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Have I mentioned lately that the iPhone is amazing? Well, I've had mine for 16 months or so now, and I still think it is the best phone I've ever had.

What triggers this praise? Thanks to the wonders of Stanza (links to iTunes), I just re-read The Count of Monte Cristo (one of the all-time classics that is honestly fun to read). As I was reading, I decided to look at some of the different places in Google Earth, since I am very rusty on my French geography. Actually, I have no concept of French geography other than Paris.

So I look at Marseilles, then decide to look for the Chateau d'If. I found it, and on the island it looks like there is a little something unexpected:

So why didn't Edmond Dantes simply take the jet when he left the island?

He could have saved himself a lot of swimming!

Also, Monte Cristo is a real island:

Yet another post about bailouts

There are a few key failings of this blog:
First, I haven't posted in over two months.
Second, I haven't posted about something other than bailouts since September 9th.

One of these is going to be remedied tonight. The other is not. That's right, it's time for another angry rant about bailouts.

I won't rehash my disappointment regarding the original bailouts. I won't even criticize AIG, although they are an easy target. Also, say you were a large size company who received a sudden windfall injection of cash despite thoroughly mismanaging your assets. Why would you change your behavior? And if this same naive "investor" rewarded you with EVEN MORE cash without asking where the original money went, would you do anything differently? Yeah, me neither. And so that is why even though I hate AIG, I understand. What I don't understand is the Treasury and the Fed continually dumping more money. But I digress...

My original intent with this post was to comment on an article I saw on CNN's website. It is provacatively titled "Why the Big Three Should Fly Corporate Jets". As you may remember, on their first trip to capitol hill, the CEO's of Ford, GM, and Cerberus Motors...er, Chrysler that is...all flew on their own private jets. Each of them got hammered in the Congressional session and in the press for the audacity of wasting so much money and natural resources.

The main arguments in the article are:

• Congress wastes lots of money, too, so why should they criticize?
• If they had flown commercial they might have been late.
• Disney, one of the critics, lets its CEO fly a corporate jet.
• Most CEOs are "required" to fly corporate by their boards of directors.
• You are really just jealous it isn't you flying on the corporate jet.
• Corporate jets really aren't that nice.
• Corporate jets save time (really? You are going to waste words telling us the one thing EVERYONE in America knows?) and CEOs make a lot of money, so why waste shareholder's money?

Call me crazy, but I think every single one of these points is asinine. The main issue is not that the CEOs flew on corporate jets to their meetings--it is that the CEOs flew on corporate jets the their meeting to ask for $25 billion (now $34 billion) in taxpayer money!!! Let's do a quick reality check:

Imagine you had a really rich uncle. For years, he's been living the high life. He's had the mansion on the hill, vacations in Tahiti, ski lodges in Sun Valley, etc. You name it, he has it. On the other hand, you've lived a modest lifestyle, not much in the bank, but have good credit. One day your uncle flies into town on his private jet, pulls up to your house in a limosine and asks to borrow $250,000. Wouldn't you think it was a little extravagent? Wouldn't you want to know why he couldn't have flown in on Delta and rented a car from Hertz?

Most CEO's flying in corporate jets is not that big a deal. I think it is incredibly wasteful and silly, but if a company is in good financial shape, go for it. But if a company is asking you, my fellow humble taxpayer, for a massive loan, shouldn't they demonstrate a willingness to control costs before they are given more money?

Here we go again…

$700 billion more.

You and I (and our children and grandchildren) stuck footing the bill.

By now, you’ve heard the story. Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, proposed a bold new plan of action that would drive the value of the dollar into the ground. It would create exciting new opportunities for government corruption. And, it would make each of us marginally better off for a few months while harming all of us for the next 100 years.

If you need background, see the Ron Paul video below.

I don’t typically get involved much in politics. But this issue burns me up. Take action now. Contact your Senators and Congressman. (Disclosure—link goes to a John Birch Society sponsored website—if you disagree with their politics, use another service).

This article is an interesting commentary of how over 100 economists feel about the issue.

Sorry for two straight political posts, but I think that ultimately this issue will affect each of our lives much more than who the next president is.

Stop the Bailouts, please

As you may have heard—unless you’ve been in a cave for the last month—as a U.S. citizen, I am now the proud (one-three hundred millionth) owner of:

• millions of private homes, including lots of foreclosed properties (via the Fannie/Freddie takeovers)
• the world’s largest insurance company, with over a trillion dollars in assets (allegedly)

I hate that my government is getting involved here.  We allowed these companies to purchase financial derivatives and make billions in profits from these financial instruments.  When things go sour, I get stuck footing the bill.

