A New Job

I had seen an ad in the local paper and the place was near my room.
“Need ambitious young man with an eye to the future. Exper. not necessary. Begin in delivery room and work up.”
I waited outside with 5 or 6 young men, all of them trying to look ambitious. We had filled out our employment applications and now we waited. I was the last to be called.
“Mr. Chinaski, what made you leave the railroad yards?”
“Well I don’t see any future in the railroads.”
“They have good unions, medical care, retirement.”
“At my age, retirement might almost be considered superfluous.”
“Why did you come to New Orleans?”
“I had too many friends in Los Angeles, friends I felt were hindering my career. I wanted to go where I could concentrate unmolested.”
“How do we know that you’ll remain with us any length of time?”
“I might not.”
“Why?”
“Your ad stated that there was a future for an ambitious man. If there isn’t any future here then I must leave.”
“Why haven’t you shaved your face? Did you lose a bet?”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“No; I bet my landlord that I could land a job in one day even with this beard.”
“All right we’ll let you know.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Chinaski.”
-Charles Bukowski, Factotum

This should be on the packing list for Airborne.

http://hypebeast.com/2009/04/bell-ross-instrument-br01-airborne/

I thought Deng would especially appreciate this.

IM HERE

Don't Tread On Me.

I just bought a Gadsden flag to hang in my room this summer and next year.  I think it's a much more potent reminder of our national identity and history than the kinda whitewashed stars and bars.  Reminds me that we went to war over a penny tax on tea.  Reminds me to never compromise your values.

This was the flag that Continental Congressman Christopher Gadsden gave to the first U.S. Marines to fly.   It's pretty cool.

Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the commander in chief of the American navy; being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattle-snake in the middle, in the attitude of going to strike, and these words underneath, "Don't Tread on Me!"

Terror! Viruses! Bacteria!

Because people aren't worried enough, I have decided to post this article on the 10 Scariest Bioweapons. Its pretty interesting the United States has most of these on tap and ready to use. I think it's sad that develop nations have gotten to a point where they will equip contagious pathogens that cannot discriminate between military and civilians.
Thankfully, happiness is contagious too...

STL in the Rain

I went downtown today to drop off some forms at the nonprofit I'm interning for this summer.  On the way I snapped a few pictures of St. Louis in the rain.  I don't get off campus enough, so I thought these were kind of nice.

I 

Pirate Standoff

The Somalian pirate story is taking a new turn with a standoff between the U.S. Navy and the lifeboat where the pirates are holding the captain of the Maersk Alabama hostage.  Apparent the pirates are sending reinforcements in the shape of previously hijacked ships complete with hostages aboard.  A U.S. Navy ship is on seen, apparently leading negotiations.  According to the New York times, the captain has already tried to escape from his captors:

Am unidentified Pentagon official was quoted by CNN on Friday as saying that at about midnight local time, Capt. Phillips escaped from the lifeboat and tried to swim to the Bainbridge [the U.S. Navy Destroyer on scene], but that the pirates jumped into the sea after him and recaptured him. It was not immediately possible to confirm this report.

Hey Guys

I never thought I would see the day when I would blog, or was that sign up for the army? I forget sometimes. Anyways, I'm excited to make this work for my boy jdeng, so I just wanted to post a link to a comic updated biweekly by a couple of my friends from home. I posted my fave--it's the most hilarious. By the way, happy passover/merry easter/no pt for 6 freaking days.

http://www/qgmindpolice.com/comics/2009/01/15/math-dad/

Also, Obama is the man: 

--Yos

The Dutch Tulip Bubble

I went to my Quantitative Business Analysis Professor's after-hours lecture on personal finance today.  It was basically a means to scare us straight into saving for retirement now instead of the BMWs, luxury condos, and Rolexes that most graduates from my business school would spend their first paycheck on.  It was a really great lecture eye-opening: basically the professor painted the picture of people in a race to save the 3 to 5 million dollars that our generation is going to need to retire on despite government taxes of 30 to 40% (including social security, medicare, state tax, etc.) no pensions, and the government debt that is going to trap us sooner or later.

He had one really interesting section on bubbles, including the dot-com bubble, the genetic engineering bubble, the artificial intelligence bubble, and the... Dutch Tulip Bubble.

Apparently in the 1630s, tulips became very popular as a luxury item and a status symbol in the Netherlands.  So much so that people from all levels of societies began to trade tulip bulbs on the open market and create futures contracts to buy bulbs at a set price the next year.  At one point a single tulip bub cost 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman in Holland.  Wealthy traders and merchants would buy bulbs and contracts in order to sell them at a profit in the future.

According to British journalist Charles Mackay, who wrote about the bubble two hundred years later:

Many individuals grew suddenly rich. A golden bait hung temptingly out before the people, and, one after the other, they rushed to the tulip marts, like flies around a honey-pot. Every one imagined that the passion for tulips would last for ever, and that the wealthy from every part of the world would send to Holland, and pay whatever prices were asked for them. The riches of Europe would be concentrated on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, and poverty banished from the favoured clime of Holland. Nobles, citizens, farmers, mechanics, seamen, footmen, maidservants, even chimney-sweeps and old clotheswomen, dabbled in tulips.

There is actually one funny anecdote of a sailor mistaking a tulip bulb for an onion and eating it.  he was jailed because the bulb was worth the salary of a whole ship's crew for a year.

The tulip bubble was not to last forever.  Eventually somebody realized that the whole frenzy was about...flowers.  It took decades for Dutch banks, which had all lent heavily to investors buying tulip futures, to recover.  On a side note, the Dutch still like their tulips today.

Kind of puts our present day financial troubles in perspective, doesn't it?  If anybody is interested, I'm selling 3 and 6 month futures in rainwater.  Email me for prices.

7 Military Tech Winners and Losers Under Gates's Proposed Defense Budget

Popular Mechanics ran a great but brief article on the recent DoD overhaul. I thought it was interesting enough to be shared on the blog. (At least I hope it is)

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4312388.html