Standby for a Phony Crisis

Brought to you by hedge funds that are pissed that Argentina (as everyone knew they would) is planning to stiff some hedgies.

Oh, it’s going to be terrible…woe is with us…this is the beginning of the end!!!”

I can hear the hand-wringers already – which is odd when I think about it, because the talking heads of the market haven’t been spun up for the day yet, but that’s besides the point.

One of the genuinely rational reports out there, calling it like it is, is being served up this morning from Heidi Moore’s pen over at the UK’s Guardian website.

Headlined as…

It’s the end of Argentina as we know it, and the world economy will be just fine

An entire country defaulting on its debt? After a fight with US hedge-funders? This is the stupidest ‘nuclear option’ yet”

It’s a breath of fresh air to see that there may actually be more than one rational observer of the world’s careening financial misbehavior, driven by too much paper and too little common sense.

How’s the Hoax du Hedgies going?  A review of world markets this morning should be saved as an indicator of the possible economic intelligence of the various markets around the world.  The smart people have markets going UP while the stupid people find their markets going DOWN is one way to look at it.

Here’s the rundown as of press time:

China is smart.  The Hang Seng was up 24 points.  I guess you don’t get to be a 5,000 year old civilization (which invented paper, remember?) by believing that paper really is value.  No, they’ve figured out People and Resource are the value.  And lately, prison camps and cheap labor, but they aren’t planning on the world ending, just yet, it seems.

Japan was down 25 points overnight.  That’s hardly anything…and this from a country which has 40-years or more of Fukushima clean-up still to come.  Why, you’d think they’d be the easiest to spook, but no.

Europe (UreUp) is a different deal.  Krautenlanden was down more than 1% when I looked.  But there’s a reason built into the psychology of the Germans that can be traced back to the Brothers Grimm.

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Coping: Prepping for Ebola

Some of what follows is fictional, but then again, oftentimes there’s just “too convenient” a fit between the observed facts of the world and a very conspiratorial viewpoint.

I mentioned this to Peoplenomics.com subscribers earlier and with the withdrawal of Peace Corps workers from the hot zone overnight, it’s time to start seriously contemplating prepping just in case the ‘worst outcome” happens and Ebola gets a foothold inside the USA.

Here’s the problem in a nutshell:

  • Nearly 7,000 people are dead from the present outbreak so far.
  • Quietly, since April, Department of Defense has been beefing up biohazard equipment levels domestically.  And these are now in place in all 50 states.
  • Chatter on internet discussion groups (example) are way up and a lot of discussion floats around Executive Orders
  • And yes, CDC has a page up that explains the legality of strict population controls:

“The federal government derives its authority for isolation and quarantine from the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  Under section 361 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S. Code § 264), the U.S.

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Electronic Prepping: What You Didn’t Know…

Since I wrote the book “Broken Web: The coming collapse of the Internet” (yes, you can get it on Amazon) I’ve been watching many of the things forecast in that book come into view and become part of the American consciousness.

This morning we present the first of two reports this week, one of which is a free piece of software that might increase your personal privacy and which may help insulate you from coming internet attacks on American infrastructure.

And then, this coming weekend, we hope to have ready an interview with Manfred Rolle, who’s one of the leading internet security gurus (and architect with chief software designer Jens) of the very successful Maxa Cookie Manager. 

Sure, canning, heritage seeds, water purification and 1,800 FPM rounds may seem like great prepping items, but we covered most of that for subscribers in back issues over the past 13-years of Peoplenomics issues in the subscriber archive.  Things like raising goats and solar power system design?  Sure, old hat.  MRE storage temps?  I’m sure we’ve covered it somewhere…

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Housing Data: Up But Turning?

One of the key press releases every month in the S&P Case-Shiller Home prices report, just out this morning:

Data through May 2014, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show the Composite Indices increased at a slower pace. The 10-City Composite gained 9.4% year-over-year and the 20-City 9.3%, down significantly from the +10.9% and +10.8% returns reported last month. All cities with the exception of Charlotte and Tampa saw their annual rates decelerate.

In the month of May, the 10- and 20-City Composites posted gains of 1.1%. For the second consecutive month, all twenty cities posted increases. Charlotte posted its highest monthly increase of 1.4% in over a year. Tampa gained 1.8%, followed by San Francisco at +1.6% and Chicago at +1.5%. Phoenix and San Diego were the only cities to gain less than one percent with increases of 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively.

