, mostly because it has been a ling time since I had one. I also bought a small antipasto salad for my dinner; the sandwich is more than a meal in itself.


The sandwich was perfect in every way although the Prelude smelled of marinara sauce for a couple of days afterwards. The smell was gone for the most part by today.

My friend Sharon
My friend Sharon called me on Sunday night. I was about to send her an email about the Spring skiing in Salt Lake City. Sharon is a skier. The snow level was a 115 inch base with two inches of fresh powder.

Sharon said that I should have taken her with me to Salt Lake.

That would have been an interesting idea but I pointed out that she already has a steady boy friend and I doubted that he would understand very well if she went to a fraternity event with me in Salt Lake over a weekend.

This was one of Sharon’s I’ll check up on Charles phone calls I think.

Anyway; Sharon suggested that it was time for our old group from work to get together for lunch. We used to have lunches on a quarterly basis with each one of us picking up the check on a rotating basis. I have been waiting for Sharon to schedule a lunch for us for a couple of years now.

I won’t hold my breath until we have lunch again. I just do not look good with a very blue face.

Molly the Stylist
I went to see Molly the Stylist this afternoon for my regular hair cutting or styling as she likes to call her work. I suppose some may ask why I drive so far out of my way to visit a hair stylist; certainly, there are plenty of competent stylists in Redondo Beach.

Those folks are probably right about driving out of my way.

But, I don’t see any reason to stop going to see Molly to have my hair cut. Molly does an excellent job and always gets my hair right. My hair grows out smoothly and I don’t start to look shaggy until a couple of days before I see her.

Then, there is the side benefit of seeing Molly. I get to drive the Prelude again on the freeways in the middle of the day when traffic is not too bad. I do so enjoy tapping the accelerator on the Prelude and being able to quickly change lanes and go forward, especially when it is warm and sunny in Southern California, just like it is today.


This doesn’t seem like a lot of activity to me. I know I was busier than it appears from the blog entry. Oh well, live long and prosper.


Be well and stay happy.

Perfecting the Two Hour Nap

Perfecting the Two Hour Nap
As many of you know, I am being treated for colon cancer with chemotherapy. I had been undergoing chemotherapy treatment since December 2007. One of the consequences of my treatment is that I tend to get tired from time to time. This is largely a function of my teaching schedule. A late night class where I get home around 10:40 PM followed by an 8:00 AM class the next day is a real killer for me.

My simple solution has been to take a short afternoon nap or go to bed right after dinner around 7:30 PM. That is a little too early for bed time for me since the sun is still up.

I have gotten the napping down very well. I can hit my bed and nap for about two hours and wake up refreshed and relaxed.

Perfectomundo.

I will be the first to admit that I am looking forward to the two week long quarter break at the end of May. I will enjoy being able to sleep in for two weeks except for my jury duty time which should be a day or so long.

Visitors
Visitor traffic fell off last week to 612. This happens from time to time. Even with the fall off, the blog is on track for one of the best months ever in terms of visitor traffic. Most of the visitors are from outside of the United States.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by the blog.

Chuckay Events
Chuckay, a month long celebration of all things Chuck, is rapidly sharing up. Chuckay is an extension of Douguary; it is something that Doug and I do to celebrate our birthdays.

Doug and I will be going to lunch at the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers in Westminster on May 2nd. We will follow this with the traditional Chuckay Birthday Dinner at Morton’s the Steakhouse on May 16th. We don’t celebrate on the weekend closest to my birthday because that is Mothers’ Day and I don’t want to be in a restaurant then.

Doug does take his mother out for Mothers’ Day dinner. Good son.

One of my old coworkers from the bank invited out for a drink after work on May 8th to celebrate my birthday. She said she was going to invite one of her girl friends as well because her girl friend thought that I had a nice smile.

Fascinating.

Then, to make things even better, my friend Elaine from Hawaii is coming to the Mainland in May and we are planning on having dinner on the 20th. Elaine has been one of my oldest friends with our friendship dating back at least 15 or 16 years.

