Exert from Boomerang by Michael Lewis

This was a great short read this weekend and one of the best narratives on the European debt crisis I have read to date.

"Leverage buys you a glimpse of prosperity you haven't really earned."


"Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity a right, lawlessness as freedom, abrasive speech as equality and anarchy as progress."

Mathematical Symmetry

Beautiful isn't it?

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111=12345678987654321

English Lesson: Then and Than

I would rather cuddle then have sex...if you are good with grammar you will understand the lesson.

Classic lesson and good way to remember the difference

Link Between Teacher Salaries and Abuse Cases?

I am starting to wonder if the decline in teacher’s salary actually puts children increasing at risk of child predators?

The theory is that a teacher makes a smaller percentage of salary for their skill in the class room then they would in the real world for example a trainer with a sports team makes $150,000.00 and a gym teacher makes $30,000. (I am totally making these numbers up just as an example)

Now in order to take a job that pays less salary presumably other incentives come into play. Sure some people trade money for summers off and some people trade more money because they like children. But this is where I think this can get skewed as the wage disparity between private sector opportunities and teaching positions widens it will start to produce more cases of molestation since a partial factor of choosing to teach will increasingly be an extreme love of children and the bucket of people who demonstrate this extreme love of children over financial compensation will in my hypothesis include increasing numbers of child predators, who have an ulterior motive or derived benefit to make up for the financial disparity.

Something to think about when voting down referendums?

Barbie = Bad?

I recently read an article describing how crippled and horrific the experience would be if a real life woman had the same measurements and expectations of Barbie. How unrealistic it is to have an image that we can’t live up to as an idol?

But they might get a complex and not feel good enough about themselves….

People look up to Jesus and are never going to walk on water or turn water into wine.

Is it wrong to have an image beyond which you could realistically live up to in your life?

If I had a statue of Zeus or David in although I could never physically live up to the stereotype model would it be wrong for me to try?

This brings up and interesting concept about striving to be better than we currently are, even if it is unattainable.

What is better? Would it be better to have little obese Barbie’s? How many people die of heart disease compared to anorexia?

Why not make normal sized Barbie’s? Little plastic Venus de Milo’s it is more obtainable right? I think because deep down we want, long for and even deceive ourselves into believing in an ideal version of things. We see an idealized version of ourselves and want to play with or look up to something that is just beyond our reach. I don’t think that is bad.

And then after all this you realize it is just a fucking Barbie and if you want another idol for your kids to play with or live up take them down target and buy them something else.

Words of Wisdom

In what you say of another, apply the test of kindness, necessity and truth, and let nothing pass your lips without a 2/3 majority. ~Liz Armbruster


Give thanks for what you are now, and keep fighting for what you want to be tomorrow. ~Fernanda Miramontes-Landeros

Achieving Goals

The only way I know how to achieve any particular goal is to write it down and divide the work to achieve it into meaningful (Reasonable) pieces and manage to complete it piece by piece day by day. I manage projects for a living it is what I do.

I would rather have a plan than not have one.

I think it also makes other people around me uncomfortable. That is ok. Their reaction will not stop me from moving life forward.

Color of Your Mind?

If you are born deaf and blind what language would you think in?

Would your thoughts be in sign language or brail?

The House that Built Me

On 50th and Xerxes in South Minneapolis sits a little house. A little house where I was born. I walked to school from down the alley, played with my neighbors, through mid pies at garages. It was a small house. It was the house that I knew what family meant.
We moved out of that house into a much larger house in an upscale suburb. I watched as money worries evaporated what I knew about family. Over reaching for the American dream pulled apart the strand and dumped them like a pearl necklace snapped off a neck.
I learned something interesting

You can only help someone who is sinking in quick sand from a vantage point of not being in the quick sand yourself. In essence you have to save yourself first before you can save others.

I think self preservation gets a bad rap

Financial mismanagement can undermine the strongest bonds.

Take lots of smart small risks instead of big ones.

Chasing someone else’s dream is dangerous.

I don’t need much to be happy.

Once relationships are damaged they are really hard to repair.

Going it alone is scary, exhilarating and generally frowned upon by others.

While that house is still there it belongs to someone else now. Now is my turn to build a house that will know what family is once again.

Golden Financial Ratio

(This concept has not been fully flushed out yet, just jotting the thought down to come back to it later)

One of the greatest things that you have as a child is time. Unfortunately you are too stupid to know how valuable that it actually is. I think that there exists a gold ratio although in my mind I debate on the correct portions over time. The general principal is this if you have a $100 and are thirty it would make more sense in the long term to invest that $100 then to spend that $100 since it will work harder for you compounding over time. However you can’t just save everything you have to live your life too plus fix stuff. So my budget philosophy has become something like this.

Anything you spend above necessities has to be directly proportional to the amount of money that you for example for every dollar you save you can spend 50 cents so if your disposable income is $15,000 you save ten you can spend $5000.00 the trick I have noticed is if I set the savings goal first. Say in the year saving I have to reach X before I spend Y then I reach my savings goals much earlier and with greater accuracy then if I just spend and save as I go.

But as time winds down that ratio changes and starts to hit parity. When I am 75 I might as well just spend $100 rather than save a $100.