The market

is lurching back and forth, down 777 yesterday, up 300 today.

Very scary for those of us who dream of retiring with our hard-earned 401k money sometime in the next 10 years.

Website work

I did a lot of website work this weekend and sent out our September newsletter (just in time).

We are doing the Michigan Bead show again this coming weekend, last year was pretty good, this year we have a lot more Seed Beads so I hope it will be even better.

New lawn

I stripped and replanted the grass in my front yard over the last few weeks. I finally sowed the grass seed and threw down straw last night.

What a big job that was! First I sprayed the grass with Roundup and then about 10 days later I started stripping off the sod. I went out and bought this thing called an Italian Grape Hoe, that is like a regular hoe on steroids. It has a large heavy head and works great to slice off a layer of sod. That took several evenings and a couple of weekend days, and filled up about 30 yard waste bags (halfway so they weren't too heavy).

Next I had to regrade the yard, as there was a real high spot and several dips. I borrowed my neighbor's rototiller which made it a lot easier to bust up the dirt under the sod. I moved a lot of dirt around, building up the area nearer to the house and trying to add a gentle slope toward the street. This was probably the hardest part, trying to get the grade right.

Next I used an ancient concrete roller to compact the soil, and kept going over it with a yard rake to get a nice looking grade.

Next I got 3 yards of screened topsoil (and a bale of straw) delivered and spent a couple hours spreading the soil around on top of the grade. Having the yard graded out made that a lot easier, I just had to rake out the soil evenly.

The I added some hydrated lime, starter fertilizer, and then the seed. I used a sun/shade mix from a local garden center. Then I added a thin layer of ground peat moss, and ran a leaf rake across the whole mix to get the seed mixed in with the soil. I followed that with a thin layer of straw, which I then secured down with several lengths of twine, to keep it from blowing away.

Finally I put up some posts and tied more string between them and tied lengths of rags all the way around to keep people off the new lawn. Then I turned the sprinkler on and watered for about 30 minutes, which I will do twice a day until the seeds sprout.

One smart thing I did was save about 10% of the grass seed so I could fill in any thin areas later on this fall or in the spring if I need to.

Several people walking and driving by stopped by to comment on what a great amount of work it was and how good it was looking.

Hope I can say the same thing in a few weeks when the grass is nice and green!

It probably cost me about $250 in materials (hoe, fertilizer, seed, lime). The hoe was $45, but I can definitely reuse that thing, anytime I need to do some serious sod busting. I have no idea how much it would have cost to have a professional landscaper do it, or if they would have taken as much care in re-grading the yard.

Removing the sod was really hard, especially after the one full day I spent on it. The next day I felt like I had been in a car accident; all my muscles and joints hurt. I still have a huge bruise on my right arm, but I do not know how it happened.

The financial crisis

Well, everyone else is talking about it, why shouldn't I?

Once again I feel we are experiencing the true legacy of Ronald Reagan. Reagan convinced everyone that government was the enemy, and regulations were just handcuffing the creative and entrepreneurial forces of the American people. The market was rational; bad players and corrupt practices would be weeded out by the the power of market based control.

Are we de-regulated enough yet?

I also place a lot of this on peoples unconstrained greed. Everybody thought it was great when speculative bubble after bubble arose and Wall street guys were making multi-million bonuses for doing things none of understood (derivative "swaptions" what the hell are those things).

Nobody was calling for regulation while the party was going and Joe Homeowner was refinancing his house and spending the money like it was free. Nobody was calling for corporate oversight until the market crashed and it was obvious that crooks like the guys at Enron were running the show at some major corporations.

The only way regulation can work is for people to realize that to prevent the bad times the good times have to be tempered as well. You cannot have these market run ups and esoteric financial products that appear to make you rich and expect to regulate them after the fact.

I'm not sure what people want is a more disciplined economy. I think most people want the bad stuff to go away and what they really want is another bubble.

Just like the old Texas bumper sticker: "Please God, give us just one more oil boom, and we promise not to screw it up this time".

Obama

will most probably lose this election. I am quite unhappy about this for a number of reasons.

I am a strong liberal Democrat, and I think republicans have been visiting chaos on our economy and social fabric since 1980.

However, I am just as angry about this because I am confident that if Hillary Clinton had been the nominee (my choice) then this election would be essentially over. The Palin choice would have been neutralized (probably would not have happened) and she would be fighting back like mad.

It seems like Obama is on the verge of pulling a John Kerry: failing to attack. Where are his proxies like Biden and Clinton who should be out there savaging Palin and McCain?

Karl Rove telegraphed a long time back that this election would be about personality not issues. Did Obama's people really think that the adoring crowds of Democrats who propelled him through the primaries would somehow magically win him the general election?

If the Democrats lose this election they have noone to blame but themselves. The economy is as bad as it has been in 50 years, the sitting president is profoundly unpopular, yet somehow the Republicans have been allowed to shift the momentum to the point where the press is focusing in stupid remarks and Sarah Palin's "likability".

This should be like shooting fish in a barrel. The right candidate was passed over, and if Obama loses the whole party owes Hillary the biggest apology in history. If she ever consents to running again for president, the party needs to embrace her 100%.

There is no point in blaming the media for its shallowness. The GOP learned a long time ago that the key to getting elected was to manipulate the media's power to distract people with triviality and lurid stories designed to evoke an emotional response.

Sadly, this is how elections are won. Just another indication that we are becoming a 3rd world country, both in our economic structure and our approach to democracy.

Politics

I haven't paid much attention to the RNC convention. It seems like the GOP is really in a defensive position, trying not to lose too badly. I do not think Obama is a guaranteed win, but I do think (hope?) the Democrats have enough momentum to win some of the key states up for grabs, like Ohio, maybe Florida, Colorado and New Mexico.

Just enough to win the Electoral College, but probably not a landslide. Which is disheartening in a way. With all of the fiascoes that the Republicans have presided over in the last 8 years it seems like the Democrats should just run away with the election.

My take on the Palin choice: I think the GOP did not want to waste their first string choices on an election they think they have a good chance of losing. This reminds me of when the Democrats nominated Walter Mondale to run against Reagan in 1984, knowing it would be a blowout loss. Or when the GOP ran Bob Dole against Bill Clinton in 1996; who gave him any chance at all?

I suspect that guys like Romney and Huckabee want to keep their powder dry to run against a likely Obama presidency in 2012, and again in 2016.