4/20 -- It's All About The Hamiltons, Baby!

Today at about 1:00pm eastern time, the Treasury Department announced that they will be putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Probably some will rail about this, but I am not one of them. 

Andrew Jackson was arguably insane, and inarguably violent and unstable. He hated paper money. 
Tubman was a courageous, smart woman, who made a life's work of helping people. She will not be the first non-POTUS to grace our currency. Interestingly, they plan to leave Jackson's portrait on the back. This is some interesting balance: Jackson was a slave-owner. Tubman was a slave liberator. 

What cracks me up is that this is a distinct departure from the previously-announced plan, to replace Hamilton on the $10 bill with a woman. Hamilton's popularity has recently surged due to a currently-popular historical/biographical/fictional Broadway rap musical about Hamilton. (Reportedly, there will be on the back of the $5 bill a picture of African-American classical singer Marian Anderson singing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and there will be notable female suffrage leaders in a march on the back of the $10 bill.)

The announcement came on 4/20, which is a sacred day for pot-smokers, who traditionally revere 4:20 as a time when they spark up. This makes me think of the Samberg/Parnell SNL video of the Chronic*(What?)les Of Narnia: 

Yo, reach in my pocket, pull out some dough
Girl acted like she'd never seen a ten befo'
It's all about the Hamilton's, baby
Throw the snacks in the bag
And I'm a ghost like Swayze

Roll up to the theater, ticket buyin'
What we're handlin', you can call us Aaron Burr
From the way we're droppin' Hamiltons.

_________________________
*If you're in the know, kids during the early 2K0s were using the term "chronic" for marijuana. Basically, the entire SNL video is a nod to how people who smoke a lot of weed get snack attacks and focus on silly esoteric issues.

This and that: February 9, 2015.

--I worked an off-duty job last week, and am expecting a little bit of mad money from it. I'm going to buy me a Canon Rebel body, and then go lens shopping. It's embarrassing that I don't have any kind of DSLR, with my family.

--I took the helm for a week as the OIC of my P.D, while the chief was out of town. Nothing happened.

--I went to a Traffic Incident Management school for a couple of days, put on by the North Texas Council Of Governments. The instructors were great, and passionate about what they were teaching. They were fervent in teaching that, if you want to contribute to the safety of first responders and the public at large, you MUST clear the roadway quickly. Statistically, for every minute that a traffic incident continues, there is a 1 to 1.5% chance of a secondary event occurring. That's astounding. They had plenty of evidence to back it up, and were proponents of taking a quick picture of the crash, and using push-bumpers and-or chains to clear disabled vehicles out of lanes so that traffic could get moving again. The instructor said, "My dream is to see push bumpers put onto fire engines. I may retire the day that I see that happen."

Firefighters like to block off extra lanes for the safety of the first responders. The doctrine that these guys were trying to push was to get the firefighters on board with clearing the lanes, in the name of preserving the safety of the motorists upstream of them. I get that.

-- I've been working out again, trying to bring back the physical gains that I had made before the holidays. That left rotator cuff is telling me that I'm stuck at the amount of weight that I'll be benching for awhile, but I'm making nice gains on the eliptical machine, and on the abdominal curl machine. I'm trying to get my wind up, and strengthen my core. Everything else is gravy. Well, losing some more weight would be nice.

--Spending time on the eliptical machine got a LOT better, once I realized that I could use the little Galaxy tablet that my mother gave me for Christmas to watch Archer episodes on, with my Bluetooth headphones on. I, uh, had to turn it off in a hurry the other day when my Bluetooth wireless connection failed and the speaker began blaring the unfortunately blue dialogue at Missus Grundy, trudging away on the machine next to me.

-I taught my 12 year-old daughter the painless-until-resistance-is-encountered come-along hold we call "the Gooseneck." It's mostly used for escorting drunks away from a location. I should make sure that my 16 year-old is good with it, too. Lots and lots of times, just getting a belligerent drunk out of a confrontation will deescalate a tense situation into nothing.

