Tag Archives: Life

No Bunny Knows

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No bunny knows the trouble I’ve seen
No bunny knows my sorrow
No bunny knows the trouble I’ve seen
Glory hallelujah!

Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down
Oh, yes, Lord
Sometimes I’m almost to the ground
Oh, yes, Lord

Bunny Butt Shot – Cottontail

Anne and I got our NPR nerd on today. Not content to just listen to public radio all Saturday, like we usually do, we attended the grand opening of Saint Louis Public Radio’s new radio station in Grand Center. KWMU is moving to midtown from the UMSL campus. They’ve set up shop next to the local PBS affiliate, KETC, channel 9. Renee Montagne, co-host of NPR’s Morning Edition headlined the new studios grand opening. Ms. Montagne broadcasts weekday mornings from LA. This means that in order to be on the air at 6 AM Eastern, she comes to work at midnight, much to the pity of her social life. “That’s not true. This is my social life.” She looked tired. The live broadcast also featured the musical stylings of St. Louis favorites Erin Bode and Brian Owens. The new radio facilities look rather nice, but I suspect that their cost was not cheap. I predict an especially aggressive public radio pledge drive this fall. 😉

When I shop for clothes, I do what the boys’ Uncle Carl always does. I shop at Men’s Warehouse. I only bought a sports coat, well actually two, but I’ll get to that later. So, I didn’t have to parade around in my skivvies among smirking salesmen, but I did have to endure one snarking wife. I’m sure that Carl knows about that too. Just as I was about ready to bolt, we reached a consensus, the green jacket. Then the salesman hit us in the solar plexus. Our $300 sports coat was really only $200, so we could afford the second jacket for $100 that he had been pushing since we walked in the door. We relented and bought the blue sports coat too. Their tailor was way too backed up, so we took their recommendation and drove over to the Chinese tailor on Brentwood. Two nice ladies there promise to meet our tight schedule, for a price. Our motto: there is no minute like the last minute. 

All this and then a late lunch, we then turned it around and launched at 4:30 towards the park. On the way, we saw our neighbor Kathy and discussed the day’s ballooning possibilities. Today they held the Great Forest Park Balloon Race. The winds looked particularly auspicious; the flight was forecasted to flyover the house. We put pedals to the medal, but no ribbons were won. We did arrive at the launch point just as the Energizer hare was lifting off. The hounds followed suit and for a while it looked like this year’s race would degenerate into another of those all too common faux races. I thought I spied the hare going to ground in the park, but as it turns out, I was wrong.

With the pack rising, we mounted our steeds with full intent to corral this ballooning stampede. My weather App said that the wind was only 5 MPH. I thought that with this wind speed we could catch the pack, but I was wrong again. They never waivered for traffic and flew as the crows and the lead elements dropped us. Still, we made it home before the last of them flew over. Kathy was there and she had counted 42 at that point. It looked as though a few balloons were attempting a landing at the old A.B. Green ball field. We remounted and rode to the sound of the burners. Two balloons made a risky landing on a vacant lot adjacent to the New I-64. Their attractive nuisance combined with a hundred kids snarled local traffic on Laclede Station Rd. Today was a great day in Saint Louis!

GRAK!

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GRAK!

Pictured is a poster in the EMP Museum at Seattle Center. I’m not really sure what GRAK means in this poster. Searching the web, the most plausible explanation that I could find was, Goblin Rights Advocacy Komittee, but somehow I doubt that this is the explanation. One thing that is for sure is that GRAK does not mean GROK. 🙄

Drifting South at $40B/Month

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Lopez Island Driftwood

The Dow Jones industrial average spiked more than 200 points on Thursday and cleared 13,500. This brings this index to within 625 points of its all-time high. What prompted yesterday’s rally was Ben Bernanke’s announcement that the Federal Reserve would commence QE3. QE or Quantitative Easing is a Fed program that buys equities in order to boost liquidity in the markets. In practice this means that the Fed buys assets that no one else will and prints the money that it uses to make these purchases. The number three pertains to the fact that this is the third such program that the Fed has embarked upon.

The Fed has run these three QE programs because; TARP and the stimulus program were insufficient to pull the country out of the Great Recession. That and since 2010 the Republicans have been unwilling to support any further economic recovery measures, shutting down any legislative remedies. The Fed’s QE programs represent a backdoor stimulus, a door that was left open by Congress a hundred years ago.

The only problem with the Fed’s efforts is that it is primarily benefiting the banks, the same banks that precipitated the recession. The big banks have taken the money from the Fed, pocketed it and used these taxpayer dollars to fatten their balance sheets. They were supposed to lend out this money and generate business. Greedy bankers pocketing the money, go figure. Since banks figure prominently in the Dow, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that more Fed money leads to higher stock prices. The Fed doesn’t have too much choice in this though; because its charter limits it from doing more. That is the providence of Congress.

This is an election year and any Fed involvement becomes highly political. These QE programs have been characterized as a sugar rush for the markets. This one is different then its predecessors. It is open-ended. The Fed will pump $40B a month into the market, for as long as it takes. IMHO, I view this move by the Fed as a throw down for Obama. Bernanke has already cast his November vote. QE3 won’t affect the jobs numbers before the election, but it will provide a floor for the markets, a cushion in the event of an October surprise.

Thank You!

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Tile Work

This post is a shout out to Jay and Carl. We would like to express our gratitude for all that they did to make us feel welcome while visiting Seattle. Thanks for the lovely accommodations, the great tours of Seattle and that fine dinner at Lisa’s and Tom’s Maybe Jay could pass along our thanks to them for us? Thanks again folks!

The above personalized tile work can be found in Pikes Market. Jay and Carl contributed to a renovation effort and received the feet bracket tile as recognition. The entire market is floored with such tiles. Even though Carl knew where to look for their tile, it still took him several minutes to find their personalized tile. I suspect that the JC first names abbreviation was due to a character count limit.

Fish Stories

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City Fish Market – Pikes Market

Our first night on Lopez coincided with the rehearsal dinner. It was a Friday night and the wedding was the next day. The rehearsal dinner was at Steven and Molly’s farm, where Anne and I bedded down. In preparation for the dinner, I helped by making the hamburger patties. With the help of a simple, but great tasting recipe I made the best hamburgers that I have ever made. The recipe called for the melding of crumbled feta and minced onion into the patties. They turned out well, but I was still upstaged by the fish.

Patrick was the fisherman. He had caught the night’s twin King Salmon, cleaned and then cooked them. Patrick is a professional Alaskan salmon fisherman. He employs a seine or dragnet on his boat. He fishes about three months out of the year and spends about that much time getting ready for the next season. His right-hand was sore, but that was caused by skiing. His salmon was probably the best fish that I have ever had.

Patrick spoke of fisherman’s etiquette and greed. The seine nets run a quarter-mile behind the boat. Occasionally, another fisherman will swoop in and take your fish. They are that maneuverable. Patrick is our age and he had finished his fishing season by then, but another party goer’s son was still out on the water.

This son is just getting started and is not as established as Patrick. He doesn’t have a seine rig, so must hook, line and rod fish. What Patrick can catch in a day takes this son weeks. Not only does it take him longer than Patrick to fill his hold, but he has to work harder doing it. Patrick said that he had to handle each fish seven times. He made that sound like a lot of hand work.

I asked Patrick about the TV show, “The Most Dangerous Catch”. He laughed, said that it was just a TV show, but later, he told a story about the son’s first season. He was alone in high seas. The pulley at the end of one of his thirty-foot poles had fouled. He left his boat in an inflatable raft and cleared the pulley. The parents were silent afterwards.