Daddy Long Legs

Daddy Long Legs spider that is or at least that's what I've always heard them called.

But she (probably) is not a spider. Another common name is Harvestmen. They are arachnids but not spiders.

Imagine that.

We were down feeding the little kitties (only 2 remain out of 5) the other evening and this wonderful creature was walking around in the same area. Their legs are so thin that you can barely see them. There's not much to the rest of them either.

The official name is Opiliones.

You might ask what's the difference between these guys and a spider. Even if you don't ask I'm going to tell you anyway. Spiders have two parts to their bodies. These guys have one part.

Actually they only have 2 eyes and spiders have 8. It is hard to count eyes when you can't really see the Harestman in the first place. I only knew she was there because of movement.

I read that every 10 days or so they molt. They split open their exoskeleton and a new spider appears. Takes about 20 minutes to get those legs out. I've never seen that nor did I know it happened. Amazing.

Another amazing thing is that there are people who study Harvestmen.

Remember the Milk

Remember the milk is the task list program I am using on my new iPhone. It is also known as RTM.

CORRECTION: the price was $299 not $399. Sorry.

My phone is truly my personal digital assistant more than any other tool I use. It has my Bible for instance as well as my contacts and my email and my calendars and several other services that are important to me. One of those things is my "to do list." I have always made such lists although not always with great consistency.

I keep my Google calendar and contact list synchronized with my iPhone and RTM gives me the same ability. There is also a Firefox extension that lets me see my to do list in the same tab as my Google mail and my Google calendar.

That's why I chose it in fact.

So I am using Firefox, Google, and iPhone and various iPhone programs.

I signed up for the developer resources for iPhone. I am not sure if I really want to do any programming again but I would not mind writing a little application for the iPhone. I would have to buy an Apple computer. I haven't owned one since 1984 when I bought a Mac 512k.

Another "I think I might try" to add to my future list of things to do on RTM!

My New IPhone

I've posted before about my cell phones.

My last one was a Treo 650 of which I have owned 2 units. It has been a good tool. It is more than a cell phone of course as I used it for my e-mail, text messaging, calendar, contact manager, password keeper, mobile web browser and a few other things besides.

Sometime last week though it developed a problem of rebooting itself repeatedly. If I used it less often then the rebooting happened less often. Really a solution involving not using something is not a very good solution.

I was hoping to wait until T-Mobile's Android was available and I nearly made it. But I could not get it for a month or more from my date. That just did not work for me.

So I bought an iPhone.

It is only offered through AT&T.

I was with T-Mobile.

The iPhone 3G is great and so is AT&T.

There are a couple of drawbacks. One is price which is about $400. Another is that you have to go for 2 years with AT&T. And yet another is tha this thing definitely does drain the battery. That may be the worst problem actually.

Another thing I thought would be a problem is the virtual keyboard. But I kind of like it now.

AT&T is also great.

Perseverance - Until the Whistle Blows

The other day my daughter emailed a devotion piece she had read by a lady named Glynnis Whitwer. The title was Until the Whistle Blows and it appears in full on her web site.

The subject of the devotion is prayer, specifically the verse where Jesus says we should pray and not give up - Luke 18:1.

I liked her illustration a lot and it reminded me of my post the other day about Perseverance.

She writes that while watching her son's football practices she noticed that the offensive linemen would often stop blocking the defensive players before the whistle was blown calling the play dead. Then the coaches would tell the players to "block until the whistle blows." That reminded her of the Lord's admonition to keep praying.

We, and I surely include myself in the group, do often give up too early on lots of things I think. We work and work at something and sometimes it seems the harder we work the more difficult the task becomes. Others see our situation from a different perspective and realize we are inches away from our prize. But all we see is the pain and suffering and work and difficulty that remains. So we quit.

Anyway I really liked the illustration and thought I'd share my appreciation.

In Memory of Duffy

Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur

Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur

The sub-title is "How the Master shaped His disciples for greatness, and what He wants to do with you!"

I thought it was fitting to report on this title since I had just finished the Gospels in my daily Bible reading program.

John MacArthur is the long time pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. He is a well known and well respected expositor and leader. He has authored many books and hosts a popular radio program.

He mentions that the series of sermons he has given on the twelve apostles are among the most highly desired of his entire body of work and that fact gave rise to the book itself.

As the title suggests he finds the men called by the Lord to be rather ordinary but the calling to be extraordinary. By ordinary he means that these men were not highly educated nor were they wealthy or of high social position or even of notable physical appearance. They were, in general, not greatly spiritual or religious or even political. Individually they had special interests of course but they do not appear to have been of particularly prominent stature even in their vocations.