-The Open Carry Movement guys in Texas have a very, VERY vocal minority who are frankly assholes. These asses will ruin it not only for the open carry proponents, but also for regular 2nd Amendment people. The most common method of the OCM activists is to carry (legally) long guns in public places in a prominent manner. It's one thing to carry a gun, and it's another thing to carry a gun at someone, as lots of these guys are doing. The nice thing about the Concealed Handgun License in Texas has been that the guy who wasn't being an idjit, and was following the law in keeping their gun concealed, was going to prevent a lot of foolishness in other ways. More on this, later; it deserves its own post.

--I called my best friend (a small business owner) and asked his advice on starting a small business. Two hours' later, we were kind of at an impasse.

--I refinanced the house, with cash back.  Just because you have cash sitting in the bank doesn't mean that you're wealthy. Not. At. All.

--When we refinanced, they made me sign my "signature" about 75 times throughout the hundreds of papers worth of documents. I say "signature" because the rep from the title company insisted that I had to write in script my first, middle, and last name each time. Who does that?!? I then had to sign a sworn affidavit that this was my "normal and true signature," and give and exemplar above the signing. I wrote for the exemplar my NORMAL signature. The lady with the title company pursed her lips and said that might not work, "because they're all supposed to be the same." I made clear that if I were swearing to the validity of the statement, I would see that it was true, and the only way to do that was to actually sign my actual normal signature on the exemplar line. I pointed out that her own signature below her notary stamp only included her first initial and last name. She countered that it was okay, because she had a letter from her attorney saying that this WAS her normal and true signature. I laughed and said that her attorney held no power to grant such status. But I signed the rest of the documents the way she wanted me to, to keep the title company (and my now-irritated wife, also present) happy.

--They had fresh Otis Spunkmeyer cookies on a plate in the middle of the table in the signing room of the title company. I thought that was odd. The lady from the title company urged us to take them, but we declined, as my wife and I are both on a low-carb diet. We finally took them home to our children.

--I've got to make a site plan for the new fence and deck that I'm putting up. Not one in five homeowners in my city gets a permit to do such work, but I'm getting one, because our municipal ordinance calls for one.

--I want a new backup holster for a J-frame, to put on my body armor. This is easier done when I wear the body armor under my uniform shirt than when I wear it in the external carrier. But I'd like to do it either way. Suggestions? I'm reevaluating.

--I'm also getting the itch for a new subcompact auto. I've been considering a Kahr PM9, or a Glock 42. I will say, though, for being a quality little carry gun, that PM9's magazine protruding from the butt by an 8th of an inch irritates me. Not flush, yet not obviously intentionally protruding. Ugh.

--Brian Williams' claims should not blow over. He has one job: tell the news. When he was on the trip in which he claimed to have his chopper hit by an RPG, he was covering a story. When he tells of what happened on that trip incorrectly, he is changing the story. This is a journalistic ethics issue.

--I contacted Tamara for help yesterday, to see if she had another outlook at a problem that I have: I've got a stolen gun report in which the victim DID write down the serial numbers and caliber and make of the guns, but not the model. Sadly, several common gun manufacturers (not Ruger, thank goodness) re-use serial numbers. So when I get "S&W .38, S/N XXXXXX," I can't put it into TCIC/NCIC, absent the model. I had several like this, which I can't put into the system. If the guy had a Model 36 stolen, which shares a serial number with a Model 10 and a Model 42, I cannot in good conscience enter the serial numbers as stolen, and risk the innocent possessors of the other uninvolved firearms being held as a suspect for Theft Of A Firearm (a felony, no less.). Tam tried to help me, but we just couldn't do anything. It's a shame-- the owner didn't remember much about the guns, and a thief may well get away.

--My favorite practice for logging guns is this: Take your driver license out, put it next to the gun, and photograph it in strong light next to the overall gun. Then put it next to the serial number, and take a closeup picture. Email the photos back to yourself along with a description of the gun, the caliber, the value, and SN and model, along with where you got it. Save the email in the cloud, to be found later.

--My Dad is en route to my house right now, so that I can take him to lunch. Then he'll proctor me to make me do a couple more modules of my EMT training.

--I reward myself after a module by watching an episode of Archer. I reward myself while working out by watching the show, too.

Well, dang. I gotta get a loan.