I will have two sessions with Dr. Karen in May and I will see Molly the Stylist for a hair cut in May. I’m not certain if these can qualify as Chuckay Events or not. I will ask Doug what he thinks when we have lunch.


Be well and stay happy.

Weekend Update Lately

Weekend Update Lately
I am highly confident that the blog traffic did not decline because I was not posting as I usually do. I went to Salt Lake City for a college fraternity reunion event. I left on Friday after not seeing Dr. Karen and returned home on Sunday afternoon.

Dr. Karen and Me
On Friday, it was Dr. Lisa and me. Dr. Karen had a patient emergency in the hospital so she missed my early morning appointment which turned into a mid-morning appointment. Dr. Lisa was thorough but she did not have the detailed knowledge of my patient file. Dr. Lisa gave me another prescription for Xeloda and that was about it. My tests were all good.

I will get to see Dr. Karen next on May 8th, right after my birthday.

An almost perfect birthday present for me.

The oncology nurses seemed to love the Fairy Tales Brownie calorie bombs. They were excited as they opened the box. When I told them that I was not responsible for snug fitting hospital scrubs after consuming the brownies, they all giggled.

Wendy and Vrunda took my blood pressure on Friday. They said it was slightly higher than usual. I said it was their fault for looking attractive and raising my blood pressure. They giggled at that thought.

University of Utah Football from the Associated Press
Red And White Play To A Tie At Utah Football Spring Game

Red team's touchdown with no time left ends the game in a draw.April 18, 2009
SALT LAKE CITY - The Utah football team's annual Red-White ended in a draw Saturday, 35-35. The game, which signifies the end of spring ball, ended in an interesting fashion. As the Red team came out to try for the game-winning extra point kick, the White squad flooded the field, taunting Red's special teams. The snap was fumbled, the extra point missed, and the game ended in a tie.

Despite the carefree finish, head coach Kyle Whittingham was pleased with the effort shown by his team. "I think this game was very clean and we put in a lot of good work," said Whittingham. "We had some playmakers emerge. Aiona Key, Brad Clifford and Elijah Wesson had a nice outing. I just think the whole game was a positive. Nobody got hurt, which at this point and time is the No. 1 issue. We came out of spring drills very clean with just some bumps and bruises."

Trailing by six points, the Red team, led by junior quarterback Corbin Louks, marched down the field and found the end zone on a controversial play with no time remaining. A defensive penalty as the clock ran out allowed the offense one more chance to score from the 1-yard line. Louks tried to take it in himself, only to fumble, but it was recovered by Red freshman wide receiver Ryan Lacy, to tie the game at 35-35.

Louks finished the game 22-of-33 for 322 yards, with three touchdowns and one interception. For the White team, junior quarterback Terrance Cain went 13-of-18 for 113 yards, while freshman signal caller Jordan Wynn was 8-of-13 for 158 yards and a touchdown. Neither White team quarterback was intercepted.

"I thought all three of the quarterbacks did a good job," said Whittingham. "They made good decisions. It's turned into a three-man race it looks like. Initially it was Corbin and Terrance, but Jordan Wynn has closed the gap considerably and I'd say right now he's a viable candidate for the job."

Senior wide receiver Aiona Key, playing for the Red team, led all receivers with nine catches for 85 yards and two touchdowns. Clifford, a tight end for the Red squad, had 128 receiving yards, including a 65-yard touchdown catch-and-run that saw him bowl over one defender and stiff-arm another on his way to pay dirt.

Freshman running back Sausan Shakerin led all rushers with eight attempts for 49 yards and two touchdowns for the White team. Red's leading rusher was junior Eddie Wide, who gained 11 yards on five attempts.

Utah special teams converted 2-of-4 field goals as sophomore Coleman Peterson hit from 23 yards and junior Joe Phillips knocked one through from 42 yards out. Peterson missed from 23 and senior Ben Vroman was no good from 26.

