A Big Run

No, not that kind of big run. A sap run.

It warmed up quite a bit today, almost 50 degrees. So the sap was just pouring out of the maple trees (relatively speaking). Lisa had to run to the feed store and get another garbage can to store the sap.

All told, we've got about 35 gallons to boil down this weekend. Here's hoping it won't be too cold.

And here's the southern Vermont update:

Southern Vermont[3/27/08] Sugar makers in Southern Vermont are experiencing a season of extremes. Those at lower elevations, especially in Bennington County, are having what may turn out to be their best year ever. Syrup is light, flavorful and plentiful. Woodsheds are empty and sugar houses are filling with drums of Fancy and Medium Amber syrup. Producers are beginning to make some Dark Amber syrup, just in time for this weekend.

Those at higher elevations in the Green Mountains are still struggling through 2-3 feet of snow and their season is still in its early stage (Hooray! That's us!). Most report excellent quality and are hoping for slightly warmer weather.

In Shaftsbury, we have now boiled 14 nights and have made what we consider to be a full crop with more sap expected over the next five days. The same is reported by sugar makers in Rupert, Sunderland and North Bennington. Sugar houses will be welcoming visitors this weekend, particularly on Maple Sunday - remember to wear boots 'cause it's mud season!

I'm With Annie

... at least, after a race. A regular run, not so much.

Nine miles so far this week. Not prepared to say I'm in a groove, just yet.

March 27, 2008
Personal Best
Yes, Running Can Make You High
By GINA KOLATA

THE runner’s high: Every athlete has heard of it, most seem to believe in it and many say they have experienced it. But for years scientists have reserved judgment because no rigorous test confirmed its existence.

Yes, some people reported that they felt so good when they exercised that it was as if they had taken mood-altering drugs. But was that feeling real or just a delusion? And even if it was real, what was the feeling supposed to be, and what caused it?

Some who said they had experienced a runner’s high said it was uncommon. They might feel relaxed or at peace after exercising, but only occasionally did they feel euphoric. Was the calmness itself a runner’s high?

Often, those who said they experienced an intense euphoria reported that it came after an endurance event.

My friend Marian Westley said her runner’s high came at the end of a marathon, and it was paired with such volatile emotions that the sight of a puppy had the power to make her weep.
Others said they experienced a high when pushing themselves almost to the point of collapse in a short, intense effort, such as running a five-kilometer race.

But then there are those like my friend Annie Hiniker, who says that when she finishes a 5-k race, the last thing she feels is euphoric. “I feel like I want to throw up,” she said.

The runner’s-high hypothesis proposed that there were real biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. Chemicals were released that could change an athlete’s mood, and those chemicals were endorphins, the brain’s naturally occurring opiates. Running was not the only way to get the feeling; it could also occur with most intense or endurance exercise.

The problem with the hypothesis was that it was not feasible to do a spinal tap before and after someone exercised to look for a flood of endorphins in the brain. Researchers could detect endorphins in people’s blood after a run, but those endorphins were part of the body’s stress response and could not travel from the blood to the brain. They were not responsible for elevating one’s mood. So for more than 30 years, the runner’s high remained an unproved hypothesis.

But now medical technology has caught up with exercise lore. Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

Leading endorphin researchers not associated with the study said they accepted its findings.

The Lands That Time Forgot. Newsweek, Too.

Here's a nifty little set of heat maps from OJB (Online Journalism Blog) that shows how different organizations cover different parts of the world. Talk about very cool research.

Whew.

Another run this morning. Shoulder blade was the tiniest bit tight, and my left knee was pulling a bit, kept waiting for something catastrophic to happen. Nothing. I warmed up after a mile or so. Held myself to three miles, which is fine. Not great; just fine. And I think I'll be happy to be just fine for quite some time. The exercise just makes all the difference in the world.

Deal du jour: Went into Brattleboro yesterday to pick up a prescription (and to take Will to the game store so he could spend some birthday money). Stopped by the co-op's bulk outlet and scored -- ta-da! -- 50 pounds of oats for only $20.

