Thursday, June 16, 2011

Mr. Potts

Many people have heard of Paul Potts of Britain's Got Talent Fame.  I have only heard him sing a handful of times.  I think he is so good that I don't want to listen to him too much so I don't get used to it.  I think this guy is just awesome.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

The Whole Foods Parking Lot

It's gettin real.  I have written in the past about how awesome Whole Foods is.  Well, somebody went and made a rap video about the Whole Foods parking lot.  Specifically the one that I go to at the corner of Rose and Lincoln in Venice.  This video is great and so true.  I don't even bother trying to drive there anymore.  Went there today right after a nice 4 mile run to get my beef stew on.
Me at the Stew and Chili section.  This is my reaction to seeing the price on the organic pasture fed no hormones added New York strip steak.  $25/lb!!

Friday, June 10, 2011

The Pension Problem

Maybe this is me reading those doom and gloom sites that I talked about a while back, but I think that the US has a pension problem on every level of government.  Check out this article here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-10/california-cities-carry-out-pension-changes-while-brown-still-negotiating.html

The cliff notes version of this is that the city of Brea just negotiated with it's unions to slash future pension payouts to it's employees while also forcing current employees to pay as much as 4.5% of their salaries into the pension fund.  What that means is that if you want to work for the city of Brea you are going to get less of a pension and pay more for it.  I suppose people will put up with that as long as they have no other choice.  Sounds like a pretty lousy deal to me though.  I guarantee you there are a lot of city employees out there shining up their resumes on company time.  I know I would be. 

What it comes down to is that unions have taken over the state and bullied state and local governments into giving them more and more benefits that can not be funded without some kind of tax increase.  It looks like Brea and many other California cities are starting by taxing their own employees.  I doubt that is going to solve the problem.

Demons are Slow

When things start getting weird in my head I find that a good run can be just the cure.  I'm not sure if it's this blankety blank blanking house hunting business or everybody at Dylan's preschool graduation needing to stand in front of me, but I just wasn't feeling right today.  A bunch of my coworkers were heading out to a Mexican place called Lula's.  The main thing that Lula's is known for is some extremely potent margaritas.  I said I would go, but when it came time to actually leave I felt a strong urge to get my running shoes on.  I did and ran a quick 6 miles to the Marina.  Ran past this guy on my way back:




I didn't think I could run 6 miles today and really only planned to do 4.  However, it went by so fast that I accidentally just finished the whole thing.  I felt pretty good right up until the last 100 meters.  I had to stop to wait for a light.  As soon as I started running again, with my office literally within sight, it felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.  I had to stop and walk really slow to catch my breath.  Maybe I ran 6.1 miles instead of 6.