Monthly Archives: April 2022

Level-Up

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Maren texted us this morning to announce that David has just gotten a promotion, his first. He is now a Senior Technical Writer. Senior? I guess that means that he is getting older. The associated bump in pay ought to go far with making their future mortgage payments. I remember, back in the day, when I was a young engineer and I got my first promotion. It and subsequent promotions didn’t really change my job in any way, but the extra money was good to have. Promotions and regular annual raises were announced separately, six-months apart. That year was a very good year, with an overall annual increase in pay of 14%. Well above the inflation rate, even then back in the eighties. In related news, Anne also got a promotion today. She is now a Royal Senior II in her spider solitaire game. I feel so passed over.

Pacific Grove Lighthouse

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Pacific Grove Lighthouse

The Twitterati sure has their undies in a bunch over this proposed Elon Musk takeover of Twitter. I’m sure that it is not a good thing, but I’ll reserve judgement until it is done. So, let me get this straight, he is going to pay about $43B for an app. $25B of which he will be borrowing, say at 4-5% interest. That will make Twitter’s interest payments greater than its current revenue. Then there is the whole former guy thing. MAGA is screaming to have him reinstated on Twitter, which at least so far has been the only penalty that he has had to suffer for his 1/6 insurrection. Like I said, I’m sure that it is not a good thing.

Speaking of Twitter, is it ever a good thing to see your 401(k)-management company trending on it? Apparently, Fidelity has announced that it will soon allow people to invest in crypto currency as part of their 401(k) portfolios. What could go wrong with that? Color me old fashion, but that seems a bit too risky for my blood. Fidelity plans on allowing savers to invest up to 20% of their savings into Bitcoin. Maybe this makes sense for young investors, who are still trying to grow their portfolios, but as a senior, I would prefer not to lose my life savings or even only 20% of it. I remember when the dot com bubble burst and all those flashy tech stocks tanked. I lost money too, but I didn’t lose my shirt.

To Forever and Beyond…

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45th Parallel – Along I-75

This week’s New Yorker featured an article, The Plan to Make Michigan the Next Space State, touting Michigan’s burgeoning spaceflight industry that as of yet has not gotten off the ground. As with most of today’s modern spaceflight tales, at its center lies another billionaire, at least I assume that is what Tom Baldwin is. As a purportedly rather successful commodities trader, I think that that is a fair assumption. According to the article, Mr. Baldwin owns a Lake Superior property that hosts one of the largest log cabins in the world, called Granot Loma. I guess Shangri-La was already taken. Located lakeside, northwest of Marquette, this cabin is nestled within about 5,000 acres of shorefront property. Baldwin would like to see at least part of this property used as a vertical rocket-launch site, by the Michigan Launch Initiative. Sitting north of the 45th Parallel, this site could be used to safely launch satellites out over the lake and into polar orbits.

The Grand Tour

This initiative is looking at two other locations to be part of their effort. One is located down state, but Chippawa International Airport is slated to be this operation’s command-and-control center. Are we looking at a future upgrade for this facility to spaceport? “Final boarding call at gate-one-and-only for Mars, Jupiter and all planets beyond.” In this article Baldwin even hints at his openness to collaborating with another big billionaire space enthusiast, Elon Musk.