He notes four different stages of their calling. First they were all called to belief in the Lord Jesus. Secondly they were called to ministry. In those two stages they are so very similar to all believers because we all experience that very same thing. It is instructive though to look at how each one was called.

But these men were also called to apostleship and martyrdom.

The training period itself lasted about 18 months or perhaps a little more or a little less. It was a kind of internship training.

It certainly could be argued that they would not have been chosen today by most of our great churches and Christian denominations. I thought once about going into some kind of chaplain or pastoral care ministry. I felt the Lord was calling me to some kind of caring work but I thought it was religious. So I applied to a seminary and was turned down because I was too old they thought. They said they had too many applicants and felt it was a better use of resources to train younger men who could server longer. I was only 50 then so I guess I would really be too old for them now. The Lord did of course have a caring ministry for me but it was certainly not the one I had imagined for myself. Thankfully I was not too old for His purposes.

MacArthur notices that the names of the twelve are usually found in three groups. The first is that of Peter, Andrew, James, and John. The second is Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, and Thomas. And the third is James, Thaddeus, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot. I found that interesting and had not really studied it myself.

He then describes in some detail each individual giving as much as can be determined from Scripture about each one. I found each portrait to be fascinating and very instructive.

For instance MacArthur notes that Andrew several times noticed small details. And that Phillip was very much a "bean counter."

I found the portrait of Judas Iscariot to be particularly interesting. MacArthur discusses Judas Iscariot's disillusionment with the Lord. I thought that was interesting because Judas Iscariot seems to have believed Jesus. The problem for him seems to be that Jesus wasn't the Lord he wanted. I bet that happens still.

I enjoyed the book and endorse it.

Unusual Breakfast

A while back I started reading through the Scriptures again. I am following a little guide my Sunday School teacher gave us. The schedule makes me read quite a bit each day. I don't really like that because it makes me feel I am hurrying and I often find interesting things that I think I should consider more thoroughly. But the schedule pulls me on and keeping the schedule has its own benefits.

I guess it must have been Friday or Saturday when I finished the Gospels. The schedule so far is in book order so I read Matthew and then Mark and Luke and, finally, John. The Gospels always remind me of a saying my paternal grandfather taught me more than 50 years ago now. It was a little memory device for the names of the Gospels: "Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; saddle a mule and I'll get on; give me a stick and I'll be gone." Just writing that now makes me smile and remember the image my mind still retains of my Pop.

So I was thinking about the Gospels and the writers and how they are similar but also different. I am fond of each but for different reasons. If I had to choose a favorite it would be John I think. That's because when I first came to believe in The Lord Jesus it was John that I read first. It is a wonderfully eloquent work. It also soars into Theological heights I am unable to conceive much less scale. It opens with "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That's an amazing concept just in itself.

But for the first time I noticed in this reading that John ends in an interesting way. It concludes with The Lord fixing and eating breakfast with His disciples. A fire is even described.

The entire passage reminded me of The Shack and that cabin on the lake.

I love this passage more now than I ever have before. It is just such a wonderful image of The Lord preparing the fire and the food and then cooking it and then dining with His followers. It is wonderfully comforting and familiar and feels like family to me.

I can't decide if this is more lofty Theology that is just so far above my intellect that I am unable to apprehend it; or, if it is meeting me on a raw, emotional level; or, if it is His Spirit meeting my own; or, all three perhaps.

Regardless it is an image that comforts me more than I can say and for that I am ever so grateful.

Sunday was my mother's birthday. My brother remembered and sent me an email. I liked that.

I want to be irrationally exuberant again

That was a bumper sticker reportedly seen in Silicon Valley following the stock market collapse of 2000.

The "irrationally exuberant" part came from a speech by Alan Greenspan in 1996.

I like exuberance. It is not something really that would be attributed to me by those who know me but I like it all the same.

One definition I read was "joyously unrestrained." I like that even more. Another was "extreme abundance."

I guess now we must be in a period of irrational despair.

Perseverance

On Friday the stock market was really amazing.

Nothing much "real" had changed overnight except investors' attitudes. Attitudes are really real alright.

When I first noticed the first big sell off I thought to myself "this has all the characteristics of a panic." It was not past events or even the immediate present that was provoking such anxiety and fear in so many. At first I supposed it was just fear of the future.

Funny how that works. One day I can be so up and optimistic and eagerly anticipating the future and all the good things I foresee. The next day comes and I can be down and out and think things are just never going to be better.

So that happens to everyone. But this seems different. So I wondered if it was a sudden mass realization of just how ingrained was the human capacity for greed and selfishness and bad behavior and the consequences of so many doing so much the same thing all at once. I had that realization once.

