Jim Garvin
JimGarvin
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Name: Jim
Location: Austin, Texas
Birthday: 11/17/1955


Interests: Walking, working, reading, cheap wine. Plus the natural world, anything made by god or darwin. I do not care much for things made by man, like cars, tv's, computers, most machines, etc. Although, of course, the internet is nice.
Expertise: I am a world class flake, weird enough for government work. My only true talent is computer programming, so of course I despise it. I have various minor talents but cannot think of any offhand.
Occupation: Texas Dept. of Transportation
Industry: Texas Roads and Vehicles TXDOT


Message: message me


Member Since: 4/8/2006

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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

After an hour and a half in the dentist chair I was physically exhausted.  The dentist was grinding down one of my back molars for a crown and he practically had me in a headlock.  At one point he told me about a patient in the next room who had a previous appointment for a root canal and then cancelled when the pain went away.  The pain came back and the patient called for a special appointment and the dentist said joking "I like people to beg for a root canal."  He said I only get a crown, not a root canal.  An ache gets a crown, a sharp, excruciating pain gets a root canal.  I said "I had a pain like that for about a second one morning. The phrase 'stabbing pain' comes to mind." He said "If you have to have a root canal it will be done through the gold crown."  I have problems with my bite (TMJ - Temporal Mandibular Joint officially) and the next day it flared up and it can be a real bother.  I thought "Oh shit, I've traded a small problem for a big one."  Fortunately, it was only bad about 6 hours.  I'll count my blessings, whatever they are.

 


Tuesday, September 02, 2008

the 1% rule

In this chart the blue line is the unemployment rate and the gray vertical stripes are recessions. The chart shows 3 interesting things:  recessions are cyclical, unemployment peaks during a recession, and we are obviously in a recession now, whether it is marked on the chart or not.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNRATE

This leads to what Ken Fisher calls the '1% rule' in his book "The Wall Street Waltz": since stocks fall going into a recession and rise coming out of one, if you want to catch the rally you need to be fully invested after unemployment has spiked up one percent.  Coming out of a recession the stock market often rises quickly and many people are caught flatfooted and miss the rally.  The 1% rule gets you in the ballpark.

The 1% rule also suggests the primaries were held in the middle of a recession, and the election will be held as we come out of a recession.  Since many of the battleground states will be decided by 1-2 % this could be significant. 


Wednesday, August 27, 2008

 

bumper sticker:  "There is a place for all god's creatures, next to the mashed potatoes."  - seen at Furr's restaurant at Ben White and Lamar. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

why Obama won't win

1.  He has no accomplishments - zip, nada, none.  Not in the Illinois legislature and not in the US Senate.  No bills, no nothing - except running for president. 

2.  Three years straight he was voted the most liberal US Senator.  He is more liberal then Dukakis or McGovern, two bigtime Dem presidential losers.

3.  All he can talk about is raising taxes.  He's going to tax utilities $250,000,000,000 ($250 billion) to support alternative energy and global warming iniatives.  Are utilities built on gold mines?  That money comes out of the people who buy energy and they already pay through the nose. 

4. You don't get elected promising a $1,000,000,000,000 tax hike (trillion is a big number).  The middle class have the money in America and you can't get a trillion dollars taxing 'the rich'.  Income is what is taxed in america, what you earn every day, the rich have their money in land, houses, yachts, stocks, bonds, paintings, etc.

5.  Obama is the candidate of generation Y, unfortunately, most of them are not old enough to vote.  Baby boomers will control this election.

6. Hispanics support Hillary, who isn't running.  A 64 year old hispanic man (no fruitcake either) told me Obama was Muslim.  Micheal Bloomberg, mayor of New York, wrote an article in the NY  Times titled 'Jews must stop spreading the rumor Obama is a muslim.'  Bloomberg spreads the rumor by putting it in the Times.  The Nation has an article entitled "Being Called a Muslim is not a Smear."   This smear links Obama to terrorism and it is bad news. 

