It’s the Stupid, Economy


About three months ago, my wife got a letter from one of her credit card companies LOWERING her available credit. Understand that she always pays on time. This is so contrary to what had been happening for the past decade or more, where they kept upping her available credit to absurdist levels; i.e., greater than her gross annual salary.

Now, last week, I got a letter from one of my credit card companies. They noted that I had not used the card in 24 months, which was true. In the olden days, i.e., last year, they would have sent me checks to write against the account. Instead, though, they CANCELLED the card. This is NOT a complaint, BTW, just an observation, since I too have more available credit than income.

Meanwhile, gas is going down, but not at the same rates. While the Mobil station nearest my house has that traditional dime’s difference between the various levels (on Monday, $2.199, $2.299, $2.399), a couple other Mobil stations in Albany were $2.199, $2.659, $2.699. I don’t begin to understand pricing for this stuff, but I am fascinated that it could be so different within the same city limits.
or here.
The State University of New York is raising tuition, largely as a result of the state budget crisis; apparently, the state government can’t print money to spend its way out of its crisis as the feds can. Since two of my alma maters were SUNY schools (New Paltz and Albany), I’m interested in noting that the result of this is an INCREASE in the number of people who want to attend college. Do they figure they might as well go to school in hopes that things will be better when they get out?
ROG

ROG

What are YOU doing on Thanksgiving?


From the BLS: What activities do you have planned for this Thanksgiving? Perhaps cooking and enjoying a meal with family or friends, playing sports or watching sports on television, doing volunteer work, or shopping? Here’s a look at some BLS data behind those Thanksgiving scenes.

For me:
Cooking? Perhaps a little, but I’m at my in-laws, so it’ll mostly be table setting and clean up.
Meal – yes, most definitely. I don’t know why I don’t have turkey at other times of the year. I LIKE turkey.
Watching sports – maybe; if my father-in-law is, then I am.
Doing volunteer work – actually I had planned on having done that already by helping move furniture around the church on Monday for the EQUINOX Thanksgiving dinner in Albany, but then my daughter got sick with pink eye, the scourge of day care centers everywhere, and that plan went out the window.
Shopping – not if I can help it. Shopping on Thanksgiving Day should be limited to buying forgotten cranberry sauce. And NO ONE loathes shopping on Black Friday more than I do. Though online shopping is not out of the question.

The American Farm Bureau Federation tells us that the Classic Thanksgiving Dinner is Still Affordable. For those of us lucky enough to still have jobs, I suppose. For which I AM thankful.
***
The presidential cookie poll.

ROG

ROG

The Lydster, Part 56: Too Shy

There are times when my daughter is bold and fearless. In her classroom, for instance, her teachers rave about how well she helps the newer students get acclimated. Other times, she just wants to retreat behind one of her parents.

Her favorite TV show – pretty much her ONLY TV show she watches on a regular basis, as we’re TRYING to limit her consumption – is something called Little Bear. It is based on some 1950s books by Maurice Sendak, for which, quite coincidentally, we received a three-in-volume volume of the book. Little Bear lives in the forest with his parents and has friends with Owl, Duck, Hen and Cat. The TV series was filmed in the 1990s in Canada.

Most of these stories she enjoys, but a few of them made her quite frightened: one with Father Bear arguing with the personified North Wind, a couple featuring goblins, which look more like Santa’s elves.

But the episodes cycle through and repeat after a number of weeks, and Lydia’s discovered that there’s nothing to fear from the wind or the goblins.

I was reminded that, last Christmastime, we were at a party. The kids went upstairs with an adult to play. As it turned out, they were watching Little Nemo. I went to check up on her, and I noticed my child, in ithe midst of a bunch of happy children, looking terrified. She ran to me, and I watched the remaining part of the movie with her, including the scary dentist scene, during which she buried her head under my arm.