The first big plunge was followed by a rally and then another sell off and that cycle pretty much repeated over and over during the course of the day.

During the day I was thinking about what was happening. If you have a cell phone or a TV or an Internet connection or go anywhere at all it is hard to avoid some news so I knew about what was happening. I had other things to do as did a lot of other people so we weren't really glued to the tube so to speak.

Still I had plenty of time to reflect about what was happening. I think I realized something interesting that I had not thought of before.

Use to I would have said that calm was the opposite of panic or maybe euphoria. But this stock market event has helped me develop the thought more clearly.

I think now that perseverance is the opposite of panic. Usually perseverance is defined as persistent determination or the act of continuing. I think these definitions lack something though and that's adversity. It isn't hard to persevere if there is no adversity.

If you are standing in the lot and one of the horses is running away from you it is easy to remain standing there. But if the horse is running directly at you and seems a bit upset then standing there becomes considerably more difficult. I think that's perseverance.

You can feel the panic at such times well up from down deep inside you somewhere. It is more than fear. All at the same time there is terror and anxiety and shame and fear of moral failure and probably some more emotions I can't quite remember.

And what you want to do is run like the wind to get away from whatever the threat may be. But if you stand fast then that's perseverance.

At lunch Friday I became reacquainted with someone who had been a boy when I saw him last about 20 or more years ago. He's all grown up now and is an FBI agent. I asked him how he was doing and he said he was doing well and as it had turned out that his job was pretty much recession proof.

We all laughed.

But then I thought it was really true. People are not committing fewer crimes. He's probably in a growth business. He was transferred here from a much larger city. He told us about some of the cases he'd investigated dealing with mortgage fraud. I do not consider myself naive but I was shocked to hear about some of the details.

In past days I've visited some of my friends who are in the financial investing business. I left them alone on Friday because I thought they probably had more important stuff going on what with the news of the market and all.

But they've told me before how difficult it is to stick with a certain discipline when things are going the wrong way. That's perseverance.

Choices

We all make them every day.

There's a saying that "hindsight is 20/20" that is usually stated after some choice has turned out not so well or it becomes apparent that another choice would have been much better. It means that if we had known everything we know now back when we made the choice we would have made another one -- a better one.

Maybe that's true sometimes but I think it is not always true. I also notice that the time that's passed when looking back makes a difference.

I don't want to use a real example so I'll make one up. Let's say we bought some Target stock on December 31, 2007. The price was about $50 per share then.

Then at the end of January we took a look at our investment and we would have noticed a price of about $55 per share. We would have patted ourselves on our backs.

If we looked at it October 6th about 2:45 pm though the price was down to $38. We would have not been nearly so happy. If we looked again at 4 pm it was $42.

There are decisions I've made in the past that I sometimes revisit in my mind. Sometimes I think I could have made a different choice. Then I try to trace that different choice from then to now. A lot of times it is just too complex to figure out. Sometimes though I can easily see that new choice would have been better or worse. But then I think I still don't now how it will turn out in the more distant future.

But I don't spend too much time worrying about past decisions. Because there's no way to change the past.

Sometimes it is just that the choices are not very good ones.

Kitties Thrown Out By Townies

Term Limits

Politics is a strange profession alright.

But it is a profession just like others. There are plenty of strange ones, too. To be sure the degree of strangeness is logarithmically proportionate to the perspective of the viewer. I suppose that is another way of saying we are all strange, or individuals anyway.

Just like any other profession the longer you do it the better you get at it or you should at least. I was thinking the other day about various things I've done in my life. Sometimes I read about other people that have done all sorts of adventurous things and I think my own path has been pretty straight and boring. I said that to someone not long ago who thought I was out of my mind and rehearsed for me a lot of the stuff I've gotten to do thus far. Apparently I am not quite done. Or at least I am not quite as done as I had thought anyway.

I grew up on a farm and did farming and ranching things. I went to college and studied math and physics when it wasn't so popular. I was there at the beginning of so many things. TV, Israel, computers, Internet, hand held phones, and space exploration to name only a few.

Surely the work I've done that's been the "most" in nearly every category (most difficult, most different, most rewarding, and so on) is caregiving.

Anyway I was not so good at any of these various things when I started as when I ended. That's just the way work is. I've noticed before that a lot of things require a little knowledge and lot of practice. Granted some natural skill is useful because so many things are as much or more art than technology.

Anyway I figure politics is the same way.

I remember one time when I was a grade school student we went on some kind of field trip. Our school was small enough then that field trips could still happen. When a school gets too big though it is hard to do field trips I've noticed. But this particular field trip was to the State of Oklahoma Capitol building where we watched a legislative session from a balcony and met several officials although the details escape me right now.

