Farley and The Dog Whisperer

I had meant to do a few more postings in the last week, but I've been slug-like lazy, and haven't done a whole lot of anything.

One thing I did do was watch various episodes of The Dog Whisperer, trying to get some tips to solve at least some of Farley's behavioral issues. For those of you not familiar with the program, Cesar Millan is a professional dog trainer specializing in fixing the behavior of problem dogs. A lot of what he does is common sense, but some of it seemingly borders on magic. For those of you not familiar with Farley, he's a ball of love, but judging by the way he drags me around the neighborhood, he'd make a good sled dog on the Iditarod. I had tried a few things - calming him down and making him sit before carrying on with the walk; turning the other way when he starts pulling; just stopping when he starts pulling, but nothing was working consistently. Last night I say Cesar give an over-exuberant dog a mild kick with the back of his foot when the dog tried to pass him. The dog immediately backed off and walked without pulling. I tried it on Farley last night, and Hallelujah!!! It worked!!! I did it again this morning, refreshing Farley's memory with a slight nudge of my heel on his chest. No more pulling!

Now... if I can only get him to stop leaping on people when they come to the door; stop chewing baseball hats, shoes, pillows and anything else within reach; lunging at other dogs and small mammals on the street; realize that "come" is not optional; and a few other issues too numerous to list here.

I wonder if Cesar plans on doing a Seattle show anytime soon.

Oh, and belated Happy Birthday to Farley. He had his first birthday on Boxing Day! To mark the occasion, he's stopped peeing like a puppy, lifting his leg most of the time. My baby's growing up!

Frosty the Traffic Cop

Traffic is getting better in Seattle. Not only is the snow melting, but the city has pulled out all stops in getting traffic moving efficiently. Here's Frosty in action at Stone Way and 45th.

Winter Wonderland Cont'd

The snow continues... Well actually the snow tapered off last night, but it's supposed to continue on and off today. On Wednesday, rain is forecast, with more snow later in the week. In the meantime the winter wonderland effect continues. Check out these shots from the Stonewater courtyard.

I did get my car out on the streets a couple of times yesterday. The main roads are passable (barely), but the side streets are treacherous. Yesterday after sledding, I joined Caroline and Alex in Green Lake for a couple of drinks before heading over to Pies and Pints for a meat pie and another beer. (I think Pies and Pints has a great business concept... a good selection of beer, and really tasty homemade pot pies.) Then we came back to Stonewater for a hot tub in the snow.



All was well until I tried to take Caroline and Alex back to Green Lake. When I brought them over here, I couldn't quite make the turn to get into my parking garage, and it was too slippery to back up the hill and take another run at it, so I just parked on the street. When we left, I got out of the parking spot alright but lost control in the slick middle of the street. I managed to get up against the curb in the deep snow on the other side of the street, quit pushing my luck, and called it quits for the night. Caroline and Alex walked back to Green Lake (at least that's where they were heading as they disappeared into the snowy mist), and the Audi is still parked on the street. I don't know if I'll be able to get it out of there or not. It must be serious stuff if an all-wheel drive Audi with an expert Canadian driver gets stranded in the wilds of Fremont.

We had lots of fun sledding and tobogganing in the alley. Here are Hal and me with Farley in the middle on Farley's first toboggan ride. At first he wasn't real wild about getting on, but once we got going he was like the typical dog with his face hanging out of the window of a car on the freeway. Since Farley likes to pull on a leash so much, I thought he might be a good sled dog and haul the toboggan back up the hill. No such luck! Even though he has lots of pulling power, he continued his tradition of not doing anything useful (kinda like his master).






Next, it was just me and Farley on the sled! Once again, he enjoyed himself; at least until I lost control and wiped out.












A good time was had by all.

A Winter Wonderland

It's hard to believe that there's been snow on the ground in Seattle for over a week now. I don't know if that's a record or not, but I've lived here eleven years now, and I don't recall anything nearly that long. Here's the view from my window this morning. The snow from the last photo is still there.













Farley and I went out for an early morning walk. The sheer joy of him romping in the snow, and the fact that there are essentially no cars on the road, prompted me to do something rather stupid. I let go of his leash. For the next half hour he taunted me mercilessly; coming close at times as I pleaded for him to come, and then disappearing around a corner making me wonder if I'd ever see him again. Then he'd pop up a half-block away to tease me. I finally managed to get him back when a passerby appeared in the alley. (And I thought I was the only guy foolish enough to be out in the snow before 6AM.) Farley, social animal that he is, couldn't resist going over to greet him. At my request, the stranger took Farley's leash and handed the culprit over.



