When You Want to Leave Your Wife a Message but Not Actually Talk to Her

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Admit it, there are times you want to call someone and be guaranteed you don't actually talk to them but are still able to leave them a message.  You know the scenario: your wife calls and leaves you a message but you're getting ready for a meeting and don't have time to talk so you don't call her back and while you're in your meeting you get another message, left in that "I'm pissed that you're ignoring me" voice, asking where the blankety-blank you are and why you're being such a wank.  You can't very well say to her, "Honey I wanted to let you know I got your message but I didn't want to talk to you, because if I had you'd have kept me on the phone for 10 minutes about something totally trivial and out of my control and I really had to go into my meeting."**  Well, you could say that but then you'd be on the couch for a week.

**Please note that I've never, ever thought these things myself.  I swear.

My friends, technology has once again come to the rescue.  My friend Dan emailed me a link to a great service called SlyDial that allows you to dial a number and it automatically bypasses the ring and takes you directly to voice mail.  I downloaded the version for Blackberry and it works like a charm.  To be honest I have no idea how it works behind the scenes, but it's cool and it's free so I recommend it for any of you who love voice mail but don't like actually talking to anyone.

Can you think of scenarios where this could come in really handy?  Feel free to share.

Winston-Salem Rumors, November 17, 2008 Sports Edition

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Over the past few weeks I've heard two rumors that are unverified but came from some pretty good sources so I'm wondering if they're true.

  1. Construction is allegedly coming to a halt on the new ballpark downtown.  I don't get down there enough to see it on a day-to-day basis, but the last few times I've been downtown during the day I haven't seen any construction activity.  Anyone know if the funding is okay and if construction is ongoing?  Given the market meltdown I'm worried about everybody's funding, not just the ballpark!
  2. Mike Mulhern is allegedly being let go by the Winston-Salem Journal now that the NASCAR season is over. Although any cuts by the paper come as no surprise, I'm wondering why they'd cut the one guy covering a professional sport that actually makes sense here in Winston-Salem?  Obviously there's no need for pro basketball or football coverage here, but NASCAR's an institution and Mulhern is one of the old hands covering it.  Maybe the folks at the paper figure Mulhern will have as easy a time finding a job as anyone given his knowledge of, and connections to, the racing industry.  Maybe, but I think they miss one of their best multimedia opportunities by letting him go.  I suspect they could have made a pretty penny finding ways to get his expertise syndicated to other outlets as those folks cut back their non-core assets.  How many markets don't have NASCAR as a core asset but have plenty of NASCAR fans?  I'd say much of the south, southwest and western states.

    Update: Received an email from Mike Mulhern this evening and he indeed was let go. He mentions it on his last video for JournalNow.  He also mentions that he'll be back on another channel, most likely MikeMulhern.net.  Go get 'em Mike.

Feel free to leave comments regarding either rumor. Like I said these aren't confirmed, just things I've heard through the grapevine, which is why I carefully inserted the word "allegedly" in the opening sentence of both rumors.

Description of the Person Hired to Lead Our Financial Institutions

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Michael Lewis, he of Liar's Poker fame, has written a long article on the "end of Wall Street as we know it" and he writes about one guy who foresaw the meltdown of the financial institutions who is described by a friend thusly:

“He’s sort of a prick in a way, but he’s smart and honest and fearless.”

That, my friends, is how I want to be described the person that the Obama administration assigns the task of overseeing the country's economic recovery.

If It Works for Mortgages, Why Not Car Loans?

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Mark Cuban has a fun post asking why we should bail out underwater mortgages and not car loans:

You all do realize that anyone who buys a new car is UNDERWATER
the minute you sign the papers and drive off the lot ? That you get
further and further underwater every single day ? Maybe thats why so
few are  buying new cars ?  We havent instituted a bailout for their
underwater car loans.

There’s Gloom and Then There’s Doom

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Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute, who apparently correctly predicted lots of events like the 1987 stock market crash, the fall of Soviet Union, the 1997 Asian currency crisis and the sub-prime real estate market crash, had this to say to Fox News (via LiveLeak.com):


"We're going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we're going to
see a fundamental shift take place….putting food on the table is
going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas
tree," said Celente, adding that the situation would be "worse than the
great depression".



"America's going to go through a transition the likes of which no one
is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people's refusal to
acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a
problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis...


"There will be a revolution in this country," he said. "It’s not going
to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to
see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of
Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless
coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen."



"The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be
the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax,
property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds
of protests start to develop."



"It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot
of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities
are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many
more."



"We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and
squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes
of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a
shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is
going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929
Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs –
over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So,
you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds
chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension."

I feel better now, don't you?  Maybe I'm being naive, but I just don't see it getting this bad.  Bad, yes, but not this bad.  Homelessness might get worse, but who profits from houses sitting empty?  Certainly not the creditors and certainly not the government.  There's literally a glut of housing right now and I think it's more likely that banks and other creditors would end up writing off losses and keeping people in homes.

And that last bit about a drug addled underclass?  Makes it sound like the invasion of the zombies doesn't it?  But he ignores the point that the major crime doesn't come from the drug addled underclass, but from the folks who traffic the drugs and control the drug markets.  So we might get more drug gang activity but I wouldn't worry too much about meth addicts invading your neighborhood.

Finally, revolution?  Maybe protests but America has a long way to fall before revolution will set in. Truth be told we could use some protests and some house cleaning in Washington and on Wall Street, but he's not giving Americans enough credit.  Our system, as messy as it is, has survived much harder times and will likely do so through my lifetime and that of my children's.