This was arranged by one of my classmate's fathers who was a politician we were told. That's the first time I recall knowing that someone could be one. He wasn't an elected politician but one of those people who work in and for government.

I have no idea now what he did or even his name or which one of my fellow students claimed him. But I still remember that trip and watching the legislators do their jobs and being awed by the grandeur of the building and being just amazed at the process.

When I visited Washington, D.C. the first time I remember feeling a similar sense of awe that I was standing in actual, real places where events had occurred that I had read about. In a way that trip made me realize that the people who filled the history I had learned really were just people and just like me. Realizing that increased my awe and amazement all the more. Also made me realize that people including me can do a lot.

We have some really good officials in our little town which is not so little anymore. The mayor has been there a really long time now and I think he's done a remarkably good job. I attended a council meeting Monday night is what made me think of this.

Our developer was there and spoke and the City Council passed approval of our plat and an incentive package necessary for the project to move forward. I kept my mouth shut and so had no problems with being blunt. The turmoil in the financial markets did not help our cause any. One thing about though is that there is not much more I can do to and when you reach that point you might as well rest.

But, being at the council meeting caused me to think. I was thinking that if there had been a term limit for our mayor that we would have likely been the worse for it. On the other hand there were some who came before him that we'd have been the better for having a limit and a short one at that.

So terms limits that force out individuals when they have just begun to get the hang of something is a pretty negative thing I think. Especially if it is an elected office because it is possible to defeat someone for those offices at the next election.

But it isn't always easy because individuals and groups do gain some power and develop a kind of inertia just by being in office for a while.

When my caregiving ended it was time for me to do something else.

So I see both sides.

Sometimes when I think of term limits I have this funny mental image of a person with one of those "use before" stamps on their forehead.

But I guess we all have one of those stamps anyway.

Blunt and Direct Unwelcome

I read this article the other day in The Wall Street Journal online version.

It must be free because I don't have a subscription.

The title is Paulson's Stature Takes a Beating Among Lawmakers.

I guess it was the title that caught my attention and then the article itself was interesting enough to hold it.

I was particularly interested in a portion of the article which I quote as follows including my own emphasis in bold:

Interviews with lawmakers suggest the uphill battle is partly of Mr. Paulson's own making. A former chief executive of investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Mr. Paulson is blunt and direct, an attitude that doesn't play as well before Congress.

There you have it.

Blunt is an interesting word. In this context it means "without subtlety or evasion"; "candid"; "forthright"; "devoid of any qualifications or disguise or adornment"; or, "crude, unadorned".

If anyone is interested I have decided to adopt my own style for using commas and semi-colons outside of quotes when in a list. Sorry if this offends anyone. Since we live in a day when language is quickly evolving I have decided to exercise my own liberty.

Actually I think Paulson could have been a lot more direct but I suppose that would have created panic which was one of the things the politicians were trying to avoid.

Not that it was a secret for sure. Anyone that was paying attention to the bank borrowing from the Federal Reserve would have understood that there was nearly complete paralysis in the lending markets. The implication of that is hard to avoid. But not many people pay attention to bank borrowing from the Federal Reserve apparently.

I do think it is true that we do not prefer blunt politicians on a national scale at least. We like our national pols to be sophisticated, worldly, subtle, loquacious -- anything except blunt. We like them to tickle our ears and resemble some imaginary ideal that exists in our collective, national subconscious. We like them to fit perfectly in sound bites and video clips.

Maybe I will dig out Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and watch it again sometime to soothe my inner idealist.

Monday evening I have to attend a city council meeting. I wonder how blunt I should be? Probably not very if I keep in mind what is good for me.

Journey North

Remember my post about monarchs?

Well, I found another site that I thought was interesting and worthy of note:

Journey North: A Global Study of Wildlife Migration and Seasonal Change

On that site you can find out a lot more about Monarchs than you probably want to know.

The most recent news is that a cold front on the 2nd of October contributed to many more Monarchs traveling through my area.

Friday and Saturday I saw quite a few Monarchs but not to the "fill-the-sky" extent I described in that previous post. I would still like to see that again.

In other personal news our Jet appears much better and is a little upset with us that he cannot rejoin his comrades. But he has a few more days of medicine and there is still some alfalfa hay out there in the big corral. I want to wait until all of it is gone which will not be much longer. I think he is allergic.

Our cat seems to be ill now though, or maybe she's hurt. I think a male cat attacked her.

Inching Closer to a Chick-Fil-A

Updated this post at 7:20 AM

We filed our final plat on Friday with the county. It is quite a process.