That's a lot of oats.

Can't resist this one:

Back on My Feet Again

Got ambitious this morning and did three very, very slow miles after taking the boys to the bus stop. It felt ... good.

And my shoulder didn't even break off. It was a bit chilly at first, around 20 degrees, but I worked up a sweat.

Busy week in kid-dom. Have to take Will to town so he can spend his birthday money on a couple of Wii games. After two years, I finally discovered a Wii at retail price and figured, hey, he's been so good for so long that he deserves it. He had a one-word reaction when he opened the present:

"Sweet!"

He's also got a student leadership meeting Wednesday night. John is going to NYC Sunday and Monday on a combined biology/Western Civilization field trip (insert your own joke here).

The first batch of maple came out great. Just no comparison between doing it yourself and buying it, none at all. It took Lisa about 20 gallons of sap to get a half-gallon of syrup. We may try again for some more this weekend. As it stands, we've got about three pints in a jar in the fridge, and bought a half-dozen tiny, half-pint gift tins for relatives.

Scary news in the world of chickens. I'm hearing that one of the larger hatcheries had an avian encephalomyelitis outbreak. If true, sucks to be them, and and anyone who bought chicks from them.

I bought one batch while I was flat on my back from McMurray; the first box arrived dead. Some doofus put them in the back of the truck in subzero weather. The second replacement batch was delivered to the wrong post office, and someone else picked them up. Instead of giving McMurray another chance to abuse me, I ordered a batch from Cackle. They've been fine so far; no evidence of AE, anyway.

Gotta get cranking on some work.

I'll Shut Up Now

... but only after posting this snippet from an interesting WSJ article on the return of Malthus:

But Mr. Stiglitz, the economist, contends that consumers eventually will have to change their behavior even more than then did after the 1970s oil shock. He says the world's traditional definitions and measures of economic progress -- based on producing and consuming ever more -- may have to be rethought.

Indeed, the true lesson of Thomas Malthus, an English economist who died in 1834, isn't that the world is doomed, but that preservation of human life requires analysis and then tough action. Given the history of England, with its plagues and famines, Malthus had good cause to wonder if society was "condemned to a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery." That he was able to analyze that "perpetual oscillation" set him and his time apart from England's past. And that capacity to understand and respond meant that the world was less Malthusian thereafter.

Fresh Maple Syrup

We're working on it.

Lisa got up around 7a Sunday and started the boil on the old propane grill. I got up a couple of hours later, and we went out to collect more sap. Still a bit cold, so we only had a total of 17.5 gallons to work with, kept in a 32 gallon plastic trash can.

(We asked the folks at the feed store if there were any problems with keeping the sap in a plastic trash can, and one of them said, "Not that I know about," while jerking his right arm up and down. Real comedians in our part of the world).

Ideally, the sap is ready when it's at boiling temperature plus seven degrees. Of course, boiling temperature depends on altitude and barometric pressure. Our boiling point (we guesstimated) is about 209.5 degrees. And it ... took ... for ... freaking ... ever to get there.

Again, we were using a propane grill, stock pot, and three metal casserole dishes from Wal Mart to transfer cold sap to warm sap to hot sap to boiling sap, so it took a bit more time. Here's one of the bigger problems with using a propane grill, even a big one -- the flame just isn't close enough to the pot. We easily went through seven gallons of propane through the day.

Resolution to self: Over the summer, we need to build a big stone evaporator that can double as an outdoor grill. And think hard about a sugar house. There's a good reason people in Vermont have sugar houses. They keep the wind out. And they're warm.

Beyond that, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, approximately 14 hours after starting, Lisa had the sap boiled down to one gallon, which she took inside and put on the stove. The reason why she didn't do this earlier? If you boil sap in your house, you can expect three things to happen. None of them are good:

1. The steam should clear around July.
2. No matter how careful you are, you'll be left with stickiness until August.
3. Any wallpaper you have will fall down. Guaranteed.

