Kingsquared

I’ve done a little bit of traveling in the past few days and I’ve got one more leg of the trip before its all over and I reach my final destination. Since I was here last, wifi has propogated across almost everywhere that I’ve been. If I’ve turned my laptop on and accessed my google account it keeps track of where I’ve been. If I had my phone on at some point it also tracked my location. I allow it to track my location history and I can choose whether to share it or keep it for personal use. I think this image is interesting – who else can say that they’ve been to all of those points on the map in less than a week?

Where I've been traveling this week

I did make a short stop in Ireland but the wifi was down – that would have made one more stop in the middle. Odds are that I won’t be able to get something in my final destination. I don’t know if they have any wifi available.

It’s that time once again. I’m set to get on a plane and travel half way across the planet away from everyone that I know and love.

I’m headed to Iraq for another 4 month stint in what should be a relatively easy trip. I’ve got my bags packed and this time my trip will be all about distraction and self improvement. I’ve got textbooks for two classes and some workout gloves so I know what I will be doing with my spare time. I should have lots of it. It’s probably going to take 3-4 days to actually get there so I won’t be able to update this for a bit.

The dogs, Duke and Havoc, will have to keep Jessica company while I am away – I’m going to miss her greatly. Luckily for Jessica, her family is nearby and she has friends all over the place. Hopefully they’ll keep her distracted enough so that the time passes quickly.

I’ve updated the Wedding Information page with some new information. There is a contact form if you have any questions and don’t have my email address. I’ll respond as quick as I can.

Not so scary to fly now is it?

I’m 15 pages deep into Economics 201 I don’t know near enough to figure out what has and hasn’t work in our economy in the past few years. I’m sure that with one to two more years of study I still won’t know enough to figure it out. What I do know is that the “talking heads” on our 24hr news stations surely can’t grasp a problem as large as the one we face. There are simply too many variables involved. Normative economic principle (how people should behave) and positive economic principle (how people will behave) both come into play. How many people have put off spending money because of the “economy”? How many of these people are salaried and haven’t seen a drop in their income nor an increase in their cost of living? Why would they stop spending at their normal rate (unless they decide to pursue a different monetary goal)?

Questions like these are why I love economics – huge, broad, expansive questions with long detailed answers – answers that we may not get correct. Sure, our policy makers are educated and their advisors often have PhD’s in their respective fields but the problem is simply massive. By the time we’ve collected and analyzed all of the data the situation will have surely changed.

Look at the weather, for example, how often have we been told that that the mean temperature on our planet is rising. How much bizarre weather have we all experienced in the past few years? Isn’t it strange that Seattle had its warmest and driest summer ever but is experiencing one of its coldest winters so far? Our climate, much like the economy, is a massive system with millions of variables. To think that we can figure out what is causing it and “solve” the problem completely is ridiculous. I think that we can find solutions that will improve our situation but I doubt we can “stop” the warming like we can stop our cars in front of a stop sign. It’s simply too big. If we ALL changed – today – forever – we could start a gradual change in both the economy and in our climate. Without everyone involved its simply going to take time.

Wait a minute? I remember a speech from our President shortly after he came into office saying that it would take some time for our economy to recover. Hmmm… good advisers? Wise choice of words? Absolutely! Recent indicators show that we are on our way out of this hole that we have dug – we’re not out of the woods yet but we’re headed into the right direction.

Just my two cents.

Havoc – general destruction, devastation, desolation or wasting. In our case, its a little puppy that hasn’t destroyed anything as of yet. She does have a nose for socks and she always seems to find them. They can be off the floor but if we leave her unwatched for a minute or two she’ll come out with one. It’s like “hey, look what I found!”

Jessica likes the puppy

Puppy training is not without issues but it does help to be down to two dogs. She picks up alot from Duke and that certainly helps us out. Hopefully she doesn’t pick up any of his bad habits. She is crate trained (miraculously) but house training is still going to take some more time. Yesterday, for example, she woke up from a nap to follow us to the basement. When she got to the laundry room where we were standing she decided she had to pee. There was no warning – simply, I’ve got to pee. Great.

They like each other

She and Duke get along great – when I went to the back yard I found them snoozing in the same dog house. She follows him practically everywhere he goes. For the first week she slept in the same dog kennel with him and she snuggled right up to him. Now that she is in her own kennel I no longer get to sleep in. As soon as my alarm goes off she reminds me that she has a small bladder and that she needs to go outside. Reminding me is a good thing – not pooping on the floor is a good thing – and I’ll grudgingly take her out early in the morning as long as the arrangement continues.

She really likes Duke

Jessica’s Christmas present, a little Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Havoc, is sitting at my feet chewing on a dog bone. All of the dogs have been outside to go to the bathroom and the little one has been outside and gone twice (luckily I was watching her like a hawk and caught her before we had another accident). The morning meal went without incident when I learned that feeding the little one first was the easiest way to keep her out of my hair. The other dogs know that eating before they are released is a bad idea. They decided to sit and wait regardless of what was happening. The other two were shuffled off to the kennel with the little one in tow there simply to watch the proceedings. He was mostly there so I could keep an eye on her.

I’ve got to keep the little guy quiet and busy until I leave. I know that if I put her in his kennel our morning of silence will be over. Did I mention that Jessica is still asleep? It also happens to be a Monday. Keeping her quiet lies within my best interests. Lets just hope that I can do it…. if I don’t my life expectancy will be drastically shortened.

We both overate but we survived the day and nobody got any food poisoning. The smoked turkey turned out quite well and was a hit – a few people overlooked Jessica’s contribution until I pointed it out. They realized their error in logic and quickly told Jessica how much they liked her version.

Jessica and I had to do some early morning shopping because we aren’t made of money and we had to get a few good deals. We did our research and found the best deal was at Best Buy. They were going to hand out vouchers starting at 3AM. We arrived at 130AM to find a line that was at least a hundred deep. We were quite cold but we persevered and got what we wanted.

I’ve been trying to do my best impersonation of Clark Griswold. As it stands, out house is the only one with Christmas lights… and we have a bunch of them all over the house. I’ve got a few more strands to place and I need to fix the extension cords but its mostly complete. We’ll shop the clearance sales and buy as much as we can so that next year gets slightly more comical. I love putting lights on the house – I really like watching people slow down to see how ridiculous it looks. I’ll try and get some pictures up later.

For the last two years I’ve traveled north with the Loveless clan to spend the Thanksgiving weekend in cold and occasionally snowy B.C. We ran dogs, played pool, board games, and ate as much of Paula’s food as we could cram down our gullets.

This year we’re spending Thanksgiving at our home but the Loveless clan will still be in tow. It saves us some cash and it saves me from burning through some of my leave.

The bird is in the oven and the other bird is in the smoker and we’re two hours away from dinner. Only time will tell how it all turns out – my one hope is that it’s edible.

I hate the band Nickleback. They represent everything I hate in “commercial” rock music. Their songs are laughable… and now someone has made me laugh at their interpretation of a nickleback song. If I could change one thing – the singer would be sitting on a toilet trying to squeeze out a turd while singing this song – thats how I imagine every nickleback concert – with the lead singer sitting on a toilet and trying to sing while constipated.