Mexx Me, Please!

My All About Me Book has taken a serious turn for the worse.

So I had my story done forever and ever ago, but the illustrations I'm having some serious problems with. I was originally going with a "Paint Daub" effect using Photoshop on some photos. This was going okay except for a few problems:
1. Too much whitespace in my book
2. Pictures weren't always coming out the right size for the picture page to be full
3. I was missing pictures I needed (we seem to have misplaced some family albums I was counting on).

So...ideally the illustrations would all be very similar, but this isn't working out. That means it's time to bust out the drawing skills.

But I wrote my story the way I did to fit around the photos, so now I've thought about the story...and I want to change it.

This is becoming a huge problem since it's due on Friday. Yargh.

It took 6 hours and a bit of running around with a plate, but I did it. All of the 12" cake is gone.

Rumour has it Alex ate his third slice with a cookie.

3 month Libor looks like it is topping


3 month TBill rates rising


2 year swap spreads are easing


S&P 500 looks like it is bottoming


Do I think this mess is completely over? No, not yet, but a short term bottom looks quite possible here.

Something big going on right now I didn't post about:

Our friends from Waterloo, Chris and Jenn, live two cities south of us (or sub-city if you're thinking of the Greater Vancouver Regional District as one), and we've been spending a lot of time reconnecting. They have a 2-month-old named Andy.

Anyway last night after dinner Jenn was going to hand Andy over to me and 'asked' him "Want to go see your Auntie Kaitlyn?"

Well I almost cried. Never been an Auntie Kaitlyn before.

Art was wearing a DOW 10,000 hat

Then Erin makes a comment along the lines of "the lost decade" and "some of us began investing back in 1999." Which is exactly where we are at now.

Then some bloke comes on and says futures spiked when Liesman came on CNBC because everyone expected a surprise rate cut... ha ha ha, like a surprise rate cut would actually help the situation here.

S&P Below 1070, which is the 61.8% FIB retrace from 2002 lows to all time highs. Notice the S&P basically made a double top in the last decade?

Video: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=879600839&play=1

It is October. That means my favourite holiday (Hallowe'en) is coming soon! And also that I need to start working on preparing the seminar I'll be giving the day before Hallowe'en called Designing Exams. October is the most normal month this term for sure... nothing crazy, a regular weekly routine.

Ian MacKinnon was in town (for co-op interviews for his company) on Thurs - Sat and stayed with us, so it was nice to hang out and chat. Of course, I forgot to mention the dates that I'll be out in Vancouver, so here it is for all the west-coasters:

Wed, Nov 12 - fly to Seattle
sometime around the 15th - train to Vancouver
Wed, Nov 26 - fly home

Speaking of coasters (hehehehe) ... I made a cool fused-glass coaster two weeks ago, and I'll probably make a set of them this week. I also get to see how the sunflower piece I made last week turned out - it was annoying cutting all the individual petals but hopefully the effect is worth it. I'm finding I like glass fusing much better than stained glass (although both classes leave me with multiple stab wounds on my fingers) because it's much less precise. If the pieces aren't exactly straight, it won't matter because the edges round anyway in the kiln.

For stained glass, I'm working on a (what I thought would be easy) Mondrian piece. In fact, I'm making two of them because I couldn't buy glass in small enough increments so I figured I might as well. I cut most of the pieces last week and hopefully will solder it up this week. I'm using my dad's old stuff (except his soldering iron... the studio provides nicer ones than his) since he used to do stained glass. I want to make a beveled piece for him, but I'm not really good at design or cutting at this point, so maybe I'll leave it until later.