I was exhausted, for no good reason, and went to bed around 11p. Lisa boiled until midnight, when she decided she'd need a felt strainer to get the last bits of gunk out of the rapidly solidifying sap. Alas, there aren't any 24-hour maple supply places open on Easter Sunday in our neck of the woods, so she's off to get some today.

And people wonder why the stuff is $50/gallon.

Bullies Suck

From today's NYTimes:

March 24, 2008

This Land

A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly

By DAN BARRY

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark.

All lank and bone, the boy stands at the corner with his younger sister, waiting for the yellow bus that takes them to their respective schools. He is Billy Wolfe, high school sophomore, struggling.

Moments earlier he left the sanctuary that is his home, passing those framed photographs of himself as a carefree child, back when he was 5. And now he is at the bus stop, wearing a baseball cap, vulnerable at 15.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy Wolfe. While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning.

Bullying is everywhere, including here in Fayetteville, a city of 60,000 with one of the country’s better school systems. A decade ago a Fayetteville student was mercilessly harassed and beaten for being gay. After a complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights, the district adopted procedures to promote tolerance and respect — none of which seems to have been of much comfort to Billy Wolfe.

It remains unclear why Billy became a target at age 12; schoolyard anthropology can be so nuanced. Maybe because he was so tall, or wore glasses then, or has a learning disability that affects his reading comprehension. Or maybe some kids were just bored. Or angry.

Whatever the reason, addressing the bullying of Billy has become a second job for his parents: Curt, a senior data analyst, and Penney, the owner of an office-supply company. They have binders of school records and police reports, along with photos documenting the bruises and black eyes. They are well known to school officials, perhaps even too well known, but they make no apologies for being vigilant. They also reject any suggestion that they should move out of the district because of this.

The many incidents seem to blur together into one protracted assault. When Billy attaches a bully’s name to one beating, his mother corrects him. “That was Benny, sweetie,” she says. “That was in the eighth grade.”

It began years ago when a boy called the house and asked Billy if he wanted to buy a certain sex toy, heh-heh. Billy told his mother, who informed the boy’s mother. The next day the boy showed Billy a list with the names of 20 boys who wanted to beat Billy up.

Ms. Wolfe says she and her husband knew it was coming. She says they tried to warn school officials — and then bam: the prank caller beat up Billy in the bathroom of McNair Middle School.

Not long after, a boy on the school bus pummeled Billy, but somehow Billy was the one suspended, despite his pleas that the bus’s security camera would prove his innocence. Days later, Ms. Wolfe recalls, the principal summoned her, presented a box of tissues, and played the bus video that clearly showed Billy was telling the truth.

Things got worse. At Woodland Junior High School, some boys in a wood shop class goaded a bigger boy into believing that Billy had been talking trash about his mother. Billy, busy building a miniature house, didn’t see it coming: the boy hit him so hard in the left cheek that he briefly lost consciousness.

Ms. Wolfe remembers the family dentist sewing up the inside of Billy’s cheek, and a school official refusing to call the police, saying it looked like Billy got what he deserved. Most of all, she remembers the sight of her son.

“He kept spitting blood out,” she says, the memory strong enough still to break her voice.

By now Billy feared school. Sometimes he was doubled over with stress, asking his parents why. But it kept on coming.

In ninth grade, a couple of the same boys started a Facebook page called “Every One That Hates Billy Wolfe.” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

Heh-heh.

According to Alan Wilbourn, a spokesman for the school district, the principal notified the parents of the students involved after Ms. Wolfe complained, and the parents — whom he described as “horrified” — took steps to have the page taken down.

Not long afterward, a student in Spanish class punched Billy so hard that when he came to, his braces were caught on the inside of his cheek.

So who is Billy Wolfe? Now 16, he likes the outdoors, racquetball and girls. For whatever reason — bullying, learning disabilities or lack of interest — his grades are poor. Some teachers think he’s a sweet kid; others think he is easily distracted, occasionally disruptive, even disrespectful. He has received a few suspensions for misbehavior, though none for bullying.

Judging by school records, at least one official seems to think Billy contributes to the trouble that swirls around him. For example, Billy and the boy who punched him at the bus stop had exchanged words and shoves a few days earlier.

But Ms. Wolfe scoffs at the notion that her son causes or deserves the beatings he receives. She wonders why Billy is the only one getting beaten up, and why school officials are so reluctant to punish bullies and report assaults to the police.

Mr. Wilbourn said federal law protected the privacy of students, so parents of a bullied child should not assume that disciplinary action had not been taken. He also said it was left to the discretion of staff members to determine if an incident required police notification.

The Wolfes are not satisfied. This month they sued one of the bullies “and other John Does,” and are considering another lawsuit against the Fayetteville School District. Their lawyer, D. Westbrook Doss Jr., said there was neither glee nor much monetary reward in suing teenagers, but a point had to be made: schoolchildren deserve to feel safe.

Billy Wolfe, for example, deserves to open his American history textbook and not find anti-Billy sentiments scrawled across the pages. But there they were, words so hurtful and foul.

The boy did what he could. “I’d put white-out on them,” he says. “And if the page didn’t have stuff to learn, I’d rip it out.”

Surprisingly Sunny

So I just finished James Howard Kunstler's World Made By Hand. Hell of a good read -- I usually don't read entire books in one sitting, but that's pretty much what I did here. If you've read The Long Emergency, a non-fiction look at peak oil, you'd know that Kunstler takes a pretty dim view of humanity. The fictional version, though, is much sunnier.

There's no great plot here, other than a man's attempt to survive in a world without oil. There's a decent cast of characters, but the real meat of the story is in the everyday details -- gardening, making meals, community building, and family in a very, very different world.

Regardless of whether or not you subscribe to peak oil (and you'd have to be a bit of an idiot to argue that we'll never run out of oil), it's worth picking up.

Four-and-a-half stars.

... And Busted Again

From another blog:

Top Ten Newbie Mistakes

In the military they say that all the action happens at the tip of the spear. The sharply pointed end where the winners and losers are sorted out. For us newbie and amateur Clydesdale triathletes the tip of the race is only a distant skirmish. We live and race at the other end of spear; the round curvy end which, as it happens, tends to be shaped like many of us. These are some of our some of our stories:

They say the best way to learn is to make mistakes. As a newbie and Clydesdale, in my first year of competing I've made my share of mistakes Here is my Top ten list of Newbie mistakes:

10) Wearing a black swim cap. On the face of it this one might seem a bit silly but true. "You are not gonna wear that black swim cap," the guy standing in the water next to me at the start solemnly said. "I was planning on it" I replied a bit confused. "You don't want to do that," he added with a knowing nod. "Why" I said a bit wide eyed? "Because they won't see go down when you drown," he added and swam away. I looked into the dark murky water where he had been standing and considers this, removed the cap, and threw it to the shore. Only after the race, I realize that I have dark hair.

9) Butt Burn...otherwise know as the Lack-O-Glide factor. It took me about a year to discover the joys of lubrication. The leg pain after a marathon is nothing compared to the searing pain of taking a shower with raw nipples. However, nothing identifies a Newbie triathlete like the Charlie Chaplin butt-burn wobble walk after an especially long session on the bike.

8) The Clydesdale Category. I'm a big guy 6'2 and well over 200 pounds. I've always considered myself big in a gladiator sort of way. But according to the official rules I'm big in a huge, wide-butted, beer wagon-pulling sort of way.

7) MAX, ADE, OX, GU, BOOM, GEL. There is a bewildering amount of performance enhancing drinks and supplements on the market. They have one thing in common: a fluorescent Day-Glo color. I tend to judge them by the stickiness factor. The more they make my hands stick to the handlebars of my bike, the better they must be.

6) Transitions are NOT free time. For all of the pros out there they may be free time, but for newbies they are a time of profound confusion and terror. Mistakes happen all the time. "Why am I wearing my swim goggles?" I think as I power out of the transition area on my bike?

5) A wet suit will kill. Try to remember to Valero the wet suit zipper pull leash to your wet suit. The first time I wore my wet suit didn’t know to attach the leash to the wet suit. About five minutes into the swim the leash wrapped itself around my neck like a viscous python bent on my death. The more I struggled to disengage myself from its death-like grip, the tighter it got. My flailing only seemed to encourage it. I finally did manage to free my throat and continue the swim. Five minutes latter, it was back.

4) Big girls on mountain bikes. Big girls on mountain bikes are surpassingly fast. Do not take it for granted that just because you are on a big ring, carbon fiber, aero bar out-fitted, race-tuned tri-bike that you'll easily pass that big girl up ahead. Make this mistake at your own peril and your self-esteem will suffer.

3) Du vs. Tri. Don't confuse a Du with a Tri when racing or checking the results. My first Olympic distance Tri was almost my last. I watched the awards ceremony with a mixture of terror and awe as the results and blazingly fast times were read out. I was amazed at the speedy results. Needless to say I was not the slowest triathlete in the world....just the only one at the DU awards ceremony.

2) Twelve year-old-lap counters. When competing in a pool, avoid the 12-year-old lap counters. I wondered out loud to the twelve-year-old "why do I have to swim two more laps when the other two racers in my lane are done." This seemed especially odd since "I had lapped both of them." The twelve-year-old was not moved by my logic. Math must not have been his best subject in school.

1) Beer. Avoid all triathlons that are not sponsored by a brewery. Not only does a post race beer greatly help in the recovery process, but it also helps one forget all the mistakes. Plus as a added benefit after enough beers, that big girl on the mountain bike don't seem so big anymore.

We're Busted

From Stuff White People Like:

In life, there are certain milestones of physical activity that can define you. A sub 5 second 40 yard dash, a 40 inch vertical leap and so forth. To a white person, the absolute pinnacle of fitness is to run a marathon. Not to win, just to run.

White people will train for months, telling everyone who will listen about how they get up early in the morning, they run when it rains, how it makes them feels so great and gives them energy.

When they finish the marathon, they will generally take a photo of themselves in a pair of New Balance sneakers, running shorts, and their marathon number with both hands over their head in triumph (seriously, look it up, this is universal).

They will then set goals like running in the Boston Marathon or the New York Marathon.

If you find yourself in a situation where a white person is talking about a marathon, you must be impressed or you will lose favor with them immediately. Running for a certain length of time on a specific day is a very important thing to a white person and should not be demeaned.

Also worth nothing, more competitive white people prefer triathlons because Kenyans can’t afford $10,000 specialty bicycles. If the subject ever comes up, just say that triathletes are in better shape than football and basketball players. It’s not true, but it will make the conversation a lot more genial.

I Am Not Nice

So Lisa and I are working at the co-op over the weekend, doing our two hours for the 10 percent discount, and she sees a guy in a blue padded sleeve that you put cold water into after shoulder surgery.

Hmph. Looks like me. Except I'm bagging. And he's grimacing. I shake my head in sympathy.

"Had one of those after my acromioplasty," I say.

"Yeah," he sighs, "I've had it for two days now."

Two days? Ummmmm, two days after my little shoulder job, I was scarfing down painkillers like an ether-addled rhesus monkey with a meth habit, to boot. Two days? I keep a straight face.

"Well, you should be able to get rid of it in a week," I say.

"Yeah," he grins, "I hope so. Doesn't that bagging hurt? When did you have your surgery?"

Despite the fact that I've just taken a big, fat pill because my shoulder is killing me after only an hour of bagging, I can't resist:

"Last week."

On other fronts, I've gotta, gotta, gotta get back in gear on the Book.

And wake up earlier to do an hour of physical therapy exercises.

Wrap up a bunch of stuff at the day job.