“Home prices rose at their slowest pace since February of last year,” says David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “The 10- and 20-City Composites posted just over 9%, well below expectations.

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Schizophrenic Tuesday

“Say what?

Oh, just took my “clever writing” pill this morning and that means we will have a split personality report.  Part of it will be deadly serious when the housing report comes out from Case/Shiller/S&P here, so do check back.

Meantime, most of the activity both in markets and on the net seems to be an exciting game of “Which straw will break the camel’s back?”

While “the camel” put on 22 points and was up another 33 when I looked earlier, it’s really the balance of the week that will tell the tale.

In a few minutes, we get the housing data, later this morning consumer confidence, then advance GDP tomorrow along with a Fed Rate decision.  But the capper will be the unemployment rate on Friday and we’ll do our usual hatchet job on that Friday morning.  So do put it on your calendars and bring some QuikClot

Not for me, of course, but for the markets which could get hammered, depending on how much the caterwauling bond holders can whip up the fear-levels because of Argentina’s which, as of this morning, is a fine dance that’s still pending.

War Dimes

Yes, we could be disparaging “war crimes” in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, but it’s all about the usual suspects:  Power and Money.

While Israel steps up attacks against Hamas, which has a habit of moving arms into schools and residential areas and then telling its residents they can’t flee when the obvious happens, the real problem for the Washington Cartel is what to do about it?

Washington’s caught in a terrible economic conundrum:  Israel gets $3.1-billion of year of foreign aid, so you’re personal out of pocket contribution is only something like $10 per year per capita.

There are some folks on the net who get really worked up over this, yet I’d ask every one of them if they voted in the last primary and to show the check stubs for their contributions to campaigns offering an alternative.

Besides, Afghanistan was costing us $41+ per capita and we didn’t even get a cut of the illegal poppy crop cash.  What’cha gonna do?

The problem is the whole Middle East is that our nation is the largest death merchant in the world with a 36.6% market share.

China, who’s our buddy-buddy pals since they buy our Treasury paper does 10.8% of the world arms exporting.

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Coping: Tuesday at the WoWW

Ah…World of Woo-Woo time, is it?

A recurrent theme around here lately in our research are all those people who we thought were dead, but really are not.

One that plagues me is Fidel Castro…I could have sworn on a stack that he was worm food, but no, still alive and kicking.  I’ll be damned.  (Six conspiracy sites have reported Putin met with a zombie, though…)

And yes, I know it was a distinct event from Hugo Chavez…

Another person that many think is “a-goner” is Jane Goodall…British primate scientist.  Reader Donald admits to being plagued by this one:

I’ve been meaning to share this with someone. Having seen emails from your readers on your website that sound like my experience, I thought I’d sent it to you. So here it is.

I believe the past has changed thus changing the present at least from my perspective. Why? I do not know. Keep in mind that this is not a dream. It’s real life.

First, I want you to know that I’m well aware of all the stories and theories about parallel universes (or multiverse) and multiple timelines and everything strange in this universe. I’m not saying I know everything J about this area of human knowledge.

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Monday in the Financial Casino / The Off-Planet View

New shooters….coming out!”

Yes sir, it sure feels like a casino…all kinds of craps… but I feel strangely light-headed about it.  Maybe Doc Thompson can get me some pills, or something, for it.  Ah…there’s the rub…Which pill? 

Well that depends on which casino game we’re talking about.

One pill might be for infectionthis would be for the systemic infection that could flare up with this week’s Argentina financial disaster waiting to flare up.  As you’ll remember, the IMF et al want Argentina to pay up and Argentina, which turned stiffing the international banksters into high art back in 2002, wasn’t it?, is set to do it again.

So we might want to start a prophylactic course of Ciproflaxin, for that one.  Bondholders are such whiners…terminal wallet disease carriers, too.

Next, we might want to grab a couple of aspirin for the Federal Reserve meeting this week which is widely expected to reduce the quantitative pleasing by $10-billion per month, or so.

Then tomorrow morning, we’ll have our monthly “split personality” report in order to update you on the Standard and Poorhousing picture.  Remember, the housing recovery has been dramatic overs the past couple of years, just as any pulse is considered a zillion percent improvement from dead/flat-lined, so too, housing isn’t exactly pumping and jumping.  Along with the rest of the green shoots, recovery, or whatever you want to call it, come to think of it.