Here's a shot of a normally open street a block away from my place. Sometime last night, the cabbie got caught sideways on the hill without hitting anything, and I guess decided not to push his luck. A prudent choice, I'd say.

I'm sure that as during at least one snow storm a few years ago, the Evanston alley will soon be filled with the howls of joy from the 40 and 50ish kids sliding down the hill on improvised sleds and toboggans. I may even get out my old skis and carve some turns in the Fremont Alps. If only I could harness Farley's energy to have him drag me back up the hill!

A Great Idea!!

A story from Clusterstock:

Brilliant: Credit Suisse To Pay Top Execs With Illiquid Mortgage Securities

We're shocked that nobody has suggested this before, but on its face this looks like a great idea... Credit Suisse announced today that bonuses for its top executives would be made in illiquid, mortgage-backed securities. Seeing as these guys are responsible for getting this stuff on the companies books, it makes sense to shove it back to them. And if the market gets liquid again, and the stuff goes up, that's going to be a huge windfall for execs:

Bloomberg: The bank will use leveraged loans and commercial mortgage- backed debt, some of the securities blamed for generating the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, to fund executive compensation packages, people familiar with the matter said. The new policy applies only to managing directors and directors, the two most senior ranks at the Zurich-based company, according to a memo sent to employees today.

A Seldom Seen Seattle Scene

We waited for snow all day yesterday, but it didn't come till last night. And come it did; complete with a rare event called thundersnow. That's a great new word I had never heard until it popped up this morning during a weather report on the radio. Apparently a couple of competing fronts collided over Seattle, causing thunder during the snowstorm. Hence, thundersnow. That's a great name for something; I'm just not sure what.

Here's the view from my window at about 7:30 this morning.










Here's the view down Evanston Ave. I took Farley for a walk not long ago, and like most other dogs, he went nuts. He was harder than usual to handle, and with his four-paw-drive, he had far superior traction to my two-foot version.

As far as I'm concerned, the only negative thing about the snow is that I'm expecting my new ski bindings to arrive by FedEx today. I don't know if FedEx is as dedicated as the no-rain-sleet-or-snow-will-stop-us types at the post office, but I hope they are. I've got new skis and boots and all I'm missing are the bindings. I've got an appointment to have everything put together tomorrow. I hope I can make it, because with all this new snow I can hardly wait to get out on the slopes. And I just know that $1000 worth of new ski equipment will make me a far better skier.






Now for a few political thoughts...

I'm really starting to wonder about Obama and his appointments. He appointed Tom Vilsack as his Agriculture Secretary. Vilsak is the ethanol-feedlot-and-subsidy-loving former governor of Iowa. Then there's Ken Salazar as the Interior Secretary. He's currently a senator from Colorado and has operated a ranch that's been in his family for generations. He's one of the new generation of moderate Democrats who are making life difficult for Republicans in the West. Neither of these guys have strong environmental records, but maybe it's like Nixon's trip to China in that it will take guys like these to clean up the messes of current agri-business practices and subsidies and management of federal lands.

Obama has also named Rick Warren as the pastor who will give the invocation at his inauguration. Rick Warren is the smiling face of the right-wing-whacko-religious fringe, but I think that beneath that smiling face lies a hatred of gays, lesbians, women's rights activists and other secular progressives that isn't much different than that of Falwell or Robertson.

Whatever Obama is up to is working. His poll numbers remain high in the vast middle of the American populace. The only people he's annoying are on the extreme right (who he'll never please), and those on the not-so-extreme left.

For my taste, Obama's leaning too far to the right, but he's a lot smarter than me. I hope he knows what he's doing, and I hope he's not just an exceptionally well-spoken and intelligent, but otherwise run-of-the-mill politician. I voted for change we can believe in.

Blagojevich and torture

The Bush administration must be smiling. Last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainee abuse was released, only to be buried by the media frenzy over a two-bit Chicago governor trying to sell Obama's senate seat.

After WWII, some of the Germans and Japanese charged with war crimes were tried, convicted, and executed for lesser offenses than the detainee torture and abuse at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. What went on there was plainly beyond anything sanctioned by the Geneva Conventions. And the crimes committed there pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who died and the millions of Iraqis who fled Iraq because of Americans and their bombs.

It would give me great satisfaction to one day see Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, Rove, and yes, W. himself on the dock for these crimes.