And start hitting the elliptical.

Right Brain, Left Brain

So the right side of the brain says, hmmm ... wonder if a bailout is the best thing for the economy. The left side of the brain, however, is reading this and thinking, hmmm ... what a fantastic rant.

(The shoulder says, fuck it, pass me another painkiller).

Fuck the Street. Please, Ben Bernanke, just fuck them. Raise interest rates to fucking 10% for the month if you must, just to master cleanse all those fuckers of their liquidity addictions. And seriously, that $30 billion in cash you promised JP Morgan? Fuck that. Just text Jamie Dimon tomorrow afternoon and say you can't make it, maybe he can find some sovereign growth sugar daddies in one of the Emirates or maybe China? I mean, China's got all the jobs now anyway, they might as well control a few more multinational companies in time for the Olympics, right? And really, how hard can it be to scrounge up $30 billion if Goldman managed to cough up $21 billion on Christmas bonuses? Anyway, like I said, not your concern; fuck them. I wouldn't say this if I hadn't thought about it at least as hard as the average overleveraged hedge fund short-seller when he pushed down on the panic button that got us into this mess, Ben Bernanke.

And by "us," I mean Bear Stearns, because I personally have weighed the odds and I'm pretty sure I personally have nothing at stake here, no matter what you do, Ben Bernanke. My balance sheet, while admittedly lacking much in the way of assets, is also blissfully insensitive to short-term market and/or interest rate fluctuations.

Thanks to my industry, indeed, my own financial situation has been governed by a recessionary state of constant layoffs and downsizing for years and years -- and I'm lucky enough to have one of those jobs they haven't figured out how to do better in Hyberabad. And I'll let you in on something, Ben Bernanke; my finances have zero correlation with those of the stock market. I'm not alone in this; most Americans are actually earning less than they were in real terms than they were in 1999. They can handle a few quarters of recession because they've been handling it.
Some of my morning commenters would have me believe bailing out JP Morgan is the only way to minimize "collateral damage on Wall Street and thus the economy," but really, whose economy are we talking about here? The buying power of the minimum wage employee is at a 51-year-low.

So fuck the Street, Ben Bernanke; just this once, just for, like, a quarter or something. You don't have to play rough; I'm not asking you to nationalize any industries or institute land reform or anything, just give them a little scare. They chose this path, you know. They chose to worship Ayn Rand and wear those Paul Smith shirts and pay zero money down on their Hamptons summer homes and obnoxiously, whenever confronted by someone like myself at a bar, claim that the Market Solves Everything. Let the market solve this one for them. People are eating dirt for dinner in Haiti, Ben Bernanke; you can let Bear Stearns go to bankruptcy court.

Sure, some financial institutions might get pissed for a minute. They didn't lend Bear Stearns all that money to leverage the shit out of their delusional bets that the housing market would keep going up up up only to spend years in bankruptcy court for the sake of reaping fifty or sixty cents on the dollar. But you know what? They probably also lent money to Goldman Sachs and Jeff Greene and John Paulson to leverage the shit out of the lucky hedge funds that bet it would all end in failure. They lent money to all those short-sellers who bet the price of Bear Stearns stock from $67 all the way down to $2. Sure, that's what makes our economy so "dynamic", Ben, but does that make it any more virtuous than a legalized Ponzi scheme?

What if there were some sort of cascading ripple effect? everyone wants to know. What of all that IRRATIONAL FEAR? But you just tell them, Ben Bernanke, that they should maybe sit quietly in their illiquidity and reflect on what the fuck made them think it was rational to buy into all this fancy housing market bullshit in the first place. Just ask them, Ben Bernanke, what they thought was rational about people in Southern California taking out mortgages with monthly payments equivalent to five months' rent?