So for that, maybe I need a mood stabilizer like Abilify or Seoquel, you think?  That might help with Consumer CONfidence data, due out tomorrow morning, as well. Focus on the positive, we’ll mindlessly mantra-fy…

Then to cap off the week, we will have the latest unemployment data to digest with the hash-browns Friday morning.  Depending on how the numbers roll, the range of expectations is somewhere the  Devil’s Quadrangle between blow, nitrous oxide, Ambien  and Oxy.

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Coping: With the Making of “Personal Magic”

I’ve told you many times about Chris Tyreman and the Jewish studies group up on the Prairie of Canada that’s recently come out with a couple of books (100 Questions You Never Thought to Ask and Didn’t Want the Answers To…. and The Destruction of Sabbath: Tracking the History of Deception).  They’ve found a hidden “error correcting code” in ancient Hebrew and they’re finding out amazing mis-translations of religious texts.    That’s not our topic here, though.

But besides sharing a driving fascination with figuring out the Big Problem (how humans have been led astray/manipulated and so forth), I don’t think I’ve mentioned that they, too, have significant skills when it comes to “personal magic” of the kind that lets some people turn their homes into real marvelous “life spaces” while other people, putting no more thought into their surroundings than a cheap framed post to cover up a wall, live in places that are really “dead.”

Elaine’s expression of it is “transporting.”

She’s working on what used to be a simple cobbled-on covered porch with a tin roof on the side of our modular/mobile/trailer.  And it’s turning into a morning “coffee room”  because, along about sunrise, we can be out there with the coffee as the local wildlife goes about the front yard doing its thing.

Each room in the house has a “vibe” to it…and when done (that’s a different problem), the idea is that the house will be similar to walking onto a Hollywood movie set.

Chris (and company) have been doing the same thing (but different, lol) and he sent along some examples:

Just looking through the house and realizing how many things we “magicked” for cheap.  Here are a few things.  My house is exactly the same, no additions.  The new shot is today’s  Even the siding is the same stuff. Took it off and cut it in half length wise and put it back on (saved $6000).  Made the stone from cement and put it on, and the paint was mistints mixed together at $5.00 a gallon.

[George sourcing note:  Some of the most useful places to find home redocorating/value-adding products include the cancelled orders bin and the mis-mixed paints at Lowes and Home Depot.

Other places to find real bargains are Craigslist and eBay.  On Craigslist, be sure and look under the heading “material” and furniture, depending on what you feel like changing in your personal space.  And local garage sales can turn up all kinds of things that can be “magicked” into new amazing new purposes. 

Back to Chris’ comments and a look at Michelle’s house…)

Same for Michelle’s house. We made the shutters for $20.00.

The cabinet was a $50 POS phony oak vinyl.  Used exterior vinyl paint and a stencil.  Found the same look at a store for $500.

My kitchen cupboards are all original, just cheap moldings and paint.  

The new ones are cheap 3/4 inch plywood.  Tops are granite squares at $3 a piece.  The real expense was the tile saw which was $120.

(Another George note: A lot of people would like to have a hidden door, secret passage, and so forth.  But very few people actually DO something about it.  I don’t know where it came from, but I seem to remember an old television show from the black and white era that featured a home owned by a “Mr. Applegate” – and it had hidden doors and secret this and that’s. 

We’ve got one such non-apparent room entrance and here’s what Chris’ looks like…)

The door is chip board and plywood, painted like wood and then clear coated. Then some hinges and and a wheel it rolls on.  The carved wood I did with a dremel tool.

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Those Who Forget History…

….are damned to repeat it.

So this morning, we walk into what the librarians of this world used to call “the stacks” as we try to size up some correlative data about the pre-Depression run-up to the all time (until then) Great Depression.

Our quest this morning is two-fold:  First to see what some of the missing data might tell us, and secondly to see how the “humans in denial” phenomena works.

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Economics: Worrywarts and Dart Throws

The longwave economic paradigm is simple:  The economy goes through 48-64 year cycles that are fairly regular, although there is a case for a 75-year cycle that goes along with some theoretical work I did with a colleague in 2000-2001 about how long a currency could last until it was overloaded with debt and needed collapse (a value restoration process) in order to retain its value.

