Goin’ Down, Down, Down

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Real estate in Winston-Salem isn't exactly hot; existing home sales in October 08 were 34% lower than October 07, and average home prices were down 7.6%.  From the Journal article:

People in the local real-estate industry had hoped for better
numbers as sales of existing homes started stabilizing somewhat during
the summer.

Glenn Cobb, the chief staff executive for the Winston-Salem Regional
Association of Realtors, says he believes that such factors as the
country's economic downturn and recent presidential election played a
part in helping to slow housing sales in October.

Several people in the housing industry have said that potential homeowners have been in a wait-and-see mood.

"The fundamentals are all still there," Cobb said. "You've got a
great selection. You've got great interest rates and a real stable
market for us ordinarily, so it still should be a good buyers' market
right now."

He doesn't expect the climate to change for the better until the spring.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas season tends to be a slow time for the housing industry.

Julie Poplin, the president of the Winston-Salem Realtors
association, said that business has been sporadic and said 2008 was the
first year that she had consecutive months where she didn't have a
closing.

But Poplin, who is also a broker for Allen Tate Realtors, is ending the year on a good note.

She is encouraged by the fact that she has three closings scheduled
in December. "People are still looking for bargains, and people are
still buying homes."

I've taken the realtors to task in the past for being just a tad delusional with their interpretations of the market and the effect of the economy on real estate, but in this case I actually sense a little bit of realism in their remarks.  My only point would be that Mr. Cobb missed one crucial factor in his comments about the fundamentals being good: while interest rates and prices might be low, lending standards are much, much tighter and until that changes a lot fewer people will be out of the market and not by their own choice.

Cost Cutting for the Masses

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There's an article in the Wall Street Journal about cost cutting measures at General Motors, and some of the highlights include clocks that no longer work because the company stopped paying to replace the batteries, cheaper towels for clean up, and no air travel for employees without written approval from a manager.  Of course the article points to the kerfluffle over the CEO's flying in a private corporate jet to Washington to beg for a bailout from Congress, which points out the obvious: in corporate America cost cutting is for the working masses, not the C-level suite.

When my brother worked in a large, Fortune 500 company, he became highly disillusioned when he and the rest of the workforce were asked to accept salary freezes, no bonuses and the loss of small perks like free orange juice and then when the next quarterly reports were released they found that the C-level execs had gotten raises and bonuses and not one of the company's jets had been sold.

And just today there's a story about 10 senior Wachovia managers who are eligible to get $98 million in severance if the Wells Fargo deal is completed by December 31. So you screw the pooch and you walk away more than a little wealthier, while thousands who worked for you get to enter the Christmas season wondering if there will be pink slips in their stockings.  Nice.

I love capitalism, but when risk and reward are so obviously divorced in business's upper echelons something needs to seriously be changed.  I'm fine with executives being paid handsomely if they run a business well, as long as it's not at the expense of thousands of others' jobs, but I'm not fine with executives being paid handsomely in return for abject failure.  There's something seriously wrong with that picture.

Goode as Gone

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Virgil Goode, the five term US Congressman from Virginia's 5th district who gained some notoriety when he made a stink about an incoming Congressman taking the oath of office using the Quran (apparently he didn't care that the incoming Congressman was Muslim, thus making it much more sensible to use the Koran than the Bible), has probably lost his reelection bid.  The margin is so slim that he's going to demand a recount, but if the count holds up then it will give Virginia more Democrats in Congress than Republicans, a stunning turn of events considering Goode had a 30 point edge in the polls as recently as August and the Republicans entered the election with an 8-3 edge in Congressional seats.

I'm not sure exactly why Goode lost, but I'm sure the economy had more than a little to do with it, especially when Goode continued running ads based on a fear-based campaign strategy straight out of Lee Atwater's playbook.  Well, whatever the reason I'm sure some of the media are going to miss some of the gems that came out of Goode's mouth or pen.  I'll share a couple below.