We at Chez G have been living mostly within our means. This means that, when it was time to start looking at newer cars, we enjoyed the hilarity of driving up in our POS worn-out commuter cars, dressed in day-off grungy, and getting very little interest by the car salesmen. When we inquired about test-driving cars on lots, they then would reasonably ask to see our driver's licenses, and go "to make a photocopy." During that 10 minute photocopy, they also quickly checked our credit rating. All of a sudden, the car salesman would literally be jogging back up to us. Big smiles. Very friendly, as he suggested perhaps that we might prefer to look at this higher end model over here? 

Break 800 on a credit rating, and that kind of thing happens. But there's a reason that we do all right in the credit rating, and it doesn't come from spending money that we don't have. In fact, we've not made a car payment in eight years, because that's when we paid off our newest car. We know that moving to a car payment is going to hurt.

We decided to buy yet another used car. My wife wanted a Subaru Outback. That was not incompatible with my own criteria for a car. Thus if she wanted it, I wanted it. We ended up finding a decent deal for and '06 Outback on eBay Motors. We bid on it, and won the auction.

Apparently, we then had to get them $2,000 within 24 hrs. Done.

Now, I've got to go get a car loan. This is basically a foregone conclusion that I'll get it. but I HATE applying for loans. I break out in hives at the word "lien."

So, here we go. Sigh. This is me, getting up.

And we're off.

To get a loan.

Okay.

Bye.

Oh look, is that coffee? Just one more cup.

Goodbye, old helper.

Last year, I bought a '94 Dodge van with a bunch of miles on it, for $500. We brought in flooring, and moved out old flooring, and pulled trailer-loads of topsoil, and moved friends and relatives. Today, I sold it online for $500.

The guy who bought it drove it around town, and talked me down from $550 because the battery was about shot (it needed jump-starting), and we went inside to do the paperwork. He shook my hand several times. You know, I actually believe that he and his buddy really will start a carpet-cleaning business, and not use it as a child-abductor van.

I wish him luck.

In the meantime, the House Of G will probably be purchasing a new vehicle pretty soon.

Awesome. Not enough, but awesome.

I love a movie grill. I can combine my dinner with my movie, and have a beer with my popcorn, and make it back home to the sitter without taking all night.

Down in Austin, one of the best of them is the Alamo Drafthouse. Now, I've never been to the Alamo Drafthouse, before. But I know that they are made of win. How? Why, I know this because, not only do they kick out a teenage girl who couldn't stop texting during her movie, but when she called to make a complaint, they posted her profanity-laced voicemail on YouTube, and on their blog. (Cussing bleeped, but it's clear what she's saying.)

My only complaint? They evidently ejected her with her aforementioned phone intact.

I get down to Austin a fair bit, and the next time I do, I'm getting a beer and a movie at the Austin Drafthouse, at one of their five convenient locations.

Take what you will from it, I guess.

The history of our national day of giving thanks is disputed.

It has become fashionable lately for people with (Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" playing on infinite repeat) to tell us that Thanksgiving is a terrible celebration of the massacre of the trans-historic indigenous peoples of North America. There's quite the movement afoot to banish the holiday, or to reinvent it as a day of sorrow and atonement.

Hey, if that's all you've got in your box, then I guess it's going to rattle around a bit.

If you're an atheist, then the question arises: to whom are you giving thanks? Certainly not to God. Okay then: how about just appreciating how you got the things for which you may count among your blessings? Somebody likely helped you get there. Thank them. If you did it all by yourself, thank the person in your mirror. Saying "thank you" is polite.

I've always liked the way that William Bradford looked at Thanksgiving: as a celebration of capitalism as a way to get through the harsh winters. It seems that before, the Plymouth Bay Colony had tried collectivism of corn, and that hadn't worked out; the hardest workers got no more than the shirkers, and they had almost starved the year before. So when they tried the concept of working for one's self, and trading for whatever was needed, the colony flourished.

It is interesting to note that some of the colonists worked for the local Indians, planting and such, to get their seed corn. I've heard one reference to them working "as slaves" for the indigenous people, but slaves don't generally get to walk away with any profit for their labors. This was an exchange of labor for commodity. That yellow seed corn was truly their specie.

Here at Better And Better, we try to see the optimistic side of things*. So on this day of Thanks Giving, I'm asking you all to simply see what is good in your life, and spend at least part of the day loving that.