Because the housing market never made much sense to me, Ben Bernanke. I mean, there we were a couple years ago, with a war on, a slowing economy, oil reaching up to $100 a gallon, skyrocketing energy prices sending other commodity prices through the roof... just where were the buyers who were supposed to keep bidding up those houses so everyone could continue pumping the economy with home equity loans? I'll tell you where a lot of them are now: sitting at home, watching network TV and avoiding opening their mail. Sort of like Bear Stearns with that portfolio of mortgages, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities no one wants to put a value on just yet.

But you know? Eventually they'll open the envelopes, see what they've got, realize it's probably not the end of the world and start moving money around again. Assets are only "illiquid" till someone -- the market? -- figures out how to make them liquid again!

And if it is the end of the world, there's always the hope of an early death a la Ken Lay. Right?

Frozen Sap

Hellaciously busy week.

Will's play was Friday night/Saturday afternoon/Saturday night. Three hours at a pop. In between performances, we ran down to Agway and got maple supplies. Lisa has about 15 sugaring taps going right now, although it got a bit chilly last night, so they're frozen. Hoping to get at least one gallon of syrup (out of 35 or 40 gallons of sap).

Got up early Sunday; we worked a double shift at the local co-op, which should take care of the member discount for the next couple of months. I did a two-hour shift at the cheese counter and another two-hour shift bagging. Came home and put up some more taps.

And wondered why my shoulder hurts like hell today.

Play and Not So Much Play

Will's opening night play, "The Rivals," was tonight. He did wonderfully as Sir Anthony Absolute. And no, I am not biased.

Here's wishing some folks on Wall Street had his acting chops, courtesy of the WSJ. By my reckoning, the Federal Reserve has not a great amount of cash left to keep things going. I'm hoping the Bear Stearns meltdown is the last, but seriously afraid it's just another mile marker. This is getting bad:


Debt Reckoning: U.S. Receives a Margin Call
By LIZ RAPPAPORT and JUSTIN LAHART March 15, 2008; Page A1

The U.S. is at the receiving end of a massive margin call: Across the economy, wary lenders are demanding that borrowers put up more collateral or sell assets to reduce debts.

The unfolding financial crisis -- one that began with bad bets on securities backed by subprime mortgages, then sparked a tightening of credit between big banks -- appears to be broadening further. For years, the U.S. economy has been borrowing from cash-rich lenders from Asia to the Middle East. American firms and households have enjoyed readily available credit at easy terms, even for risky bets. No longer.

Recent days' cascade of bad news, culminating in yesterday's bailout of Bear Stearns Cos., is accelerating the erosion of trust in the longevity of some brand-name U.S. financial institutions. The growing crisis of confidence now extends to the credit-worthiness of borrowers across the spectrum -- touching American homeowners, who are seeing the value of their bedrock asset decline, and raising questions about the capacity of the Federal Reserve and U.S. government to rapidly repair the problems.

Global investors are pulling money from the U.S., steepening the decline of the U.S. dollar and sending it below 100 yen for the first time in a dozen years. Against a trade-weighted basket of major currencies, the dollar has fallen 14.3% over the past year, according to the Federal Reserve. Yesterday it hit another record low against the euro, falling 2.1% this week to close at 1.567 dollars per euro.

Lenders and investors are pushing up the interest rates they demand from financial institutions seen as solid just a few months ago, or demanding that they sell assets and come up with cash. Banks and Wall Street firms are so wary about each other that they're pulling back. Financial markets, anticipating that the Fed will cut rates sharply on Tuesday to try to limit the depth of a possible recession, are questioning the central bank's commitment or ability to keep inflation from accelerating.

There are other symptoms of declining confidence. Gold, the ultimate inflation hedge, is flirting with $1,000 an ounce. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos., predicted Thursday that large financial institutions still need to write down $135 billion in subprime-related securities, on top of $150 billion in previous write-downs. Ordinary Americans are worried: Only 20% think the country is generally headed in the right direction, nearly as low as at any time in the Bush presidency, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll1.

"Clearly, the whole world is focused on the financial crisis and the U.S. is really the epicenter of the tension," says Carlos Asilis, chief investment officer at Glovista Investments, an advisory firm based in New Jersey. "As a result, we're seeing capital flow out of the U.S."

