Red-Handed Jill

If I could make a halfway decent living at it, I'd go back to being a marine pathologist. Although I truly loved being a college professor. Perhaps do the marine pathologist thing during the day and teach part time at night?...

Just a reminder in case you are interested in stopping by. You don't have to camp overnight - if you just want to hang out for the day and shoot your blackpowder implementia you will be most welcome.

Just got Pirateleather's book from Patt - I'm still laughing. Patt, you're a freakin' genius!

^ It usually does. I predict that we'll be back to high interest rates (like in the 80's) and then things will stabilize (as much as the market stabilizes...) < Found a company that makes fake coconut cream pies! Naturally I had to order one as a prop for my Halloween costume. V Any particular comfort foods you enjoy during the cooler seasons?

Ransom's went out in the mail today. I'll get the next one out the door faster.

An excellent point (one among the many other excellent points). I have often wondered how Keynes made so much money in the market in the early 20th century. I'll bet he didn't do it by observing stocks and markets - he probably did it by watching groups of people. As for people in danger of losing houses (someone was talking about this I think) they should consider their situation a life lesson. Nobody got into debt they couldn't handle without deciding to do so. A person's life and situation today are a result of the choices they made. So if they are unhappy with where they are at, they must make new choices. Unfortunately, most people tend to make investment decisions based on emotions, which naturally gets them into trouble. During the housing boom, there was so much propaganda out there essentially stating that you were NOBODY if you didn't own a house (a task that is well nigh impossible in places like the San Francisco Peninsula and Manhattan.) People bought into that hook, line and sinker and made decisions based on not wanting to be thought of as a loser, even though in the SF area (and in several other areas), unless you bought a house prior to the 90's, it was much smarter to rent and invest your money elsewhere. They didn't even question the fact that the people who were giving them this message had an agenda behind it. And even if they had talked to anyone who knew anything about the real housing market and investment strategy, they were so emotionally wrapped up in this fantasy that they weren't in the mood to listen to reason. Several of my clients were intelligent, very successful people. And they would still question the investment portfolios I would put them in. When I would ask what the issue was, they'd reply with opinions based on emotional responses. I would give them the rational reasons why their portfolios were invested the way they were and asked them to trust my knowledge and experience in this area. I recall that the market tanked three times in 2005 and the first time that happened I got a panic call from some of my clients. They talked to friends whose portfolios had dipped sharply and hadn't recovered. I asked them if they had checked their portfolios prior to calling me. They hadn't and when they did check, were surprised that their situation was much better than their friends and that their portfolios were just fine. After that, the questioning stopped. Bottom line is, investing based on emotional responses will, for the most part, get you into trouble. Most people invest in something after it becomes popular and the price is already inflated. Then it peaks and inevitably falls. They wait to see if it will recover (it doesn't, at least not at the speed at which they believe it should) and then they sell it in a panic. The typical investor buys high and sells low - it's just human nature. A quick, primitive sketch of the typical investor strategy:

Ransom's book is done but I've been insanely busy and not able to get to the Post Office so I'll get it out early next week.

Whups - this is what I get for not paying attention. I'm late! Hope you had a GREAT birthday!!

Pretty much, yes - you would do this as a member of a guild or a hired entertainer. For the most part, guilds set up a camp within a faire, are generally expected to spend some time each day doing gate duty and are expected to have some interaction with the public either educational or entertaining. Staying in camp is between you and the guild you belong to, but faires tend to have extra space for camping out in adjunct areas. There are a number of guilds in Southern California, but I don't know all of them. Can someone from So Cal answer that question?

Second that!

I was in the financial services industry and was able to see this coming a mile away. People were reacting during the housing bubble exactly the way they did during the dot com era and somehow thinking that it was going to be different this time. And I kept encountering so many smug folks in the real estate industry who acted as if they had the key to the holy grail, when in fact real estate was just like other investments, with lows as well as highs. The ones who knew better could see this coming as well and did their best to help others out of questionable loans, etc. But unfortunately, I didn't meet very many people like that. It seemed to me that so many folks in that industry grabbed what they could, when they could, the consequences be damned. Or they were pressured into selling those loans by higher-ups who really didn't give a damn. And banks were buying up those questionable loans like mad so that they could receive the additional windfall of the inevitable foreclosed houses. But you can't do anything like that on such a scale and NOT have it collapse. I don't know why people think that given the same set of circumstances they are somehow magically going to get a different result. Human nature, I guess.

Back when I was a financial advisor, I encountered countless people who couldn't afford the houses they had. Oftentimes they'd have one of those "creative" mortgages from a less-than-scrupulous lender and I'd send them to one of my honest mortgage broker contacts to help them out of that miasma, but the fact remained that unless they received a sudden windfall, they wouldn't be in that house long. And yet they would talk about pulling the equity out of their home and buying a second one. These weren't unintelligent people, but they had bought into the housing craze, much like people had bought into the Dot.Com boom and the "it's the New Economy!" myth. (Neglecting to remember that economics is a social science, based on human nature and reactions. One would think that if human nature had changed we'd hear about it on the news, at least...) Additionally I saw a huge influx of students during my professorial days. I taught Network Engineering and my classes were flooded with people following the Dot.Com money and trying to cash in on the big tech paychecks (when I gave them the reality in the first day of class, many of them dropped out of the program.) My guess is after that crash those people went on to try real estate as a career. At any rate, bottom line is that humans as a species tend to be reactive. The housing boom is a reaction to people running away from the stock market. And making the same damn mistakes. I keep reading and hearing on the radio about what troubled stocks to avoid, advice that is contrary to good investment strategy; it makes me wonder if the people making these recommendations have any investment qualifications or knowledge whatsoever. A lot of those troubled stocks are bargains right now - you want to buy 'em when they are cheap, not dump them at a loss. Buy LOW, sell HIGH. Okay - off the soapbox.

Ha! I'm on that list too. God I loved that show. I wonder if it would stand the test of time? Hopefully we'll be able to find out someday. Apparently, it was originally planned to be released this year but was deemed too expensive so it's in a holding pattern. (I'm waiting too!) TV Shows on DVD website

^ New Orleans voodoo... < Fond of Autumn myself. But because it has the best weather! V Pass the question.

Three Little Birds - Bob Marley (Don't worry 'bout a thing, 'cause every little thing's gonna be alright...)

Yeah, kind of reminds me of another reasonably successful movie that was cast with a number of unknowns - Star Wars.

I remember as a kid growing up in San Francisco and Montreal, going downtown on the bus - and wearing mary janes, a dress, my good coat, gloves and a hat. Because no matter how young you were, a lady never went out without a hat or gloves and certainly didn't wear pants. And when going to mass you had to have your head covered - not sure how this was for other religions back then, but that's how it was for Catholics. And mass was said in Latin, with the priest facing the altar rather than the congregation.

I'll check with Jack - he purchased these a couple of Christmases ago.

Until that weekend, the rest of us had never seen a black duck on a leash being taken for a walk before!

These were made to hold up.

Got 'em sharp and had Jack grind the points off (I bought him a grinder for our anniversary a few years back and he puts it to good use dressing swords and sharpening axes.)

I saw that and you immediately came to mind!

Here's my armoury - several knives are missing from this photo. I have lots of knives...

<<Envious of Iron Bess' sword collection!>>

That's why we rent a private one for our camp. Next year, just use ours (we even have a sink on the outside - we be hygienic pirates...) Hey Kenneth - did your daughters like their girly gifts?