One Of Those Days

We are a set of patterns separated by days and nights. Kind of like a circle with dotted lines. It isn't perfect and there are times when you can't quite see why you turn, but when you back up over the course of time you start to see the circle.

10 years.

When I look full on your face I see something that I'm missing.
Something sleepless.
How do I tell you I love you?
Your exquisite.
Real.
Your soul doesn't age. I know it doesn't age.
I want you to remember the first time we kissed,
That this feeling could never be anothers,
That you are queen of our home,
Queen of beautiful...
Queen of flowers...
Queen of my heart.
How do I tell you I love you?
It's like a gut wrenching cry.
Like darling valentine being lost and gone forever.
Like...I can't take it back ever feeling.
I guess its the realization that I'm vulnerable and your timeless.
I guess its knowing that I don't deserve you.
Someday love.
Someday I'll make you feel my love that way your supposed to.
Maybe someday I'll have what I'm missing.
I'll be strong for you love.

Expectations - Reality = Adjustment or Disappointment

John Maynard Keynes was the father of the Keynesian economic school of thought. Spurred on by the Great Depression, Keynes decided that a new look should be given to that of David Ricardo and Adam Smith's classical approach. One item of great debate was that of sticky wages. Although I am partial to the economic view, this is one area in which I agree with Keynes. Keynes stated that as business cycles occur and unemployment ensued that employees attempt to hold on to their wages. Although one might have been able to argue this in the past, can we argue this in our present day situation? Here are a few reasons why I feel that wages are sticky:

1) Unemployment compensation - employees that receive unemployment receive a portion of the income that they had earned previously each month/week. The goal is to able to allow them to support themselves and possibly family while looking for a new job. Having this compensation allows these ex-employees to try to find a job of equal or comparable pay. As the deadline for unemployment severence nears the wage expectations should decrease, but slowly as time drags on. By doing this the wages do move towards equilibrium, but they do so at a slow rate and as more unemployment ensues, expectations will change in a given employment industry to meet the price and quantity of that labor market equilibrium.

2) Unions - wages are extremely sticky in unions, but this may create unemployment because we are placing a minimum on what we will expect for pay. So when an impass is reached, the lowest on the seniority list are let go or if a strike is decided upon, there is more reason for market failure, business opportunity costs, and an excess of demand over supply leading to deficit in the ability of that business to supply that quantity demanded.

I'm not insuating that these things are bad, but that, in fact, wages are sticky and tend to move down slowly. For example, if I sell a care and I am asking a high-end price for that car, I must wait and see who will bite. If there is no bite, time and reason beckons me to lower my expectations until I sell my vehicle or dispose of it.

So we see that: Expectations - Reality = Adjustment or Disappointment

Counting

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

- Theodore Roosevelt

Like You

I walked a mile today and I wished it was our mile

Gramma Base

I remember you a smokey brown haired dreamer
You used to lean your head on right hand elbow on table and run your fingers through your hair
You would cough and talk to me with Nat King Cole crackling from the radio and the smell of bacon in the air
The bread box was filled with old and new bread; little bugs would crawl across every other opening
I remember how you fought and I remember how classy you were
I knew you had regrets. They sat on that hand and those fingers running through your hair.
They were in each cigarette. They were in each cough and childhood song. They were in your pictures.
They were yours and you were theirs.

Noise

We are people that want noise. We could not sit for an hour without making noise. We would have to think and know that we are alone. Maybe that is what we are running from and what we are running around trying to find.

Come and Go

Blogging should be called blaagging. It's lost it's luster a bit. I know that minute by minute twittering seems to be more popular, but it doesn't allow for reflection and the filtered mind. I'm pretty sure that no one reads this any more and anyone could if they wanted to, but it's nice to have a place to just type random thoughts and sift through the day once in a great while. I have a lot of decisions to make in the near future; life changing decisions. Never before has it been so important to know what God wants and what is best for my family. I have a feeling that if I were to leave my home town that the world is changing so quickly I wouldn't recognize it on return. I need to do what is best for my family and that is a fragile and complicated matter. My wife and children are more important than my dreams and having less can sometimes mean more if it is with the right people. There is definitely a bitter sweet element to life's decisions. I pray God helps me to think with clarity and to lend myself to an effort that is worth change.