Once the infrastructure work was completed the surveyor returned to prepare a final "as-built" survey. Before that the city ran a TV camera on wheels down the new sanitary sewer line just to make sure everything was as it was supposed to be. That's an interesting thing to watch done in its own right.

The surveyor then prepares the final plat drawing and prints it on "Mylar" which is a kind of plastic sheet. On the right hand side is a whole bunch of places for various signatures and corresponding notary public seals. You have to use a special pen to write on the Mylar. And the notary stamp is special, too. The City had the most places to sign so they got it first and circulated to all the various officials. Then we had to take it to an abstract office for another signature. Then I had to sign and my signature had to be notarized. Then it had to be taken to the County for a signature. Next it had to go back to the surveyor who made a whole bunch of copies - but they are not called copies but originals. (Interesting that you can have multiple originals.) After that it was another trip back to the County (from which we had just come) where we gave them the required copies (er originals) for filing along with a check, of course.

After that we had to take the City a bunch of copies - some of which I guess are originals. It is confusing. Somewhere in there we had to pay taxes, too. I forgot that step - think it was another trip to the County.

Now at the same time all that's going on we had to sign and have notarized a total of 8 different documents which had been previously negotiated and agreed. Some had to be notarized. Some had to have my brother's signature.

Then we drove back (again) to the surveyor's office with the completed and filed Mylar so it could be scanned and stored and turned into a PDF.

Our final stop was the UPS office where we bundled up a bunch of stuff to send to the title company. All those documents are scheduled to be delivered on Monday morning.

Sometime on Monday we have some more documents to sign and pass around back and forth between various lawyers and other assorted names of people I've never met for the most part.

Assuming all that is completed correctly we will have a closing on Monday or maybe Tuesday or sometime. (I hope.) At some point money is supposed to hit our account and at the same time the deed and other assorted documents are to be given to the buyer which is Chick-Fil-A.

It that happens on Monday we'll be just shy of 34 months from the first contact ever made by Chick-Fil-A to us. That was when we had to tell them we had nothing for sale but we might consider a lease. That was because of our promise to Dad. They said they didn't do anything but buy. Then we didn't hear from them for several months - maybe nearly a year.

Then they contacted us again and we began working on a lease deal. After that we eventually worked out a deal so they could buy after Dad's death.

In about 16 more weeks a new Chick-Fil-A will open for business right next to my porch.

There are already people talking about standing out in line all night before the opening because the first so many people apparently get free sandwiches or something for a period of time or some such.

Wordless Wednesday

Another blogger I read mentioned this the other day. She posted only a single photo on that Wednesday as her blog post for the day in honor of Wordless Wednesday she said and I quote not.

So I had to look up Wordless Wednesday. Turns out to be a blog.

It has a heck of a lot of words for something with wordless in the title. I "think" you're supposed to only comment with a single link. Also a "heck" of a lot of blogs that have posted about Wordless Wednesday. The Internet is an amazing thing. I almost typed "place" but stopped myself because it obviously is not a place.

This "wordless" concept is interesting and Wednesday does make it a nice alliteration if one likes alliterations that is. I guess if I did something like this I would just post a photo. I was thinking about having just a photo post once in a while. No explanation - just a photo - except maybe a title I guess - because I don't like empty fields.

There's a cool idea "empty fields" - wonder if there is one? Sure enough: http://www.emptyfields.com/ - but under construction it says. But the singular is already built.

So next Wednesday I'm starting a wordless post.

We'll see how long I can do it.

I've already posted more stuff than I ever thought possible. This will be stretching my blogging.

(I watched a deal about Tom Hanks on BIO last night and was kind of laughing to myself about how actors are always talking about stretching themselves by playing different parts and so on. And I like Tom Hanks so don't send me nasty comments.)

What Does It Mean?

A friend asked me "What is regs?" I replied that I thought it meant regulations. But my friend explained that this "regs" was used in the context of phone text messaging by a teenager and it didn't seem to mean regulations.

I said "Oh. In that case I will do a little Internet research."

I turned to http://www.urbandictionary.com/ where I typed in "REGS" and clicked the search button.

Uh oh. I found three definitions all of which had to do with marijuana, namely 'regular' or low grade marijuana.

That was not good news for my friend but it was also what had been feared.

I was fascinated with the 3rd definition and the use of the word in a sentence which I herewith quote: "man you got dem regs to roll a fatty bo batty?"

At first I laughed at myself. I thought to myself "I have no idea what that means." The sentence that should have helped actually made my understanding worse.

So then I had to look up fatty bo batty. Actually I found hyphenated fatty-bo-batty. The resulting definition was "big ass blunt."