Baby it's cold outside

It's cold outside, but that didn't stop a bunch of us from taking out WaveGuide to tag along with the Argosy Christmas ships. Fortunately, the heater aboard WaveGuide works just fine. Going out with the Christmas ships is a good way of getting into the holiday spirit and a good excuse to drink some hot toddies and hang out with good friends. Here's a shot of me at the helm with my first mate Megan and our able seaman Hal.







As we returned to our slip last night, it was snowing a bit, but nothing was sticking. By the time this morning rolled around, Seattle was a winter wonderland. And contrary to the usual weather patterns, it stayed cold enough that the snow actually stuck around all day. The cold snap is supposed to continue for the next few days. At least the streets are clear and dry, so the city isn't paralyzed like it would be if the streets were icy.






I went and saw Milk tonight with Caroline. What a great movie, and what a fabulous performance by Sean Penn! Penn plays Harvey Milk, an activist in San Fransisco in the 70's who became the first openly gay person to hold major elective office in the US. He and the mayor of San Fransisco were assassinated in 1978 by a disgruntled city council member. (Though not part of the movie, the murderer used what became known as the "Twinky Defence" saying that he was unstable because of all the junk food he ate. He ended up serving only 5 years for the double murder.) This was the time of Anita Bryant's gay-bashing and the rise of the religious right. The themes sounded by the right haven't changed much over the years. They are still using the same arguments today against gay marriage that they were using 30 years ago when they were trying to pass laws to fire gay teachers. But it wasn't the theme of the movie that attracted me so much as the way the movie was put together. It had touches of documentary with lots of archival footage; it was a story of political passion; it was a love story of sorts; and it was all held together by a totally believable Sean Penn. A few years ago after seeing Mystic River, I correctly predicted that Penn would get an academy award for his performance. He deserves another one for Milk.

Provinces in Peril

Even if the US mainstream media buried the prorogue story, The Daily Show came through and confirmed my opinion that Jon Stewart provides all the news you really need.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Provinces in Peril - Indecision Oh-Eh?

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

I may have been sucked in

I may have been sucked in by the video I posted earlier today. I hate it when that happens, but it's not the first time a viral video has fooled me. When I first saw it, I thought it might be a model plane, but I couldn't see any obvious editing. This site thinks it's phony, but they don't have anything to prove it other than there are no new reports or videos of the landing. If this was the real thing at an airshow, you'd think it'd be all over the news.

If nothing else, whoever did this did a great job of making it look like the real thing.

The Most Amazing Video Ever

Hat tip to Mike!

Prorogue cont'd

Well, Harper got his prorogue. The Canadian parliament is shut down until January 26th. What happens then is anybody's guess.

Prorogues???

I learned a new word a couple of days ago - prorogue. Prorogue is a rather arcane term used to describe the temporary suspension of Parliament. Putting it on hold, if you like. The Canadian Parliament is in crisis right now, and Harper's Conservative government has asked the Governor-General to prorogue Parliament. And I always thought Canadian politics were boring, and I always thought that Stephane Dion (the Liberal party leader) was one of the most colorless and boring politicians ever. Well, watch this.



You may recall that there were federal elections in Canada a couple of months ago, and Harper's Conservatives won, but without a majority of the seats. All together, the opposition parties, the Liberals, the NDP, and Bloc Quebecois, have more seats than the Conservatives. After Harper introduced a plan last week in response to the economic crisis, the Opposition didn't think he was doing enough. They got together and announced that they would defeat the plan in a vote of no confidence and bring down the government. Normally that would mean new elections, but this time, the opposition is saying they would form a coalition government without elections. To my knowledge, this has never been done before. Harper's response is to ask the Governor-General of Canada (who's on a Eurpean trip) to prorogue Parliament until the New Year. I don't think that's ever been done before either. So all hell is breaking loose, but you'd never know it from the American media. Until this morning, I hadn't seen any mention of this in the New York Times, The Washington Post, or any of the other mainstream media outlets.

Harper seems to have taken a page from Bush's playbook in questioning the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with him. He also seems to have Bush's disregard for the facts.



Great fun, isn't it?

Eat your heart out Marian!

I've been boatless in Seattle for the last couple of months while WaveGuide was up in Anacortes getting a fresh paint job. Yesterday, Joe drove me up there so Farley and I could bring the boat back. It was a pretty good day for a boat ride. Intermittent sunshine with ight winds from the NE, and waves no more than a foot or so high. Just crank up the stereo and it doesn't get much better, right? Well, it got a lot better off Point No Point when I ran into a pod of at least a dozen Killer Whales. From a distance, I could see a small boat, and around it were intermittent flashes of spray. I thought someone was out on the sound in a jet ski. As I got closer, I realized the flashes of spray were whales! I changed course so that the whales would be coming toward me, and I wouldn't be looking at the sun while watching the whales. Then a couple of whales appeared right in front of the boat, so I immediately shut down the engines and just drifted. In time, all the whales came my way, with a couple of them no more than twenty feet off my stern! Farley was on his hind legs wondering what the hell was going on. I wish I could have got a shot of him looking at a whale while the whale was surfacing. But I didn't, so these shots will have to do.

