The Sell Off Continues

Work has been non-stop hectic. Those who held off waiting for an upswing from September are now selling out of the market.

Additionally the numbers of investors simply cashing in due to necessity, such as unemployment, underemployment, and the credit crisis, has increased.

The sense of confusion over whether to ride the market out, or to seek safer shores has caused people to make costly decisions which appear to be counter to their long term interest.

The emotion, the sense of panic, the financial pain, has worn me out.

I keep waiting for things to settle down some. But I don't see it happening.

Not anytime soon.

Which is why I blog less, and less these days. I feel exhausted dealing with the public.

Inauguration of Barack Obama

Inauguration of Barack Obama

I'm so excited I can't sleep. O.K., that's an exaggeration, I did get five hours of sleep, but I couldn't go back to sleep, after giving into the temptation of turning the television on to check out some of the Inauguration coverage. This makes me wonder how much sleep Mr. Obama has had, for it must be tough to sleep on the night before such an exciting event.

Streaming Media

I'm going to try and watch the event live from work, but I suspect many others will be too, and there's one thing about bandwidth - there's only so much to go around. There will be dozens of people, maybe hundreds, trying to watch the show via streaming audio-video, and that gobbles up bandwidth. I'm sure the IT network people will notice how slow the Internet will become, and they might block streaming content for today if things get too slow.

The Speech

I'm sure Barack's speech will be a good one, he's a fine writer, and orator. I hope he keeps it short and sweet, and doesn't get too detailed about his economic plan. He needs to stay lofty, and inspiring - and I'm sure he, and his speechwriters know this.

The Dress

Much concern has been expressed about what dress Michelle Obama will be wearing. It's kind of silly, but I hope she wears something red. Then again, maybe a blue dress. O.K., I'm just kidding - I really don't care - maybe something yellow?

The Wheel Chair

I see where V.P. Dick Cheney is going to be in a wheel chair for the event. What an odd image. Sort of Strangelovish - is that a word? He needs some leather gloves and a cigarette holder too.

Bush

I am so very glad that these are the last few hours of the George Walker Bush administration. Despite the generous spirit which Barack Obama has lent the whole transition, even saying some kind words about Bush, I really can't stand Bush - at all, and want to see him gone from the world stage, and I'm sure I'm in the majority when it comes to such feelings.

Main Stream Media

I've been watching a great deal of coverage. I watch MSNBC more than CNN during prime time, but I watch a great deal of CNN too. I like CSPAN for it's slower, quieter, and more thoughtful coverage. CSPAN's way of covering events like this allows me to feel like I'm actually there. They take cameras to such events and just leave them on. The History Channel has been televising some excellent documentaries about the Presidents, Washington D.C., and the White House. I have found this whole event massively interesting and educational.

Security Concern

While I doubt anyone will get close enough to Barack Obama to assassinate him today I do have concerns about the crowd. There doesn't seem to be a way to protect such a massive crowd. I'm guessing that no one in the crowd believes they are being protected, and they'd be right for the most part. So if moments before, or after Barack takes the oath of office we hear reports of explosions and hundreds of casualties in the crowd I won't be surprised.

I suspect that there are thousands of under cover police in the massive crowd, but what can they do? At most they can use some kind of zonal defense, and profile people. That's right they must use racial profiling. White faces, and dark black faces are overlooked, while brown Middle Eastern faces lead to further investigation.

I would gather that every Middle Eastern face in the crowd leads to a cursory investigation, a scoping out so to speak. Is this person alone? Is this person nervous? How does this person react to being stared at? Or being bumped? Fail the test, and I guess it would lead to an accidental shove or trip, and a pat down.

Just thoughts since I really don't know, but how else could the crowd be protected once it reaches such a massive size? Oh, and this would have to be ongoing while the crowd arrives, because once you have that many people in a large space the operation would probably change to using television cameras to check faces from a distance.

Just hope nothing happens, but the truth is anyone can get into the United States by simply walking in from its southern border, and there are probably terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S. waiting to cause havoc at an event like this one.

Daughter Refuses Parental Limits - Loses Car

Daughter Refuses Parental Limits - Loses Promised Car

Things may not be so bad financially for my little family after all.

Last night we called my stepdaughter, and asked her how late she planned on coming home.

Keep in mind she is only seventeen, not the magical age of adulthood - eighteen, so we still want to make sure she follows rules regarding curfew. Note, we haven't quite figured out what to do about the time after she turns eighteen - there are several schools of thought.

A little recap: Several weeks ago a cab totaled the car I've let my stepdaughter drive since her driver's education classes. The car was sitting quietly all by itself in our driveway, with no one it it, in the middle of the night. The cab driver was exhausted, having worked two shifts, and backed into it.


Back To The Story

Last night I call my stepdaughter, around 10:30 P.M., and I ask how long she intended to stay out. Notice that I asked her? I did this since I'm preparing for when she turns eighteen which is only months away. I start out by asking her intentions just to get a feel for what her plan is.

As it turned out she was at a all night under age sex-drugs-booze party at Red Roof Inn, however, at the time she was telling me she was at one of her friend's houses.

I didn't know the name of the motel until this morning, but I knew the general location she was at due to a miracle of modern technology - GPS.

I even asked for her to put her friend's mother on the phone because I knew she was lying to me, and she had the audacity of putting her friend on the phone to pretend she was the mother.

After she told me that she wanted to stay the night at her friend's house, I knew that she planned to stay up all night drinking, smoking pot, possibly doing other drugs, and perhaps engaging in other unmentioned pleasure seeking activities that involve high levels of risk - think ancient Rome - only with cell phones.