I thought I was pretty certain what "big ass" meant because, after all, I did blog about big ass fans once.

So then I had to look up "blunt" which gave me:

Cigar hollowed out and filled with marijuana, can be smoked in public (somewhat) inconspicuously.

Montel was sittin' on the porch all day, sippin' his 40 and smokin' blunts.

Nearly as I can tell a fatty bo batty is a big cigar that has been hollowed out and the tobacco replaced with marijuana of the regular or low grade type.

Then I searched "fatty-bo-batty" on the Internet and obviously it is a generic term with an assortment of meanings too numerous for me to figure out.

This exercise definitely made me feel old and over the hill.

It also made me really, really happy that I am not raising teenagers right now.

Then it made me really scared for my kids who are raising their own children.

I would have to take a course in this language if I were raising children.

I always laugh when I see those Internet ads directed at men about barely legal teenage girls. Because I think to myself that I once had a teenage girl in my home and I was awfully glad when she finally outgrew that time of life. She says she was glad, too.

I never ever tried marijuana or any other drug for that matter. I volunteered once at college for an experimental program with LSD. That was in the days when it was considered mind expanding and hey, I wanted mine expanded. The program turned me down though. I suppose that says something about my mind -- not sure what though.

That must sound very quaint. Maybe not as quaint as President Clinton's explanation but quaint all the same. Although someone else told me that he well understood about not inhaling because he had found it no so intuitive to inhale as some might think.

I remember a friend once who decided to smoke a cigarette and couldn"t figure out how to inhale it. He was sitting in my car at the Big W drive-in located on Broadway of our little town. He kept trying to light the cigarette while holding it in his hand. It was funny but I guess you had to be there.

There's lots more popular culture stuff I don't understand. For instance, pants that are worn way low. I don't understand that one bit. It looks awfully uncomfortable to me. What does it mean? Or the use of the word "like" for that matter. Or "absolutely." Or girls wearing pants that reveal a female "plumbers butt." I see that a lot now in various stores -- since I go to stores now. My pharmacist today had some kind of Chinese letters tattooed on her arm with a kind of spiky hairdo in hair dyed a brilliant red. I thought "cool" which I suppose must be really old school now. But I wondered what does it mean? What does it mean to her? What is it supposed to mean to me?

What does it mean?

Perspective

This is a graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1929 through today.

That big dip right at the beginning is the 1929 crash.

I was thinking about how thinking in terms of shorter and longer terms changes my attitude about things.

And I don't mean just the stock market either. Because when you view the DOW over 80 years it is pretty apparent that even the rather drastic losses of the last few weeks is not such a big thing in terms of overall market performance.

But I was thinking, too, about my first ancestor to come to the shores of the United States. He did not come as a tourist for fun and sun. Rather he felt he had to leave his home to find a better life for himself and his family. Did he think about me and other future generations? Probably very unlikely. But his decision did not affect just him but also me and my children and my grandchildren and others I cannot even imagine.

Likewise things I do today, or don't do as the case may be, also will have far reaching implications I cannot guess.

Economic Recessions

My advisers told me that if the congress fails to implement an economic recovery plan that they thought the stock market could fall by as much as 1/3 or more of its current value. That means the Dow could fall to somewhere in the 7,000's. They thought other areas of the economy would be dramatically affected as uncertainty and lack of credit spread. They thought it would last maybe 5 years or so and all this would happen very quickly.

I was interested in how many recessions we've had in the United States and how long they lasted. I found a list at good old Wikipedia.

I count 17 entries including panics, recessions, and depressions. I'm going to rewrite the list from Wiki and note that the article states that those times before 1900 are estimates:

1. 1797 - 3 years - Panic
   
2. 1807 - 7 years - Depression
   
3. 1819 - 5 years - Panic
   
4. 1837 - 6 years - Panic
   
5. 1857 - 3 years - Panic
   
6. 1873 - 6 years - Panic
   
7. 1873 - 23 years <<+++++ Long Depression (yikes!)
8. 1893 - 3 years - Panic
   
9. 1907 - 1 year - Panic
   
10. 1918 - 3 years - Recession
    
11. 1929 - 10 years <<+++++ Great Depression
12. 1953 - 1 year - Recession
    
13. 1957 - 1 year - Recession
    
14. 1973 - 2 years - Oil Crisis
    
15. 1980 - 2 years - Recession
    
16. 1990 - 1 year - Recession
    
17. 2001 - 2 years - Recession
    

So of these 17 I have lived through 6. I feel like I know a lot about the Great Depression because it was so central to my parents' lives and I heard them talk so much about it. I always hoped I would never see anything as severe as the Great Depression.