Utah opens the regular season against Utah State on Thursday, Sept. 3 at 7 p.m., at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

My Trip to Salt Lake City
I did not go to the football game because I was a little tired. I am not used to the altitude in Salt Lake that is close to 5,000 feet in elevation. I think my flat is about 250 feet above sea level, just high enough to avoid being wiped out by a large tsunami.

Mostly, my trip was about my college fraternity reunion.

My friend Scott called me on Thursday and asked me to take part in the recolonization ceremony. The fraternity chapter lost its charter over some hazing issues a few years ago. Now, it is on its way back to becoming a full, functioning chapter of the fraternity. My part in the ceremony was small. This meant that I did not have any chance to take any photos of the ceremony.

Not a great loss I should think.

I took some photos at the dinner dance on Saturday night. They are mostly of friends and acquaintances. The dinner itself was a nice banquet dinner of roast beef and mashed potatos along with a salad. There was a nifty dessert for dinner.


I stayed at a different hotel this year. Usually, I stay at the Marriott Downtown Salt Lake Hotel. It was sold out so I ended up the Marriott City Center Hotel, all over four blocks away, in part because of the Salt Lake marathon that was held on Saturday morning. It is the closest hotel to the finish live.

The City Center hotel was built for the 2002 Winter Olympics and, as such, is much newer then the Downtown hotel. The Downtown has been refurbished in the last year or so. They are both fine hotel properties. Going forward, I will make City Center my hotel of choice in Salt Lake.

I liked the City Center hotel because it was so quiet on the weekend. The other hotel is the closest hotel to Temple Square and the Salt Lake Tabernacle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints. If you are a young Mormon couple, the best place to be married is the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Because of the very close proximity to the tabernacle, the hotel is filled with families and wedding parties. It is also on the noisy side.

The City Center is smaller than the other hotel and that was fine with me. I went into the hotel bar on Friday night for a quick dinner, no food service on the Delta flight from Los Angeles. I was amazed to find the bar was filled mostly with women; highly unusual in Salt Lake. I had a club sandwich and a bowl of really thick and rich tomato soup.



The only complication that I had in Salt Lake was the annual marathon which ran right past my hotel and blocked off most of the streets in downtown Salt Lake. I ended up having to drive about five or six miles out of my way to get around the blockades.

That was not so terrible or difficult for me.

Other Odds and Ends
I had a phone call on Monday afternoon from Verizon, one of my cell phone service providers. The caller was checking up on me because I am close to a year of being out of contract with them. When you are on a month to month basis, subscribers have less loyalty to the carrier and are more likely to change since the cost is only USD$5.00. The really odd part about the phone call was that he called me on my AT&T cell phone.

My niece the Nutritionist would be proud of her Uncle Chuck. I have been eating mostly fish and chicken for my dinners. Last week, I had fish for four nights. The Nutritionist is also an ultra marathoner so I think she would find the Salt Lake Marathon a challenge for her because of the altitude; she lives in Seattle along with the Princess and the Nephew.

The first part of the marathon course is all downhill. That is easy to run I would think. The bulk of the race course is flat. The only difficult part is maybe the last five miles and those are a gradual rise. That would be the real challenge.

I was checking the visitor traffic to the blog as I do from time to time. I noticed that some Marines visited the blog last week. Excellent.

Semper Fi Marines.

Obviously, there was no Paulina Garces for me this weekend. I have to wait until Sunday for that minor pleasure of life.


This has been what I have been doing lately.


Be well and stay happy.

I've Been Busy

I’ve Been Busy
Yes, I have been busy lately. Most of my energy has been directed at getting ready for my trip to Salt Lake City this weekend for a college fraternity reunion. I had to arrange for a substitute for my Saturday class and make sure she had all of the necessary information.

Then, there was blood test Wednesday. The test went well as far as I could tell. There was hardly any discomfort or pain when the needle went into my arm. I will get the results of the tests tomorrow when I see Dr. Karen.

