Adventures in Babyland

Had an AWESOME 10k today.
http://results.active.com/pages/displayNonGru.jsp?pubID=3&rsID=73523

Houston TXU 10K.
280th place.. out of 2208.
40th in my age group out of 202

46:54.9
7:33/M <--- hell yah.


gigiti!

I was held up in customs in chicago yesterday.... but it's not what you're thinking

The baggage part of the aircraft was frozen shut.. we couldn't leave customs without our bags... so... 2.5 hrs later..... you know the drill

b

Hello all... Just sat down in my room in london.. it's a lovely 12:15am.. can't wait to go to work at 7am..
oddly enough, I feel tired. soo much for time change.

b

I work for a company that uses all macs instead of PCs... it's awesome.. it's amazing..
In the 2 years I've worked for them, we've never had one virus, one piece of spyware... ,etc... it rocks.
We have Roaming profiles w/LDAP, Directory Calendars, Network Booting/Reinstall, the list goes on.

But one thing that Apple is failing at .... Wireless. Mac OS X's wireless stack sucks ass.. I mean it REALLY sucks ass. At home, the wireless stack is fine, but for corporate wireless networks.. good luck.

Most corporations have more than 1 AP with the same SSID. This is so you can roam from room to room and not lose your connection.

How the OS X stack handles this:
* Every X seconds, the mac looks around and sees if there is a strong signal on the same SSID and switches to it. If this happens to be an encrypted connection, the encryption is renegotiated. This takes about 10 seconds or so to switch. Which is annoying. I have an access point directly below me through concrete... it decides to connect to that one about once every 30 minutes.... and then prompty switches back to the one in the room 30-60 seconds later... very annoying

* If you're running an 802.11a/b/g/n at 2.4 and 5.0 ghz.. forget about it. you need DEDICATED SSID's that run a signal protocol. When OS X is given the choice between 802.11a/b/g/n 2.4 and 5.0, it will default to 802.11b . Seriously. WTF apple.

How Microsoft Windows Handles this:
* 802.11k and 802.11r is used. 802.11k lets the Access Points tell the PC which Access Point to connect to. So if you move to another room, the access point in the old room will tell the PC to connect to a new access point. (An access point controller (read Cisco WLAN 4402) is required... but most corporations have AP controllers anyway... research LWAPP). 802.11r is RAPID BSS transition. Before switching to the new AP, all the crypto is negotiated beforehand so that the transition between AP's is seamless!

* You can select 802.11a/b/g/n individually... but generally, the windows stack chooses the best protocol.


I'm really pissed off at Apple for having a shitty wireless stack.. This is the pain my existence at work.
I don't know how the hell anyone can survive...... We have 12 Access points where I work... all Cisco LWAPP 1252s.. very nice... . my only suggestion when roaming in a place like ours... Close your laptop.. move to the new location, open the laptop... or else its going to suck.

FED meeting (FOMC) on wednesday... 50/50 rate cut... GDP numbers on Thursday... will probably be a negative number ...
SOOOO... it's going to be a weird Halloween week!

Now I just need an up day to reload on PUTs..

The VIX is currently at 79. The VIX is the volatility index. Also known as the fear index.

If you take this number and divide it by the square root of 12 (Research VIX on wikipedia).
This comes out to 22.80%

This means there is a 68% chance (one standard deviation) of the market moving 22.80% in the next 30 days.

this is fucking scary.

b

I just found the mostest awesomest article(st?) about TSA.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/airport-security

Once again... Airport Security is BAD theatre..

What we saw today was the "dead cat bounce"



or in my terms


things will still go down.. but this is the first step towards recovery ;)

yay

For all of those that don't know me.. I work in the financial sector.

I've been watching the market for quite some time.. I make money even when the market goes down.. Our company has had some AMAZING days in the last few days..

Today was the first day I was actually scared. Really scared.. I knew things were bad.. I was profiting off all those "Joe 6 packs" (i still think this is a NEGATIVE term) that have pulled their money out of the stock market in the last few months. It's bad.. it's REALLY bad..

I see we are currently on a fence... balancing from side to side.. one side.. a slow and painful low time.. things go back up eventually (3-5 years)... and the other side.. depression. (not the emotional kind). One thing i've learned from IT in the last 10 years is that throwing money at a problem never SOLVES the problem.. It usually covers the real problem and ends up fucking you in the end.

Ben/Henry/Most of CONgress have been throwing money at this problem.. This is NOT the answer.. They're fucking idiots (excuse my french).. More or less this current administration is what's going to give Obama his victory.

So today was the day... that I felt that we were at the tipping point.. The point of no return.. Today is the day.. that J6P pulls his money out of his 401k into cash accounts (inside 401k) because he feels the market has fucked him.. which causes the market to go down.. which causes other J6P's to do the same.. The End.

