Cello Suite No. 1

So looks like we got our Mickey Mouse deal after all.  No major spending cuts and no major tax increases beyond the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.  However, we did increase the debt ceiling by 2.4 trillion.  Wow, that seems like a lot.  I wonder how fast we'll burn through that amount.  I'd wager my daughter will still be in elementary school when we reach that mark.  Heck, I bet Dylan is still in kindergarten when it happens.  So what this all means to me is that Congress thinks it can kick the can, stall for time, and people will just forget about it before the next election.  To their credit, this strategy has worked many times before.  Right now it doesn't look like the markets are buying their act though.  We are working on our 9th straight down day on the DOW.  We haven't done that since 1978.  The market does not care about politics, it cares about it's money.  I think the market is losing confidence.  If you've heard the saying "take care of business or business will take care of you", I think we are all getting an example of that right now.

I got a ticket last week.  I've had maybe 4 or 5 tickets in my entire driving career and in each of them I knew what it was for almost immediately.  This ticket was for failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.  I was making a left off of Santa Monica blvd when it happened.  I honestly have no idea what the cop was talking about.  Had I seen somebody in the crosswalk I definitely would have stopped.  I can't believe I was that oblivious.  Regardless of my awareness that story ends with my having a ticket which after a short google search is probably going to run me in the neighborhood of $500 plus traffic school.  That's what I call an ouch.  The the first couple of days after I got the ticket I was pretty upset about it because I feel like I'm a safe driver.  I don't speed.  I don't cut people off or drive aggressively in any way.  The law states that you have to stay out of the crosswalk the entire time that the pedestrian is in it.  If everybody did that in LA street traffic would grind to a halt.  I probably break that law 3 times every day.  After a few days of calming down, I realized that I was driving differently.  Because of that ticket I am really looking for people in crosswalks now.  It has made me a safer driver.  So maybe that ticket saved me from the experience of hitting some pedestrian.  A small price to pay.  That's how I'm going to think of it, and that's ok.

I got to work early this morning and went for a 4 miler.  I am definitely on the wrong track with my running.  Being that I am on 12 hour days at work doesn't help matters.  Once this project delivers I'm going to have to get back on a schedule.

Santa Monica Pier around 7:30am

What I was listening to at the time

Check this out, I found it while searching for the original.  This is way cool.