I also spent part of Wednesday at the Nissan dealership while the Pathfinder was being serviced. I graded papers while I waited for it to be repaired. I also wasted three hours on Monday, waiting to get picked by the Honda dealership’s shuttle driver so I could pick up the Prelude.


The Prelude was so nice to drive after it came out of the dealership. It holds the road better than the Pathfinder and it is much more maneuverable. Curves are such fun for me now. I ended up driving much faster than I normally do and I burned more gas than usual. My gasoline mileage dropped off to about 26 miles to the gallon. If I pay attention to how fast I am driving, I can probably increase the mileage by a mile or two per gallon.

We had an increase in visitors for the week. 913 visitors stopped by the blog for whatever reasons. This was a 40% increase, week over week. The foreign visitor count has held fairly steady at around 65 to 70% of the flow.

I do appreciate all of you who stop by the blog.

Then, I played Nice Guy Chuck this week for my friend Sunny. Sunny and I have been Internet acquaintances for almost four years now. We first started chatting when Sunny was a senior at university in China. She wanted to chat with a native English speaker to improve her English. Sunny found me on ICQ. Sunny asked me to proof-read a paper for one of her graduate school classes. She is attending Clemson University in South Carolina and will graduate this Spring with a Master’s degree in Sociology. I finished off reviewing her paper this afternoon.



I am very ashamed to say that Sunny’s writing and English is much better than most of my students. These students, for the vast majority of them, are all native English speakers.

I got a phone call from my friend Scott who lives in Salt Lake City this morning while I was teaching. I had to call him back which I did after lunch.

Scott called to ask me to be part of the Founders’ Day ceremony. It is a simple part; I light a candle and say one of the original founders’ names.

Simple enough for me.

Then, Scott gave me the local weather report. It was snowing while we were talking. It was not that much of a storm but it was still cold and wet and damp. He knows that I used to be sensitive to the cold so he wanted me to dress accordingly.

I can do that. All I need to do is zip in the winter lining on my raincoat, take my wool scarf and gloves from the closet and I am ready to hit the snow. I checked the weather on MSN.com this afternoon. The forecast calls for warming slightly and no snow for the rest of the weekend. I will still take some boots that I have so my feet can stay dry.

The trip to Salt Lake City means that I won’t be posting another blog until Monday or Tuesday, depending on how I feel next week.

I hope you all have great weekends; I know I will.


Be well and stay happy.

Student Dreams and Student Phone Calls

Student Dreams and Student Phone Calls
This was one of those weeks were I bounced around, literally in the Monday shuttle ride from Hell. I also had other nice things happen. The most unusual, for me anyway, revolved around former students of mine.

I have found that teachers who care about their students tend to attachments to them or maybe it is the other way around.

Today, I received an Easter greeting from one of my former students. Granted the greeting was a simple text message, it was still a very nice gesture. It was the only non-verbal Easter greeting that I received.

I received the greeting while I was preparing my tax returns for the year. Obviously, this was something that I was not expecting.

All in all, it was a very gesture.

Then, yesterday, as I was leaving the school building, using the stairs for exercise instead of the elevator, I ran into one of my favorite former students. I think all instructors have favorite students although in some cases they may be remembered for all of the trouble they caused.

In this case, she is a favorite student and one that I have mentored in an off and on manner.

She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, talking with her classmates while they waited for their instructor to open the classroom. When she saw me, she sort screamed, “Oh my god Mr. R, I had a terrible dream about you; I dreamt that you died and I was so sad.”

Not the usual response.

She went on to say in her dream that, “Doug had called her and told her that I had died.” Then, she went on to say that she woke up and then called her BFF who is also one of my favorite former students. Her friend said to call me and reassure herself.