The Circle

There was a day I walked alone and shed the ballast waste
And from the air there amassed a solemn, darkened taste
Of weaker days and cradled months and for long did they stay
Until at last they gripped and slipped a rope with ending fray

From there I walked in unison with sinner, politic, and saint
I scathed the witching stone and scraped from slate to slate
And when I came upon a clear I surmised a brightened path
But yet my feet would not turn, they would not beat the path

And so again, I walked alone and yet a different fear I tried
Walking in the shade and leaning side to side
Look! The circle widens greatly, but a light and bright still breathe
And the endlessness of this self walk has lead me to believe

There must exist an endless prairie of green, peace, and solitude
Where one can unload their greatest burden to serve the multitude
For the sinner, politic, and saint that wander near it's face
All of them long to end the circle, to find purpose and their place

Give Me Room

The days go on and still there is no room or time for what people asked me to do and I never got around to doing. I woke up from my bed to write this out of a compelling feeling of incompletion. Incomplete because there are so many things I want to do in my life. There are so many people that I could help or gain insight from. My boys could raise their candor with me and my wife and daughter could confide in me at will. There are so many mistakes I could be making right now. Experience isn't primary, but it's the catalyst of distant and avoided moments that I usually find myself tipp-toeing away from. I can't say I'll feel this away again for a while, but if I don't I truly hope I read this post and just drift into it's reflective sea.

I'm always asking myself if I can make a difference before I die. I think that's all I want.

He nose that

My right nostril is flaring red. I think it's chapped. I went to the store and got some nostril stick and now my right nostril is red and shiny. I should have gotten the non glaze nostril stick with aloe. The aloe would have sunk into my shedding right nostril pours and would have codderized them. Today is the day that the nostril will shut off.

Crampcolonstomisticly Beacon Bodies

I have cramps like superman has crytonitic body meetings. You are correct, they do not happen often, but when they do it's like trying to fit a small semi in your liver or cheek bone; it's not going to happen. I tell you not any lies, but the truth and negative false testimony that a spleen popping in my castle of a body could do less damage. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said, "pennies saved are pennies that you've earned". I swallowed a couple and saved them from the ground. I did earn them and then I returned them to the ground from wenst they came.

It should be obvious to anyone that it is good, that to eat sharp objects at times. This is similar to the turkey who eats rocks. I'm tuffer (Tuffy-bike tuff) than any turkey, so I think that we can stop praying and start believing that we are incredible holders of strange digestive thingies. Amen and good night.

Crazy night(s)

Last night I danced on my bed and threw pillows in the air. It gave the impression of wild living, but yet said that I had a strong personality. Clearly the a coorelation can be drawn between the two. If you take into account the jumping on your bed with your shirt off looks crazy and that you normally don't jump on your bed with your shirt off then one can assume wild living. Everyone already assumes normal or cautious living, but seldom do we see wild living like I lived last night.

The less convincing part is that throwing my pillows in the air was a sign of a strong personality. Who else throws their pillows in the air?! First people who are sick of them. This is clearly not the case since I am poor and people know this, so they can only conclude that I threw them will jumping because I was making a statement of "pillow freedom". "Pillow freedom" can often be misconstrued and I don't want to get into details, but the true meaning is caring enough about your artsy body to throw the pillow where you will. It is both efficient and artsy.

I did not mention the 1000 kick contest I had with myself while watching internet television series. This is a tactic used to strengthen the underpart of the legs while laying on your belly watching TV. Every commercial you should try to do up to 100 belly kicks. This will save your life and money. You will not as obese as you already (Check your BMI or body mass index, no matter what the doctor says your fat) are and secondly you don't have to go to the gym.

My thoughts in the Market Spiral

Food Market

Stage 1

People are buying at will and on average are almost spending more than they make. Americans spend every penny.

Any restaurant, convenience, or grocery store.

Stage 2
"Current Stage"

People are not planning for a depression, they are grudgingly spending every penny until they have no more pennies not realizing that things are not getting better.

Companies that profit:

Fast Food
Restaurants without waiters
Low Cost providers for grocery or closest grocery store
People drastically buy less at the convenience store.

These companies feel they are making a profit, but it will be short lived when all money stops coming in.

Stage 3

There is no credit and banks/credit card companies realize that the majority cannot pay so they stop spending. There is a great focus on survival and getting back to the essentials of life.

Companies that profit:

Owned Farms
People are walking. Lowest cost grocery store and seeking produce from their backyards.

I really think there will be a return to deep thought. When this is said and done there will be a less shallow generation; a greatful generation. People will know what they believe and why they believe. They will understand the value of life and the value of having very little. Some won't be able to withstand it. If I am stripped of everything I will have no choice but to look to God and focus on what he has for me to do.

