Here’s a bad self portrait taken with my new PDA the Verizon VX6700. More moblogging to come!
Camera Phone
Leave a reply
Author Archives: Jon Lowder
Bistro Sofia and an Evening in Greensboro
On Tuesday night (June 6) Celeste and I drove over to Greensboro for an evening out. We started with dinner at Bistro Sofia, a restaurant that I found thanks to writing this blog. The restaurant had a run-in of sorts with someone who wrote about it and then I picked it up and wrote about it a couple of times. Well, the general manager of the restaurant found my first post and emailed me directly to discuss some of the issues and in the process did exactly what I think any small business should do when confronted with a negative PR situation. That led to a follow up post that kind of laid out the restaurant’s side of the story, but really focused more on how I felt they had done a great job of dealing with a bad situation.
Celeste and I had somewhere to be at 6:30 so we got to the restaurant right when it opened at 5:00. We were greeted by Kerrie, the GM, and seated in the dining room. Since we were so early we had the room to ourselves until the end of the meal. I’m no food critic but I can tell you without hesitation that:
- Celeste and I agreed this was the best restaurant we’ve eaten in since we moved to North Carolina.
- We’d put the food, service and ambience up there with any restaurant in D.C.
- We’d have paid a LOT more in D.C. for a comparable eating experience.
To top it all off the owner of the restaurant and one of the bartenders (Beth and John respectively) stopped by our table to check on us and to talk about the whole "blogging" thing. Very nice people and again they set a fine example of how to deal with negative PR. Without going into details I’d say they have a firm grasp on what happened, the mistakes made on their end and also some strong feelings that the other side of the story was skewed. Fair enough and totally understandable. I hope that the two sides can get together and come to an understanding.
Suffice it to say that I give the Bistro Sofia a very strong "5" on a five star scale.
After dinner we headed over to the News & Record for a meeting with Lex Alexander and a bunch of bloggers from Greensboro. It was nice meeting some people whose writings I’ve been reading for years, and there was some interesting conversation about how the newspaper can work with the community in the future. You can read about it here.
We didn’t hang around after the meeting since we needed to get home to make sure the kids were in bed and ready for their third-to-last-day of school. But we enjoyed the drive through downtown, which was a Greensboro first for the two of us. Celeste very much liked the neighborhood around Greensboro College and mentioned how much fun it would be to own a house there and rent it to students.
That, my friends, is a sign of how much we enjoyed dinner and the meeting; it made my wife delusional.
Whiplash Parenting
One of the things that isn’t covered in the old parenting manual, not that I’ve read a parenting manual, is the speed at which you have to adjust to your childrens’ varying travails and triumphs. It’s enought to give you whiplash. That’s particularly true now that the two oldest aliens, I mean children, living in our house have entered the hormone zone. One minute you’re laughing and the next minute you’re repairing the hinges on your daughters bedroom door after she slammed it because you had the temerity to inform her that "vegetable" is NOT spelled with a "d".
Anyway, what brings me to write about this are the events of the last 24 hours, plus or minus a few hours. It all began yesterday morning when I was mowing our lawn and almost had my leg removed at the knee when I ran over an empty soda can and it shot out from underneath the mower at a remarkable velocity. It being Sunday I limited my cursing to three or four f-bombs and stooped to pick up the can. That’s when I saw the other four cans in close proximity to the mower and took a closer look at them. All of them were empty of soda, yet still had sealed tops. They also had several holes in the side and BBs inside which meant my genius 13 year old son had decided to take target practice with full cans and hadn’t even bothered to cover up what he’d done. He’d managed to pull off the trifecta of almost killing me, leaving trash in the yard and wasting five perfectly good sodas. I didn’t bother to restrain my cussing at that point.
So I finished cutting the lawn and went inside to get a drink. There I found a trashed kitchen and my two other children biding their time, watching TV and waiting to go to the pool. At this point I let forth a vituperative outburst worthy of the oldest, saltiest sailor while conveniently forgetting that my youngest son had a friend visiting. The poor kid was a little shocked and scurried off to play some video games while our semi-retarded dog found his favorite hiding place under one of the kids’ beds. Celeste got me to go back outside and finish working on the yard while she informed the kids there would be no trip to the pool and there would be housecleaning. I love that woman.
My genius 13 year old son was at a friend’s house so he wasn’t around to see Hurricane Dad hit land. As luck would have it my college roommate and his family came over for dinner so I had the chance to cool my jets, which was a God-send for my genius 13 year old son (and everyone else). After our guests left I was asked by my daughter to check the website of the soccer team she just tried out for the day before to see if she’d made the cut. Unfortunately she didn’t (she’s a very good athlete and this is the first time she’s ever tasted failure) so we had to do a little bucking up and encouragement before bed time. Also, we had to remind her that she’d just shown us interim reports that indicated she has a great chance of ending the year with straight As for all four quarters. You win some, you lose some.
