Flocking To The Bush Library?

You may have heard that the George W. Bush library is coming to Dallas. SMU is expected to win the "behemoth that's expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and cost well over $200 million" according to the Dallas Morning News.

Continuing on in the Dallas Morning News article, "...if SMU secures the library, the Park Cities are expected to face the hordes of tourists, RVs and tour buses that flock to presidential libraries year-round...".

Wow. That's just hard for me to believe. The George W. Bush library a big tourist spot? Now I have no problem understanding that the library will certainly bring in a lot of academicians and historians doing research on a presidency that has been very pivotal in this country. Questions that they are likely to explore in the coming years will include this administration's impact of policy on privacy, health care and the deficit among others. And, of course, the biggest research will be centered around the Iraq war and questions about whether that was the right course.

But tourists? Really?

I suppose that presidential libraries around the country get their fair share of tourists (I don't really know) but I suspect that the George W. Bush library will take a few years before tourists flock if they ever do. This is not a very popular president.

Too Late For Christmas Gifts?

Just came across this blog article entitled "25 Gadgets That Actually Save Money" from thesimpledollar.com. It is definitely worth it to have a look. Some of my favorites include expresso/cappucino machines, Tevo, laptops and programmable thermostats.

So, go ahead - give someone the gift of cost savings!

More In-Process House Pics

The above picture was taken this morning. The landscape is comprised of six pictures and was combined in computer software automatically. Kind of cool, but not perfect! Click on the pic for a larger view.

So.... house painting update. The front porch, the front door and the bricked column bases were painted since the last picture. Work still progresses as much detail and minute detail is still yet to be done.

Click on the below pics for a larger view.

Today's House Pic

The house painting is coming along nicely now (see before and mid process below or here). This will be very close to how the house will look except for the door which will probably be some type of dark accent burgundy.

The painters still have a bunch of trim work to do as well as the porch in front and a deck in back, plus a lot of little things to make the paint work more 'perfect'. But I'm pleased in how the house is shaping up. I had no idea if I would like the second color in the top triangle but I like it very much. The real color of the dark green surprised us all in how nice the color is and I think the two-tone look kind of accentuates the horizontal of the house making it more true to it's "prairie" architecturally close cousin.

Click on the above pic for a larger view.

Are You Rich?

You are "rich" according to this study if you have over $61,000 in assets. Well, if by "rich" we mean that you are among the 10% richest people in the world. Greg Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard does a nice job of summarizing some of the studies key points in his blog. But the study also contains some interesting graphics depicting worldwide money distribution so it's worth looking at.

Among the conclusions:

* the richest 1% own 40% of all global assets
* the richest 10% own 85% of all global assets
* the poorest 50% own 1% of all global assets
* $2,200 in assets placed a household in the top 50% of all worldwide households
* $61,000 in assets placed a household in the top 10% of all worldwide households
* $500,000 in assets placed a household in the top 1% of all worldwide households

It's pretty obvious to point out that many Americans are rich from a worldwide perspective...

NYC Passes Trans Fat Ban

MSNBC reports that the New York City Board of Health has voted to make New York the first city in the nation to ban artificial trans fats in restaurant food.

Wow!

Some may say this is goverment getting in the way with the free market and maybe it is. But the research is very solid (pun) in that trans-fat can raise harmful cholesterol and lower beneficial cholesterol in most people. The only upside to trans-fat is that it is cheap and allows food to sit around longer. So for me, this is more like disallowing restaurants to sell you poison and I welcome it!

Let's see what cities follow.

Wine Woot

A few months ago the guys at woot.com started a wine store of the same general concept called wine.woot.com. For those that don't know the concept, woot.com is a Dallas-based company that sells one thing only per day. They sell it until it sells out. Whatever is on offer is usually a very good deal. To give you an idea, the last thing I bought on woot.com was a set of $100 bluetooth headphones for $30.

Wine.woot.com offers a deal on wine but instead of one deal per day it is one deal per week. This week's offer (some sort of specially blended California Cabernet / Sangiovese) has already sold out and it's only Tuesday. Definitely, the earliest sell out I have seen.

Woot has really nice bulletin boards and the winemaker usually discusses his wine. Also, woot customers are really into these deals and do a LOT of research for you on prices and quality. Needless to say, I recommend highly woot and woot's wine business - they have a knack for choosing terrific stuff.