Economics, twinkies, and hoho's

In Economics we are talking about twinkies and hoho's. If the price of twinkies goes up what does that do to the market for hoho's? Hoho's are cleary a substitute good and not a compliment. So if the price of twinkies goes up the demand for hoho's increases which then causes an increase the price and quantity of hoho's.

Let's suppose that the price of sugar increases. What does this do to the market for twinkies? Sugar is an input of twinkies since one cannot make twinkies without sugar and if they do they will probably see a downward trend in demand for their product. So since sugar is an input of twinkies it will effect the supply of twinkies. The supply of twinkies will decrease leading to an increase in price and a decrease in the quantity of twinkies produced.

What happens to the market for twinkies when the population income increases? This supposedly depends on whether you consider twinkies to be a normal or inferior good. Since twinkies are relatively cheap I think they are an inferior good. Since they are an inferior good and the general population income increases this would cause the demand for twinkies to decline. In so doing the price and quantity of twinkies decreases. This will cause a surplus in the twinkie market.

What happens to the market for twinkies if the price of twinkies goes up or down? Nothing happens. The price moves up and down the same demand curve.

These examples assume that all else is held constant.

Something's gotta give

I am overwhelmed. I feel like an insignificant speck in the vast sea of what is now my life. School is killing me. Taking Calculus, Statistics, Economics, Business Writing, and Marketing seems to be a horrible combination. Especially the Calculus, Statistics, and Economics part. I have been working on my house as little as one can work without being openly aware of it. I really want to work on it, but I have zero time to work and zero time to recruit. In this, I realize I have spent less time with my family and less time pursuing my relationship with God. I have been trying to help others and not helping myself or my family and I think I am worse off than if I wouldn't have helped anyone at all. Family should come before others. If it doesn't it should be a joint effort. I am working around 20 hours a week to try to keep finances afloat, but it has become increasingly impossible. The bills are barely getting paid, but I have no doubt in God's ability to see me through this. I don't blame him for not. I got myself here and I need to learn from this experience.

I truly hope all this work is of value to my family and anyone else I can help. I just keep remembering that it's not about me. I need give, give, give until there's nothing left. Ever since I heard that song by Reliant K it has completely changed my life. I don't know why. It just stuck with the very heart of me. That's what I have been doing, but something's gotta give back to me. So I will be reassessing my life in the near future and I will try to determine what has to give and how I can pursue the things that make life so special; the very basics of what makes me what I need to be for my family and future.

Back to School

"Back to school. Back to school. Try to prove to daddy that I'm not a fool." - James Madison a.k.a. Adam Sandler

Truer words were never spoken, but I feel more like...

"Back to endless hours at the library and bathrooms. Back to arguing with my wife and nervously induced bowel movements. Try to prove to future employers that I can survive."

This Old House

I really wish I had Bob Vila to come in and have the fancy introduction he could always give, but I don't. Everything has a beginning. Well...maybe everything. If you watch the video you'll see my house before I started work on it. I want to update it every once in a while. It's kind of neat to watch something transform. This is just the upstairs. I'll focus on the downstairs next. It's really a daunting task, and I don't wish this on anyone; not even contractors.

Hope for bungie jumpers?

Is there hope for bungie jumpers? I have to say there is no hope. Their going to bum a jump off of someone whether you want them to our note. They are people with no fear and they are a bit taller than the average beginner. They stretch over time or they get dislocated joints. I find that sometimes they bite their nails and often they do it while jumping. This would account for the abrasions to the face both in the cheeks and occasionally a torn nostril for the less decisive nose picker. I really think there is a cure. Eliminate bungie jumping. There is a new sport called wungie jumping, but it is too grusome to speak or write of in the English language and mandrin chinese is the only known translation for it's genre of sports. I do not speak chinese. Pray for these wungie or bungie jumpers and write your congressman.

That one time. . .

Do you remember that one time we did that one thing? That was sooo cool. I remember that day because you said hi or was it hey? It was an unforgettable high. Like eating Billy Graham crackers (the boxed kind, nothing racial). We talked for a while and you left in your mode of transporation. Before that, we had only talked a few times using a mode of communication. I don't mean to avoid specifics, but it was all a bit shady in the excitment. I forsee a hard day and a few incredible days ahead for you. Next time we'll laugh about this and probably that using a mode of communication verbal or nonverbal. I really do miss something about you. Drop me a call like the good ole' days.