That was not a viable option since she did not have my home phone number; I turn my cell phones off at night to save the batteries

I told her that I am fine and that I am doing well with my medical treatments. I didn’t mention the less than wonderful experience that Doug and I had with the colorectal surgeons on Wednesday.

That made her feel much better and brought a sparkle to her eyes. She said that she really liked me when I wear colorful shirts. I was wearing a yellow shirt with blue stripes on Saturday. Wait until she sees me in my Aloha shirts.

I have often wondered if students ever think about me after they leave my classroom.

Now, I have an answer. Some do.

Perfectomundo.

Visitors
Last week was another good week for visitors. We had a count of 652 visitors which was up slightly from the prior week’s count of 649. Most of the visitors, 65% or so, come from overseas. The most popular pages are still the same with January 1, 2007 being the most popular with over 70% of the traffic.

I do appreciate all of you who stop the blog, now in its fifth year.

Paulina Garces
I missed Paulina’s infomercial yesterday because I had my class and writing clinic at school. I didn’t get home until around 2:00PM. I did manage to catch her newest infomercial today.

It was a particularly good infomercial since Paulina was wearing shorty shorts. Paulina was also wearing platform high heeled shoes. She looked taller than before.

Excellent.



I suppose there are some who might say that publishing photos of Paulina or any other model or actress, for that matter, is demeaning and sexist. I prefer to take a different point of view. These images were downloaded from Paulina’s web site; she decided to place them out in the ether. I am merely an additional distribution point.

The Prelude
I will be picking the Prelude up on Monday morning, finally. The work was finished late on Friday.


The work on the Prelude should have been finished by Thursday easily. Unfortunately for me, the dealership did not start working on the Prelude until Tuesday. I wish I would have known that because I could have avoided injuring my back in the shuttle ride.

I was also told by the service advisor that the technician did not work on my car straight through. He was called away to work on other cars that came in. I wish I would have known about that because I could have considered other places to have it serviced.

Hopefully, the service advisor will remember to have me picked early on Monday so I can enjoy driving the Prelude again.

Fairy Tale Brownies or the Calorie Cluster Bomb
My order of brownies for the Oncology Clinic nursing staff arrived on Saturday in perfect condition. I call the package a Calorie Cluster Bomb because when you open the box, there are 18 rich and heavy, calorie laden dark chocolate brownies.
The company says the brownies can be refrigerated or frozen. I guess that they can; but, in the five year I have been giving these away as gifts, they have never lasted long enough to require refrigeration.

I expect the nursing staff will enjoy the brownies, everyone else has.


That was the end of my week. Happy Easter.


Be well and stay happy.

Student Dreams and Student Phone Calls

Student Dreams and Student Phone Calls
This was one of those weeks were I bounced around, literally in the Monday shuttle ride from Hell. I also had other nice things happen. The most unusual, for me anyway, revolved around former students of mine.

I have found that teachers who care about their students tend to attachments to them or maybe it is the other way around.

Today, I received an Easter greeting from one of my former students. Granted the greeting was a simple text message, it was still a very nice gesture. It was the only non-verbal Easter greeting that I received.

I received the greeting while I was preparing my tax returns for the year. Obviously, this was something that I was not expecting.

All in all, it was a very gesture.

Then, yesterday, as I was leaving the school building, using the stairs for exercise instead of the elevator, I ran into one of my favorite former students. I think all instructors have favorite students although in some cases they may be remembered for all of the trouble they caused.

In this case, she is a favorite student and one that I have mentored in an off and on manner.

She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, talking with her classmates while they waited for their instructor to open the classroom. When she saw me, she sort screamed, “Oh my god Mr. R, I had a terrible dream about you; I dreamt that you died and I was so sad.”

Not the usual response.

She went on to say in her dream that, “Doug had called her and told her that I had died.” Then, she went on to say that she woke up and then called her BFF who is also one of my favorite former students. Her friend said to call me and reassure herself.

That was not a viable option since she did not have my home phone number; I turn my cell phones off at night to save the batteries

I told that I am fine and that I am doing well with my medical treatments. I didn’t mention the less than wonderful experience that Doug and I had with the colorectal surgeons on Wednesday.

That made her feel much better and brought a sparkle to her eyes. She said that she really liked me when I wear colorful shirts. I was wearing a yellow shirt with blue stripes on Saturday.

I have often wondered if students ever think about me after they leave my classroom.

Now, I have an answer. Some do.

Perfectomundo.

Visitors
Last week was another good week for visitors. We had a count of 652 visitors which was up slightly from the prior week’s count of 649. Most of the visitors, 65% or so, come from overseas. The most popular pages are still the same with January 1, 2007 being the most popular with over 70% of the traffic.

I do appreciate all of you who stop the blog, now in its fifth year.

Paulina Garces
I missed Paulina’s infomercial yesterday because I had my class and writing clinic at school. I didn’t get home until around 2:00PM. I did manage to catch her newest infomercial today.

It was a particularly good infomercial since Paulina was wearing shorty shorts. Paulina was also wearing platform high heeled shoes. She looked taller than before.

Excellent.

I suppose there are some who might say that publishing photos of Paulina or any other model or actress, for that matter, is demeaning and sexist. I prefer to take a different point of view. These images were downloaded from Paulina’s web site; she decided to place them out in the ether. I am merely an additional distribution point.

The Prelude
I will be picking the Prelude up on Monday morning, finally. The work was finished late on Friday.

The work on the Prelude should have been finished by Thursday easily. Unfortunately for me, the dealership did not start working on the Prelude until Tuesday. I wish I would have known that because I could have avoided injuring my back in the shuttle ride.

I was also told by the service advisor that the technician did not work on my car straight through. He was called away to work on other cars that came in. I wish I would have known about that because I could have considered other places to have it serviced.

Hopefully, the service advisor will remember to have me picked early on Monday so I can enjoy driving the Prelude again.

Fairy Tale Brownies or the Calorie Cluster Bomb
My order of brownies for the Oncology Clinic nursing staff arrived on Saturday in perfect condition. I call the package a Calorie Cluster Bomb because when you open the box, there are 18 rich and heavy, calorie laden dark chocolate brownies.
The company says the brownies can be refrigerated or frozen. I guess that they can; but, in the five year I have been giving these away as gifts, they have never lasted long enough to require refrigeration.

I expect the nursing staff will enjoy the brownies, everyone else has.


That was the end of my week. Happy Easter.


Be well and stay happy.

Muddling through the Week

Muddling through the Week
I have managed to make it to the middle of the week without any significant disturbances in the Force or my life.

Well, maybe I did have a significant disturbance in my life. On Monday, I took the Prelude in for service to have two transmission gaskets replaced. The gaskets were over twenty years old and original equipment on the Prelude, wearing out is not unreasonable.

What was unreasonable and a significant disturbance was the shuttle ride from the dealership to my home. I don’t think this ride will rank up with the near death experience that Doug and I had with the shuttle ride in Atlanta from the airport to our hotel. But, this ride did come close.

The driver did not know what he was doing. Instead of asking all of the passengers where they lived, so he could plot a route that would inconvenience the fewest. He only asked one passenger, who lived the furthest from the dealership, where he lived. The driver went there first.

The driver managed to hit a very plainly marked speed bump dead on, going about thirty miles an hour. I suffered a wrenching twist and agonizing pain in my lower back that has lasted almost three days now. I hope it goes away soon.

Our ride’s misery inducing suffering was complicated by having an older person as the next stop. He had only limited awareness and very less ability to provide the driver with directions. I am convinced that this older person has limited mental abilities because he drove past a Honda dealership that was barely a mile from his home to have his Honda serviced at my dealership in Torrance.

Just because you buy a Honda from one dealership doesn’t mean that you have to return there to have the vehicle serviced.

I will pick up the Prelude on Friday morning.

Perfectomundo.