She's Done This Before Yet This Time It Was Different

This time is different for in the past my stepdaughter would heed our calls to come home - maybe in a drunken state, maybe hours after curfew, but at least she'd make it home.

This time was totally different, for she told us in no uncertain terms that she was not coming home until morning.

So I told her both verbally, and through several text message exchanges, that she was in a precarious position as far as transportation is concerned. I've been shopping for a replacement car for her, but still haven't purchased one yet. I warned her that if she insisted on following her pleasures instead of coming home at an acceptable time that we wouldn't buy her a car to replace the one which was totaled.

Despite our repeated warnings my stepdaughter stuck to her decision to party hardy all night long - doing what she wanted.

I knew last night that she planned on employing the following techniques when she came home.

First she'd try tears, somehow she'd portray herself as a victim, then when that failed to work she'd get angry. She's good at ratcheting up the anger level. She plays the role of the innocent, and misunderstood victim quite well.

If the tears, and angry words don't work next come the physical threats. Threats to herself, threats to property, and threats to her mother and me. I couldn't recall how many times I've had to threaten to call the police to let her know that if she went on any further that a jail cell awaits her.


This Morning's Ride Home From Red Roof Inn

When my stepdaughter called at 9:00 A.M. from Red Roof Inn (Springfield, Illinois) after a night of partying at the underage drinking party I knew she'd start with the tears.

First she'd try the "victimized by her party friends" routine. "Dad, I wanted to come home, but no one would give me a ride, can you come and pick me up?", she asked.

In her drunken haze she had somehow convinced herself that this bizarre approach could actually work, but it had no chance of working.

I quickly reminded her that I had offered her a ride, no questions asked, several times last night, but that she had rejected those offers.

She then tried, another tact - blaming me. "You turned your phone off", which is true, but only after a flurry of a dozen calls between us, calls in which I tried to convince her to come home. Note, I did turn the phone back on, and it was on all last night, but she never called.

As I drove her home this morning I told her that she had just lost any chance that I would spend five thousand dollars on buying her a replacement car for the one destroyed by the cab. She tried a few more teary "I'm a victim in life" approaches, but they were all based upon the central lie - that she had wanted to come home, but could not.

I knew that when we got home she'd try the "victimized by life" routine on her mother, and if that failed she would begin using anger to see if she could scare us into submission. She focuses her rage on her mother for several hours until she wears her mother out. She then gets her mother to approach me, and if I don't give in at that point I'm facing to screaming maniacs.

It's a technique my stepdaughter has employed for years, and it failed this morning. Sadly, it didn't fail because my wife finally stood up to her daughter out of principle, or because my wife knew that by standing up to her daughter that it would be the best thing to do for her daughter.

Instead my wife stood up to my daughter because we are so poor that we don't even know if we have enough food to get us to the end of the week, and yet we are expected to shell out five thousand dollars on a spoiled abusive drug addicted teen age girl.

That's right - it's about the money.

I began this post while my stepdaughter was still in the house crying, screaming, cussing us out, etc., but she's gone now. She put some clothes in her backpack, and left.

She threw a glass of grape juice on a white wall along a hallway, and then threw over a wooden chair before leaving.

With only a few months to go before she turns eighteen I can see why the age of majority is set at eighteen. Eighteen isn't when a person has all the mental abilities of an adult, instead the age is set at what it is because parents can kick their kids out of the house if their kids turn out rotten.

I better go and wipe down the wall, but one thing is for certain - party girl no longer has a party car, and she better find a job which offers her some full time hours, because she's going to need to save up enough money to buy her own car.

King & Obama - A Renewal Of American Pride

U2 - Pride - In The Name Of Love

King & Obama - A Renewal Of American Pride

What an incredible feeling I am having. Monday, January 19th, is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
This year there's something special about MLK Day arriving just one day before Barack Obama's Presidential Inauguration on January 20th, 2009!

I have Monday (MLK Day) off from work, and wish I could take Tuesday off as well to see the Inauguration on television live, but I can't since the Stock Market is open Tuesday. If we're slow at work, I'll watch some of the ceremony on the Internet from my PC.

History is in the making, and I'm so excited! I've been watching the news coverage today of the Obama-Biden train ride from Philadelphia through Baltimore, and on to Washington D.C. That


Moses and Joshua

Martin Luther King has been likened to Moses for African Americans, but I feel he was an American Moses leading Americans of all races out of a very horrible place and toward a better, and more survivable future. However, this year I can truly see how Martin Luther King Jr. was a Moses for entire world.

In his last speech Dr. King spoke of having reached "the mountain top", just as Moses had, and King spoke of looking out over the promised land, as Moses had been allowed to see it. Both Moses and King had led their people to the very edge of the promised land, allowed to see it, and then denied entry while their people continued on.

Barack Obama refers to his generation as the Joshua generation - the generation that came after the Moses generation. The Joshua generation prospered from the benefits of entry into the promised land, and American blacks, despite continued economic inequalities, are beginning to reap the benefits of their hard fought entry into mainstream America.


Pride Renews

We in America are witnessing the beginning of a new chapter in politics, and history. African American parents can tell their children that if they study hard enough, and work hard enough that they can achieve anything they put their minds to. That is the new reality in America, and people of every race, creed, national origin, ethnicity, and even sexual orientation should take to heart that America is a nation capable of positive change, and inclusion.

We in America have finally realized the promise of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution.

We have a long way to go in making perfect our social compact, but I at this point in my life feel a sense of optimism, and hope for this nation - a sense of pride that is long overdue.