This weekend, Stephen and Alex played a lot of Madden 09. It's a pretty neat game actually, and I honestly can't tell the difference between the pre-recorded auto-responses the game provides and the real commentary in actual football games. Heh. Doesn't say much for the usefulness of sports commentators. ;)

This one is for wreny

http://www.rexall.ca/downloads/eCoupon/5_off_coupon102008.pdf

$5 coupon off Rexall/Pharma Plus stores off ANYTHING. Friday I went downstairs and got chocolate twice at two different stores, for 5.99 of chocolate, I only ended up paying $1.77. Sweet digs, I'm going to get so fat! I think I need to use it this week for

• Face soap
  
• Detergent
  
• New tooth brushes
  
• New Forbes
  
• Mouthwash/toothpaste
  
• Milk Bitches, I was raised on the dairy, bitch!
  
• Playboy? Do they sell them at Pharma Plus, I think that would be a great use for these coupons!
  

I find that subject heading amusing because it reminds me of a really great Daria episode where Daria gets a belly button piercing for a guy, takes out the ring because it's irritating her and then it closes up.

Amusing because she shows her sister the piercing, her sister Quinn tells her parents, but by the time they go to check and yell at her, the piercing's disappeared.

In this case, it's just my ears. One piercing in each. So I now have to live with diamond-rhinestone flower studs in my ears for 6 weeks. And of course, I have to use the antibacterial stuff twice a day.

It's not too bad. It was a light pinch, but the throbbing after was unpleasant. It's settled down now...I just have to be careful not to bump my ears or anything.

I taught my first (50 minute) lecture today. It was something I asked whether I could do. My supervisor was out of town and let me lecture her undergrad class.

It definetly could have gone better. I think I was going a touch too fast - actually I know I was going too fast. I finished what I had prepared to cover with a good 10 minutes left to go in the class. Rather than let everyone go early, I tried to formulate the model I had just introduced from memory/solving the problem on the fly in my head. As you can guess I made the capital mistake of teaching the wrong thing.

Not only did I make a mistake in the answer I developped in my head and subsequently wrote on the board, because I was asking for student participation, I actually dismissed the suggestion for the introduction of a decision variable (which is needed) as "a good idea but unnecessary". It wasn't until I wrote everything on the board and did a quick check did I realize the formulation was wrong. I quickly blurted out that the formulation was incorrect - but couldn't figure out how to fix it quickly and was blankly looking at the board- of course by now the 10 minutes I had had evaporated and students were stirring. I let them go. It wasn't until a few students came up to me and asked why the formulation I wrote was wrong did I realize I should have explained that instead of clumsily trying to fix it.

I had class the next hour and felt thoroughly wretched and largely disinterested in what was being taught. After the class I was encouraged by a professor who was in attendance of the lecture who told me he thought that overall things seemed to go well. Reading Rebecca's latest entry on teaching was interesting, though here I was presenting incorrect information as if it were correct. Maybe I'm still dwelling on it too much.

There's been a lot of talk about the conservative governments "intensity based targets" for carbon reduction. Basically, companies are doing well if they reduce their emissions/unit of production. There has been a lot of focus on production from the oil sands in particular. The other parties are saying it's bad if they increase production by a factor of 5 and decrease pollution by a factor of 10%/unit. Is it really bad? We intend to harvest all the oil out of the sands eventually, so if we can reduce the pollution/unit how is that a bad thing?

I'm not an expert on pollution; I don't know if it's bad for it to all come in a clump or if it's better to be spread out, and what the optimal point is. You could argue that in the future we might have better technology to reduce the amounts even further, but I don't see any way to get a good conclusion of where the production line should be from that argument.

I'm failing to see the relevance of the green party. Their big thing is the environment, but it's now an important issue to a large portion of Canadians and so it's being addressed by the other parties.

I'm also struggling to differentiate the Liberals Bloc, NDP and Green parties. So far they seem to agree about the conservatives (personified by Harper) being wrong and have somewhat similar ideas otherwise.

I think so far in the debate I'm most impressed by Gilles Duceppe. I'm only about 40% into it.

Goldilocks: This bed is too hard. This bed it too soft. This bed is juuust right.
Dion: The NDP is too left. The Conservatives are too right. The Liberals are juuust right.

There's a good amount of logic in that somehow.

Browned garlic chickpeas and torn smoked turkey drumstick with roasted red bell peppers and red onions, dressed in homemade arugula (homegrown!) pecan pesto. (minus parmesan. alas.) All on a bed of zucchini and carrot ribbons and finished with a sprinkle of lemon juice.

If you want the questions you must agree to answer them in advance.

1. Paul T
2. Bech
3. Greg
4. Me
5. Joe
6. Bech
7. Jenn M
8. Dan P
9. Paul V
10.Sherman
11.Jenn M (before)
12.Sundeep
13.My brother
14.Jason T
15.Paul V
16.My grampa
17.Luke
18.?
19.Paul T
20.Bech
21.?
22.?
23.Mark L
24.Gus
25.Mark M
26.Caitlin
27.Me
28.?
29.Nobody right now

Preparing for the Great Depression 2.0

Things to do this weekend

10) Make sure rice supply hasn't spoiled
9) Check shotgun is working and ammo available
8) Get some canned beans and pork
7) Check propane tanks haven't leaked
6) Feed chickens and rabbits
5) Buy Military Meal Replacement Packs (MRP)
4) Teach the wife how to use the shotgun
3) Finish lining the fruit cellar with lead
2) Sharpen machete
1) Update itinerary of what to loot during riots

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=akRlc4ks5mDc&refer=home

Fed May Lose Out on Bear Assets, Bank of America Says (Update1)
By John Glover

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Federal Reserve may lose as much as $6 billion on a portfolio of mortgage-backed assets it took over from Bear Stearns Cos., according to Bank of America Corp. analysts.

The Fed will announce its quarterly estimate of the fair value of Maiden Lane LLC's $30 billion of holdings that JPMorgan Chase & Co. considered too risky when it acquired Bear Stearns in March, Bank of America analysts Jeffrey Rosenberg and Hans Mikkelsen wrote in a client note. The central bank valued the assets at $29 billion as of June 30, according to the report.

``With the worsening in mortgage markets since last quarter, we estimate a range of $2 billion to $6 billion of unrealized losses,'' the New York-based analysts wrote.

About half the portfolio is backed by commercial mortgages and half by residential loans. About 80 percent of those are so- called Alt-A mortgages, a step higher than subprime in terms of quality, with the remainder prime mortgages, Bank of America estimates.

The valuation of the $12 billion of Alt-A mortgages varies by as much as $5.4 billion depending on whether the analysts use estimates that Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. or Morgan Stanley apply to their own portfolios, the analysts wrote.

Valuing the Maiden Lane assets ``puts the Fed squarely in the very position of the banks it regulates in dealing with mark- to-market accounting,'' according to Bank of America's report.

The U.S. Senate yesterday passed a $700 billion financial- market rescue package, which allows securities regulators to suspend asset-valuing rules that corporate executives blame for fueling the credit crisis.

``This exercise illustrates the difficulties in measuring fair value,'' the analysts wrote. ``It will be interesting to see how and whether the Fed chooses to apply fair-value accounting principles.''

The Fed expects the latest quarterly revaluation to be in the Oct. 23 release of the central bank's balance sheet, New York Fed spokesman Andrew Williams said.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Glover in London at johnglover@bloomberg.net

For those not following the ridiculously low number of sun spots recently, the solar wind has died down too.

"The Sun has gone quiet, very quiet. The solar wind - which is comprised of electrically charged particles streaming out from the star - is weaker than at any time since scientists began accurate observations in the 1950s, and the number of sunspots in 2008 may be the lowest since the 19th century. This year's solar silence has surprised space physicists, who were expecting the Sun to have moved away from the minimum point of the 11-year solar cycle by now. "To see such a significant and consistent long-term reduction in the solar wind output is really remarkable," says David McComas, a senior scientist on the Ulysses solar satellite mission, a joint project of the European and US space agencies. It's nice to see others are noting the lack of solar activity. We'll stay on the case."
-- Art Cashin's daily report October 2nd, 2008

Peter co-founded paypal, and now runs a hedge fund. There are three video clips and are interesting comments he makes, especially about Québec!

http://www.1440wallstreet.com/index.php/site/comments/clarium_lp_and_peter_thiel_rule_hedgistan_in_2008/

I hadn't cleared out my mailbox at school for a week or two, but a couple of days ago when I did there were a couple of items which caused some alarm. The first was the university's policy on harassment, discrimination and sexual harassment. I suppose it wouldn't be that alarming if any of the other mailboxes had one including the mailboxes that seemed to be me more full than mine, but this seemed like it was sent specifically to me; and although I couldn't imagine how, I began to imagine that I had somehow offended someone and that this was some form of a subtle hint. Later examination of the brochure eventually revealed that while it was specifically sent that there was a To field on the back of the brochure, but it was not addressed to me and had been inserted incorrectly into my mailbox. The other item was a bar of soap, which had the same affect as the harassment brochure. The soap, on the other hand, did not have an address field. *

* I'm not that upset about it. I ended up taking the bar home. It could have been like the brochure put in the wrong mail box. It could have been a gift. It's the type of soap that you might expect to find in a fancier hotel. The box says it was made in England and claims to be milk soap. It's nicer than my current bar.

-------

"Do you need a bar of soap?" my mom asked as I was packing to return to Waterloo for my 1B term.
"No, you gave me three boxes back in the fall and I'm nowhere close to finishing the first bar."
"Don't you shower every day? Our soap doesn't last that long"
"Well there are five times the number of people using the soap here. Plus I had to keep my soap in my soap dish and bring it back to my room after using it. It lasts a lot longer when you keep it dry rather than leaving it on the ledge in the stall."
"I don't know ..."
My dad interjected "He's right."
He said this in a sorrowful tone as if he was mourning the amount of soap our household was wasting.

-------

After checking into our hotel at Big Sur my mom felt she had been ripped off. She was upset that she had made her reservation a month ago and that the person who checked in before her without a reservation managed to negotiate a price significantly lower than what we had paid. She was unimpressed with our room (I kinda liked it - it was sort of like a cabin style motel room) and despite being sorta late, refused to eat at the inn's restaurant saying that the prices were far too high and that the hotel was trying to gauge us. I tried to pacify her with reasons that I wasn't entirely sure I actually believed; that as it gets later a hotel would naturally lower their prices instead of letting a room remain vacant; that we were paying a premium for being in the middle of nature; that the hotel's restaurant's prices weren't as high as the restaurant we had eaten at the previous night; that the rustic nature of our room was to be expected after we checked online last month for hotels in Big Sur and found the place that lets you sleep in a yurt; that this hotel was pandering to be a holistic retreat and shouldn't be equaled to a motel that one decides to spend the night at.

We ate dinner at another hotel's restaurant at prices that were only moderately cheaper than those of our hotel's. There was no TV so we didn't watch coverage of Hillary Clinton's speech. Instead my mom went to bed early while my sister and I played a game of Indian Crayon Rails. Despite being up early by a lot my sister won. My sister took her shower and went to bed and I got ready for my shower. I guess it was during my shower that the doubts taht his was a holistic retreat faded away. Their soap was a lavender-scented organic herbal blend with coconut as their primary cleansing agent. I normally have a healthy dose of skepticism for such natural products but I will admit that I found yielded a soothing and relaxing sensation and I really enjoyed using it.

The extended sleep and morning seem to help my mom's mood. My mom was happy with the breakfast that we purchased at the inn's "general store" and after looking through the window at someone eating breakfast at the hotel's restaurant, my mom conceded she may have been wrong about the restaurant. We ended up buying a bottle of the hotel's soap.

With an hourly salary like this:
http://www.sfu.ca/human-resources/hr_services/advisory_services/employment_at_sfu/current_job_postings/Competition362.html

I think I'll apply even though I don't have all the qualifications. It's better than letting an opportunity like that get away!

(If they fix it, the hourly salary was listed as $1,447.70)