A quiet Saturday

So the boss was out sick for the end of the week and I got stuck doing some of his management crap- I am soo glad I am not management. The one good thing is I finished one of the tickets he was working and he is gonna be bummed- it is an illiquid piece of crap that he had for two weeks.

I am totally psyched for the Droid. I have the wireless network that has no bars in more places currently and am fed up with it. Once my contract is up in the spring I am switching. I am most psyched about the Droid because I see it can support Outlook Corporate Exchange which means I can stay with one phone and have the IT guys at work overlay my corporate email on my own cell. The oldest son wants to move to the can you hear me now network so it will all work out well. He also wants to get an ENV Touch but I looked at the Samsung Rogue and think he may actually like that one better. Who knows.

Last night I actually went to the dojo- Kobra Kai never die!- to make up for some classes I had missed. Kick boxing was ok, I did do well against a black belt but I had height and reach on her so she really couldn't get close enough to me. The green belt though was fast as shit and could kick high enough to tag the back of my head- which is illegal. The second class kicked my ass. It was just a core class but it was stations and there were 5 of them and you spent 4 minutes at each one and you had to cycle through the stations twice. Let's just say my shoulders and legs are killing me and I forgot how much jumping rope makes my caves sore.

Tonight the husband and I are going into the city for a cocktail reception for friends of the husband. They got married I guess this afternoon and the reception is this evening. We are probably going to grab dinner afterwards but no clue as to where yet.

Tomorrow we'll go for a run and we have brunch plans with one of the husband's girlfriends.

We were all excited because we thought JD and JW were going to be our neighbors. They looked at apartments in our building, found one and decided to take it. They signed the lease and then got to the pet rider only to find out their dog is not allowed. That totally harshed our gig. We are having them over for dinner tomorrow night though- the husband is making his meatloaf again.

Ashley is such a bitch

I haven't written all week because I wanted finish reading the latest installment of The Wheel of Time. I have to say even at close to 800 pages it was a great book and an improvement over the last three books in the series. The best part though is I was bringing the book into the office with me (I was reading on the PATH) and left it on my desk. My secret man crush noticed the book and commented about the 12th book finally being out. I was taken aback and he informed me he had read the series up to book 6 because his brother recommended it to him. He then told me about another series I might like and should check out. He secretly wants me...

Halloween was busy for us. I went down to central Jersey for my youngest son's bowling birthday party. I was not expecting to have to participate but I got shanghaied into it. I crushed them all and won three games! I rock at bowling. I had fun too. Meanwhile the husband was driving out to his mom's house to drop more stuff off in her crawl space. We both got home around the same time. We had no plans for the night other than watching The Exorcist, ordering in pizza and relaxing. We did end up going out though to meet up with CC for drinks at a bar. We had fun and we all agreed that there are certain Halloween costumes that should be outlawed for gay men: Peter Pan, devils, vampires and priests just to name some. We also agreed that any form of drag is acceptable especially Cher.

On the way home on the PATH we ended up sitting next to these two girls who did nothing but reinforce Jersey stereotypes. One was dressed as a cowgirl and the other as a policewoman. Apparently they were not happy with their friend Ashley as she punched one of them in the back of the head and used all the cocaine the other bought. These two were going on and on and very loud. I finally had to interject myself into the conversation agreeing that Ashley is a total bitch and she should have her ass kicked. The husband of course was horrified at what I did.

Sunday was a nice lazy day. the husband decided to make meatloaf, I made mashed potatoes and we invited Ragnar over for dinner. It was a nice evening and an awesome dinner.

Monday I got my ass kicked at the dojo and came home with a few abrasions. It was interesting at work the next day as I got questioned about it and told them the husband forgot the rule about using an open hand when hitting.

Funny how the truth about the supposed economic recovery is now coming out. The whole notion of "jobs saved is now being shown to be complete bullshit. the best line in the article I read was the whole point is to create jobs not count them; the government is failing on both as they are not creating any and then not counting them properly either.

The OMB chief Orszag is finally now admitting that deficits are dangerous and unsustainable. Well duh! I guess better late than never is a start.

This weekend we don't have the boys and we are actually going to a wedding reception in the city.

Does size matter?

So this morning the husband and I went down to central Jersey to my youngest son's school to help celebrate Halloween. We got to his classroom and apparently one of the other parents had bailed so the husband got shanghaied into helping out.

So we ran some science experiments involving pumpkins and other assorted vegetables. The experiment consisted of seeing which ones floated and which ones sank. Oh and we used a penny as well. Essentially we conducted an Archimedes in the bathtub scenario. Water displacement. At the end there were two questions they kids had to answer. It was all I could do not to laugh because the first question was "does size matter? Explain." That and the husband was wearing low riding jeans and I told him after we left the other adults must have thought he was a crack dealer as every time he bent over to take the vegetables out of the tub of water.

Got home, read some of the latest book on The Wheel of Time series (totally psyched it arrived yesterday), took a nap. The husband made dinner and that was the extant of our day off.

Tomorrow I am off to central Jersey again for a bowling birthday party for my youngest son. His birthday is actually Sunday.