______________________________
*We've also been known to fail at this, on occasion.

File that under, "Probably no longer a problem for you."

Anthony Hardwick was bummed, because his job with one of the nation's biggest retailers required him to work on his anniversary, which happens to fall on the single biggest shopping day of the year. Because he also worked deep nights, that meant that he was going to have to sleep on Thanksgiving day.

So he started a petition! Right on, Tony! Power to the People, babe! He's gotten 80,000 signatures to his petition entitled: "Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving,"

But hey, it's all good. Because now:

"Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said Hardwick is not currently scheduled to work on Thanksgiving or Black Friday."

Or, most likely, any other day, either.

See, despite what you may have heard, Target doesn't owe you a job, Anthony. They're trying to make their nut for the year, just like their competitors are.  And here you are, joggling their elbow, when they're trying to do that.

While I have long been disgusted with the whole Black Friday shopping construct, I am also fiercely in favor of letting capitalists sell their wares whenever they feel like it. If you joined up to work at Target with visions of sleeping in over the long Thanksgiving weekend, sir, then I believe that you were mistaken. What did you think that the job entailed, petition-boy? Just modeling your own rendition of red over khakis on free afternoons?

Then, too, perhaps I'm just having trouble mustering much pity for people working away from their family on holidays, because I've had to do it for so long, myself.

TANSTAAFL

Longtime internet friend Larry Correia writes his hilariously on-point reactions to a Yahoo article about people who are getting out of paying their mortgages due to their own misplaced values, and are spun as heroes for it.

I laughed out loud. Seriously.

That's not fair! You've got more!

It's not fair that I don't have a new car, but you do.
It's not fair that my house is old, but yours is bigger and newer.
It's not fair that my hair is receding while I'm still in my 30's.
It's not fair that I can't fit in the same clothes as you.
It's not fair that I have a size 18 boot (when I can find one) without FULL compensation elsewhere.
It's not fair that, as a child, I had an allergy to wheat.
It's not fair that I had to work when my friends played.
It's not fair that I work nights while my friends work regular shifts.
It's not fair that you have more money than me.
It's not fair that you have more than I do, and I have less than you do.

It's not fair.

And now you're telling me that we don't have enough money to give me more, when you clearly have more than me? That's not fair.

First, we are not either broke. And second, it's not fair that you have more than me:

As Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pointed out in a little-noticed but powerful speech on the economy in December, “during the past 20 years, 56 percent of all income growth went to the top 1 percent of households. Even more unbelievably, a third of all income growth went to just the top one-tenth of 1 percent.” Some people are definitely not broke, yet we can’t even think about raising their taxes.

Well, duh! There's PLENTY of money-- it's just that you elites* have taken it all.


This, my friends, is how we delude ourselves into giving up capitalism for socialism.

__________________________________________
*Defined as "those who have more than I deem to be appropriate."

Ridiculous off-duty.

Pretty much, every day this next two weeks that I'm not at my day job, I'll be working off-duty. I've signed up for 80 hours' worth.

The good news is, this is one of the sweetest off-duty gigs that I've ever had thrown my way. I wish it could go on for many more weeks. If I get every single shift that I've signed up for, I will be set for this semester and next semester for my grad school (this should finally end this lengthy ride), and pay for my wife's school this semester and next, along with paying off a lingering credit card debt that we haven't been able to retire since our vacation last year.

I didn't set the rate. I would have been embarrassed to ask for that much, given how easy the work is.

9-11-2010

Nine years later, I'm still remembering, but I'm noticing that things are culminating in... something. More stupid spectacles. More buildings going up. The new tower is rising.

I don't forget that for whatever reason, 9 years ago this morning, 2,774 people died because someone hated our country.

I don't think that we should stop down and quit doing our jobs because of that. I think that we should do our jobs twice as hard because of that.

And when the next attack come, we should go to work and do business as usual.

We need to be ready with a real winning response that doesn't involve just hunting terrorists. We need to repell them with our disdain.

Better looking than a brochure, and more informative, too.