I think Lewis Black said it best.  If you can’t describe in one sentence what your company does, it’s illegal.  No one can describe financial derivatives in one minute, much less one sentence.

On the upside, I’m excited to see how fast Uncle Sam can run these companies into the ground.  They are starting at the bottom, and somehow will manage to continue screwing up. 

Four tens

At the beginning of august, my company decided to have a trial of
allowing employees to work four ten hour days instead of five eight
hot days.

We are now in our sixth week of that trial. You might have noticed
that I have also not had a blog post in about six weeks. A stunning
coincidence!

Now, for some honest opinions about the four day week. It is awesome
to have the long weekend every week. However, Mondays thru Thursdays
are a waste. It's really hard to be motivated to do anything outside
of work on those days. You work, come home, then sleep (or so it seems).

All the same, I'm going to miss my long weekends when our trial period
runs out. With any luck, we will do them again once our holiday season
is over.

600 apples a day

When we bought our new house, it came with the landscaping installed. Everything was shiny new, including all the plants, except for an apple tree on the west side of the house. As apple trees go, it is a pretty good sized one, maybe 15 feet high. However, it had obviously never been pruned.

Since we moved in and the tree was already beginning to bloom, I decided to wait until after this season to begin pruning the tree. This was a bad idea. When the tree went into bloom in late April, the bees kicked into high gear, pollinization-wise. I think every blossom on the tree turned into a mini-apple.

I read on the internet that in early June, the tree would thin itself. I decided I would let nature run its course and thin its own apples. This was another bad idea. Yes, nature did thin about 200 apples off the tree. I spent the better part of an hour picking them up one Saturday afternoon. However, it left many hundreds of apples clinging to branches that are not nearly ready to support the weight of one apple, much less 5.

Over the past few weeks, I've lost several small apple-laden limbs that snapped under the weight of the growing apples. The larger apples are about the size of a half-dollar. Tonight, I finally decided for the sake of my younger tree limbs, it was time to thin the apples. I did a little more internet research. The general consensus is that you should leave one apple about every 6 inches. However, there is no advice on what to do if the limb is 7 feet long and clearly bending from the weight, even after thinning. I decided to just let it be. The limb can take care of itself.

The picture you see above is a small section of the tree, pre-thinning. Imagine this multiplied by several hundred, and you can visualize my task. After 90 minutes tonight, I ran out of sunlight. I had gathered two buckets full of small apples. In the interest of science, I decided I needed to find out how many apples I had cut off. I counted the smaller of the buckets and came up with 288 apples. So between nature and myself, the tree is down about 800 apples. Unfortunately, there are still a gazillion (roughly) left on the tree. Anyone care to join us for apple pie in a couple months?

Wii Fit, Day 10.

(Not my actual Wii avatar...unfortunately, I'm somewhat higher than the BMI shown).

After fighting it for over a year, my lovely wife finally broke down and let me buy a Wii. A couple days later, we were fortunate enough to find a copy of Wii Fit at Circuit City. We snapped it up and promptly began trying to get our butts into shape. So far, I've managed to get up every morning before 6 so that I can play Wii Fit for at least 30 minutes of "Fit time" before work. Because you have the same introductions and closing remarks after every different exercise, this works out to at least 45 minutes of real time every morning.

One of the best features is the daily feedback when you check in for a Body Test. This weighs you, gives you your BMI, and then calculates your Wii Fit Age. The Wii Fit age is a measurement of how young your body is, and is calculated by taking your real age, the results of a balance test, the tidal force of the nearest ocean, and the closing stock price of Nintendo on the Nikkei stock exchange.

It's very cheesy, but I find myself getting excited and competitive about my daily results. I've lost over 5 pounds so far, and my Wii Fit Age has dropped from 46 to 34. Considering that I'm 32, I don't feel too horrible about the extra two years of age. So anyways, the goal is to keep up the Wii Fit regime along with any other exercise I might get and report the results every 10 days.

The other somewhat unexpected result is that as a result of all the balance games and feedback, I feel legitimately more balanced (literally) on a daily basis. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but somehow you feel like you are walking with better posture and distributing your weight more comfortably once you've done your time.

Note: Mrs. Floporama is also participating in Wii Fit. I'll leave it to her to detail her experiences.