Christmas Letter

So, are they still called Christmas letters? Or shall we call them holiday letters? Or perhaps Winter Soltice letters. Hmmm.. Should we capitalize Winter Solitice? Does that imply that we pay hommage to a pagan deity? Ok.. so I'm getting off the topic.

I saw an article this morning in USA Today about writing these letters titled "It's that time of year ... to brag about our kids". In the article the author encourages us to keep letters short, don't brag, keep it light and readable. They also offer up a website with tips and examples of good and bad letters.

Basically, the best letters convey to family and friends a sense of how life is treating while keeping the tone light and funny with a dose of humility.

I know that this isn't news, but I did find it funny given some of the letters that I have seen over the years!

Venus

Talk Cinema this Sunday showed "Venus" starring Peter O'Toole. This movie is coming out in late December in limited distribution (mostly indie-theaters). The movie will undoubtedly result in an Oscar nomination for O'Toole. He may even finally win one...

The movie portrays an elderly and dying actor played by O'Toole. It's interesting in that in audio cameo's of his old performances, you hear O'Toole himself from films such as "My Favorite Year" and "Lawrence Of Arabia" among others from his history. So - is this film about him? The actor claims that it is not, but I think it must be with a wink.

"Venus" is the pet name that he gives a lovely young early 20-somethings that he takes a romantic fondness of. This isn't creepiness and it isn't Hollywood father-daughter figures bonding - but it doesn't shy away from the sexual beauty that youth offers nor the desire of it in men of all ages.

This is a beautiful movie with moments that will really make you laugh as only British humor can and will also hit you in the gut from small scenes like an old man dancing with another old man in a famous actor's church in London surrounded by the graves of other actor's they know that have gone before them to some actions that the young woman takes near the end of the film.

Highly recommend!

Work In Process

Since I am a little more than halfway through the painting of my house, I thought I would show a picture of "before" and "in process". I bought this house in 1999 and the outside color was a light pink with a trim of white and no accent colors. As you can see I am changing the main color to a light green with a trim color off an off white. What you can't see yet is the trim color which will be a darker green in the same family. In fact, my plans right now are to have the upper triangle in the darker green color as well as highlights under the eaves, inside the front columns and possibly inside the inner windows. In addition, I may paint the doors a different color.

The trim work should be completed in the next couple of weeks so stay tuned for an updated picture!

Click on the picture for a larger view of the in-process photo!

My New Camera

I bought myself a new camera last month - the Canon PowerShot SD800 IS 7.1MP Digital Elph. I had been kind of in the stone age with my last camera - although it did take pretty good pictures. The features that I was looking for in a new camera were 1) compact size 2) rechargeable battery and good battery life 3) large display 4) SD card 5) great pictures. I got all of this with the Canon and more.

With my last camera, I could always 'improve' the picture through the use of my photo software - Paint Shop Pro. Not so with the pics that I have been taking with my Canon. It is loaded with cool features like auto-stabilization, multi-face detection, photo-stitch (see below) and has a lot of settings for ultimate automatic operation in various settings. I'm quite happy with it!

A feature that is pretty cool is called Photo-Stitch. This is used for taking pictures adjacent to each other to get a big landscape. The camera has a mode that assists you in taking these adjacent pictures with guidance. Then it comes with software that automatically puts these pictures together. The results are surprisingly great! I'll show some of these pics in later postings. They are not perfect and much depends on how steady your arms are when rotating. But without a tripod, I'm surprised at how well they have come out.

Price of the camera was about $350.

Recommended Christmas Albums

I can't believe it's been more than a month since I updated this blog. Life has been busy and I'll try to update everyone as the month progresses.

As far as this post goes, I wanted to tell you about three Christmas CD's that I really enjoy. The first was a gift (and a surprise) that I recieved a few years ago. The album is called "A Jazzy Wonderland" and is filled with various jazz versions of popular holidays songs. What I like about this compilation is that many varying style of jazz are on display from straight-ahead bop-style jazz to emo-influenced pieces. My favorite on this album is "The Little Drummer Boy" by Karl Lundenberg & Full Circle. It's just a stunningly beautiful and eery version to this song.

For the last two years I have bought one holiday CD on iTunes each. Last year I bought the amazing version of "The Nutcracker" by Velery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra. It was recommended by customers of Amazon.com and some other sources I checked. The recording is very clear and present - on headphones the orchestra is very much "in your face". The pace is supposedly a bit fast for this work which I think works very well for the material.

This year I bought Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" compilation. I just love his voice and he brings a real classic-ness to the holidays.

Talk to you guys later!