I thought political correctness was dead?

SO the bad chest/head cold I had a few weeks ago pretty much knocked me out of my workout groove. I lost my discipline. This week I started to get it back. A bit of background here; I foolishly and stupidly agreed to do another fucking tri with the husband. The boys have spring break with their mom this coming April. So the husband and I are going to go to Miami and do the South Beach Tri- just the sprint race. So now my workouts will consist of swim on Mondays and Wednesdays, lifting and biking on Tuesdays, lifting on Thursdays, biking on Fridays and the running on Saturdays and Sundays. I will also be attempting to hit the dojo Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. This may kill me.

I have tomorrow off. I am going down to central Jersey to attend my youngest son's 4th grade Halloween party, um let me correct that- Pumpkin Day. What the fuck is that all about? Since when did Halloween start getting called Pumpkin Day in public schools? The cool thing is the husband is taking the day off as well and going down with me. He is concerned the ex might be there also but I am fairly certain she will be at the barn riding her horse and is attending the parade of costumes in the afternoon instead. The husband and the ex have issues between them that are not worth getting into her, suffice to say he does not have any desire to see her. That means we need to be on the road by 7:15 AM to get there in time. It should be fun.

Last night I had dinner with my bond friend. He finally freaking got divorced after years of going through that horror show. He thanked for being there through the entire time and I told him there was no need for it as he had been there for me as well. I told him he now has to start getting laid and that paying for a high class call girl counts and he makes enough he can afford it. We then got talking about the economy and market and he admitted he thinks I may be right that we are entering a Japanese like lost decade which seriously depresses him.

I noticed VZ finally wised up and has not combined their FiOS, internet, land line and cell phone service together. Granted it is their basic cell plan- only 450 minutes- but it is pretty damn smart. They may actually start taking subscribers from cable companies now without having to shell out $150 per sub.

Funny how yesterday- on the anniversary of the Volstead Act- the California Assembly has decided to consider and discuss the possibility of legalizing marijuana and taxing the shit out of it like they do alcohol.

I really have issues with Barney Frank and his complete lack of memory and two faced actions regarding the causes of the housing implosion. Four years ago he is touting how it is the government's job to help low income people achieve home ownership. We know how that ended. Today he was applauding he establishment of a trust fund to help low income people afford renting homes since not all people can afford nor should they buy a house. Of course said fund has to to be given any money by the government...

Turbo Tax Timmy got raked over the coals today by House members. I loved it. Seriously- how the fuck is he still the Treasury Secretary when it was he who signed off on paying off AIG's CDS counter parties one hundred cents on the dollar? And he has the balls to assign blame to his predecessor.

Tonight I had dinner with the boss and the head of another desk who I have known for fifteen years and is a great guy and friend of mine. We just exchanged notes on trends int he business and whatnot.

When I got home I had a text from the boss. He and his wife have a costume party to go to tomorrow. The theme is musical performers. He texts me saying costumes done, wife is Joan Jett, he is Snoop Dog. I asked him how he intends to pull of Snoop Dog as he ia mick like me.

VCA Antech

So yesterday afternoon I dropped the boys off at their mom's house and drove back- as opposed to walking or running I guess. I had on my SIRI and I heard an ad fr one of their stations and they mentioned someone who is supposedly an psychic intuitive. What the fuck is a psychic intuitive? I mean is that basically admitting you are a fake and just make really good guesses based on reading a person's mannerisms and body language?

Last night we had JD and JW over for dinner. They had not seen our new home and we always enjoy spending time with them. We ordered in Chinese food and had a very nice evening topped off with left over pumpkin pie (and the awesome creamy, artificial goodness of Cool Whip).

So apparently over the weekend there was a decathlon of sorts held to determine the best athlete on Wall Street. I saw the article on BBRG on Friday and sent it to the boss and asked how we missed getting the nod? Anyhow, so this morning BBRG had the winner on and all I could say was VCA Antech!!! (That is a geeky Wall Street type joke, go look up the ticker for the company.) One Kyle Peterson one it. So of course I checked him out on BBRG- not quite google staling but close enough. Honestly he had a very inspiring back story and that helped his hotness even more.

I read a great article from Scientific American about how the problem with economics and economists not predicting the current crisis is that economics don't adhere to the laws of physics. The best line was "Neoclassical economics is inconsistent with the laws of thermodynamics." It was totally the kind of work I was taught to do at college. I forwarded it to JW as he is actually in grad school for economics (which I tried to warn him away from doing) and he and I agreed the problem with most economists is they really think they are scientists. They are not. They all seem to forget economics is a social science and they have completely turned their back on the social aspect. JW's comment is they based all of their scientific processes on 19th century physics and science and the whole notion of equilibria, etc. Well hello you guys- the 20th century saw a completely new paradigm for science. These guys never updated their scientific basis. So not only did they fail on the social aspect, they failed on the science aspect too.