Here lately, the US currency has been relatively stable, which is why gold and silver haven’t gone screaming toward the stars.  But give it time.

We are still in the bottoming-out portion of the longwave decline in interest rates that any damn fool can see by looking at a long-term chart of the 10-year Treasury.

Since we know the absolute peak of rates was July of 1981 and since we know that the Long Wave is normally 54 years in length, all you need to do is add 27 years to 1981 and you should get a sense of when the real economic bottoming process should begin.

2008.  (Look surprised!)

Now, I apologize if this is just too damn simple, but we have a problem because the bottoming is not completely done.  In fact, it has barely even gotten underway yet. We keep propping up losers.

The result is we still need to see a repudiation of debt at a massive scale and until that happens, the Long Wave bottom won’t be here.  We’re just dancing on the front end of real economic collapse, still.

The most recent data to neatly summarize the mess is the Comptroller of the Currency’s quarterly derivatives report.  The most recent being Q4 of 2013.

On the surface, there are some statements that sound almost, well, encouraging…like this:

“Notional derivatives fell $3.0 trillion, or 1%, to $237.0 trillion. Derivative contracts remain concentrated in interest rate products, which comprise 82% of total derivative notional amounts. Credit derivatives, which represent 5% of total derivatives notionals, declined 12% from the third quarter to $11.2 trillion.

So things are getting better, yeah?  Well….er…the economy is recovering, right?

Not so fast, Bucko.  Do you have any idea how much $237-trillion of notional value is?  To put things in perspective, the USA’s entire economic output this year will be around $16-trillion.  So the value of the derivatives is 14.8-YEARS of everything American does.

The happy-go-lucky people believe that it doesn’t make sense to worry about the possibility of all that notional debt becoming real because all of this is hedged and structured.  Besides, aren’t these players all serious-minded, ethical, deep pocket people?  They wouldn’t screw anyone, right?

The problem is (when we go back at look at the Bank Herstatt close call with world-ending collapse in 1974) that we see that settlement risk is horrific.

Still, undaunted, the happy-go-lucky types came up with new ways to avoid the world-ending.  The Wikipedia entry on Settlement Risk lists three alternatives:

Continuous Linked Settlement is particularly interesting (and with enough coffee, the explanation here will make sense).

My point is simple:  When you look at the credit mess, what you find is that the global financial disaster of 2008-2009 did not end the accumulation of debt on top of debt.  All it did was stop it near present levels.  For now.

And that gets us to the problem of when the next crisis should appear.

Not today, of course.  But in Wednesday’s Peoplenomics report this week, I laid out a way to guesstimate when the Mother of all Crashes could show up…and that seems to me to hinge on the timing of the Fed’s rate increase.

Will they have to raise rates?  Sure…

Dynamics in play actually require that interest rates this low can’t go on forever because of certain large players whose entire future is built around interest rates much higher than present levels.  So as the cheap money of today persists, it actually carries with it the seeds of destruction for long-term players.

If, in coming months, you read about a big life insurance company getting in trouble, I want you to bookmark this morning’s report:  An industry which has oodles of money to park over very long periods of time can have world-ending financial problems when office buildings they own are no longer needed because we’re all working from our homes and cars and mobile devices.

The same processes that killed residential real estate is still coming for commercial.  And the fallout next time around could be even bigger and more costly to the tax slaves of last resort.  And you know who that is, right?

I hope you did read this possibly most important story of the week, didn’t you?

(more after this)

So How Durable?

While we keep sniffing the air for the scent of burning time fuses on the industry side, the statistics out this morning from Census on Durable Goods are worth a read:

New Orders
New orders for manufactured durable goods in June
increased $1.8 billion or 0.7 percent to $239.9 billion,
the U.S. Census Bureau announced today. This increase,
up four of the last five months, followed a 1.0 percent
May decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders
increased 0.8 percent. Excluding defense, new orders
increased 0.7 percent.
Machinery, up following two consecutive monthly
decreases, led the increase, $0.9 billion or 2.4 percent to
$37.3 billion.
Shipments
Shipments of manufactured durable goods in June, up
four of the last five months, increased $0.3 billion or 0.1
percent to $238.2 billion. This followed a 0.1 percent
May decrease.
Transportation equipment, up following two
consecutive monthly decreases, drove the increase, $0.5
billion or 0.7 percent to $70.2 billion.
Unfilled Orders
Unfilled orders for manufactured durable goods in
June, up fourteen of the last fifteen months, increased
$8.7 billion or 0.8 percent to $1,096.8 billion. This was
at the highest level since the series was first published on
a NAICS basis in 1992 and followed a 0.7 percent May
increase.
Transportation equipment, up nine of the last ten
months, led the increase, $4.9 billion or 0.7 percent to
$681.0 billion.