By way of Bayou Renaissance Man, I learn of the site "Do You Come With The Car," a fun little blog run by a "booth babe." You've seen them-- the eye candy hired to bring customers to a display, so that the sales reps can have a shot. It's a good marketing investment, frankly, and less annoying than someone on a PA yelling "Hey!" or something to try to hook your attention.

I've generally assumed that most of the booth babes have scant knowledge of the product that they grace with their pretty presence. But this lady says differently:

We are walking, talking product handbooks, and how well we answer questions about the vehicles we represent has a direct impact on whether that attendee will buy our car or one of our competitor's.

My favorite moments at the show are when a male salesperson sends an incredulous dude my way to get an answer to a technical question.

Who knew?

Repackaging.

My wife and I sometimes talk about "the best ________ in the world." She has been known to go on at length about "the best Coke in the world," after getting over-heated in Cozomel, once. I have always liked real Coca Cola, but had pretty much given up on the stuff in favor of un-sugared drinks about 20 years ago, in deference to my waistline, the fact that diabetes runs in my family, and the fact that spilling is not a maybe thing for me: it just happens. Spilt diet drinks are a lot less of a hassle to clean up.

But sometimes, just a quick little taste of real* Coke really hits the spot.

Coke has started marketing their flagship soft drink in eight-packs of 7.5 ounce cans. I've got to say, they hit me right where I live. At 90 calories, I ain't skeered of the hit to the diet. Individually sealed, you'll never get a flat sip of beverage. And with that massive can-to beverage surface area ratio, they chill in minutes. Though I've not tried them as such, I would imagine that they'd be the bee's knees for bar mixing, too. One of these and a shot of Bacardi in a tall glass of ice would make a perfect rum Coke.

It's a smart thing, managing to get a bit more market share by just changing the package. My hat's off to the guys in Atlanta. Now, one wonders if they'll keep it, or if this is just a test marketing thing that they'll decide is not panning out?

In the meantime, they're a lot more fun to play "imagine that I'm a giant" with than are Brussels sprouts.

__________________________

*Yes, I know it's corn syruped, and has no cocaine. But you know.

We're in your southern fly-over states, making your money.

Traditionally, the nation's economic engine rooms have been on the coasts.

Not so much lately. Seems that the economy is favoring the warmer parts of the country. Texas showed to have a surprisingly high number of booming cities on this list of the best local economies in the U.S.

Who's surprised? Not you. Certainly not me.

Perhaps another kind of motivation poster should have hung in the boardrooms of those companies that have recently been bailed out by the United States federal government.

I'm thinking that the entire text of the Aesop's Fable about "The Dog And The Wolf."

Hmmm... perhaps there's a shilling or two to be made, printing, mounting, and framing them for sale to businesses teetering on the brink?

Buy this shirt.

Read the reviews, and you will know why you MUST buy this shirt.

Embracing capitalism with a capital C.

My wife and I have decided that we hate being poor.

We have very little faith in our retirements being there for us, as managed by our employers, or by our government. We would like to save it ourselves.

But at the rate the dollar is shrinking, simply "saving" it is madness. Might as well use cash for home heating. So now, as is most of the time, it is a good time to invest.

Truthfully? It's a GREAT time to invest. Stocks are low. The dollar hasn't bottomed out. The upswing will eventually come, when the panic sellers realize that it's time to pull their heads out of the sand, dust off their hands, and get back to business. There are bargains to be had out there.

The one that I look at a lot is oil. This country, along with the world, runs on the stuff. And for all our happy nattering about reducing our dependency on it, the world market is thirsty for it. But right this minute, that lovely commodity has fallen from over $120 a barrel to under $48 a barrel. (Gone are the days when a character actor formerly known as Major Nelson could create a huge stir by proclaiming at a convention that this nation would soon see $50 a barrel, as in the early '80s.) I'm trying to decide between futures or shares in oil companies. But I still won't ever own Exxon stock. Screw'm.

Then, too, we look at mutual funds, like Vanguard. Sure, they've taken a kick to the huevos, lately, but in the long run, they perform. The thing is, I don't want to buy a single share of a company that took bailout money from the feds. We cops think a lot about the old "fruit of the poisonous tree," and I don't want any. I also don't want to do business with banks that took bailout money from the government. You know how there are those "ethical funds," that only have stocks in green, fair-trade, no rain forests endangered, free of animal testing companies? I want to buy shares in a "No Socialism" fund. I'd buy as much as I could afford.