It occurred to me while reading Tosy, who has two girls about Lydia’s age, that before we venture on showing Lydia the movie The Wizard of Oz, perhaps I ought to READ the story to her first. Interestingly, my wife has a friend whose daughter had seen the Wizard of Oz a half dozen times, or more, by the time she was THREE, and wasn’t afraid at all. I remember being still afraid of it at age seven; on the other hand, in a pre-video age, I saw it but once a year.

Ah, the power of repetition.

ROG

ROG

S is for San Francisco

Long before I ever went there, I loved San Francisco. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the cable cars, I adored the place.

It may have started in 1962, when I was nine. The San Francisco Giants, my favorite team in the National League was playing the New York Yankees, my favorite team in the American League; we’re talking Major League Baseball here, BTW. While my support for the Yankees was regional (I’d been to Yankee Stadium, e.g.), my love for the Giants was more emotional. I loved Orlando Cepeda at 1B – I love the way Danny Kaye sang “Or-lan-do Ce-pe-da” in a baseball song. I loved the Alou brothers, Matty and Felipe, who would one day be joined by brother Jesus; at least once, a few years later, all three patrolled the outfield at the same time. I loved Willie “Stretch” McCovey, who would eventually become the Hall of Fame 1B. P Juan Marchical! But most of all I loved CF Willie Mays, one of the three or four best players EVER, whose statue I had purchased at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY around that time, only to have a foot chomped off by our dog.

Then there was JEOPARDY!, the daytime quiz show hosted by Art Fleming, which I used to watch with my aunt at lunchtime almost every day. One sponsor was Rice-A-Roni, “the San Francisco treat”. I LIKED Rice-A-Roni when I was 11.

I listened to Bill Cosby a lot in those days, and this riff made me want to go there and see Lombard Street:
or here.

A few years later, it was Haight-Asbury. The Summer of Love may have ultimately been a failed social experiment, but to a 14-year old, it was just cool. From it came the music of the Jefferson Airplane, Rolling Stone magazine and other wondrous inventions.

So, I felt as though SF was my second hometown, even though I had never been west of the Mississippi until considerably later.

Therefore, the events of November 1978 felt terrible to me, as though it had happened in my own hometown of Binghamton, NY. First I saw the raw footage of Congressman Leo Ryan and his associates being attacked in Guyana. I remember an ashen Mayor George Moscone announce Rep. Ryan’s death. A couple days later, we learned of the Jonestown Massacre with Jim Jones leading the drinking of the Kool-Aid; most of the folks were from the Bay Area. Not two weeks later, I watched acting mayor Diane Feinstein weep as she announced the murders of Moscone and city council member Harvey Milk, almost certainly the most prominent gay politician of that time. Subsequently, I followed the trial of Dan White and his infamous “Twinkie defense”. Some feel the two events – Jonestown and the Moscone/Milk murders – were connected. In any case, it’s all created ambivalence about whether I want to go see the upcoming movie Milk with Sean Penn.

I finally got to actually go to San Francisco in 1987. I flew to San Diego, and then my sister, who lives there, and I flew to the Bay area. We went to the fish market, rode the cable cars, saw the Bridge, and yes, we found Lombard Street, which is as beautiful and curvy as Cosby described. Unfortunately, the San Francisco Giants were out of town, but we did see the Oakland A’s play.

San Francisco was everything I knew it would be.

ABC Wednesday.

ROG

ROG

What kind of blog is this?

For the several blogs in which I participate, I’m the primary contributor for all but one, that one being my work blog. Yet the Typealyzer scores for most of them differ.

The NYS Small Business development Center blog shows this.
The NYS Data Center Affiliates blog shows this.
The Friends of the Albany Public Library blog shows this.

But for this blog (and also my Times Union blog), the answer is this:

ESTP – The Doers
The active and play-ful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.
Analysis
This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

What’s really scary is how dead on at least the last two sentences are. Whereas the other ones, not so much. Perhaps it’s a function of me writing for myself rather than for a different audience.
ROG

ROG
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