Here in Oklahoma in the 1980's we experienced a much more severe crisis than the rest of the country when Penn Square Bank failed and then the oil boom burst followed by our own real estate bubble exploding. It was a very hard time here. But my dad said it was nothing like the Great Depression.

During all these downturns I was in business myself or my father was in business or we both were in business together. It really hurts when you have to cut expenses and lay off people who have become your friends because you simply have no work for them to do. I did that myself many times and it was so hard on me. I felt responsible for their families nearly as much or more as my own. Often we would cut our own pay to try to keep from laying off people. After my last time I told myself that I just never wanted to again shoulder that responsibility.

Dad many times told me about the Great Depression days when he went to work for a local company as a posting machine clerk. Something that affected him greatly was seeing every morning more than 100 men gather at the gate and the foreman would choose 4 or 5 for that day and all those others would be turned away. Dad himself worked 3 or 4 jobs every day just to survive. He typed menus and washed dishes and whatever else he could find. He didn't find it particularly unusual because everyone else was doing the same thing. He recalled in vivid detail the soup kitchens of that time.

The unemployment rate during the Great Depression nationally was nearly 25% but my dad said it was really higher than that. The highest unemployment I've seen in my life so far was just under 10% in the 1980's according to official records. But I think it was really higher.

I think we have an opportunity to lessen the impact of this downturn. I so hope our leaders rise to the occasion. If they do it means going against popular opinion. For a good many it probably means jeopardizing political careers and ambitions.

Leadership is sadly lacking.

One of the Presidential candidates tried to lead and the other did absolutely nothing. I admit I was shocked by Mr. Obama's cavalier attitude and lack of appreciation of the seriousness of this crisis. Worse is what it portends for future crises as he appears to be the most likely choice for President.

Mr. McCain at least tried. It is reported he was able to sway some Republicans but the Democrats were unyielding. That in itself bodes badly for any kind of reach-across-the-aisle bipartisanship occurring in the next administration. At this point it does seem likely that Democrats will be in control of the Whitehouse and the Congress. That almost certainly means there will be a further retraction in the free economy and an expansion of the government.

The congressional leaders were nearly all abysmal failures as leaders. The Democrats were unable to pass the measure on their own but showed no ability at all to attract Republicans to the cause. Speaker Pelosi seemed to go out of her way to alienate and divide. The Republican leaders could not deliver their own members.

The Bush administration in my view probably performed the best of any of these groups. In particular I thought Henry Paulson reacted quickly and decisively with a plan that I think would have worked pretty well and with a minimum exposure to risk for the people's resources. And it nearly was passed. But nearly doesn't count much.

It was sad that the effort was defeated for many reasons. One certainly was the startling failure of leadership during a significant crisis. Even worse was the loss of millions of dollars in the stock market that ultimately will not be regained. For very young people it matters not as much because they have more time for recovery. But for many of us it means a great deal because we are at an age that simply does not allow time for recovery. That's especially true if the recovery takes a while and that seems very likely at this point.

It really does not surprise me that so many ordinary people are against the plan that was proposed. There is abysmal, widespread ignorance about our system.

Credit was important in the Great Depression days. But now it is even more so. Hardly anyone buys a car or a house or a building or college education or appliances or much of anything else for cash. If credit is not available so many things just become reduced or eliminated. Credit will become harder and harder to secure if something remains undone.

One of the problems is that assets like homes and buildings have a market value that is not necessarily the same as their cost or even their replacement. We are all accustomed to market prices going up and our homes and buildings being worth more than what we paid. But those things can go the other way, too. And that's what has happened now.

Partly at least this is exacerbated now because of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation that was passed in 2002 largely in response to the Enron and other corporate failures. It required that companies value assets at market. Unexpected consequences.

Some mortgages, admittedly very few, will not be repaid according to the terms agreed. But knowing which ones is very difficult for various reasons. One is that they've been packaged into securities. So the market for them has just dried up. But not because they have no value but because the value is hard to determine.

That does not mean they are worthless but only that they cannot be immediately sold. And if you are a bank or any other company for that matter then you have to report these mortgages at market value and that generally means you have less worth than before. And that means you can lend less money than before.

If you are a bank or other lender then you still need to lend because that's your business. But you can raise the criteria used to select those to whom money will be lent. That weeds out people who are exactly the ones who need credit the most. It is likely that even credit card limits will be reduced.

Maybe the company down the street can't get a loan to build a new building. Or they can't hire more employees and buy more equipment. Or someone can't go to college now or someone else can't buy a car and then lose a badly needed job. Or a new sewer plant has to be postponed by a city because bonds can't be sold. And on and on. All that ripples right on through the economy. Add a little panic and you have a full fledged crisis.

