080224 Resolution Dissolution

New Year’s Resolutions always start with the best of intentions. This New Year’s I vowed that I work on my writing every day beginning with retyping a minimum of one page of my horrendously clichéd novel The Cursed Yet Free into Word format each and every day. I also vowed to work on updating my website weekly. It all went well in the beginning. New Year’s Resolutions often do. However, I have only been successful with a New Year’s Resolution once. I vowed to learn who Steve Buscemi was so I knew who people were talking about and so when he popped up in every movie ever made, I could say, “So that’s who that guy is.” (Note to readers: look closely at the scenes of downtown Atlanta in Gone With The Wind.)

Identifying actors and actresses has never been my strong suit. When I was little, I could not tell Bill Cosby from Bing Crosby. After I mastered that, I tackled adolescence only to emerge not knowing who was Haley Berry and who was Lauren Holly or knowing if F-Troop starred Forest Whitaker or Forrest Tucker. Currently, I am having trouble telling Fergie from Nelly Furtado. (Reader caution: Fergie is not from the British royal family and the singer Nelly is a man unlike this Nelly who is a woman.)

As you can see, my confusion is not bounded by race. I am blind to color. I have been told that my girl friend is a beautiful white woman, but I can only go on what others tell me. As for myself, I never get pulled over for no reason by the police so I can only assume that I am white.

Back to resolutions.

Redoing my website into a more usable format was exciting enough that I was installing major additions daily. I was also staying ahead of schedule on reformatting the novel. The flaw to the plan was that I did everything on both resolutions on my notebook – a very convenient to use HP Pavilion 9710 which could juggle GoLive, Photoshop, Word and Excel. My main error was backing up everything I did on external hard drives with the exception of the novel and the HTML code and graphics of the site.

The day that the notebook would not turn on was a little traumatic. What kept me calm was the knowledge that I had a quality machine and my friends at DEA Computing would be able to fix it easily. When I brought it to their shop in Wynantskill, NY, their initial assessment matched mine: the power jack seemed very loose and had probably pulled free from the motherboard. Often things are not as simple as they first seem. The jack fit loosely but was properly attached. What lay ahead would be an arduous task of replacing component after component. Oh, and I was one week beyond the one year warrantee. The folks at the Circuit City call center were not exactly helpful.

As of today, the hard drive from the notebook is in a USB sleeve ready to attach to my tower so I can extract the files and return to work on the site. The 9710 is under a living room couch waiting to see what I may do with it and a new 9720 rests on a cooling tray in my bedroom as I tempt fate by reaching into that same fire that just burned me. Before the sun sets there will be backups to my files on two external drives.

What all this means is I no longer have an excuse for not working to figure out why the roll over buttons covering my index page and that work so well in a closed setting fail to do anything when out on the internet.

First I need to figure out if Stephen Cobert was Ace and Steve Carell was Gary in the old Saturday Night Live Cartoon Funhouse episodes or if it was the other way around.

080217 Not So Roughing It

It was not so long ago that I could go into a strange city hundreds of miles from home and step into a totally unknown establishment to enjoy a refreshing adult beverage or two… or three. Somehow I must have gotten old. Last week while I was in Williamsburg, Virginia, a big night out meant stopping off at Chili’s or Applebee’s for a single martini and then heading back to the suite.

Maybe it is not just me. On my last evening in town, there was a group of guys in their late twenties having a guys’ night out at Applebee’s telling Chuck Norris jokes while drinking Appletinis. On my way out of the door, I passed a table surrounded by burly guys with tattoos climbing out from their eighteen inch shirt collars. What did I hear them talking about? Jimmy Neutron. I hate to think of what is going on in the biker bars these days.

Heading back to the room is not what it used to be either. Gone are the days of cruising into a town and finding a room when I get there. I remember my ex-wife asking if those were bullet holes in the door. Now I have a unit booked at a resort weeks or months before I pull out of the driveway.

I would never encourage anyone to buy a timeshare during a tour or a sales presentation. It is usually the same scene. The potential customers or “marks” mill around a waiting area drinking watered down coffee and day old danish until a very upbeat and hyped up sales rep leads them to an office which inevitably involves a winding path through corridors disorienting the customer. The sales rep is the customer’s best friend and hopefully a bond can be made that will make the customer feel comfortable paying full price and let the time share company finance it for them. Failing that, a smiling manager will stop by the table with a fantastic discount. If that does not seal the deal, the exit interview will hopefully finish the customer off. A series of questions that involve repeating back what was just set puts the customer in a very calm almost hypnotic state before the interviewer throws out the question “And did so and so mention the ____ deal?” Of course, it is something the customer never heard of. Then the third and last price comes out and compared to the first price it is incredible.