Hawaii, continued

I had never been on a cruise ship before, and I never would have gone except for Mom's invitation. It's not that often that Mom, Marian, Martha and me get together, and not since our Mexican Mennonite adventure in 2001, have we been together for a week. That experience alone made the trip memorable.

As for the cruise itself, it was much as I expected. Lots of freshly-scrubbed, red-faced, well-fed and pious Midwesterners, some with their children, and some with their parents. The food was very good, and there was lots of it. We ate mostly in the Aloha Cafe because no reservations were required, and the buffet had a constantly changing menu of mostly pretty good stuff. And they had BIG plates. You could really pile it on if you felt the need, and lots of those well-fed Midwesterners felt the need. I was reminded of Hal's story about standing in line at a big buffet somewhere and striking up a conversation with a rather corpulent man beside him in line. The corpulent man was complaining that one of the problems with being on vacation was that it was really easy to eat too much. Without thinking, Hal replied that it looked like he'd been on vacation for quite some time.

I didn't talk a whole lot of politics on board. Our President-elect came into the conversation on three occasions, and all three times the well-fed Midwesterners expressed some variation of the theme that Obama was a communist, a socialist, a baby-killer, a Moslem, or all of the above. For the most part, I held my tongue. I was badly outnumbered, and wouldn't have stood a chance if one of those church ladies sat on me. Some people might say, "But Walter, those people are really the salt of the earth." My reply would be, "To me they look more like the fat of the land."

I made some great choices of reading material for the trip. I managed to read 3-1/2 books on the trip, proving to me that my internet-induced-attention-deficit-disorder (IIADD) is not a chronic ailment, and given the right circumstances I can still focus and enjoy reading something longer than a web page. In additon to three complete New Yorker magazines, I read three books. They are: The Limits of Power, by Andrew J. Bacevich; Crash Proof, by Peter D. Schiff; and Deer Hunting with Jesus, by Joe Bageant. The Limits of Power and Crash Proof take on the same theme, but from different angles. Both books deal with the coming end of American power - The Limits of Power from a military and diplomatic point of view, and Crash Proof from an economic perspective. Both books essentially say that the American post-WWII preeminence was squandered by borrowing and consuming rather than saving and producing. I'd highly recommend both of them.

Deer Hunting with Jesus is a well-written and entertaining book about rednecks and white trash in a small town in Virginia. Sarah Palin would probably call it the "Real America." Joe Bageant is an aging Vietnam War vet who left town in the sixties and then returned to his roots 30 years later. In those 30 years, Joe never lost his 60's progressive political perspective, while the town and most of its inhabitants as well as family and old friends swung way to the right. It's the kind of town where a $10/hr job on the swing shift at the local Rubbermaid plant and a modular home is as good as it gets. He touches on some of the same themes as The Limits of Power and Crash Proof, except that the people he writes about are at the bottom of the economic/political power ladder, and will suffer the most from America's slide. The ironic thing is that these people still support the politicians who put them and keep them at the bottom. This is another book I'd highly recommend.

The book I'm half-way through is Angler, by Barton Gellman. It is a well-researched and sobering book about Dick Cheney's vice presidency and the abuse of power. I'll write more about it when I've finished it.

Hawaii, etc.

Well, I'm back. Quite well-rested and very overfed. Given the calories I consumed during the last week, I shouldn't be eating for a week!
We gave ourselves a send-off before the cruise by having an early Thanksgiving dinner at Caroline's place. And yes, that is the back of my head after Megan got through French-braiding my hair. As some of you know, I've always wanted a ponytail, but never had one even during my misspent youth. So now I'm growing one in my misspent retirement. This is a look at our floating home for a week, Norwegian Line's Pride of America. It's quite the feat of engineering and organization. It's like a small city, with it's own power plant, water and sewage systems, and even telephone and cable. For this trip, it was home to around 3000 cruisers and 1000 crew.


Our first stop was in Maui. We went into town for a walk, and came across this concert of Hawaiian music and dance. This was the real thing - performed for the locals and not for tourists. It was very entertaining. The white guy, the leader of the group, had a great voice, as well as looking a lot like Sarah's old friend Ryan.