Here in Oklahoma we went through some of this in the 1980's. Suddenly homes and buildings lost 1/3 or more of their value. It happened to me in fact in the late 1980's. There were some people who bought some of those inexpensive properties and waited patiently. The same thing happened in the Great Depression. Those folks eventually made a lot of money.

Yesterday millions of people were really hurt. I am so amazed at the cavalier attitude that people seem to have about this. I've heard some people say it will all come back. Maybe but it will take a while. And there were people yesterday that will not see anything return.

It will be very interesting to see what happens over the next few days.

Farrier

This is me decked out in all my ranch finery. Except you can't see my New Balance hiking shoes. That thing in my hand is fly spray. I thought a spray might be easier. Judy thought we should get the wipe on kind. She was right.

Besides everything else we had to have our horse's hooves trimmed.

Who do you call? The farrier if you don't do it yourself. And believe me I don't.

So we called a farrier and he came and it is a good thing he knew what he was doing because I surely did not. I am getting considerably better at putting on a halter though. Would not go so far as to say I have mastered the art but definitely better than when I began.

We have one halter that is really limp. I'm still not smart enough to put it on. I need a horse that I can just hand the halter to and say "buckle up" and then walk off.

Judy said her dad would be so embarrassed at our combined ignorance and inability. I have to take most of the credit for it because I am well below zero on this scale. Judy can barely reach the buckle of the halter for her Jet unless he lowers his head. That is an accommodation that one cannot count on.

Our farrier arrived on Saturday afternoon. He is a really nice fellow. His normal job is welding and around here it is a really busy time. But he tries to keep his farrier trade up when he can. His tools were quite simple really. I never had seen anyone trim horse's hooves before. It is a little like trimming your fingernails. Very little that is.

Getting the horse to cooperate is not so easy if the horse is not so inclined. One of ours was not inclined either. Trimming hooves is backbreaking work. First you have to get the horse to lift his hoof so you can get hold of it and while turned around you keep it kind of between your legs. It is hard to describe but probably harder to do. Then you have these big clipper like things that you use to cut off and shape the hoof. After that you get the horse to put his foot up on this little tripod like stand and use a really big file on the hoof. If it sounds easy I haven't properly described it.

It reminded me somehow of trimming dad's nails during my caregiving days.

If the horse decides he or she doesn't want this done then it gets a whole lot harder. One of our horses was pretty easy and the other three were not. The last one was especially difficult. Her name is "Dial A Bully." Horses have funny names.

Eventually "we" (used in the most liberal sense) succeeded. Actually my job was to hold the head of the horse by the lead rope which is attached to the halter which is attached to the head. Now the horse is about 10,000 times stronger than I am. That's an approximation. I may be off a few zeroes one way or another. Just suffice it to say that horses are exceedingly powerful animals.

In holding the horses head apparently the first rule is that you are supposed to let the horse know that you are in charge. I was about as in charge as I was during the caregiving days. I was even more ignorant.

But that did not, of course, deter me from walking into the unknown.

Judy actually is pretty much in charge but there is only one of her.

The farrier had more halters than we did and after he watched me halter one of our horses he proceeded to halter the other three in about 1/2 the time I had used. I think he took some pity on us.

He had to show me how to tie and untie the lead rope to the fence. Amazing how much stuff in the world that there is to be ignorant about.

After the farrier left we came home for a short rest. I'm telling you my body is sore as all get out. It is interesting how doing different things makes you sore in different places.

Then we had to go down to doctor again. Finally we are done with the antibiotics but still have to give this albuterol and some other stuff called "bute" which is some kind of pain reliever and anti-inflammatory drug. We have these syringes that you use to put the stuff inside on the back of the horse's tongue. Judy is very good at this. She says it is like giving stuff to babies. I don't recall ever doing anything like this to a baby. I am not very good at it in case anyone was wondering.

Jet's cough and respiratory issues are much better. He is still hobbling around though. The vet said we should give him only grass hay for a few days so we have some of that now, too.

Later that same evening our neighbor had to come over to round up some of his calves that had somehow escaped across the creek. Our horses are a little afraid of calves. Our neighbor looks like a cowboy. He has a cowboy hat and is tall and slim and wears boots. I don't know if he chews or not but the farrier did. That is one habit that does not seem appealing to me at all. Must be something I fail to appreciate about it. Our neighbors "regular" job is a trucking company. You have to have a very good job to be able to afford to have a farm and ranch. That has not changed in a while.

The article about the fire station land was in the paper on Saturday. It was not too far off from what I said. But they did mention the value of the land. That is very embarrassing.