First, from a letter to constituents about that Muslim Congressman taking the oath on the Quran, who by the way was born and raised in the U.S.:

Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take
the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I
do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. The Muslim
Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that
district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil
Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims
elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop
illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the
diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing
many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that
in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States
if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are
necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United
States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

From a letter to USA Today defending his letter to constituents:

Immigration is arguably the most important
issue facing the country today. At least 12 million immigrants are here
illegally. And diversity visas, a program initiated in 1990 to grant
visas to people from countries that had low U.S. immigration at that
time, are bringing in 50,000 a year from various parts of the world,
including the Middle East.

Let us remember that we were not
attacked by a nation on 9/11; we were attacked by extremists who acted
in the name of the Islamic religion. I believe that if we do not stop
illegal immigration totally, reduce legal immigration and end diversity
visas, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to infiltration by those who
want to mold the United States into the image of their religion, rather
than working within the Judeo-Christian principles that have made us a
beacon for freedom-loving persons around the world.

I wonder if anyone ever pointed out that a lot of illegal immigrants are Christian?  Is a legal Christian immigrant preferable to an illegal Muslim immigrant?  Oh, and as for our Judeo-Christian principles being a beacon I'd like to point out to the good ex-Congressman that many people, including the people we celebrate every Thanksgiving, came to America to escape religious persecution and to practice the religion of their choice without fear.  There's nothing exclusive to Judeo-Christian tradition about it.

What truly kills me about people like Goode is that they seem to not realize that by imposing their religious values on the entire populace they open the door for someone else with other religious values to do the same at a later date.  They also don't seem to see the hypocrisy of our country celebrating non-secular governments in the Middle East, and taking position that Islamic regimes like Iran's are bad and simultaneously calling for government policies at home to be based on Judeo-Christian values. In other words non-secular is good for the rest of the world, but not for the United States.

Of course the cynic in me thinks that this was a policy of convenience for Goode, a red-meat issue that he figured he could use to fire up his conservative base.  Unfortunately for him I think his opponent did a good job of painting him as a political opportunist who's vote was for sale and by implication who's policies were for show only. I'll end this with the ad that his opponent ran that some observers think put the stake in the Goode campaign's heart:

Exception That Proves the Rule?

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Last year I got to go see Wake Forest play Florida State in football and I remember two things clearly: seeing coaching legend Bobby Bowden up close (my uncle, cousins and I were sitting in the stands behind the FSU bench) and that the FSU football team was experiencing some embarrassing PR over some of their players' behavior and grades which led to some very funny comments from the jokers in the stands. This wasn't too surprising because, let's be honest, FSU has not had a reputation for stressing the "student" part of "student athlete."

So it was surprising to see this story about starting FSU safety Myron Rolle missing the first half of Saturday's crucial Maryland game because he was busy interviewing for, and winning, a Rhodes Scholarship.  Even more surprising is that Rolle became the third FSU student in three years to win a Rhodes Scholarship, and the second student athlete after FSU's national shot put champion Garrett Johnson won a scholarship three years ago.

But, I'm not going to cut the school too much slack.  One good story doesn't balance out stories like this one concerning 25 players not traveling to a bowl game last year (many due to academic ineligibility) or this one about this year's crop of receivers having all kinds of problems (the word "brawl" is not good for a program).  Unfortunately it's these kind of stories that regularly come out of Tallahassee.

Beaten, Battered, Bruised and Triumphant – Another Soccer Season Ends

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Well, another soccer season has come to a close.  This weekend my daughter Erin's team, the Twin City Youth Soccer Association Lady Reds (U-15) of which I'm the assistant coach, played in the 2008 adida's Challenge Clash at Bryan Park in Greensboro.  The girls won both games yesterday, one against a team that had beaten us twice earlier this season, and were guaranteed a spot in the tournament final this afternoon regardless of the result of this morning's game.  As it happened the team we faced this morning was the other undefeated team in our bracket so essentially we were guaranteed to play them twice today.  The team was from Triangle and they were tough, well coached and very skilled.  Our girls managed to squeak out a tie in the morning game and then two hours later lined up for another go at 'em.

