Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill today putting a $15 billion bond measure on the March ballot. I’ll be voting a big fat NO on that proposition. And if you live in California, I strongly encourage you to do the same. Why? It’s quite simple. 1. I’ve been voting in California elections since 1989, and every single year there are tens… Read more →
Category: Other
Skywagon Christmas Skin
Some people just can’t leave well enough alone. In this case, that someone would be me. So I came up with yet another Christmas skin for the site. What do you think? The image was taken from the Christmas cards I used last year. The aircraft is a Cessna 185 Skywagon. This is what they look like in real life.… Read more →
The Housing Bubble
I recently came across an excellent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. It’s fifteen months old, but I think it’s just as valid now. Maybe more so, because real estate prices have continued to escalate since that time. Mr. Baker and I are in violent agreement about quite a few things. His study gives hard numbers to… Read more →
The Pressure of a Name
I recently learned that two of my best friends from college will soon enter the ranks of parenthood! For those of you who don’t know them, this might not make a lot of sense. But since picking out a name can be tough, I took the liberty of putting together a Top 10 list of potential names for the Schulz’s… Read more →
Goodbye Thanksgiving, Hello Christmas
And how was your Thanksgiving? No knock-down, drag-out family arguements, I hope? Lesley and I spent a simple but pleasant day together. We didn’t even cook–we ate out! Scandalous. It’s the first time I’d ever done that, and it was actually fun. Leaving the kitchen duties to someone else allowed us time to relax, laugh, and think about what were… Read more →
A Modest Proposal for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
My pal Rich Manning has some serious concerns about who is–and isn’t–being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After looking at this year’s list of honorees (George Harrison, ZZ Top, Prince, Jackson Browne, and Bob Seger), your humble host joins him in weeping for the future. I hate to bring up the obvious, but shouldn’t there be… Read more →
Grocery Strike
I’ve held off publishing this for a while because I’ve been angry about some things I’ve witnessed. But a few weeks have passed, and despite the fact that the picketers have moved on to another store, I realize I’m not going to feel any better about it. I have never been terribly supportive of the union in this pathetic grocery… Read more →
The Frenzied Housing Market Redux
A few days ago I wrote about the growing imbalance in many residential real estate markets and theorized that housing prices were going to have to decline sooner or later. But I couldn’t figure out exactly what would cause this “irrational exuberance” to snap. Obviously a huge spike in interest rates would do it, but how would such a thing… Read more →
The Frenzied Housing Market
Mathew Emmert’s commentary Housing Still Frenzied is a good read. I agree with most of what he says, but there were two glaring omissions. First, in the “Equity Schmequity” section, he misses the point of people’s argument when they say owning is superior to renting because you build equity. There are two ways to build equity in a home. One… Read more →
New Tool: URL Shortener
As if the world needed another “make a shorter link” tool. https://www.rapp.org/url/ I prefer not to use 3rd party services for this kind of stuff because you never know when makeashorterlink.com or tinyurl.com will go down for the count. Or when the service will go to hell. Or, more realistically, when they’ll start charging for their services. I suppose URL… Read more →