I went to see the colorectal surgeons at the hospital this afternoon. This is my once every six months visit. I took Doug with me as my backup.

I saw a new doctor, a resident. This means I will never see him again because of how the hospital rotates the residents. The new doctor was bright and personable, unlike the last surgeon I saw there.

I had to correct the errors in his understanding. He had almost every point wrong. I wonder if he was reading from my file. He said that he understood that I had reservations about a liver laperotomy. I told him that I was always in favor of surgery and reconnection of my colon since I first had a consultation with the colorectal surgeons. I find it to be discouraging to have so much misinformation in my medical records.

The new doctor tried to find the long missing and probably lost Tumor Board report on me.

He was unable to find the report.

Doug made a joke of it, saying the department has a long history with us of losing documents.

Things will be better, medically speaking, next week when I have my regular appointment with Dr. Karen.

Be well and stay happy.

What Passes for Excitement for Me

What Passes for Excitement for Me
What exciting things did I do this weekend?

I drove on our local freeways. I went to school and had a good class on Saturday. Doug and I had lunch at The Corner Burger in Irvine after class. I skipped stopping at Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store on my way home. Someone posted a comment to the blog; second one so far this year. I went to the market and scored a couple of pints of Starbucks ice cream.

I went to the market on Friday because I had run out of some things like bananas and cereal. I also had a coupon for a USD$1.00 off on the purchase of a pint of Starbucks ice cream. Starbucks is introducing four new flavors. I picked up two pints because I could save another USD$1.50 if I bought two, 33% savings.

My niece the Nutritionist would probably frown deeply and say something like, “Uncle Chuck, you know that you shouldn’t do this.”

I decided to try the Mocha Frappuccino ice cream on Friday night while I watched a Stargate SG-1 movie on television. I started off with a small serving and it was very satisfying and tasty. I needed a second serving and before I knew it I was finishing off the pint, spooning the ice cream directly from the cartoon.

I haven’t done something like since March, 1968 when I came home from Vietnam for the first time.

The ice cream was excellent. I give it a Five Spoons rating [highest rating]. I could go on and on writing about how wonderful it was but doing so will only make me want to go finish off the lonely and remaining pint of Java Chip Frappuccino ice cream.

I told Doug at lunch that I wouldn’t have the other pint until after I return from my trip to Salt Lake City. He thought that Dad was being sensible. I also skipped stopping at Gloria’s frozen yogurt and ice cream store on my way home after lunch. I did not need any more ice cream.

I loved driving the Prelude to class on Saturday. The freeways were mostly empty, compared to the regular week day traffic and this pattern held throughout the day for me. I can drive a little faster in some turns in the Prelude than I can when I drive the Pathfinder. The much lower center of gravity makes all of the difference in how the cars handle.

I had my regular quarterly teaching evaluation on Saturday. My evaluator, one of the associate deans, gave me a rating of 2.0 on scale of 1.0 to 5.0 where 1.0 is excellent. 2.0 is a very good rating. The associate dean thought I was excellent in all of the categories.

I got pulled down because the attendance in class was poor. I had 19 out of 28 students present; that gave me a rating of 5.0 in that category. This was a mathematical grade that no one at the school pays much attention to.

How can I make my class as interesting as a warm, sunny, day in Southern California?

I can’t compete with that and neither can the other instructors. It is only early Spring; attendance is really poor on Saturdays in the Summer in Southern California.

Doug and I met for lunch at The Corner Burger after class. The Corner Burger is much more upscale and trendy than the Original Tommy’s Hamburgers and Fatburger. It also lacks the atmosphere of Tommy’s too. Tommy’s would never serve arugula on their chili cheeseburgers; neither would Fatburger.


This is an Original Tommy's Mega Combo chili cheeseburger, a man's burger. I usually have two a year.

