Monday, October 27, 2008

Favorite Song

Wanted to try plugging video into the blog and thought this was cool. This is a little bit old, but is my current favorite song. My favorities change from week to week, so this could be a re-curring blog topic.


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sleep

What the heck?!! Why is it that when I really need to sleep, something conspires to prevent me from getting a good nights sleep. It could be a sick kid, a barking dog, or a howling windstorm...something always seems to keep me awake when I really need to sleep. I had an all day class today, and really needed to be alert, so of course I got almost no sleep last night.

It started last night when I got to bed late. No, that was my fault...I got a late start on my class reading and didn't finish until around 11:30pm. I was still good though, got to bed by midnight which gave me enough sleep time. But around 4am, I was awoken by the strangest sound.

My dog Cassidy was making this coughing/sneezing sound. It sounded like she had something caught in her nose and was trying to get it out. Naturally, I was very unsympathetic and rather annoyed. I checked and verified that she wasn't dying and told her to be quiet. Of course she chose to defy me and kept making that horrible snorting sound, so I did what any caring pet owner would do at 4 o'clock in the morning...I put her outside and closed the door.

After releiving myself, I was heading back to bed and noticed a giant pile of dog barf next to the door. What the hell?!! I thought about waking Vicki up, because I usually let her handle the late night animal issues, but I couldn't think of a good excuse as to why I couldn't clean it up. If I woke her up I would probably find myself sleeping outside. So I decided to pretend I didn't see it....Vicki gets up before me, she would see it, and clean it up. Pretty smart, huh?

So around 5:00am, I was awoken by another strange sound that sounded something like slurping. My other dog, Zoe was eating the dog barf! What the hell?!! I jumped out of bed, shooed her away, and made her go lay down. I was too tired to get up and lock her out of the room and mistakenly figured she would leave the vomit alone, after all, I HAD told her to go lay down. Around 5:30 I was awoken again by the slurping sound. I really didn't want to get out of bed, so I let her eat the barf...at least there would be less to clean up when the alarm clock went off.

Fortunately, I had angels looking out for me today. The class was great, and I stayed alert right up until the end.

Let's hope the dog sleeps better tonight

Monday, October 20, 2008

Easy Money

Wow! It's been a long time since I have written anything. I have had a lot of things I wanted to put down on paper (or keyboard) since my last post, but just don't seem to make the time for it. I am feeling the urge to make more time to post...lets see if I can stick to it.

Did you see the compensation package for the recently let go CEO of Washington Mutual Bank? It's very fahsionable right now to rail against corporate greed and unscrupulous executives, but I won't do that here. Bad CEO's are certainly a part, but nowhere near the whole reason for our current financial mess.

I found the WaMu story to be particularly funny and incredible. Like many banks recently, WaMu collapsed and was bo ught by JP Morgan. The CEO and most of the executives were let go quickly after the buyout. Interestingly, the WaMu CEO was actually brought in to turn around the troubled bank, but he never really got the chance... he had been on the job for only 17 days when it collapsed. Seventeen days is hardly enough time for a CEO to accomplish anything. So what did Mr. Fishman get for his 2+ weeks on the job? How about $20 million dollars. That's right...$20 million dollars for less than 3 weeks of work. Where can I get a job like that!! He got a $7.5 million signing bonus, and was entitled to a $11.6 million severance package.

I don't know why, but I find that funny. It's not a case of an evil CEO bilking the shareholders. By all accounts this is a good guy, who was brought in to clean things up. He just happened to sign on the dotted line at exactly the right time. To his credit, he has declined the severance package even though he was entitled to it.

These are some really crazy times we are living in right now.