7.  Israel does a lot that is wrong in the middle-east and they fear even-handed treatment by the USA.  As a caller to a radio talk show said one day "Israel is toast if Obama is elected."  I tend to agree with that. If Obama loses hispanic and jewish support, that is the democratic base.

8.  Obama does some kook things, like refusing to wear a flag pin, or wearing a flag pin for a day if a veteran gives it to him, then taking it off.  He has some ex-Weatherman pal (60's radical group that killed several people - You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.) His wifes says "America has a compassion deficit." ( and $45 trillion in unfunded entitlements) and "For once in my life I'm proud to be an American."  The dems lose the bubba vote.

On the plus side for Obama:

a.)  Nixon said an incumbent party needs 'peace and prosperity' to win a presidential election.  McCain has neither.

b.)  Obama always leads in the polls.  That person usually wins.

c.) Obama raises more money then McCain, $2 to $1, but Obama has opted out of public financing, so McCain gets $80 mil Obama does not.

d.)  What Obama says about winning the south is true, but he needs to register a lot of new democratic voters.  I think it is 8 years away. 

 


Monday, August 11, 2008

Waiting to go to the dentist.  25 years ago I cracked a tooth on a rock someone put in some granola at Whole Foods.  A small smooth black pebble, I found a couple, but the first one got me.  I kept running my finger across my teeth sure I had chipped one, and felt lucky nothing had broken.  Later the dentist told me otherwise.  And now it has started  to hurt, like all the time, I don't even chew on that side anymore.  Hopefully the dentist can just do like a root canal, and not some titanium implant thing. 

Still at work, I should furlough myself, not much going on there. I leave early most every day.   Usually don't do anything but read and drink some beer. Been reading a weird book called Pedro Paramo.  I'm not going to go into the plot but it is pretty bleak. 

I bought a chunk of stock called AVSR.  Microsoft is suing over patents they have for videoconferencing, claiming the patents are too broad.  What impresses me is the two main owners have held their shares for six years, and even buy more.  They own 40% and 15%, respectively.   The company is very small, but Leucadia (LUK) has notes convertible into 5.6%, and Ian Cummings at LUK is very, very shrewd. 


Saturday, July 26, 2008

with eyes grown dim from gazing at the pilot stars

Got kicked out of the community college library last night.  Said I could only surf the web for 15 minutes, I had to be doing research.  Yeah, right.  The place was empty except for some kids, some watching music videos.  I told them  I had a tex-share card and they said I could use the library but not the terminals.  The real problem is I need a haircut and I'm  50 years old.

Haven't been in downtown Austin in six months, since I moved, and took the bus up here Sat. morning and there are two giant new skyscrapers.  These things are tall, I think they are condo towers. When I was in high school Austin was just a sleepy overgrown country town full of college kids.  We used to laugh at the fact that every porch in Austin had an old sofa on it, a local tradition.  Anyway downtown has really changed, it is really yuppified - well-attired rich folks only, or those who bother to look that way.  I thought about looking up Dogman but thought better of it, I guess those days are over. He used  to refer to himself as the 'lowest of the low', but surprisingly Dogman had status needs, and a lot of people liked him.  Dogman was ornery and an honestly mean drunk, if he didn't like you or want you around he would run you off, kind of funny in hindsight.  I didn't scare him up, I've gone corporate too.

I really like that modern architecture in China, this may be all over TV but I don't have one of those.  You can see  the building just by putting the mouse cursor on the link.

http://2008gamesbeijing.com/images/beijing-olympic-stadium.jpg

http://www.npr.org/templates/common/image_enlargement.php?imageResId=92649524

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Beijing_National_Aquatics_Centre_1.jpg/800px-Beijing_National_Aquatics_Centre_1.jpg

http://www.npr.org/templates/common/image_enlargement.php?imageResId=92650152

http://www.npr.org/templates/common/image_enlargement.php?imageResId=92649716

http://gadgetcrunch.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/04/bubble-wrap-olympic-building.jpg

 



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