Market futures points to the Dow being down about 20 at the open, but the real number that matters is 17,100.18 on the Dow (last week’s closing Friday level) and last week’s Friday close of 1978.22 on the S&P.

The Imperial President

Latest move – which the administration figures can be done through what?  (Executive Orders!) is to say that people from Honduras are “refugees.”

Odd that we are welcoming people from such places, yet when people try to leave America, we hound them for at least 10-years of taxes…but I digress.  Just seems a bit one-sided and seriously denominated, if you know what I’m saying.

Senators Cruz and Sessions are trying to stop it, but don’t hold your breath.  You don’t appoint Supreme Court justices.

This is called “separation of powers” – power in the hands of the few.

On the other hand, worries the NY Times, Texas NatGuard could get arrest powers to deal with illegals.  OK, so?  And?

Troubles of Israel

Riots in the West Bank…

A quick check of Wikipedia gives some context:

The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 and 220 km2 water, the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea.[3] It has an estimated population of 2,676,740 (July 2013).[4] More than 80%, about 2,100,000,[3] are Palestinian Arabs, and approximately 500,000 are Jewish Israelis living in the West Bank,[3] including about 192,000 in East Jerusalem,[5] in Israeli settlements.

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Coping: Aftermath, Monitors, and DYI Magic Notes

As I reported in yesterday’s column, things around the ranch here in East Texas were a bit nuts on Thursday.  But this morning things are “back in the groove…”

The lack of sleep was corrected by about 10 AM…which gets me to mentioning the article out this week on how many hours of sleep a person really needs.  It was in the Wall St. Journal and says “Why Seven Hours of Sleep might be better than Eight.”

Normally, I’d have found that pretty interesting, since about 7 1/2-hours is what I run on.  But when I’ve run on 5 & 6 and then drop back to 4 — well, that for me is a crash and that came with this week’s storm.

Once about 3-hours of “catch-up” was done, it dawned on me that the “overwhelming sleep” desire also hits me (like a ton of bricks) a day or three ahead of major (I mean 7-8+) earthquakes.  So if a quake comes along…remember who told you…

A return to my office Thursday morning discovered that one of my four monitors on “the big server” had decided to stop working.  It’s a Sceptre X246W and, turns out, they have a problem with capacitors in their power supplies after they age a bit.

A quick check of eBay quickly found that a capacitor replacement kit for the blown up power supply was available or $15-bucks.  Needless to say, I ordered one.

$15 bucks instead of a replacement?  Easy decision, that one.  And that gets me to the two main points of this morning’s epistle:

The first is that companies that make really good computer gear sometimes find the darnedest places to shave a penny.  True, the difference in cost between a cheap capacitor (temp rated for 85C may be more than a penny compared to a 100C rated capacitor) but here’s the point:  I have found that in all kinds of modern electronics the weak point is usually the power supply.

Same thing with my laptop: Great computer, cheap-ass power cube blew up.  Just put a new 700W power supply in my “big” computer a few months back, too…

Whether you’re trying to  repair a monitor, or that classic audio amplifier that used to drive your subwoofer….there are many occasions when a basic knowledge of electronic components and soldering can literally save you 10-20 times the cost of “whole unit” replacement.

You don’t have to be rich to have a great lifestyle…just clever and be able to fix things.

When the parts get here I may take a bunch of pictures and write up a “how to” for Peoplenomics subscribers.  You know, a short 5-6 page introduction to basic electronics repair oriented to fixing power supplies.

The second point is that if you have not plugged in a second monitor to your computer, you’re living in the dark ages of computing.

Especially if you have a lap or desktop.  Second screens for a mobile device would be stupid…but a projector port?  Hmmm…

Most laptops come with a simple VGA port that you can plug an external monitor into.  When we go on our trip up to the PNW next month, we’ll be taking an external monitor and our LCD projector with us, too. 