Getting Back in the Saddle

It's been a slow process. Good Lord, I'm tired. Takes a lot to get through the day. Still, I've got about 75 percent range of motion in the shoulder, and we're starting to strengthen it a bit. Still gonna take a long time to get back to normal. A few weeks more before I can run again.

Parent-teacher conferences tonight. Two honor roll kids. Who knew? The youngest, who's pretty much a perennial honors student, was bragging all over the oldest. All things considered, not a bad night at all.

Here's my read du jour before I get to bed:

Clothesline rule creates flap
Advocates in 3 states fight ban, cite energy savings
By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff March 13, 2008
CONCORD, N.H. - They say they only want to protect their "right to dry." And in three New England states, advocates for clotheslines - yes, clotheslines, strung across the yard, draped with socks and sheets - are pushing for new laws to liberate residents whose neighbors won't let them hang laundry outside.

Homeowners' associations, which enforce bans on clotheslines at thousands of residential developments across the country, say the rules are needed to prevent flapping laundry from dragging down property values. But in an age of paper over plastic, as people try to take small steps to protect the environment, more residents are chafing at the restrictions. And some lawmakers in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut are taking it a step further, seeking legislation that would guarantee the freedom to let one's garments flutter in the breeze.

"People think it's silly, but what's silly is to worry so much about having to look at your neighbors' undies that you would prevent them from conserving energy," said Vermont state Senator Dick McCormack, a sponsor of "right to dry" legislation. "We're not making a big deal over clotheslines; we're making a big deal over global warming."

If successful, the measures in Vermont and Connecticut would be the first in New England, and among the first in the country, to protect the age-old custom of air-drying laundry. (The proposal in New Hampshire died in committee, but proponents say they plan to try again next session.)

In a society where most people own dryers, the idea of clotheslines seems to have retained its broad popular appeal. Tide detergent comes in a "clean breeze" scent, described as "the fresh scent of laundry line-dried in a clean breeze," and the signature creations of Yankee Candle Co. include "clean cotton," a scent that evokes "sun-dried cotton with green notes, white flowers, and a hint of lemon," according to the two companies' websites.

In some minds, though, clotheslines connote a landscape of poverty rather than flowering fields. Opponents of the proposed legislation say homeowners' groups have the right to protect property values by forbidding practices they consider unsightly, such as storing junk cars in driveways - and hanging wet laundry outside.

"If you imagine driving into a community where the yards have clothes hanging all over the place, I think the aesthetics, the curb appeal, and probably the home values would be affected by that, because you can't let one homeowner do it and say no to the next," said Frank Rathbun, a spokesman for the Community Associations Institute, a national group based in Virginia that represents thousands of homeowner and condominium associations, many of which restrict clotheslines.

The institute encourages environmentalism, "But we believe the homeowners in each association should determine the rules under which they live," Rathbun said.

I'm Back

Sort of.

First day at work. A little light computer work. Don't feel hideous, at least not yet. Just a little ... strange, after six, seven weeks off.

Going to do some crunches later and go for a long walk.

Hell of a lot to do this week.

Stir Craziness

Spent two hours on hold over the weekend, trying to get my satellite provider -- WildBlue -- to help me figure out my slow connection (I got FAP'ed, but never notified about it. Swine.) Had the following conversation:

"So why can't I change my password so I can see how much bandwidth I'm using?"

"Well, there's an outage."

"Server or satellite?"

"It's an outage."

"I know, but is it a server outage or a satellite outage?"

"It's an outage."

"Do you know what kind of an outage?"

"It's an outage."

Then, come to find out I need to get more freakin' paperwork filled out before I can go back to work. Problem is, this is paperwork I asked to have sent to me in January, and it would now be ... March?

Yes, indeed.

Clearly, there has been great and massive fuckery across the land since I checked out in mid-January. I'm going to have to get back to work and see what can be done about it all ...