Still, it was a very nice lunch. We talked about my trip to Salt Lake City and the upcoming Chuckay Dinner in May. Doug told me that he enjoyed MONSTERS VS ALIENS more than he liked WATCHMEN. I think seeing MONSTERS on IMAX 3D would have a serious affect on your viewing reaction. After hearing Doug’s comments, I may go see MONSTERS.

Someone posted a comment about one of my blog entries over the weekend. The writer liked what I had to say and said she would stop by from time to time. It is always nice to receive a comment.

Comments are a rarity for the blog. The blog usually averages two or three comments a year.

We had another good week for visitors with 649 coming by the blog. I do appreciate all of you who stop and view the blog.


That was my weekend; I hope you had a good weekend too.


Be well and stay happy.

Derivative Markets: An Understandable Explanation

Derivative Markets: An Understandable Explanation.
A friend of mine sent this to me. I think this is one of the clearest explanations of the derivative markets that I have seen. That, plus it is relateble to most anyone.

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics- to drink now but pay later.

She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans). Word gets around about Heidi's drink now pay later marketing strategy and as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar and soon she has the largest sale volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers' freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on security markets worldwide. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really just the debts of unemployed alcoholics.

Nevertheless, their prices continuously climb, and the securities become the top-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses. Then one day, although the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the bank (subsequently fired due his negativity), decidesthat the time has come to
demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar!

Heidi demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Therefore, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

Both DRINKBOND and ALKIBOND drop in price by 90%. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%. The decreased bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it from issuing any new loans.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her generous payment extensions and having invested in the securities are faced with writing off her debt and losing over 80% on her bonds. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off fifty workers.

The bank and brokerage houses are saved by the Government following the dramatic round-the-clock negotiations by leaders from both political parties. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by a tax that are levied on employed middle-class nondrinkers.

Well, finally an explanation that we can understand.

End of March

End of March
Wow. Here it is the end of March. Actually, it is the first of April but who is counting. The first three months of the year sure went by in a big hurry. I always thought that time seemed to slow down when you got older. With me, it seems like time is speeding up.

I finished up working on my friend Lisa’s revised and enhanced and greatly improved resume yesterday. I worked on that instead of making a posting.

Prelude
I took the Prelude in for service to fix an oil leak. Oil leaks are messy and bad for the environment. Based on my past experience, I thought the leak had come from the oil pan gasket seal; it had failed once before. The service advisor agreed with my assessment that the gasket was a logical place to look, especially since it was an older one.


It turns out the leak is actually two leaks, one from a transmission seal and one from a drive shaft seal.

This will be a major repair for the Prelude. I define a major repair as one costing more than USD$500. I think this trip to the dealership will run me about USD$1,500. Most of the cost is labor and will take about three days to complete.

I am not all that upset with the cost of the repair. When I consider how old the Prelude is and how well it has performed for me and this is only the second major repair in twenty one years, things take on a different look. My total for major repairs will now be around USD$4,000; that is much, much less expensive than buying a new car.

I also get a free car wash and a free pick up when I go to get the Prelude from the dealership as part of the deal. I have to find a positive spin somewhere.

Visitors
March was the third best month ever for the blog. We had 3,067 visitors and 4,379 unique page views. The two most popular pages are January 1, 2007 with about 70% of the total traffic and March 1, 2007 with about 15% of the traffic.

I periodically check the visitor traffic to see who is coming to the blog. About 65% of the visitors come from outside of the United States. We had our first visitor from Mongolia this past week. This visitor was from Ulaan Baatar. I guess the Mongolians like to double up on their vowels.

I do appreciate all of you who take from your days to visit the blog.

Dining with Doug
I talked to Doug today after I got home from the Honda dealership. We check in with each other regularly. We had planned to get together for lunch on Saturday after I finish up at school. The only open item was where we would meet for lunch.

Doug asked me if I had any thoughts about where I wanted to go. I said that I hadn’t really given it all that much thought since I wasn’t very hungry today.

Doug suggested that we go to The Corner Burger in Irvine; that works fine for me.


Be well and stay happy.