So if you have a laptop, there’s usually nothing to buy:  Plug in the additional monitor, go to the display set-up and mark the external monitor for “Extended Desktop” use.  You’ll suddenly have double the amount of workspace on screen and once you get used to it, you will find a huge increase in productivity.

If you have a desktop computer, you may need an additional video card, but you can pick up a EVGA GeForce GT 610 1024MB GDDR3, Dual DVI, HDMI Graphics Card 01G-P3-2616-KR for under $50-bucks.

If you pick up two of these, you can then clone what I’ve been running – four monitors – all as extended desktop. 

My usual “serious work mode” is email/Outlook on the left monitor.  Whatever I’m writing on the middle monitor.  Content/reference material (Explorer or Firefox) on the left monitor.

Then, on the big monitor on top (#4) I watch a Nostracodeus run ker-chunking along,  Gloomberg or streaming futures/live charts.

My point is that multiple monitors are the only way to fly if you have lots of work to get done and employers who don’t give their employees at least two monitors are idjits – neander-comps, as it were.

With another unusual cold snap due next week (and we are likely to set several days of record low temps in this part of the country) I figure that the other two Sceptres are “at risk” so if I can get the first monitor back up and running, I might preemptively upgrade the power supplies of the other two when I get time.

Get time?  OMG…what’s that?

The Audiophile’s Notebook

As long as we’re working on PC’s….

A couple of readers wondered how the home studio is coming along…and that gets me to the next peripheral.

I’ve decided to upgrade the audio card in my music/video computer as part of building the Ultimate Home Studio on a Budget.

The card?  SYBA SD-PEX63081 7.1 Surround Sound S/PDIF In/Out Digital/Analog PCI-e Audio Card CM8828 Chipset with Full and Low Profile Brackets for $35 bucks.

If the coffee has really kicked it up a notch for you, you’ll see what:  This card has both SPDIF in and out

Now, if you’re listening to the odd MP3 (when the boss ain’t looking) you probably won’t benefit much (if at all) from going SPDIF…but if you are setting up a media server (to feed the big screen those DVD’s because that way you can get your DVD Player and streamer in a single box…then this might be something for you to think about.

In the “ultimate/cheap home studio” I found a deal on the card for even less ($29.95) and that will give me a 96 KHz audio chain instead of the typical slower sample rates… but then again, you’ll need an audio system (amp) that can eat SPDIF out…but if you’re going for a high quality home theater experience, well, this has potential…

A Few Words About Magic

Meantime, my “gear move-in” continues and here’s what it looks like as of this morning.  Still to come is a large area rug and more sound panels on the wall from where this picture was taken.

Remember, this started off as a deck that we’d cobbled on the north end of our “trailer” which – more than ever – causes great visual discontinuity.

I forget which movie it was…but a couple of years back there was a stoner-flick (drug film) about a couple of heads (but not Cheech & Bong) who were traveling across the South and they end up at this trailer out in the woods.

The outside of the place looked like typical “white trash” (old car and refrigerator in the front yard kind of thing) but when they shot changed to the interior, it looked like a highly decorated and details super up-scale midtown apartment.

I loved it!  We were already on track and working that way, but the film really sealed the deal for me.

The contrast between “regular trailer” look on the outside and whole different planet on the inside…well, that’s what I’m talking about…

Elaine and I both like the look of Trader Vics (old-school pseudo-Polynesia/Tiki) vibe, so our dining room (which we finished a good while back)  has that “vibe.”

Amazing what some rolls of reed fencing, a staple gun, a couple of grass hunting mats and some sticks of bamboo can do, isn’t it?

The reason for the pictures and such?

Well, it’s the weekend.  Every room in our home has been a collaborative effort between Elaine and me.  We discuss the reasons for this, the reasons against that…but it’s all part of a marvelous dance of two minds building shared space. 

In the end, though, it crystalizes into a really fun, unique place to live.  And that’s where our subject now turns to “magic.”

Any damn fool can write a check.  And sure, there’s a level of “magic” involved in having enough money in the bank so the check doesn’t bounce.

But there’s another magic, too.  The kind that comes from the head, heart, and hands.  Some people are into trading paper for things.  But I really enjoy the “magic” of taking an idea and moving it (in ring-pass-not) fashion from the mental realms out into this world.  Passing “the veils” that keep the mental and physical worlds apart.