Having said that, I have a time share. Actually, I have three contracts and I will add to it. The first contract came from the secondary market and I bought it online from a reseller. It was the old weekly format for red time at the resort fifteen miles from my house. I bought it twelve cents on the dollar figuring that at the worst, I could rent it out to leaf peepers from New York City or resell it on Craigslist for more than I paid. In the meantime, I intended to use the pools, hot tubs and saunas as well as catch a few movies in their theater and do some snow shoeing and cross country skiing. What happened was that I found the previous owners had never been given the option to convert when the timeshare companies were pushing points. Because of this, with the use of different discount options, I was able to leverage four to six weeks a year in luxury resorts for much less than the original owners paid for one week.

There are two next steps for me in the world of timeshares. One is to increase my point ownership the little bit it needs for V.I.P. status which is a fancy sounding term simply meaning I won’t be charged for sundry things like extra housekeeping credits. I will not buy at the prices the companies sell for. I will go to the foreclosure market. The other thing I need to do is go back to the secondary market where the better deals are and buy up extra points which, as a V.I.P. owner, Wyndham will rent out for me and cover the maintenance fees for all of the contracts. Once those maintenance fees are removed, I truly will be vacationing for free for the rest of my life.

So what have we learned? The older we get the more we crave comfortable known surroundings where there is virtually no chance of a guy named Bubba hitting us across the face with a pool cue. If we decide to go the timeshare route, buy on the secondary market. The only thing you should buy from the happy people who hand out the free gifts are foreclosure property. Only buy deeded. Only buy top line as the run down places are no cheaper. Buy more than you will use and rent out the extra to cover maintenance.

Now I need to take a nap.

080210 Across the Party Aisle

I had hoped that the Democratic Party would surprise me and have a leader in the presidential race by now and I would not have to do another political blog already. As I gave my views on each of the Republican candidates last week, I am going to need to do the same for the Democrats now. They will appear in alphabetical order.

Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton made perhaps the scariest comment that I have heard in 2007. She decided to capitalize on the public’s emotions on the price of gasoline and heating oil by crafting a policy that makes a good sound bite but which will make all Americans worse off in its simplistic over reaction. Mrs. Clinton has advocated taking away the profits of the oil companies. The statement hits a nerve while you are standing at the pump. Who is she taxing though? If this was Venezuela, the profits taken would be those going to Hugo Chavez and his inner circle. As they are taking all of the oil profits, the Venezuelan refineries are literally falling apart leaving Venezuela lurching toward Iran’s predicament of sitting on huge oil reserves but importing all of its gasoline. American oil companies are owned by the owners of the companies’ stocks. This is largely the retirement and pension funds of nearly every major employer in America. Nationalizing the nation’s energy industry would take away over fifty percent of the income to the retirement accounts of most Americans. She would, in effect, bankrupt most pension funds and force the government take over of our retirement. The same government employees who are overseeing the failing social security fund will now have our pension funds. The same regulators who took over our health care back when it was affordable and the envy of the world by forcing HMOs on us will be in charge of our energy supply. With no profits, the energy industry will cease exploration, alternative research and upgrading our refining capacity just as the Chinese expand on all of these fronts. Besides importing lead covered toys, we can import leaded Chinese gasoline.

That is an issue worthy of a whole separate blog so let’s move on. In fairness, after entering public consciousness with an ill though out health care plan in the nineties, Mrs. Clinton has adopted much more mainstream positions on most issues. As a senator from New York, she has made herself more accessible to and responsive to the citizens of this state than I would ever have believed. While she is no Daniel Patrick Moyihan, she has generally done more good than harm in her role. From me, that’s a compliment to a politician.

The one thing about Hillary Clinton that we can know for sure as her positions shift is that she will galvanize those her dislike her into electing John McCain. As someone who respects and admires Senator McCain, I do not have a problem with this. I know two people in my daily life who plan on voting for Mrs. Clinton. The sole reason both of them plan to do so is that it is “time a woman was president.” Neither of them voted for her in the primary and I do not believe either has registered to vote. I doubt they go to the polls in November.