Meanwhile my genius 13 year old son had a science project due that involved designing and building a thing-a-ma-jig that utilized two simple machines that would allow 200 grams to pick up 600 grams. Before I go on let me remind you that I was an English Lit major…I don’t do engineering, or metrics. Let me also mention that he was part of a group of kids on this project and somehow he got stuck having to provide all the materials with the exception of a coat-hanger that one of his group members kindly donated. Guess whose parents ended up at the craft store buying dowels, spools and other junk? Remind me to never let my genius 13 year old son negotiate on my behalf.
So anyway there we are at 9:00 on a Sunday night trying to drill holes in wood and create a contraption that uses a pully and wheel and axle combination to lift some piece of metric crap with another piece of metric crap. It did not go well, but we muddled through and created something that looked like it was built by a Cub Scout on acid. I will say that my genius 13 year old son did know how to calculate how much load his machine could take, which is a heck of a lot more than I ever learned so I was pleased to see that.
Oh, and Celeste helped us even while she prepared pasta salad and cole slaw for our youngest son’s field day that was to be held the next day. I don’t know how she does it, but I’m happy to report she can be as vituperative as me when things like this are going on. Hell, sometimes she makes me blush. She’s a miracle worker.
Cut to this morning, the first day of the last week of school. No one got up on time and our two boys missed their buses. Our genius 13 year old son discovered that someone had tried to flush paper towels down his toilet and thus had to deal with a clogged toilet. This marked a landmark moment in our household as it was the first time that it wasn’t me, The Turd Man of Alcatraz, who caught the floater. My youngest looked like a refugee who’d be keel-hauled so Celeste made him take a shower before she drove him to school. I drove my genius 13 year old son to his school and weathered the only traffic jam that occurs anywhere in this whole damn city and it’s right in his school’s parking lot. I was thinking, "It’s gonna be a great day."
Back at the house I went up to my office and did a little work (felt like vacation) before Celeste and I headed over to the youngest boy’s fourth grade picnic being held in Shallowford Square. When we got there we were almost immediately accosted by the PTA-supermom-from-hell, all 2 feet 4 inches of her with short blond hair and massive SUV. She was in charge and letting everyone know it, and I flew to the other side of the square before I lost control and stuffed her in a high chair and stuck a pacifier in her mouth.
After a few minutes the kids walked over from the school and the festivities began. All the kids ate and then the teachers took each of their classes and did a little awards ceremony. I’m proud to report that our boy got the award for reading more books than any other fourth grader (not just his class) and he got a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. He was also voted by his classmates the most "Courageous" kid in the class which was great. On top of all that the mother of the friend that my genius 13 year old son had been with when I almost severed my leg told Celeste that he was the most respectful, well-behaved boy and she loved having him around as an example for her boys. (Her daughter is in our youngest’s class). Suddenly it was hard to remember how mad we were just a few hours earlier.
We took the young’un home from school and not long after that the other two got home on their bus. The afternoon was peaceful and I was able to get a lot of work done and Celeste and the kids went off to swim practice. Things were definitely improving, but I was a little worried about dinner because that was when I’d decided to "fire" the kids.
You see the night before, after much discussion, Celeste and I had decided that
our "Freakonomics"-inspired system of allowance/chores for the kids
just wasn’t working. The way the system worked we started out each week "owing" the kids $10, but as the week went on we would assign each kid points for things they didn’t do (homework, chores) or did do (talking back, fighting, arguing, etc.). Each point was worth fifty cents and at the end of the week we would tally up the points, multiply by 50 cents and deduct the total from the original $10.
We had a couple of problems with the system: the kids had figured out that even if they had a bad week they generally made $5 AND we were horrible about being consistent with the point assignments. Through our poor management and their lack of motivation we had a broken system. So even though it was both a management and labor foul-up we decided that as managers we needed to "fire" the labor and go into reorganization; hey if it’s good for United it’s good for us. Besides I was still kind of pissed about almost losing my leg.
When we sat down for dinner, chicken nuggets and potato salad since I was "cooking," everyone was in a good mood. I let that go for a while and then I dropped the bomb. Of course they were a little surprised when I said "You’re all officially fired," but they handled it well (I worry they might be pacifists after all) and they didn’t even flinch when I told the older two that if they wanted some cash they would have to get some babysitting and lawn mowing gigs. The youngest immediately recognized his lack of money-making opportunities and offered to apprentice himself to his older siblings. They also took it well when I told them that they would still have to do all their chores, but without the opportunity to make money.
At this point Celeste caved slightly and suggested that as part of our reorganization we might come up with a different compensation system, perhaps a pay-for-performance model. I was a little disappointed because I was really enjoying watching them squirm, but Celeste long ago proved to be the wiser of us so I guess she was right.