Today's action speaks volumes of how fragile this 65% run the equity market had really is. I am also willing to bet that with Capmark filing for bankruptcy protection and the mainstream press starting to focus on Stuyvesant Town's owners about to default that everyone will now start getting worried about the CRE bomb that is about to explode on the bank balance sheets. I also find it telling that you are starting to see the feds lay the ground work for seizing failed financial institutes. Something tells me they are getting ready for a worst case scenario.

We got a new floor lamp. It is pretty cool and the husband mentioned to my youngest he likes it because it looks like a giant snake that has eaten someone and the body is still in it. We are almost done with furnishing the new place. We are getting delivery of a new sideboard this Friday- and lamps for it. After that all we have left are some shades for the master bedroom but that is going to have to wait until the spring.

It will be a busy week.

Beware the sleestak

Thursday I actually wore a suit and tie to work, mainly because I was too lazy to figure out an actual outfit and I also had a business dinner. So before dinner the boss,I and one of our favorite portfolio managers (who is also a great guy and friend) went to an Italian restaurant that had outdoor dining. Thursday was such an awesome day weather wise we decided to sit outside, have some wine and antipasto. I then went to dinner and after met the husband and DR for drinks at the Strip House. The best part of that was our former hot neighbor was there and remembered us.

You have to love that Mexicans love their tequila so much that two of them discovered you can use it to create synthetic diamonds. Apparently it can be used in PLI-CVD to form them. The only better thing would be if the Irish found a way to do it with Guinness or whiskey...

Friday was looking like crappy weather so I figured my oldest son's last fall baseball game would get canceled. It did. So I picked them up and we stopped at TGT to pick up a movie to watch. We decided on Land Of The Lost. I remember watching the t.v show as a kid and I loved it. The movie was pretty damn funny. I laughed a lot and there were some really good scenes.

Today I got up and made my first pumpkin pie of the season- from scratch. I kind of screwed up though and used whole wheat flour for the crust. I told the husband it was more authentic that way because the Pilgrims did not have bleached white flour.

MP and her bf canceled on us to a miscommunication between themselves about their schedule. No big deal. I went ahead and made the lamb stew I had planned anyway. The funny thing is my oldest does not like lamb. My youngest went with me to do the grocery shopping and knew I bought lamb. I had to make him pinky swear not to tell his older brother. The lamb stew was a big hit and half way through dinner my oldest asked what kind of meat it was. I couldn't lie to him and told him it was lamb. He finished it anyways which surprised me.

This afternoon we went and saw The Vampire's Assistant. It was a pretty good flick. The boys liked it and so did I and the husband but the husband thought it was edited poorly. The good thing is we found out it is based on a book series. So now I have some gifts for my youngest for Christmas.

My oldest was supposed to have a make up game tomorrow afternoon but thanks to the massive amount of rain that hit the east coast today that game got canceled as well. So it looks like tomorrow we will have a nice lazy day.

Pre-emption

There are times I hate how efficient our Nazi maid is at her job. I had notes from yesterday and did not get to write so left them on the counter. Of course she threw them out.

Hedge funds. I worked at one for five years. You are always trying to find that bit of information can give you an edge over everyone else. Hedge funds do talk with each other and exchange information. Material, non-public information is not easy to come by and if you do get it but don't trade with the intent of making money you are in the clear.The problem is what exactly qualifies as material, non-public information. I am saying that every hedge fund at one point or another comes close to that line and often crosses it. Catching and proving intent are difficult because hedge funds have such high turnover (trade a lot in the same names very frequently) that it can be attributed to that turnover. What can be the silver bullet though is if someone is paid money in exchange for information that may be material and non-public. Hell, even now I am trying to find information others don't have so I can have an edge.

So currently the Federal government has oversight of banks in all situations if and when need be, it is called pre-emption. Each state also has their own regulatory body for banks within their jurisdictions. The current debate is when there is a financial reform bill passed who gets final say. States say they should have it as they did not sleep on the job like the Feds did. I can't disagree with them on that point. However, unintended consequences could be the big banks leave states that more onerous regulations than others. Then what? How do you get credit flowing when certain states don't have the banks that can lend. Do we want banks having to have 50 different regulators?

The next thing this leads me to is the whole TBTF (Too Big To Fail) issue and its corollary about banking capacity in the United States. Quite honestly this country probably still has way too many banks. So getting rid of some of the banking capacity is not a bad thing. But that could lead to a smaller number of larger banks. We then run into the issue of TBTF. Which leads me to think heavier regulation would be needed if we cut banking capacity.

So this weekend we have the boys again- just part of the horse trading that goes on between the ex and me. It is also the last weekend of fall baseball- thank God. I think Saturday in the afternoon we are going to go see Cirque de Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. We are also having MP and her bf over for dinner so I will have to make dessert in the morning.

I keep seeing ambulance chasing lawyer ads advertising a phone line called 1-800-BAD-DRUG. I am thinking of calling to see if there are any drugs I have used recently that can get me lots of money from a lawsuit. Speaking of lawsuits, I can't believe people are suing MCD for knowingly selling cancer causing chicken. Apparently when you grill chicken a naturally occurring chemical gets changed into PHiP. Well then why the hell does anyone eat grilled chicken let alone order it?