John Edwards. Senator Edwards has dropped out of the race. While he was in, he campaigned as the champion on the working man. He continually reminded us of his mill working father. He berated those in power and with money. While the price of his haircut (more than my monthly health insurance premium) made headlines there was little publicity to how he interacted with the working class. When not on the campaign trail, he has not enjoyed having them around him. I have not heard any mention of Senator Edwards endorsing either of his rivals. Either he does not want to anger the party winner by supporting the wrong candidate, or he has no affection for either.

Barak Obama. It is hard to imagine why Senator Edwards would dislike Senator Obama. He is a charismatic man who energizes his audience. He seems like a very nice man. Of the three Democratic candidates, he is probably the most electable.

Barak Obama’s campaign centers on the word “change”. In fact, it rarely radiates far enough away from it for us to even know what it means. I have scratched my head wondering exactly what he would change or how he would do it. It is questionable whether he knows either.

What “change” does do, is skip over the nasty issue of experience and qualifications and these are what the senator lacks. A first term law maker, he has so far failed to make any laws. It is tempting to point out his lack of foreign policy experience and wish he had served on the foreign relations committee or the armed services committee, but that overlooks his total lack of experience in economic policy. Our country remains at war and is teetering on the brink of recession and he is running on his lack of experience as his main theme.

The unspecific ideas he has made passing reference to are not new ideas but are all from programs that his predecessors have tried and which have not worked. His most ardent supporters are the nation’s youngest supporters who do not remember how badly these ideas failed. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

The most convincing argument I have heard anyone over thirty make for Barack Obama is that it would send a powerful message to the world. I have not heard it explained what this message is or why we need to send a message. Is it that we can elect a black man? I am guessing that is the message. Is it really important enough to give the most important job in the world to an inexperienced man just so we can hope somebody likes us? If so, why not elect a more qualified black man?

Across the aisle. Since I began typing this out (these blogs are usually written days in advance), Mit Romney has dropped out of the race. He has spent a ton of his own money on this race and, although he is in second place, it would take Devine intervention to gain enough delegates to win. It was no longer worth it to keep spending the cash. Mike Huckabee, who does believe in Devine intervention, may stick it out because it is not his money that he is spending and he wants some concessions at the convention. Ron Paul, a dark horse in a field of eleven is now one of three and as long as people keep sending him cash, he will keep pushing his message.

Since it is no secret that John McCain has a personal distrust of Mister Romney and his tactics, there is little to no chance there would be room for him in a McCain White House. Governor Romney is widely known to now plan to bide his time at try to run against a sitting Democratic president in 2012.

080203 Super Tuesday

With the field of candidates contracting rapidly after the Florida primary, we should probably take a look at the candidates out there who are in a race which will, yes it’s true, impact our everyday lives more than American Idol. I will start with the Republicans and more on to the Democrats next week because… well because I want to do it in that order. Besides, after this Tuesday, it’s possible that the Democrats will be down to one candidate and I can tackle something else.

Ron Paul. When this campaign first started, I got a look at Ron Paul and I thought “What a nut.” Then, I took the time to find out who he was and what he stood for. Those of you to follow this blog over from its previous venue know that I have previously endorsed Ron Paul. Since my endorsement, people have stopped me to ask why I would bother supporting someone who did not stand a chance of winning. I am surprised and a little disheartened to learn how many people are more concerned with backing a winner instead of supporting the better candidate.

Ron Paul debates poorly. About the only time you see him in the mainstream media, it is at a debate. They don’t cover him otherwise. Mediators will ask John McCain about Iraq, Rudy Giuliani about terrorism and Mitt Romney about taxes and then they throw Paul an oddball question out of left field like “Yes or no, do you still beat your wife?” Well, they weren’t that bad but they were all no win questions that had nothing to do with any issue. Paul lets his frustration show. Maybe that’s a sign that he could not be a visionary leader. However, with the exception of Iraq, he is spot on with the issues.

Ron Paul is what the Republican Party used to be about. He is about shrinking the government and getting it out of our lives. There are two videos of Ron Paul up at the Virtual Jim Avery website. One shows him questioning Ben Benanke about the Federal Reserve Bank’s recent actions. My readers know that I have previously ranted about the Fed’s rate cuts leading us into an inflationary spiral the effects of which will be with us long after the current downturn has ended. The other video explains how we could eliminate the income tax and the I.R.S. and replace them with nothing. It is doable. There are other Republican candidates who want to replace the income tax with a consumption tax which, while it would be beneficial to me, would hit the poorest members of society the hardest. I will leave the videos and the links to his campaign up as long as Ron Paul is a candidate and perhaps longer. Months ago he promised to stay in at least through Super Tuesday. No, he won’t win. Maybe he would not be an effective leader. However, his message is more important than ever and I hope his candidacy helps lead toward sanity.