This dancer was fascinating to watch. The moves all seemed quite simple, but they were graceful and somehow fascinating to watch. Also fascinating, and very beautiful, were the flowers in her hair.Our next stop was the Haleakala crater at sunset. At an elevation of about 10000 feet, it was a cold, beautiful and very foreign landscape. Our viewpoint was above the Haleakala observatory complex. As well as a variety of telescopes, this is also the American center for tracking all the manmade junk and debris orbiting the earth.

On our last day in Hawaii, we rented a car and took a quick tour of the island. Here we are with Mom on the North Shore, not far from Sunset Beach. The surf was pretty incredible. It's hard to imagine going into that stuff voluntarily.

This is a shot of Mom taking on a sugar cane plantation tour on Kauai. Here are Mom and Marian in full cruising mode.

Probably the most interesting part of the trip was cruising past lava flows on the Big Island into the ocean at night. We were quite a ways off shore, but it was pretty spectacular nonetheless. There wasn't enough light for conventional pictures, but this video should give you some idea of what it was like. One thing the video can't convey is the smell of sulphur we got as we passed downwind of the lava flows. Neat stuff!

A Kona in Kona

Coffee that is. Martha, Marian and I came into town via shore tender to check things out. It would have been almost impossible to get Mom on the tender, so we left with a book on the balcony of her room. She'll be fine till we get back.

We arrived here this morning after a memorable trip last night. We sailed past a point on the island where the lava is flowing down the mountain into the sea. Spectacular!! A bright red firey streak down the mountainside ending in clouds of steam at the water's edge. The boat was probably a couple of miles off shore, but we were close enough to smell the sulphur. I've got some video that I'll try to clean up and post when I get back to civilization.

I'll post more, with pictures, next week.

Maui

Blogging will be light this week because the internet on the boat is outrageously expensive - 50 to 75 cents per minute, depending on what kind of plan you buy. So here I am at a rather forlorn outdoor mall on shore that doesn't have much to offer other than free Wi-Fi.

Yesterday was a rather long and annoying day, starting with the $15 per bag charge for checking a bag on Northwest. Then the trip through security at the airport. Like a dummy, I left my $90 sailor's knife in my backpack, and the geniuses with Homeland Security found it. I wasn't about to donate it to them, so I went back out, and at a small kiosk, mailed the knife back to myself for $9.00. With the second trip through the security lines, I barely had enough time to make the plane. But I made it. Then a rather uneventful flight to Honolulu with zero free food service. Not even any crappy pretzels. The sandwich and salad combo cost $10, but I passed because it looked so crappy. Martha did succumb, and she did confirm my suspicions about the quality. When we got off the plane, we were met by a Norwegian Cruise line rep, who tried to get us to the minibus on the lower level of the airport. We walked a long way to the elevator (remember Mom uses a walker), only to discover it was out of service. Another long walk, and eventually a wheelchair, was needed to get us to working elevators. The cruise ship reception was in a giant old warehouse with long lines and more incompetent security. we eventually got on board, but they lost one of Martha's bags. She didn't get it till late last night.

Oh, and did I tell you it's been cloudy and rainy since we got here? Things can only get better from here on in, right!? But then again, it doesn't really matter. I'll have a great time, just spending some good quality time with my Mom and my sisters.

Concrete Tables and Other Turkeys

Here's the latest version of my concrete table. As I said in one of my previous posts, I'm not totally pleased with the results, but I think I have a plan to salvage it. The good news is that my structural plan has worked out pretty well. The table feels solid and stable. The bad news is that in order for the pieces to fit together, the horizontal rods have to have a lot of tension on them. While tensioning the rods, it's easy to knock off chips of concrete where the pieces are misaligned before the tension pulls them into place. What I think I'll do is disassemble the table and reassemble it in my little backyard. I'll fill the seams and chipped-out areas with an epoxy/grout mix, and then grind and polish the table top as one piece. The seams will show, but I think the hex pattern and inner donut will have an interesting look, and the top will be smooth and seamless. The biggest trick will be to get the table into my condo after I'm done. I'll only have to move it a few feet, but the table weighs close to 400 pounds and will have to be tipped on its side to clear the doorway. The adventure continues...