Before I tell you the result let me tell you that our girls showed more gumption than most teams I've been around either as a player or a coach.  In between today's games the medical tent had at least five of our girls in there getting treatment for sprains, strains and contusions. The girls also knew how big and tough this team they were going to play was because those were the same girls that sent them to the tent in the first place. I should emphasize that the Triangle team did that with hard, clean play and not dirty soccer.  Still, our girls eagerly laced em up and went out to try and win a championship.

For the most part the game was played in our defensive end.  Those Triangle girls really were very good, very athletic and very well coached.  Unfortunately one of our girls had a blatant hand violation in the penalty box that resulted in a penalty kick (and goal) for them.  A few minutes later one of our defenders got tangled up with one of their players in the box, and although it clearly wasn't a foul another penalty kick was awarded that resulted in a goal.  I'm going to be generous and say the ref had a bad day and leave it at that.  Anyway, we entered half time down 2-0.

In the first 25 minutes of the second half we again survived a bunch of action in our own defensive end and honestly I thought the girls were going to just try and make it through the game without breaking something or giving up another goal.  I should have known better.  For the last 10 minutes they fought and scrapped and managed to finally get a goal with three minutes left.  They kept pouring it on and had another couple of chances before the whistle blew and it was all over.

At the end of the day our girls played the best tournament they've had in the three seasons Erin and I have been involved.  They made the finals and gave a very strong team all they could handle.  It was a sight to behold.

As for me, well I managed to get a ref to yell at me for the first time since I've been the assistant coach.  I thought she'd done a terrible job the whole game and with about ten minutes left one of our girls got steamrolled and when I didn't hear the whistle I pulled a John McEnroe and yelled "You've GOT to be kidding me."  Then she blew the whistle and yelled at me to hush up and if I'd given her the chance she was getting ready to blow the whistle.  In my head I said, "This year would've been nice" but out of my mouth came "Sorry."  It cracked the girls on the bench up, but it was a little embarrassing.

My hat's off to our head coach Mac, who dealt with all the crap with the club, the league and the tournaments and never once lost his cool.  It ain't easy being the go-between for 16 fifteen-year old girls, their families and a youth sports bureaucracy but somehow he did it.  Now he'll be able to do his day job uninterrupted for a few months and we'll all get our weekends back for a while.

And of course there was our team manager Rick.  He must have sent out 10,000 email this season and made just as many phone calls in an effort to get us where we needed to be on time and ready to play.  I'm not sure what we would of done without him.

We also had a great bunch of parents on this team.  They were all very positive, never getting down on the girls and never yelling objectionable things at the opponents or the refs. Heck, if anything they were too nice, but I'll take that over the prima donna parents any day.  Not to be overlooked is their time commitment in getting their girls to the practices and games and I hope we were able to communicate our appreciation to them adequately.

Finally, I have to say that these girls were a true joy to coach.  I'm not sure how much good we did them, but they did a world of good for us.  They made us laugh, a lot, and roll our eyes at all the stories about boys and school, and boys and boys and in the process only drove us a little bit crazy.  What more can you ask from a bunch of teenage girls?  Thanks Lady Reds.

Recession Tools: Knit Caps and Ear Warmers 60% Off at Kohls

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I hate shopping. I really do.  But when I'm facing a Saturday morning that will find me on a soccer field coaching my daughter's team in 20 degree weather and I can't seem to find a single winter hat in my house then I'm kind of forced to bite the bullet.  So today I headed on over to Kohl's on Hanes Mall Boulevard and found that they had their knit hats and ear warmers on sale for 60% off.  The hats are normally $10 and were selling for $4 and the ear warmers are normally $6 and were selling for $2.40.

Lots of other good sales going on, but I didn't stick around long enough to look them over.  I've one of those guys that goes in, finds what I'm looking for and then gets out of Dodge.