John McCain. John McCain has stated that he would rather do the right thing for the country than do the popular thing. Surprisingly, for a politician, he means it. He made himself unpopular with many Republicans by telling the current administration it was wrong to follow the Rumsfeld plan at the start of the Iraq War. He presented a different plan which was more costly and which did not assume that it would be all sunny days once Hussein was gone. When the conditions began looking more and more like a quagmire and the popular consensus was to cut and run, he pushed his plan which became known as the surge. It was wildly unpopular with the public and derailed his campaign making him look like an also ran. Luckily, the administration listened and the surge worked. It was not a panacea that made everything better instantly and it would have been more effective if it had happened years earlier, but it worked and gave the Iraqi people a fighting chance.

McCain has never been afraid to do the right thing even when it was unpopular. I believed in the sincerity of the Straight Talk Express when it crossed the country in 2000 and I believe in it now. There are many out there, my own father included, who distrust John McCain. They remember that he had the audacity to challenge George Bush for the party nomination in 2000 when the powers that be had already made their choice. McCain knew that the best thing for the party and for the country was to let the people decide rather than have a room full of suits hand pick the next president. Between his standing up to the party leaders and his ability to reach across the aisle and make partners among the Democrats, a liberal image was put onto him. However, his voting record matches his principles and, apart from Ron Paul, he is the most conservative candidate out there.

John McCain brings three things together. He has conservative ideals. He speaks the truth. He can match his beliefs by providing leadership in a way not seen since Ronald Reagan worked with a Democratic congress. On the negative side: while he has vibrancy and vigor that make me jealous, no first term president has ever been older.

Mitt Romney. Romney has a strong business background. That’s an important consideration given our current economic background and it is all some people need to hear. The question is, what else does he bring to the table? I do not know what he believes in. I know what he says he is for right now, but is that what he believes? Romney seems to say whatever he thinks people want to hear. I don’t think I trust him. He also is not afraid to go on the attack. He will turn against any other candidate at the first opportunity. If the U.S. government was a business, he might be good enough. In a strictly business world, however, your competitors are not strapping bombs to themselves. Businesses do not need to sink capital into arms which can never be used profitably. The biggest thing government needs to do with business is get out the way.

Mike Huckabee. Frankly, a Huckabee presidency frightens me. He has a very soothing way of speaking. You can sit listening to his voice for hours and feel like you are hearing something very reasonable. He can talk to a crowd and speak to each individual. He says that he is a strong conservative, but he acts like a liberal. He is the smiling friendly face to the attack dog that is the Christian right which combines the northeast liberal belief that they know what’s good for us and will legislate to correct our behavior with the fundamentalist fervor for narrowly defined decency.

Huckabee has no experience outside of serving God and governing Arkansas. During the recent standoff between our navy and the Iranian navy, Huckabee was all in favor of our ships’ captains firing on the Iranians and opening an entirely new war which could not win without giving up on Afghanistan and on Iraq or asking our citizens to sacrifice in a way that they have not had to do since the 1940s. Of course, we now know that the threats on the radio did not come from the Iranian ships and probably not from any Iranian. I shudder to think of our country blundering into a war mistakenly because we need to stand up for Jesus.

Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani staked out Florida as where he would make his move in the election season. By the time Florida voted, it was all over for him. He made himself un-newsworthy leaving him dead in the water. He was left with little choice but to drop out and throw his support behind John McCain. Rudy Giuliani was a successful prosecutor who hunted down the worst criminals in the country and he was a wildly successful mayor. He turned New York City around in a way that few people believed could happen. He was not afraid to hurt some feelings along the way. The media seemed a little let down that he remained cordial during his run and never turned negative against his fellow Republicans.

Giuliani has put together the best position on tax reform and tort reform of any candidate. We should hope it gets attention now that he is no longer in the race. I remain where I was two years ago thinking that a McCain/ Giuliani ticket is just what this country needs. Four years of high profile work will fill out his resume so he is ready for the big chair.

Fred Thompson. This darling of Fox News is out of the race. I still don’t know why he was in. He did not add anything meaningful to the race.

The Rest. Who really cares?