We're looking at buying in little steps at a time, say $2000 per purchase. When the bucket fills back up again, we'll buy another $2000.

We're ready to spend some money to make some money, here.

No pride there.

We just got our tax return back, and it was over $2000. We paid off our interest-free deferred-payment debt on the stone, ceramic, and bamboo that we had bought for the house while renovating. We had 6 more months to do it in, but we don't like having debt out there, so we just paid it.

I'm not particularly proud of this, because I know that I lost a little money in the deal.

Dollars half a year from now will be worth less than dollars today do. Getting those already-discounted materials on interest-free credit for a year meant that we were essentially getting to discount the cost (well, the value of the cost) still further.

That $2k that I got back from Uncle Sugar was an interest-free loan that I made for most of a year. If I had calculated a little more carefully, I could have gone without making that loan. But, in truth, I probably wouldn't have saved it, and that depresses me. And while I could have taken it and invested it to bring a few dollars in interest before paying off the materials debt, I'm lazy enough that I frankly just would rather not worry about it, and would rather pay it off. And that depresses me.

To me, any time that I get a large tax return check, I feel like I'm a big sucker. But I still deposit it and utilize it. Yes, I do.

Resentment? Moi?!?

In late 2001, my wife and I were tired of renting. With a second child on the way, we knew the little two-bedroom apartment was about to get crowded. We looked at our combined income and realized that we might could swing a house, if we kept our sights low. And if our credit was good enough.

It turned out that our credit was great. Credit may be a score, but really, it's a series of Pass/Fail tests. That match play never showed how close to the bone I'd gotten at times-- only that I'd managed to pay my bills. Nowhere on it was reported how I had several times pawned my shotgun, or my .45, to make the rent check. (And then scurried back to pick them up at the next pay check.)

So we bought a little 19 year-old 1440 square foot fixer-uper for $70,000. We fixed it up as we lived in it, doing most of the work ourselves. We lived happily. 5 or 6 years later, we sold it for $96 grand to the first person who looked at it. I think she got a heckuva deal.

We put our little profit in the bank, and rented for a year and a half, until we saw our current fixer-upper. We plunked down about $70k for this foreclosed-on old house, and then spent about $30k fixing it up, and moved in. I still need to re-plumb the master bath's sink.

During the course of all of this, we've been driving the same old second-hand Civic, and my wife has picked up a salvage title Saturn.

I'm not trying to poor-mouth. I've got it pretty good. Damned good, in fact. My credit is just as good now as it was when I applied for the mortgage on that first house, and we're still meeting payments. Sometimes we even go out to eat. :) But I don't have a lot of extra; there is a moratorium on gun purchases until grad school is over with.

What I will NOT have to do is beg my neighbor to bail me out, for having promised to pay more than I could afford.

And if I sound a little resentful for having to bail my neighbor out for having bought a new house, and having parked a new car in the driveway of it every day, then by golly, I've managed to accurately convey my feelings on this issue.

Socialism is coming tragically into sight.

Tamara makes a prescient comment here:

Of course the .gov thinks it's right and proper to tell you the minimum you can pay someone, so why not dictate the maximum, too? And if CEO's are limited to $500k/yr, how about CFO's? Regional marketing directors? What about customer service supervisors, server maintenance guys, and janitors? Heck, why don't they just gin up a table of the acceptable wages for every job title in the country?

As fun as it is to see the instructive lesson being demonstrated of what happens when you take Ceasar's coin, Tamara's point is disturbingly spot-on. Think of the eventual ramifications.

'Way back in 1942, Wickard first said that the Fed could tell you whether or not you could grow wheat even for your own use, because it was a fungible item, subject to control by the Interstate Commerce clause. I've already ranted on how that got extrapolated into Raitch [2005].

Between the occasional tax break given for businesses, and federally-secured college loans for company officers, I reckon that the fed could claim to have a finger in the pie of every business in the U.S., to justify its interference. Using the Raich standard, it probably doesn't even need that; it's got the Interstate Commerce Clause.

Somebody stop this train. I believe that I'd like to get off.