Recession Tools – PayPal’s Pay Later Service and Better Places Than the Mattress

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I've added a new category to the blog called "Recession Tools" and hopefully won't have to update it to "Depression Tools".  Here you'll find little tid-bits of info I stumble across that might be helpful in surviving these tough economic times.  Today I have two items for you:

PayPal Introduces a Pay Later Service:  Saw this item in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Starting this Friday PayPal is going to test a service that offers an online line of credit that will allow online shoppers to delay payment.  It works like a store that offers you 0% financing for six months, and if you pay it off before the deadline then you've basically had six months of interest free financing.  Of course if you're not paid off by the deadline you'll pay interest on the entire amount.  PayPal members who are approved for the credit will have until April 1, 2009 to pay their bill.  Obviously PayPal wants to juice online purchases for the holidays, but as long as you pay your bill why not do your shopping from the comfort of your home?

Good Places to Stash Cash in Your House: The Consumer Reports blog has some tips on the best places to stash cash in your house.  Of course this assumes you have cash and that you think there's gonna be an apocalyptic sequence of events involving bank runs and the failure of the FDIC, but stranger things have happened right?  BTW, my personal favorite is in a plastic bag taped to the inside of the toilet tank.

Lenslinger Hits the Bigs

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In the online world "hitting the bigs" happens when you're linked to by one of the mega sites like Fark or Boing Boing and the number of visitors to your site explodes.  Greensboro photog and blogger Lenslinger spun off a new blog based on his regular feature called Schmuck Alert and he won a link from Boing Boing.  Luckily his blog is on Blogger; if it had been hosted on a local shared server I can almost guarantee the thing would have crashed.  Congrats 'Slinger.

Wassup Redux

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Not sure how I missed this until now, but it's still funny. The video below is a riff on the old Budweiser Wassup ad campaigns.  Pretty funny even if you don't like the end. Spoiler alert, it's a "vote for change/Obama" thing.

WTF Six Apart?

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I've hosted this blog (and a few others) on Six Apart's Typepad service for four years.  In general I've been very happy with the service, I've received responses to all customer service inquiries, the downtime has been relatively minor and I've been very happy with the fact that it's enabled me to focus on the creative side of blogging without having to learn too much about the technical side. Heck, I even got to meet one of the co-founders, Anil Dash, at ConvergeSouth and I found him to be one of the sharpest, if not the sharpest person there.  So why do I find myself irked with them today?

Because of this announcement that they're giving recently laid off journalists the service for free, and calling it the Journalist Bailout Program.  Now you might think it's cold of me to begrudge someone who's been laid off a helping hand, and maybe it is, but I've been paying for the service for four years and I've helped the folks at Six Apart get where they are.  Why should I be happy that some newcomer is getting appreciation and I'm not?  Really I have no problem with them helping out the journalists, but where's the love for me and my fellow paying TypePad-ers?

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a rep at Register.com a while back.  Before I knew any better I registered my domain names with them and paid some crazy rate like $30 a year, and they sent me renewal notices for that same amount.  I shopped around and got a much better deal at GoDaddy.  Unfortunately I had to call Register.com to finalize the transfer of the domain and that's when the rep offered to best the GoDaddy price.  I told him no thanks and when he asked why I said, "If you really appreciated my business you'd have offered me the better price before I called you.  The fact that you treat me better when I threaten to leave simply tells me that I'm a number, not a valued customer." To put it simply I get irked at any company that offers better deals for new customers than for existing customers.

The reality in this case is that Six Apart is gaining much more than they're giving up.  They're getting the journalists' audiences which means that their ad network will get more views which means more revenue for them.  That's fine for Six Apart, but what kind of appreciation are they showing to me and all the other customers who've been with them as they've grown?

I also find this ironic because a few years ago I tried to contact Six Apart to see if they had a program that would allow someone like me to re-sell their platform.  I knew several small businesses, local politicians and, yes, journalists who would benefit from blogging but needed hand holding.  I had no interest in setting up a platform, finding a host and providing tech support, so I thought if I could re-sell Typepad as the platform and then act as the "rep" who held the clients' hands through the process then it would be a win-win for me and for Six Apart.  I never heard back from them and I moved on to other things.  I guess now I have their answer.