Speaking of adventures, here's our early Thanksgiving turkey smoking on my Big Green Egg. Why an early Thanksgiving? Well, my Mom and sisters, Marian and Martha, are flying to Seattle tomorrow and are staying overnight before we all fly to Hawaii on Saturday. Once there, we'll get on a cruise ship and tour the islands for the next week, all courtesy of my Mom! So I figured that since they'll be here for one night, we should get the Seattle clan together with the Canadian clan and have a Thanksgiving dinner. And rather than just having the conventional boring roast turkey, I figured I may as well smoke one. I haven't done this since I smoked one a few years ago for Christmas, but as I recall it turned out really well and deserves an encore. If it doesn't turn out, we can always order in pizza.

W.

Daughter Megan and I went to see W. tonight. It was OK, but certainly not great. I recommend that you wait until it comes out on Netflix. I'm not sure what Oliver Stone was trying to do with this movie. It wasn't particularly funny, and considering what it could have been, it wasn't really all that dark. In fact, in a weird way, it was actually quite sympathetic to Bush. It doesn't portray him as evil or stupid or used by those around him. It portrays him as a guy who could never live up to his father's expectations and his family name. But even with that approach, he doesn't fill in the characters or really give you a reason to care. James Cromwell did a decent job as Bush Sr., and Ellen Burstyn was a passable Barbara Bush. Laura Bush is as vacant as she appears to be in real life. Condolezza Rice comes across as a real ditz; Colin Powell is a guy with serious doubts who caves in because of loyalty to the chain of command; Rumsfeld isn't much of anything. There's a bit of menace in Richard Dreyfuss's portrayal of Cheney, but even that is somewhat muted. Rob Courdrey, formerly of The Daily Show, in a relatively small role, did a passable imitation of Ari Fleischer.

I think that Stone missed whatever mark he was trying to hit. I'd give W. 5.5 on a scale of 10.

GM and all that bailout talk

With an eclectic bunch of neighbors, I live in a development of 12 modest, but kinda cool, townhomes in Fremont. We're not exactly upscale, but we're not destitute either. We're mostly a bunch of aging (40 and 50-something) yuppies who've done and are doing OK. What do we drive?

I took an inventory of the cars in our parking garage. There are 3-BMW's, 2-Mercedes, 2-Nissans, 2-Volvos, 2-VW's, 1-Isuzu, 1-Mazda, 1-Audi, 1 aging Jaguar, 1-Mini, and 2-BMW motorcycles. So we've got everything from economy cars to entry level luxury cars. And nothing from GM,or Ford, or Chrysler.

If GM, Ford, or Chrysler built cars that appealed to reasonably thoughtful people like us, but had fallen on hard times through no fault of their own, I'd be all for some taxpayer-funded assistance. But why would I want to support companies that build stuff that reasonable thoughtful people like us don't want to buy?

Second thoughts about my table project

I'm beginning to have some doubts about my table project. It has not gone smoothly so far. I poured the top twice because the first mix was too dry. I burned out the Flex wet grinder that I used for my countertops. Then I burned out my other grinder that I jury-rigged to be a wet grinder. Yesterday I bought a new Makita wet/dry variable speed grinder, and it's working great so far. But there are things that in and of themselves aren't deal-breakers but taken together are making me wonder whether it will all work out or not. First, I wanted the forms to be be more precise and have cleaner edges to the pieces. I didn't get my layout right on when I built the forms, and therefore the segments aren't all exactly the same size. But because of the way the forms were made, the pieces fit together perfectly, so it might be OK. I thought the sheet metal I used to form the inner donut would naturally make a better circle than it did, but it didn't, so the donut is quite visibly lopsided. Now that I've polished off the top layer of the table, I'm seeing a lot of small holes left by bubbles in the concrete. I guess that even the second time around I didn't get the concrete mix wet enough. Today I applied a skim coat of epoxy filler to fill those holes and will see what it looks like tomorrow after another round of polishing.

I haven't given up yet, but I'm not stubborn enough to put something I really don't like in my house. Who knows, given the fact that it's made out of concrete, stainless steel and aluminum, it could be a pretty cool outdoor table. Does anyone out there need some patio furniture?

One more point about my medical/pharmaceutical/industrial complex rant... If there were 8901 people taking drugs that cost $100/month for 19 months, the total cost of the drugs was $16,911,900. As a results, there were 109 fewer cardiac events. Therefore, it cost $155,155 to prevent each event. I wonder what the typical cost of a cardiac event is and wonder if anyone did a cost/benefit analysis on the use of this drug.

Medical Study Rant

Yesterday, newspapers headlined the New England Journal of Medicine study that showed that if healthy people took statins (like Crestor) to reduce their otherwise normal levels of cholesterol, their chances of having a cardiac event would be reduced by 44%. Good news, right?! Just take a $3 pill a day for the rest of your life, and you won't have a heart attack or stroke. This is one of those stories from the pharmeceutical/medical/industrial establishment that drives me crazy.