Despite all that we had a great dinner, with lots of laughing and no slammed doors or arguments. Celeste and I left to go pick some furniture up from my aunt and when we got back we found a clean kitchen, and my genius 13 year old son had left a note asking us to evaluate a marketing flyer he’d developed for his mowing service. He’d also emailed me a PowerPoint slide about North Korea he’d created and needed me to print for him to turn in tomorrow. Did I tell you that my genius 13 year old son is sharp as a tack, knows more about the economy of North Korea than most college students and does a heck of a job mowing a lawn? He’s also pretty good on a computer. Let me know if you need any work done as he’s definitely a little hungry for it at this point.
Like I said, it’s whiplash parenting. It’s also a lot like the weather in Florida; if you don’t like it just wait fifteen minutes.
Glad I Didn’t Do It
Some times being a conservative investor really pays off (my investing conservatism is analogous to Jesse Helms in politics). As I wrote last month I was invited, along with a few hundred thousan other customers, to invest in Vonage at a bargain $17/share when the company went public. I decided not to invest and man am I glad. The Vonage offering has been one of the biggest busts in recent memory and now the company’s pre-public investors are suing the company over the whole fiasco. Now as long as my mattress doesn’t burn I’ll look pretty smart.
Lawyers of the World Unite?
You know you’ve trod on some serious toes when you motivate a bunch of lawyers to get together and decide to question your authority. That’s what the American Bar Association is doing to President Bush and his administration. Next thing you know Congress might even stand up to these jokers (the Bushies). Well that might happen if congressmen ever showed the moral fortitude of lawyers…oh, Lord we’re in trouble.
Those Lying Virgins!
Count me shocked, no stunned, that researchers have found that teenagers lie about sex and abstinence. Or is it abstinence and sex? Either way if you’re a social conservative who regularly touts statistics as proof of the efficacy of abstinence campaigns you may want to revise your numbers. Here’s the story.
IRS Outsourcing Its Archives? Your Shredder Might Be Useless
I found this interesting little item via Boing Boing. Supposedly the writer works for the IRS in the document retention unit and allegedly they were just out-bid (low balled) for the work by a private company.
What with all the security breaches that have occured lately I’m not sure I like this. Of course the government has had its own share of breaches, but still this would make me a whole lot more nervous. Nervouser even.
Now if the contractor lets out our personal data can we sue it? If so then that would be more attractive than suing the IRS itself. See, there’s a silver lining to every dark cloud.
An Argument for Keeping the AMT
An economist from the University of Maryland has written a piece in the Washington Post that argues for keeping the alternative minimum tax (AMT). His argument, in a nutshell, is that if the AMT is allowed to stay in place, and if the temporary raise in the standard exemption is allowed to return to $45,000 for a couples and $33,750 for individuals (the new tax bill raises the standard exemption to $62,550 and $42,500 respectively for one year) with inflation there will eventually be a flat tax in place. So for once we would have gradual tax reform without Congress having to do anything. The result:
If the present AMT rates were applied as a universal flat tax — and especially if the AMT exemption were reduced and certain remaining AMT exclusions eliminated — the resulting federal revenue might even come to exceed current expenditure levels. The solution would then be to reduce the flat tax rate (the AMT rate) so that revenue and expenditures were brought back into balance.
In the longer run, the AMT could open the way to more radical reforms that might even change the basic nature of Washington spending habits. One option would be as follows: Each year the president would submit his budget proposal, and Congress, in response, would enact final appropriations. A neutral expert commission would then estimate the resulting federal revenue requirements, and a new flat tax rate, calculated to balance the budget, would be set for the forthcoming tax year. If Congress wanted to go on a spending spree, taxpayers would see the consequences directly and immediately in their pocketbooks.
The Social Security system is another area in which the AMT might facilitate radical change. Social Security taxes could be abolished and the flat tax adjusted upward to compensate for the lost revenue. The Social Security trust fund is largely an accounting fiction, and it is time to integrate the Social Security tax with the income tax system. Alternatively, Social Security tax payments could become a deductible credit from the required AMT payment.
And You Think Americans are Litigious?
You might think going after tobacco companies or auto manufacturers is taking on the big fish, but try taking on the Roman Catholic Church…in Italy…and asking them to prove that Jesus existed. Now that’s big fish. Read about it here.
Vernon’s Gotten the Attention of Farkers
Well, there’s notoriety and then there’s notoriety. Vernon Robinson has earned the “Dumbass” tag on Fark.com and about 250 comments that include some slams on him, but also veer into interesting and Fark-esque political debate. Not that he should care, but it is interesting since a lot of those folks would normally be considered conservative (i.e. Republican) who take exception to his approach. I think he’ll find a lot of moderate Republican and Democratic voters who feel the same way in the 13th District, which is why I think he’ll dominate the far-right vote and top out at about 30% in November.
Here’s a link to the article that started the discussion and here’s a link to the page with the radio spot they all found a little ridiculous. It’s called “Brad Miller’s Mariachi Party.”