We're fucked... we are royally fucked... and no one really knows how far we are truly fucked. Oh we may rally this week... (probably not tomorrow).. but the facts are:

* We're in Q4. With money tightening up.. Companies are not going to buy shit.. (which causes a downturn in manufacturing..) Companies are not going to send people are trips... etc..
* We're in Q4.. Today it was announced that CREDIT CONSUMER LENDING fell for the FIRST time since 1998.. Translation: people are using credit cards less... (GO USA On this one!)
* We're in Q4... It's Christmas time.. because of high gas prices, inflation, and money hordeing, people are going to spend less this holiday season.. THEREFORE... Q4 profits (which get announced in January, Feb, and March next year are going to SUCK ASS, causing the DOW to fail even more)

Soo... for recovery to even START, we need to make it till April.
The end... we're hosed for 6 months at least..

You're NOT going to see a 5 digit DOW for at least another 3-5 years.

game over man

remind me to move all my money out of the Cash account in 401k when the market goes back up in 6-8 months

http://myretirement.retire.americanfunds.com/about/funds/details.htm?ticker=RKBXX

b

Well... I _SHOULD_ have bought a 1 million dollar home.
I could have.... and you know why?

Because BANK OF AMERICA is going to lower my payments to 34% Gross Income.. (the standard rate at which houses are affordable)

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/06/real_estate/Drastic_plan_slashes_mortgage_costs/index.htm?postversion=2008100616

Yes.. that means my million dollar home can be within my reach!

Thanks Bank of America... for giving houses to people that were irresponsible and couldn't afford them... well now they can.. and can probably can turn around and sell them at a huge profit.

So to that gardener making 30k living in a 400-500k house.. I salute you on your new affordable home.

This SYSTEM SUCKS.

You think the market was tanking before... just wait.... just wait...

This bill still didn't address the TRUST issue... "We want to unfreeze the loan market"
Banks are STILL not going to trust people....

credit markets will still be frozen.

you heard it here.

Looks like the senate is being sneaky again..

They're going to slap on the SAME bill the house rejected monday onto the AMT bill... and send it back to the house tomorrow night for a vote at sunday.

AMT bill is "Alternative Minimum Tax"... It more or less is lowers taxes for the middle class of america..

Anyways.. the senate is going to slap the Bailout bill on that... so whoever doesn't vote for the NEW bill, is against lowering taxes for the middle class..

How's that for being fucktards..

This is the first time you'll ever hear this from me.
I love the republicans!.. they blocked the bailout bill!

Update:
For what it's worth, my Democrat House Rep voted NO! LLoyd Doggett, I love ya.

b

I'm sorry for another post about how I feel about all this subprime bailout bullshit.
Live with me for another 5 or 6 more...

Anywho... I suspect when this thing passes (and it will) that the market will go up for about.... 1.5 - 2 days.. and things will be back to crashing again. I honestly don't think this "bailout" is going to work. Banks are still scared about loaning money to people right now.. especially in this heavy inflation period of the US. Since this happens, new money is not created (view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-fD78zyvI if you want to know how money is created). Therefore the FED will need to lower interest rates and put more liquidity into the system to try to get the gears greased again. The problem is... the FED rate is currently at 2%... ALthough in the past it's been lower (1%... don't get me started on that).. there's not much room to go.. the lower it goes, the higher the inflation is in the US.

Traditionally, when this rate is lowered, more loans are given out and the economy ramps up. But not the case this time. Because the banks are scared to fail, loans for mortgages, cars, boats, cheeseburgers, etc are not given out as easily. This is one reason I think Carmax, and GM are fucked. Because they have a lending arm that directly lends the vehicles they are trying to sell (and most of those vehicles happen to be gas guzzling SUVs), they are doubly fucked. As for GM, they just got a nice 25Billion loan from your tax money today (SURPRISE!).. yes .. news media didn't cover that because they were more concerned with the bailout.

Since this fiscal year ends pretty soon, the US Gov was short money to finish off the year, so they passed a $634 BILLION dollar bill to finish off the year... That's right folks... we had a 634 Billion dollar deficit this year. (granted some of that bill had a BUNCH pork in it.... and not the bacon kind)

Since this bill is unlikely to start in THIS fiscal year... Next year is already 700 Billion in the hole PLUS whatever deficit we're in for the 2008-2009 fiscal year. This will probably end up being the biggest in history. YAY! (I blame both the DEM's and the REPUB's... although true REPUBS don't exist... but that another rant)

Anywho.. thanks for listening..
you're angry pissed off US Citizen.

CA

Old Addiction: World of Warcraft.
Status: Last played 4 months ago
Cost: $20/month
So Far: 60 days of my life.

New Addiction: buying/selling stock options
Status: 5 trades a week (ish)
Cost: $10-15 a trade.
So far: 53% ahead for the month

/cries for help

Dear American:
I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson