Snowy Adventures to Walla Walla

Lest we forget to record our favorite memories of 2010 for all eternity, we here briefly reminisce about a fun adventure to Walla Walla. A huge winter storm for the ages struck the Northwest a couple of days before Thanksgiving, threatening our long-planned trip with Jude and Greyson to Walla Walla. We never seriously entertained the idea of staying home though. There was too much family to see, too many people to introduce Greyson to, and too much food to eat to stay in Tacoma. Instead Rob ensured he could install snow chains (if needed) and we packed up and departed across the treacherous Cascades. With Chris, Jeanne and Daylon in tow, our two cars conquered the passes with minimal slippage. A few long hour later we arrived at our half-way point at Glory and Blake's house in Yakima. The next morning we finished our journey on uncleared icy highways between the tri-cities and Walla^2.

The rest of the time at the huge concrete mansion was spent playing games, eating, watching movies, and taking care of our two sick boys (yes I neglected to speak about that extra burdensome variable).

Overall a fantastic trip, Greyson's first road trip, and a great and memorable Thanksgiving adventure in (and to/from) Walla Walla.

Can Rob actually install snow chains properly? Check!

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A Very Proctor (Tacoma) Halloween

This little community we live in just seems to get cooler and cooler. Early on Halloween Day, Jude's nap and Greyson's incessant need for milk kept us from going to the local Tacoma zoo for family-friendly trick-or-treating. As the afternoon drew on our options grew more limited to the point that we said, "let's just walk to Starbucks." On a total hunch we also discovered that Tacoma’s Proctor District shuts down and all the stores hand out candy to kids. We quickly dressed up Jude into his lion costume (roar!), and Greyson into his Pea In The Pod costume and strolled our Bob Duallie up the street to the Proctor Starbucks.

We were so impressed by our little community. Families and kids were everywhere in Proctor. If we can’t manage to sell our house for another year we won’t be too disappointed.

The afternoon was a crisp and clear fall day. Leaves falling, blue skies, it was gorgeous. Greyson did such a great job of sleeping the whole time! After a just a few stores, Jude figured out to put his bag out in front of him so that people could drop candy inside. On the way home Jude practiced roaring like a lion. Later in the evening Jude helped hand out candy to trick-or-treaters as mom and dad enjoyed a warm mug of Romanian style “vin fiert” (spiced / mulled red wine).

Jude helped dad carve three pumpkins. He helped by pulling out the innards and throwing them into the trash.


Our adorable little Pea in the Pod: Greyson at 1 month and 2 days old.

Dad and Jude walking through the Proctor District old town shopping area gathering Halloween Candy. We’ll definitely do this again next year if we’re still in the area.

Jude having a great time roaring at all the other residents. In his simple lion costume, Jude made quite the impression.

3 Weeks In...

Three weeks after little Grey came home from the hospital and it appears we've got a pretty decent routine working. Jude has really stepped up to the plate. He has shown a loving interest in his new little brother and is sure to include him in his daily activities. Although only 3 weeks old, we can already tell that Grey has a much more easy going personality than his intense and colicy older brother when he was 3 weeks. Grey's constant feeding cycle is to he expected. Rachel tries to get rest on Wed-Fri as Jude stays home now on Mon-Tue. Dad has taken over parent duties for Jude's unpredictable nights.

This tiny phone makes lengthy appreciations more difficult, but we are both very thankful, beyond words, that Linda could stay with us for 3 weeks before Greyson was born and after. And this weekend Carol is going to stay with Rachel for the week. This means a lot to us and we are very thankful.


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Greyson Zachary

We are proud parents tonight. Welcome Greyson. Born tonight at Swedish at 7:18 pm. 8 lbs 6 oz and 20 in long. A healthy and beautiful baby boy.






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Last Quiet Night

Were scheduled to have Greyson tomorrow. This feels like the night before you get married. Lots of thoughts going through our heads, including, "wow this is going to be the last good nights sleep for about a year."


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I Want Pants ... Well Who Doesnt!?

The other day Rachel handed me a half-dressed Jude (shirt and diaper). However, at the same time I had planned on quickly running to the backyard to fix something. Therefore, I quickly threw some shoes on half-dressed Jude to take him outside with me. Upon fastening his shoes, Jude protested: "I want pants. I want pants. I want pants" until I understood what he was saying. "You want pants?" I repeated. "Yeah." And, slowly but surely father and son are learning to communicate with each other.

Jude's Octopus Cake

(Aka Jude's Second Birthday). On August 30th, Jude celebrated his second birthday with friends and family at the Portland Children's Museum. It was very cute watching over a dozen small children (mostly toddlers) waddling, running and tripping all over the room. A big thank you to all the little kids whose moms and dads let eat octopus cake with Jude: Grant, Cole, Drew, Isaac, Macy, Ayla, Evan, Joel, Addi, Pailey, and Daylon. All super cute and loads of energy!

Also a big kudos to Jeanne and Rachel for making the coolest octopus cake ever. After researching them online, Rachel decided she could make her own, but better and cheaper. Between she and Jeanne, it was pretty brilliant.

(more pictures soon)



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Greyson on His Way

I am the happy and proud soon-to-be father of Greyson TBD Mardock. Sometime between September 25 and October 5, Grey will complete the Mardock family: dad, lovely wife, and two spry little boys. I can’t wait. Greyson, we’re waiting with great anticipation for your birth in the next few weeks! Love, Dad

The Ferrari of Tricycles

This past Saturday we woke up with a great idea to buy Jude a simple tricycle for his 2nd birthday. Novel, says I; nothing says easy lovin’ than getting a simple ready-to-ride trike from Toys R Us. This from the family who researches so long into what kind of baby carrier to buy that by the time we get it he’s too big for it. But oh, life for the Mardocks isn’t as easy as simply going to Toys R Us and getting a $20 Radio Flyer.

At Toys R Us we discover that tricycles have actually “devolved” over the past 20 years into cheap, breakable plastic garbage heaps and cost $60 and up. (Of course when I was a kid, they were American-made solid steal and rubber). Rachel and I reconsidered the simple notion of buying a trike. We decided to search around the Tacoma area for other options to no avail. All garbage. Then we discovered there was this uber-fancy German trike company called Kettler. Hand forged by real Teutonic engineers, with all the bells and whistles. The particular one we were interested, I called the “Ferrari of Tricycles.” The Air Navigator. This bad boy has real air-filled tires, plus a push handle for the parents. But then it gets better: the Air Navigator's petite frame belies the fact that it’s approved for up to a 400 pound human. Its rear wheels swivel like a shopping cart so that the parents can push the trike seamlessly without lifting and repositioning the trike (lest it veer off the sidewalk and maim the poor child). And lastly, its front wheel locks so that the wheel is always pointed straight ahead. Another must as parents push the lazy child up and down the block.

I must tell you, I had stars in my eyes. Clearly I wanted this trike so much more than Jude could ever care. At $250 though, it was just a hard justification to make. Didn’t we wake up that morning just wanting a simple $20 trike? How did we get from Junker to Ferrari? After much introspection and consideration about whether the trike should be a family heirloom or just a toy, we decided to keep the money and get the trike from Toys R Us. At $60, it’s still more than we want to pay, but I feel like we avoided an epic frivolous purchase. Certainly Jude would appreciate that money towards his college savings plan. Although with a weight limit of 400 pounds he could still easily ride the trike to college.

So ends our trike story, and onto another story: whether or not Rob and Rachel will invest $700 on the swankiest duallie stroller on the market, or whether we’ll ever get it through out heads that humans have been raising babies for millennia without the aircraft aluminum frames, Baby Bjorn carriers, and video baby monitors…

Big Boy Bed

This morning at 1:30 Rachel and I awoke to a toddler-sized sneeze, mere inches from our heads. Both startled out of our sleeps, we looked over to find Jude just watching us. Clearly he had arisen from his big-boy bed, walked silently down the hall, and was waiting for an opportunity to get our attention.

Jude took to his big-boy bed much better than we could have anticipated. A couple of days after setting it up in his room, Adam and Dani put him down for a nap, not knowing we weren’t yet using the bed (we were more just getting Jude used to the idea of having it in his room). Later that night we were having a heck of a time getting Jude to sleep in his crib. Out of exhaustion, Rachel sat down on his bed to hold him, but Jude quickly slipped out of her arms onto the bed and he promptly fell asleep for the night. And that is the story of how Jude transitioned to his big-boy bed. All the discussion, concern and scenario-planning and he simply took to it like a fish takes to water.

The crib is now ready for little baby Greyson (ETA Sept 25 – Oct 5). We hope that Grey sleeps better than Jude. We like to think of Jude as being borderline colicky as it helps us justify how tired we were for the first year; and they say your second child will have the opposite level of difficultness from your first. We shall soon see…

Begin Microblog

1: Please pardon my brevity and typos, I'm writing with my thumbs
2: Whereas 99.9% of my after-hours computer time is on my phone, and it doesn't look likely to change anytime soon, expect to see brief and incorrectly spelled blog posts
3: I've been thinking more and more about getting a tiny Bluetooth keyboard
4: Next week is my busy week - with long nights to boot. I love my wife. And I'm also thrilled that Heather is coming up to keep Rachel company for a couple of days.
5: Jude is an absolute ham and doll. I look forward to seeing him when I'm at work
6: Rachel is tickled pink at the thought of having little Greyson. She's confirmed on numerous occasions that "no more, never. I hate being pregnant."
7: We're still trying to agree on Greyson's middle name. We're now thinking Charles or Alexander... But it could change tomorrow.
8: That is all!

Pleasant Day in Bellevue

The three of us spent a warm day checking out the Eastside of Seattle today (Aka Bellevue) as part of our preliminary scouting of possible places to live. Yes, as soon as our home sells, which could be in a month or in a year, we will be moving into a rental on the East side of Lake Washington. We recently found a church that we've been attending. The people are pretty cool and the message is smart (a rare combo). The next thing to consider in a move is daycare. As Rachel and I will still be working, and as we have no family within a hundred miles, well be using full time daycare for our two boys. That equals about $2500 per month, or effectively $30,000 a year. That equals the take-home salary of someone making about $40,000 (40,000 *[1-25% tax] = 30,000). I am awestruck at how people can afford this. It makes so much more sense to invest that money. And the govt doesn't give parents hardly any tax assistance for daycare as they do for small potato expenses like a mortgage payment. What does a parent do...

Please forgive my run-on sentences and typos as I'm writing from my iPhone.

On the Market

A little over two years ago, Rachel and I found a cute old Craftsman home in the tony area of Proctor, Tacoma that we could afford, knowing that much work needed to be done. Over the past couple of years, we've textured walls, painted everything, de-popcorned the ceiling, tiled, added appliances and a fireplace insert, ripped out a yard and put a new one in, installed lots of random lights and fixtures, and who knows what else... I've lost track of it all. All said and done probably over $10,000 of improvements. During this time, Rachel's company decided to move forward their move-date to Seattle 3 years from 2013 to 2010. So to make a long story short, we decided that although we put tons of hard work into our great little Craftsman, it just isn't going to be possible to commute with babies in the back seat up to Seattle and back to Tacoma every day for a total of 2.5 hours ... every day. Hence, our home is on the market (how's that for back-story)

We will be taking a loss on the property given how much in transaction fees we're paying, but if we can get close to what we're asking, then Rachel and I can start fresh in a new place closer to our two offices in Seattle without breaking the bank. We're really excited that in a few months (or more, who knows) we'll be living 30 miles north in Seattle / Bellevue.

In the meantime, check out our home listing. See the improvements we've made. I think there's even a link to the original listing from the previous owner in a previous blog post that you could compare our improvements to.

Click here ... or ... click here.

More exciting news coming your way soon!

It worked. Now I'm sad because...

If I knew how easy it was to post from my phone, I would have updated much sooner. The fact is, between working a long hard day, commuting from Seattle to Tacoma, renovating our home, and raising a baby / toddler, I have no time other than the few moments I sit in bed on my iPhone prior to lights out. This changes everything! I'm so sad that I've blogged only about 6 times in the past year. Darn you Facebook for stealing my pithiest of one liners and for synopsizing my family's life experiences into one-line status updates when they deserved so much more color, context and verbiage.

So some news of the day includes this: we're selling our home. Oh yes! It turns out the company Rachel works for is moving to Seattle 3 years sooner than they anticipated. We can't both commute to Seattle with a baby in the back seat, so were selling our beautiful home and moving closer to work. We'll post the MLS listing in the next few days. The real estate market is pretty bad, but our house is really great and really decently priced, so who knows. It could sell in one week or one year!

Testing Nifty iPhone App

As about 95% of my non-work related computer time is spent on an iPhone, and as I truly am wanting to get back into a normal blogging routine (because facebook is such a bad historical family record!), I'm testing out this nifty iPhone app to see if it acurately posts to our blog. Clearly what is lost by using this app is Microsoft Word's spell and syntax check, because that last sentence was a whopper of a run-on!


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Jude's First Haircut

Jude officially traversed the blurry line from babyhood to toddlerhood several months ago when he picked himself off the rug and took his first primordial steps (with Also Sprach Zarathustra playing in the background – at least as I recall it). However, we were further reminded of Jude’s non-babyness the other day when we got his golden locks trimmed for the very first time. At one point prior to the appointment, we discussed whether all three of us were psychologically ready for this rite of passage. In the end, we concluded that either now or three years from now would be the idea time. Three years from now represents when a toddler begins to no longer fear for his life at the hands of a barber or hairstylist. Imagining Jude with 5 years worth of hair convinced us that now was the time.

In my mind, toddler haircuts are reminiscent of the 70s and early 80s, as has been documented below:



Notice the horribly uncomfortable atmosphere. Comfort was definitely not a priority – function was key. Fast forward to today. These kiddos have their own salons, with beautiful lighting and wallpaper, barber chairs in the shape of Jeeps and rocket ships, and TVs playing Elmo & Friends:


Overall, Jude did excellent for 2/3 of his visit. Then, he politely waved his hands back in forth to signal “all done,” put his sucker down, pulled off his smock, and clearly exclaimed “aah” (which is Judeian for “up”). He fussed when we didn’t respond to his command, but even during his fussiness, he was a pretty well behaved little guy. Kudos to the stylist, and kudos to Jude for passing this important milestone. Your hair now reminds us clearly that you are a little man. No more old ladies exclaiming what a cute little girl we have. And for those of you curious: yes, Jude’s hair is still a little curly at the bottom. Hopefully his curls last into his teens, because they’re awfully cute (and girls really seem to like them!)

Long Overdue Update

... a long update? Not really. But I've felt convicted to update the blog for about two months. Such is our life now that we use Facebook so frequently. Its "status updates" have usurped the more meaningful and descriptive blog stories. We'll try to change that going forward; if for no other reason than for Jude. I'm sure he'll want a running log of our lives to refer back to when he's dealing with his midlife crisis. He'll want to know "what were we thinking"?

• As the prior story mentioned, we replaced our yard. I shoveled Tagro (essentially purified manure) throughout the front yard, and spread grass seeds. The grass grew a couple of inches before the bitter cold came and frosted the ground. It should be okay through the winter; but if not, at least the old yard is gone and we can easily fix whatever Jack Frost throws our way when Spring comes.
  
• Rachel and I flew to Kauai and stayed for 3 nights in Poipu at the Grand Hyatt, 3 nights in Princeville at the St Regis, and 1 night on Alaska Air. We regret much that we didn't immediately summarize this amazing trip sooner. It was a "once every 10 years" kind of trip. Amazing, beautiful, relaxing. Lots of sun, lots of fun. Jude stayed home with his grandma Linda. As we neared the end of our trip, we were really looking forward to seeing Jude again. It made coming back to cold and wet Seattle very enjoyable.
• Jude got the H1N1 flu back in November. He was out of school (daycare) for 7 days! At several points his feaver was up to 104, which was scary and a little amazing. I didn't think feavers got that high. I was always under the impression that around 104 and 105, that's when you're pretty much dead. But Jude fluxuated between 100 and 104 for about 6 days. He was a trooper. A real great kid.
  
• As I mentioned in our Christmas card letter, around the time that Jude got over his flu, his personality really took off. He started talking and interacting at a much more interpersonal level. He laughed at us and did things he knew would make us laugh. He runs around, chases Jackson, puts objects in specific orders and in specific places - it's absolutely bizarre seeing him develop in such intentional and incremental ways. There's no way he could do 3 months ago what he's doing today. Just tonight he literally stopped what he was doing when I told him "no." Wheels are turning up there. What a good kid.
• Thanksgiving with Chris and Jeanne was a blast. After Turkey Day, Rachel and I got to spend a day with Adam and Dani at their new place in Longview. Mitch and Kel came up and met us there, as Longview is half way between Tacoma and Salem, OR. It's great to have family so close to us up here.
• Christmas is fast approaching. We have an awesome Turkish fir in our living room that we cut down at a "u-cut" tree farm. The house is decorated, presents are under the tree, and the annual Rescue Christmas CD is in its music rotation. Rachel and I bought each other a door clicker unit for our CR-V, but other than that, gifts are a surprise.

2009 was a momentous, long, and tiring year! We will definitely look back at this year with a combination of great memories, and a little bit of shock that we pulled it all off with such little sleep.

Ben Folds Live (pt 2)

As a follow-up to a concert we attended in Houston back in 2006 (link here), Andy, Joanne, Heather, Brock, Rachel and I attended the Ben Folds + Seattle Symphony concert two days ago. Amazing! I can't get over what an incredible performer he is. The sound quality with the Houston Symphony was substantially better, but this performance was much more fun. Ben told stories about the meaning of his songs, and made up a song right on the spot. At the end of his performance, Ben played 1 encore song with the symphony (Narcolepsy) and 3 encoure songs after the symphony existed stage (Army, Rockin' the Suburbs, and one that I call, "Ode to the Seattle ^*&# Symphony")

Andy Bellamy credited with photo

Replacing the Front Lawn

...a much bigger project than it sounds. And "replacing the front lawn" doesn't even sound small. Below is one "before" photo taken about 2 years ago before we lived here. Our phase 1 (demolition) is now complete and we have a few pictures below. Next comes phase 2 (renewal). We're not entirely sure when phase 2 will commence but we expect it will be much less physical work than phase 1.



Ironic, but true: multiple neighbors told me how much better the lawn looked after it was gone and only dirt remained. Oh the wonders of a simple extreme makeover.








Hopefully there will be more to come!

Highlights from Jude's 1st Birthday

Aug 30, 2009 marked 1 solid year of Jude's existence on this good planet. And what a doll he's been. It seems like only yesterday he was 1 mo old suffering from both the consternation of painful gas and the humiliation of his parents dressing him as a pea pod. But now, at the age of 1, our little guy is a walking, talking (at least he thinks he's talking), grinning, laughing, and personable young man. We celebrated his big "o-one" with friends and family down in Portland (as virtually none live up in Seattle save for the Steeles). At Cook Park, we enjoyed great food and fellowship, culminating in ceramonial rites of passage such as "blowing out of the first candle" and "stuffing the face with cake." As this was Jude's first and last taste of sugar until his second birthday, we wanted him to really get into it and enjoy it. As you can see from the pictures below, Jude didn't disappoint. At first he gingerly picked at the frosting, moving to a delicate finger swipe, then on to full-force fists and wrists mashing and molding the cake into a lump of unidentifiable sugar-stuff. Enjoy these chronological photos from the afternoon party!

Jude's beautiful Costco cake. Thanks to Heather's connections, we got Costco to make a special duck design.

Happy Family.

Rob and Rachel blowing out the candle before Jude could grab the flame.

Jude considering the texture.



Fist in the cake!





Happy Birthday Jude!

Random Filler Stories

For those keeping up with world events, yes, we are alive. We survived Seattle’s hottest day in the history of the universe, all without air conditioning. Since records began in the late 1800s, the temperature has never exceeded 100F. Wouldn’t you know it we move here from hot hot Texas and Seattle blows past its record with a whopping 103F. It felt like Texas (or more specifically like Riverside, CA on a hot smoggy day). Except unlike Texas, the infrastructure in the NW is grossly unprepared for temperatures above the low 80s. Rachel, Jude and I spent three evenings at the lovely Tacoma mall. One evening we took Andy and Joanne – visiting from Florida – out to dinner. After-dinner weather was still essentially magma in vapor form, so we drove 45 minutes away to Sonic for a refreshing cherry limeade. Lovely.

In other news, 1) Rachel and I have enjoyed many a game of Ticket to Ride with Jordan this summer. Our cousin Jordan had a JAG internship at Ft Lewis and we offered him our upstairs. Best of luck in year 2 of law school! 2) Chris and Jeanne welcomed their blessed baby angel Daylon into their amazing family. Lucky kid. He doesn’t know how lucky he is. Or he's just feigning ignorance as infants often do. Then again neither do Jude and Liam know how lucky they are. 3) Hawaii! Rachel and I are uber excited for our once-every-seven-year vacation to Kauai this October. I must gloat: we’re staying 3 nights at the new St Regis in Princeville and 3 nights at the Grand Hyatt in Poipu. More fun stories of this in October. In the meantime, Rachel and I must try to contain our excitement and anticipation by perfecting mai tai recipes over the weekends. 4) Very excited to visit the Mardock clan in Austin over Labor Day. More fun stories when we return in September.

Smallif

I just learned a handy Excel trick to create just about any type of conditional formula. For context, right now Excel offers pre-built formulas that lets you sum up an array given a specific criteria (sum up all of column B whenever its value in Column A = Texas). Excel calls this "sumif." But what if you want to find the minimum, maximum, or rank given a specific criteria?

• First, check out this website.
• Then check out this clever "smallif" example: I have 10 people scattered throughout column A (100 times). Each person has several different values listed in column B. I want to rank the values for each person from smallest to largest. Try this: {=SMALL(IF($A$1:$A$100="John",$B$1:$B$100),1)}. Note that the brackets {} are automatically inserted by pressing CNTRL+SHIFT+ENTER at the end of your formula. Repeat this formula as many times as you need, entering ,2, 3, 4, 5, ..., n for as many values as you have (in order to rank them from 1 to n)
  

Jude Across the Pond (pt 2)

More photos! Stories coming soon:

Jude in the shoebox-sized bassinet on the British Airways flight to London (the leg of the trip without Rachel).

British Museum

Mummies!

High Tea at Fortnum and Masons

Put me to bed! I'm so tired!

Jude Across the Pond (pt 1)

When Rachel’s two-week business trip to London was confirmed, we agreed that I would watch Jude in Tacoma with Grandma’s help (Linda), and then fly to London with Jude for the second week. The first week was hard on Rachel, but with the help of Skype we were able to see each other and chat as if we were in the next room. Linda helped tremendously, and the party grew even bigger when Jeanne and Heather came up the road to stay for a few days. During that first week, I (Robert) worked during the day and took over Jude’s evening and night duties that included playing, feeding, changing, reading, putting to sleep, and feeding again every 4-6 hours. Looking back, I have to say that my one on one time with Jude was probably the best time I’ve had with the little guy so far in his brief life. I loved learning how to listen to him and understanding more of his personality. He likes to be read to each night – I read him two books, one of which is always the same. I noticed that each night he leaned forward to touch the same small picture in the book. And he learned too! He learned that I don’t pick him up after I put him to bed, so there’s no use fussing (I use the 15 minute fuss rule … he’s out before he reaches 15 minutes).

On Friday afternoon, Linda, Jude and I left for the airport – Linda to return to Medford, and Jude and me to London. With the exception of a nasty old man sitting next to us (and I know who you are! I looked you up on LinkedIn) the flight to London went great. Jude slept and played the entire time. When we arrived in London, the three of us (with Rachel now) spent the rest of the day touring around the city rather than sleeping. By the time night arrived, Jude was more than ready to sleep for the night. And just like that – Jude was acclimated to Greenwich Mean Time (+8 hours from Seattle).

Here are a few pictures we took during that initial 3 day weekend (Memorial Day in the US = random “Bank Holiday” in UK):

Rachel & Jude at Tower of London (it's more than just a tower)

Rob and Jude at Tower Bridge (insured as a boat by Lloyds of London)

Jude making faces in random park to the side of Parliament

Rachel and Jude across the River Thames

Rachel and Jude with Parliament

Rachel and Jude with Parliament and Big Ben

Jude, Rob and Ben

Jude attacking Rachel

Rachel and Jude at Harrods

Random cute Jude photo

Rachel and Jude at Buckingham Palace

Road Tripping with Jude

Though just 8 months old, Jude has visited national parks, traveled back and forth to Portland on countless occasions, driven with his parents to Medford, and even flown to Los Angeles to visit the grandparents. Below are a few photos of Jude's travel adventures:

Trip to Olympic National Park with Katherine and Jerrod. Note to potential visitors, it's still snowy there in April / May. We didn't know that, and you could tell that half of the other people didn't know that either. The other half were trekking up to the nearby peaks on their snow shoes and skis.
Jude: loving the crisp mountain air!

Jerrod & Katherine visiting from Texas thanks in part to Southwest Airlines' cheap fares (Jerrod: it took 8 hours. I might as well have flown to Europe)

In retrospect, we should have known to check the weather conditions, but at the time we all wanted an adventure. But wow, did it get snowy very quickly! We practically turned the corner and suddenly it went from dry and crisp to 10 ft snow drifts and foggy.


Trip to Southern California. Jude and parents visited the Mardock side living in Springville / Porterville area. We like being in the same time zone, but we're really excited that they're moving to Austin, TX - surprisingly faster to get to Austin than flying to Burbank and driving 3 hours north to Springville.
Grandpa and Jude sharing a moment


Trip to Medford, Oregon. Well, no pictures here, unfortunately, but Medford isn't going anywhere. We visited the Bellamy side, with Josh coming up from Sacramento for a fun action-packed weekend. I got to see the new Star Trek film in an actual movie theater! Haven't been to one of those in over 8 months.
Random non-Medford photo: mirrors and hands are two of Jude's favorite things

Jude and his red socks, getting ready for dinner

CDSs Part 3: Hitting the Jackpot with a GM Bankruptcy

If GM declares chapter 11 bankruptcy, debt holders may actually be the big winners. Here is some background:

Bucking the trend, GM's imminent bankruptcy will likely create financial ripples from Main Street back to Wall Street. While a bankruptcy will arguably be good for viability and vitality of the company itself (it's a 100 year old has-been saddled with billions of dollars worth of decades-old moribund capital infrastructure and entitlement expenditures, in dire need of a "new beginning") it will be negative to a host of others including, but lot limited to:

a) semi-skilled, high school educated UAW workers with decades-long expectations of earning MBA or PhD level incomes
b) stock holders who have already seen their investments plummet 91% in just the last year (who will then see it plummet an incremental 100%)
c) executives at GM whose compensations were ceremonially set to $1 on the condition that if they could turn the company around they could stand to earn tens or hundreds of millions (if they could avoid bankruptcy).
d) creditors and bondholders who didn't have any form of bankruptcy insurance.

Creditors and bondholders who did have some form of bankruptcy insurance, on the other hand, just won the jackpot.

Oh yes, I’m talking about credit default swaps. That $39 Trillion butt-hole of a derivative that keeps popping its head up whenever a company goes bankrupt. Keep in mind that when CDSs were being invented just 10 years ago, the world economy was at the beginning of its 8-year winning streak. CDSs were an insurance policy against the ever-so-miniscule chance that any legitimate company could ever go bankrupt. Brokers, dealers, traders, and other financial ‘innovators' had no interest in scenario planning against “what are the implications of CDSs in a recessionary environment,” because by the time such a reality presented itself, they would be long gone, living back in their suburban Main Street high school home towns in the big 6 bedroom track house with 3 cars and a trust fund for their two children.

Had such financial innovators scenario planned about CDSs in a recessionary environment, and had they any financial stake in such a possibility, they may have put safeguards into the systems. Such as (in the context of GM):

1) If GM goes bankrupt, just those debt holders who actually own the debt can buy CDSs to cover their position.
2) If the wife, neighbors or golf buddy of debt holder wants to get some of that CDS insurance coverage on GM too, they can’t. They can’t because they don’t own the debt. That would be silly. That would be like this author getting a life insurance policy on Fidel Castro or any other random citizen of this planet.
3) Likewise, if a GM debt holder wants to cover their position with a CDS, they can’t double, triple, quadruple, or quintuple their insurance coverage (as in, “I just lost $1 million when GM went bankrupt, but it’s all good because AIG just paid me $300 million on my GM credit default swaps when it went bankrupt.”)

Here are a couple of broken scenarios that may play out in the next couple of months:
GM will declare bankruptcy – a quick and clean bankruptcy that will clean off its books and kick-start it into the new century (because they are seriously stuck in the 1990s). --> Many bond-holders will feign disappointment at the hand they had been given, but secretly they will be giddy that they hit the jackpot. Their debt had been worthless for years by now, but the insurance on that debt is golden! --> Financial repercussions as AIG (you and me), Merrill Lynch (Bank of America), Barclays, and Morgan Stanley start paying out billions of dollars in CDSs. What next? It gets fuzzy since the banks are already teetering on the brink of collapse and that risk is mostly baked into their current market value ... so "how much" of a shock this will be to them is unclear. The US government may demand that anyone due to receive cash from an AIG CDS take a percent of the money due. But that may result in hefty lawsuits from an eager cadre of lawyers who haven't been doing too well in these difficult economic times either.

I digress ... at any rate, be on the lookout for people getting excited at a GM bankruptcy, because they just won the jackpot. I just said that in a really long roundabout way.

Student Loan Interest Rates = Diabolical Scheme

Help me find the error in this Socratic logic:

A: an "interest rate" = risk free component + risk component*
B: student loans are risk free**
C: therefore, student loan interest rates should be 0%***

*"risk free" = something like us treasury notes, currently at about 0.4% (that is, under 1%)
** i) only by death or by full payment can a student loan be erased. ii) student loans are the only type of loan that cannot be absolved through bankruptcy. iii) student loan lenders have the power to garnish wages through collaboration with the us treasury department
***or more accurately, 0% above the risk free rate, which is about 0.4% right now.

Double Chocolate Chip Caramel Pecan Cookie Recipe

I've lost this recipe several times, so I'm eternalizing it here. I can't claim to have created it, just to have popularized it.

Mix in separate bowls the following -

Dry:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Wet:
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cube butter
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
**mix in mixer**
1 cup chocolate chunks or chocolate chips
1 cup nuts (recommend walnuts, pecans, or almonds)
1/2 - 3/4 cup caramel cubes cut up into quarters
**mix in mixer**
**Add dry ingredients, mix some more**
**spoon onto greased pan, bake @ 350 F for 10 minutes**

Jude loves the sunshine

Too bad we live in Seattle...


Living in Seattle:
Pro - REI headquarters (thus the adorable vest)
Con - rains a lot (but everything is green)

No More Peas Please

I hate peas and I'm not afraid to show it.

But I can't get enough of that Jumperoo!  Dang, it's fun!