So, for the last few weeks, I’ve contemplated moving the blog to a host that offers a few more utilities and options for posting my semi-regularly scheduled missives. To be frank, the only reason I keep the MySpace page updated these days is because of the blog. A dedicated blogging platform just seems easier to manage on a day-to-day basis than keeping a dying website around to just support a blog… Why not cut out the middle-man and focus on what I really enjoy doing… ranting about all that is stupid in the world. I wouldn’t be leaving MySpace, of course, but rather putting the page into kind of a suspended animation mode so I have a presence here, but not something that needs regular care and feeding. Hopefully I’ll make a final decision after I’ve had a chance to play around with some of the hosting sites and see if they’ll fill the bill. As always, your thoughts are welcome.
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Weekend Recap…
I’ve been in Williamsburg, VA all weekend for the wedding of one of my dear friends and his beautiful bride. At the moment, I’m feeling rather rum-soaked from the reception and suspect it could take two or three days to make a full recovery. I had the great good fortune to spend much of the reception in the company of a delightfully charming and quite elegant redhead from Alexandria. Despite the lingering haze of last night, I remain quite captivated and hopeful that our paths might cross again under less intoxicated circumstances.
The Long Game…
As you’ve noticed by now the pace of posting has slowed a bit lately. To be honest, I’ve been absolutely engrossed in watching the ongoing economic meltdown. I’ve sort of moved beyond the point of being stunned to the point of being fascinated in seeing how the market unravels from a more academic point of view. I want to try to understand the fundamentals at work – particularly those that failed. Obviously, the overextended home lending market has a significant share of the blame here, but I can’t make the jump to that being the only or even the root cause. I have to think there is something more basic at work here. So far, I’ve seen a lot of “the sky is falling” from the media, but they’ve been a little short on the serious economic analysis. Hopefully as we gain some perspective on the events of the last two weeks, someone with a far more developed sense of economics than mine will connect the dots.
While I’m thinking on the overall economy, I can’t escape the precipitous fall of stock prices over the last seven days. I’m the first to cringe when I look at the daily carnage inside my retirement account, but then I realize that I have 25 more years before I can even consider retiring and it starts to dawn on me that having the market down 50% means my IRA contribution is buying almost twice as many shares as I could a year ago for the same amount of money. Given that the historic trend of the market since its inception has been to move upwards and the ridiculously long horizon involved, the long game is looking pretty positive. Yeah, I know that thinking like that probably makes me a bad person, but I’m OK with that.
97%…
The only items left in the Great Patio Build of 2008 is passing the final electrical inspection and hanging the ceiling fan and floodlights. That should be finished sometime Monday. There are still a few construction odds and ends in the yard, but last night I was actually able to sit out there without stepping over lumber and weaving between extension cords to cross from one side to the other. Value added or no, I’m exceptionally pleased with how it has turned out. I don’t say it often, but this was an aggravation that was well worth the time, trouble, and dirt.
Construction zone update…
We’re now at D+5 of the construction project. As of late yesterday afternoon, the slab is poured, the roof is on, and all of the inspections have been passed. It’s hard to believe the City of Memphis thinks a patio needs three separate inspections, but it is what it is. I stayed home this morning to meet the contractor and pick out stain for the ceiling. Once we get that squared away, it’s off to Lowes to pick out new light fixtures. The problem part of all of this construction is that I’ve come to realize I like seeing what I sketched out literally on the back of a napkin coming together. Of course it also has reminded me of all the other projects I have thought about doing to the house, too. I think I’d better get this one paid off before I bite off another chunk.
JEFFREYTHARP.COM 