So, let's dig a little bit to find the deeper truth. Well, not much deeper. None of the facts reported were false, but the fanfare is way out of proportion with the actual results. There were 17,802 people in the study, divided into two groups of 8,901. One group took Crestor (big surprise - the study was financed by AstraZeneca, the makers of Crestor); the other took a placebo. The study was ended early because the results were so good. Here are the final results:

• Cardiac events: Control group-251, Crestor group-142. Risk reduction-43%
• Cardiac deaths: Control group-157, Crestor group-83. Risk reduction-47%
• Deaths from all causes: Control group-247, Crestor group-198. Risk reduction-20%

This all sounds great, right? But put it in perspective. 251 cardiac events in a group of 8,901 is 2.8%. So if you fit the profile of the group tested (men over 50, women over 60, all in otherwise good health with no history of heart disease), you have a 2.8% chance of a cardiac event over the 1.9 years of the study. By any measure, that is a pretty small risk. Taking Crestor, at a cost of $100/month, lowers that already low risk by 43% to 1.6%. Another way of looking at it is that you've decreased your risk by 1.2 percentage points. Somehow that doesn't sound as good as 44%, does it? 44% might be worth $100/month, but are 1.2 percentage points?

Another way of looking at the manipulation of these statistics is that with no drugs, your chances of dying from something other than heart disease is 1.0% ((247-157)/8901 x 100). With Crestor, your chances are 1.3%((198-83)/8901 x 100).

So - your chances of dying of something other than heart disease is 30% greater if you take Crestor than if you take nothing. How would that headline sound? It would be perfectly true!

How'd I Do?

Most of the election results are in, so it's time to take a look at how I did.

For the Electoral College vote, I predicted 358-180 for Obama. It looks like the final results are 365-173. Hey - not bad! I came closer than super-duper poll watcher Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight.com) with his prediction of 349-189.

The popular vote turned out to be 52.5% to 46.2%. My crystal ball had forecast 51%-46%. I thought that there might be a small "Bradley effect" of a percentage point or so, but I was wrong. If there was a Bradley effect, it was too small to be measured, or was more than overwhelmed by all the new voters. Nate Silver's computer model was almost dead-nuts on with a prediction 52.3%-46.2%. His methodology has set a new gold standard for poll interpretation.

For the Senate, I called 57-41-2. The final appears to be 56-40-2, with Al Franken's seat and the one in Georgia still up for grabs. Ted Steven's Alaskan seat might be challenged as well. There are some serious voting discrepancies going on up there. The polls were right on everywhere except Alaska, where Steven's numbers went from 12 points down before the election to an apparent +2 point win. My guess is close in any case, and could be right on when everything is decided.

For the House, my tally of 255-180, was more of a wild-assed guess than anything. The final numbers are 254-173, with 8 still to be decided.

So, here I sit with a kink in my shoulder from patting myself on the back.

A few more election day thoughts

Here's a shot of Hal doing his civic duty. The other two are from The Obama Pajama Party at the Garage MaHal.

And what a fine party it was - food and drink in a celebration of an historic election day with a crowd of like-minded friends and neighbors.

I arrived just before 4PM, when the first of the polls were closing on the East Coast. I fired up my baby laptop, and Dave had his going, so along with a couple of TV's and multiple websites, we weren't going to miss a thing. There were no surprises early on, but as more and more states were called I began to get concerned. Obama wasn't flipping any previously red states. Both of the early states I expected to flip, Virginia and North Carolina, were too close to call. But Obama was ahead in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even Indiana, so my knickers weren't too tightly twisted. Once those states fell, it was in the bag even if the networks hadn't called it yet. At one point, the tally was up to 200 for Obama, with nothing west of the Mississippi included. A little quick math to add up the in-the-bag states - +55 California, +7 Oregon, and +11 Washington - made it a done deal. I'm glad that I was able to observe and participate in a good day and a good time.

I had listened to Limbaugh on Monday to hear what the lunatic fringe was spouting, and was somewhat dumbfounded. I thought he was supposed to have his finger on the pulse of some segment of the population, but it's got to be a pretty small segment. He ranted on and on about socialists, communists, Marxists and even Bolsheviks. Who the hell was he talking to? The Berlin Wall came down 19 years ago! You've got to be over 40 to have any memories of the Cold War. Is communism a real force anywhere in the world? Does anyone really believe in a communist international conspiracy anymore? I could have understood rants against the Islamo-fascist forces in the world, or a not-so-subtle racist appeal, but Marxism?!?!? And he's paid something like $40M a year for his schtick?! Unbelievable.