This being another Friday, I can’t think of a better time to remind you that we all (one way or the other) work for “the man” at something most of the time.

But what defines us (our space, our life, and such) is how we invest that other time ands what kind of magic we choose. 

People who build beautiful handcrafted furniture, exquisite glassworks, marvels of metal sculpture, or people who build boats…these are higher magicians, as I see it, than the fools with the checkbooks.  Not much learning about the great esoteric issues from name-signing, is there?

And since we’re (most of us, anyway) less than 8-hours from a weekend, the solid question to ask going into the weekend is “How will you have taken concrete steps to improve your life and make it something really special between now and Monday?”

How you answer that defines what kind of Life Magician you are.

Reflections on WoWW

Whether those pictures from space of war flashes on the ground in Gaza are the “sky flashes” meme that dream and data sources had been hinting at should become clear over time.  But check out this reader note:

On the night of July 22nd I was awoke by my phone ringing around 3am. I am out of town in the boondocks so my phone sits in the window to get service. Half awake I go to the window before I even look at my phone the sky seemed to light up in a blue flash at the horizon in the distance. Dumbfounded I stand there looking intensely again for it to happen. It doesn’t. I chalked it up to a weird story I heard about methane from cows causing a glow in the fields. They call them ghost cows.

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Is this Our “Sky Flashes” Indicator?

What we have is a very short report this morning (full whine in the Coping section to follow) so don’t expert the usual dull wit this morning…more like half-wit as I run on fumes. Nevertheless, you know all that talk about “sky flashes” that showed up in Chris McCleary’s www.nationaldreamcenter.com forecast in Project August? How’s this for fitting?

Coping: WoWW, Rain, and Pain

Normally, life out here at the “end of the string” is pretty good.  Until yesterday, to be precise:  That’s when things got exceptionally weird – resulting in a shorter than usual column this morning.

It began Wednesday morning when I got up to put the finishing touches of our www.Peoplenomics.com  report.

As always, I got up, used “the facilities,” weighed myself, and then wandered into the kitchen in my “altogether.”

I looked at the close on the stock:  Recent model stove and it said 5:30 on the button.  I made a special note of it because even number times are a 1:10 long shot.  So I looked again.

No, sure as the Dickens it was 5:30.  So, as it my habit, I wandered back into the master bath.  Attacked the face with my electric razors, inspected my teeth (I was them later because it makes horrible flavors mixed with coffee) and slowly got dressed.

I think wandered back into the kitchen expecting it to be 5:43 to 5:45.

No.

Now the clock on the stove (I kid you not!) declared it was 5:23.

No!  Rational mind was challenged but I had specifically noted the time (looked away and back at it) a couple of times at 5:30.  There were no timers set either (Elaine hates clocks except for cooking rice…everything else is by sight and texture.

To this moment I am stumped.

The rest of the day “train-wrecked” on me, too:  An Amazon return hadn’t been picked up (missing parts) and the UPS worker in wherever told me my address wouldn’t fit on their database.

Huh?

Brent, my UPS guy comes out every couple of days and everything from Amazon gets here on schedule.  So I asked the (foreign country) worker if anyone was going to ever get around to calling me…and he said no. 

I explained that if the failed return ends up getting billed by Amazon, I’ll write a scathing letter to the executive committee of UPS signed with my consider signature: WTF?

So finally we knock off working on the house and I make a pizza and snooze off in my big leather chair abou8t 8:15.  It had been one of those days that gets you down.

Did last worth a damn, though.

8:35 rolls around and Elaine is shaking me awake:  “George, the wind has come up something fierce and your chop saw is going to get wet if we don’t get it back into the shop.”

Holy shit! I’d turned on Weather Underground and sure enough, there was 70-miles of yellow, orange and reds showing up on the radar.

Well, fine, Elaine and I carry the chop saw (on  its stand which is NOT made of aluminum entirely) over to the shop.

Don’t forget that leftover box of laminate from the studio project, either..”

OK, where’s the hand truck?

Oh, great,  geez we’re having fun now – it’s starting to rain about here. 

Then the lights blinked. Lord o’ Goshen, is ANYTHING going to work out

Elaine, dear, I’m going over to the office to turn off my air conditioning.

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