Who’s Moving? Apparently Not Many People in the Triad

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I stumbled across the blog for realtors Brad and Angela Lawrence and they have a chart on there that's just plain depressing, but before I get into that let me give them a compliment for having the blog in the first place.  I know I've taken some realtors and their association to task in the past, particularly for saying things that make them seem obtuse about current market realities, but that doesn't mean I have it in for all realtors. There are some I really respect and I think they play an important role in the housing market, so it's nice seeing Brad and Angela using blogs and email newsletters to augment their shoe leather sales.

Now, to the numbers.  They have a chart showing the housing market activity for the Piedmont Triad for the week of 11/1/08 – 11/7/08.  What struck me is that the percentage of listed homes that sold seems really low and more houses were newly listed than were sold, which means that the inventory of unsold homes actually grew.  I don't know if the numbers were higher or lower than historical norms, but they just seem really, really low.  Here they are by county:


The following numbers are the Pendings/Solds/New Listings/Actives for Week of 11/1/08 – 11/7/08

Source – Triad MLS

County Pendings SOLDS New Listings All Actives
Guilford 56 17 130 4620
Forsyth 39 22 111 3421
Davidson 8 11 34 1271
Randolph 10 8 34 748
Davie 0 0 14 407
Stokes 4 1 8 300
Surry 3 1 9 421
Yadkin 2 2 7 117
Alamance 7 1 7 378
Rockingham 9 3 13 548

If I'm doing my math right then there were actually 80% more homes newly listed (367) than were sold or pending sale (204). Also only 1.7% of all homes on the market were sold or pending sale.  This really can't be good, especially if those kinds of numbers are consistent for months on end.  Maybe someone out there with access to historic numbers can tell us if this is representative of the market over time.

On another post about where people look for home listings Brad and Angela say the following:

There are so many sources for buyers to use to find homes, with 80% plus buyers searching online, that is the preferred path.

In our area (Piedmont Triad), the preferred online search tool is Listingbook.com,
it is a service that is fed from our MLS every 30 minutes. No doubt it
is best search tool, it is far superior than any other search tool that
we have experienced. It allows buyers to have their own personal
account, save favorites, make property notes, communicate back and
forth with their agent through property notes, very customized search
critera and FREE………here are more benefits of Listingbook.

We do not know of any buyers that look in the newspaper or magazines
anymore, if we get a call, they saw it online or a yard sign.

What I really like about this is that they take the time to provide information that may not lead directly to a sale, but it does show their expertise and understanding of the market.  Good stuff.

Wish He’d Been Wrong

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Want further proof that you should probably ignore the Wall Street "pundits"?  Look no further than the video below.  It's a tribute to Peter Schiff who was one of the few to accurately predict the market meltdown, and as you'll see in the video he did it in the face of scoffing and ridicule from the other pundits.  Of course Schiff could have been wrong, but he and Roubini seem to have been members of a very small group of economic prognosticators who got it right which in the reality of modern media means that they were barely heard.  The best advice when it comes to investments is thousands of years old: caveat emptor. (Hat tip to commenter Anthony at Ed Cone's blog for the link to the video).

From Voting Booth to Confessional?

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According to this news story a Catholic priest in Greenville, SC sent a letter to his parishioners saying that those who voted for Barack Obama should seek penance for their vote before taking Communion.  This is just another in a list of reasons that I've become disillusioned with the church.  For some background, here's my life journey with religion:

  1. Mormon until age 9.  Don't remember much other than being at church for what seemed like 12 hours every Sunday and a Sunday School teacher who told us about how dangerous it was to be a missionary and illustrated her point by telling us about a missionary in Africa who accepted a ride and had his head cut off.  I think I decided that day that I would not be a missionary when my time came.  Once my parents got divorced we left the church and so I never had to make that decision.
  2. My Mom took us to Presbyterian and Unitarian churches when I was in middle school. Didn't like either, the former because they seemed too uptight (I hated wearing ties) and the latter because they couldn't seem to make up their minds about what they were exactly.
  3. Went to Lutheran High School. Daily religious studies there for three years. My principal used to tell me he considered it his job to make sure I didn't have any of the Mormon "cult" left in me. He was a nut-job, but I liked the pastor at the host church and I liked the church too.  I even went to a Lutheran teacher's college for a year.
  4. Converted to Catholicism in my twenties when Celeste and I were engaged.  Really liked the Franciscan brothers who taught our RCIA class and the young Franciscan priest who married us.
  5. Joined the Moravian Church two years ago and it had nothing to do with the cookies or chicken pies, although that didn't hurt.

I'm very comfortable being Moravian.  I've found it to be much more inclusive than Catholicism and quite honestly the church's general outlook seems to fit my world view much better.  I'm not going to sit here and condemn Catholicism because I do feel there's a lot right about it, but in the end I think religion is a very personal journey and it's very important to find what's right for you.  I just couldn't come to grips with the Catholic church's handling of the priest sex scandal and its outlook on women among other things.  In the end the negatives outweighed the positives.

Oh, and as far as I'm concerned the parish in Greenville should have it's non-profit status yanked.  Denying parishioners the sacrament unless they repent for freely exercising their right to vote is tantamount to actively stumping for a candidate or party, and my understanding is that the IRS sees that as a verboten activity.

College Student Beats Old Incumbent for County Treasurer

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A Dartmouth College junior and Democrat beat a 68-year old Republican incumbent to be treasurer of Grafton County, N.H.  One deciding factor? A $51 ad on Facebook. 

The defeated incumbent ain't happy and called the college kid a "teenybopper" and said she'd only won because "brainwashed college kids" had voted for the Democratic ticket.  The college kid's reply: "I took advantage of new media, and she did not."

Hat tip to Ed Cone for the lead.