Obama's got to feel like the dog who was chasing the bus and then finally caught it. What to do now? He's inherited one hell of a mess, with two wars, the markets melting down, with no easy solutions, and no money or room to maneuver. Those problems are beyond the control of any mere mortal. I think the best he can hope for is to do no further harm and to use the power of the bully pulpit to give the US and the world enough confidence and optimism to somehow muddle through it all.

My First Vote

Well, I did it. My ballot is in the box. My polling place is in the Baptist church a couple of blocks from my place. The line up was short and orderly and casual. No hassles, no problems. I thought I might have a bit of a problem because I never did get a voter registration card. When I checked my registration on line, there I was, with all vital statistics correct, except that my gender was listed as female. I had contemplated going in drag or telling them that I was "in transition," but there was no problem. I just put my mail-in ballot in the box, and was done with it. I was a bit disappointed in that there were no voting machines with levers to pull or ballots to punch or curtains to close. If there had been, I would have done it the old-fashioned way. Washington is going to all mail-in voting, so for my first vote, I wanted to actually go to the polling place.

I've lived in the USA for over 25 years and certainly done my share of criticizing presidents. Reagan was in power when we first moved to St. Louis, and I could never understand why he was such a popular president. He seemed totally clueless and out of it at times. He didn't know members of his own cabinet, and he needed cue cards for his lines when he met world leaders. He ran up huge deficits, allowed Iran-Contra to happen, and was responsible for the S&L mess and the first major Wall Street scandals. (Remember the good old days of Ivan Boesky and Michael Millikan?)

George Bush the Elder was OK, except for the way he handled the First Gulf War. I couldn't believe the way he made Saddam Hussein, a third-rate, third-world, tin-pot dictator into a modern day Hitler, and even more so, I couldn't believe the way Americans lapped it up. I got my first taste of America - love it or leave it- and my first taste of the blind bloodthirstiness that almost seems like part of the American character. I did admire the way he put together a world-wide coalition to throw the Iraqis out of Kuwait. The aftermath was a debacle. After calling for a revolution to overthrow the regime, he let Saddam have almost free reign to slaughter the Shiites and Kurds. Bush I left a truly sad and sorry mess in Iraq.

I never did like Clinton all that much. He was probably the best US politician of my generation, and I did admire him for successfully surviving the incredible attacks of the whacko right wing, but in the end I think he is a deeply flawed character who squandered his gifts for a blow-job in the Oval Office.

And of course everyone knows what a total unmitigated disaster George II has been. His flaws and failures are too many to list, and I honestly can think of nothing good to say about him.

The USA has been great to me on a personal basis. I've lived a life here that has been blessed (or maybe just really lucky) in so many ways. But whenever I travelled overseas and people asked where I was from, I'd say St. Louis, Seattle, or wherever I was living at the time, but in the same breath I'd say I was Canadian. Assuming that the election today turns out as it should and Obama is elected, when that question is asked of me, I'll be proudly American. The fact that I'm also proudly Canadian will come out later after the third or fourth breath.

For What It's Worth

For what it's worth, here are my election result predictions:

Electoral College Votes
Obama 358
McCain 180

Popular Vote
Obama 51
McCain 46

Senate
Dems 57
GOP 41
Other 2

House
Dems 255
GOP 180

Unless there is voter fraud on a massive scale, it's hard to imagine how McCain can possibly win. He has to run all the states that currently lean his way, take all the "swing" states, and steal a couple more from the Demcratic-leaning states. Even then, he'd only win by a couple of Electoral College votes. I think Obama will get at least 300 EC votes, and could exceed 400.

With any luck, it will all be over in a couple of days.

Oh, and one more thing. Those darn Canadians are at it again...

My Latest Project

I wonder if the folks at Audi knew they made a pickup truck.

Remember those strange looking things that I posted pictures of last week? Well, I filled them with concrete last Thursday.

Yesterday, I took the forms off to see the results of my handiwork. I've still got a bit of patching and grinding to do, and a lot of polishing, but I think my plan for a concrete table to complement my concrete countertops might actually work. See those aluminum tubes in the background of the picture on the right? No they're not for uranium-enrichment centrifuges. They will be bolted to the base (in the upper right hand corner of the same picture) and will support the tabletop in the foreground.

If it doesn't work, I'll always think it should have.