Buying near the bottom?

Only time will tell if our market timing strategies are brilliant or couldn't be worse. We have our eyes on a late 1800's camelback in Faubourg Marigny, or in Bywater, apparently, depending on whether you are looking at historic districts or some other kind of district. In fact, we have discovered what many of you already know, that there are multiple types of districts for any one address. The market is slow in New Orleans right now, and not very healthy on a national level. One interesting fact is that Louisiana is not one of the states expected to be hit badly by the sub-prime mortgage debacle. In a way it makes sense, we did not have speculation running rampant here like in other places. So, the local dynamics are somewhat disassociated from the national picture, although there is always an interplay between them.

We hope that we are buying near the bottom, and that if things get worse before they get better, that in the long term we will find that we bought near the bottom, although possibly still on the downslope. We looked all over the "sliver by the river" before settling on this one. It was hard to find an older house at a good price that still had it's charm intact, on a decent street, and not needing major work. Not facing a parking lot or a welding shop. I was interested to buy in the Lusher school district but the lure of the Marigny won out. Now we have the space to spend more time here without falling over toys everywhere. The backyard is a bit smaller than I would prefer, and it has no off-street parking. But there is both a front porch and a great second story balcony on the back, the woodwork inside has never been painted, and the kitchen was completely remodeled and updated in recent years. We are looking forward to sitting on that porch and watching life go by, as soon and as frequently as possible.

Toddler television: A case study

Much has been said about whether or not infants and toddlers should be allowed to watch television, with some saying it is a terrible idea and others thinking it is tremendously educational. We have allowed our toddler to watch television, and I have rank ordered the shows she showed interest in based on age. This provides a guide to when a child would be intellectually "ready" for a particular show, in our experience. We do monitor closely to ensure she has enough physical activity in a day, and usually only do TV in early morning and at the end of the day. Individual results may vary, past performance is not a guarantee of future success. Here is our list:

0-18 mos: little to no interest in TV
18 mos: Teletubbies, Boobah
19 mos: Elmo's World section of Sesame Street, Barney
20 mos: Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, Journey to Ernie section of Sesame Street
22 mos: Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends, Upside Down Show
24 mos: Wonder Pets, Backyardigans
26 mos: Little Einsteins, Jakers, Handy Manny

At 27 mos she is still not very interested in Big Big World, many parts of Sesame Street or Clifford. Diego and Bob the Builder hold her interest for a bit but not a full episode. I think Diego is fine, but it just reminds her she wants to watch Dora. As she adds in a new program, she has not lost interest in the previous ones.

SEC confirms most SOX compliance measures were developed by retards

Today I googled "SOX compliance unnecessary" and was instantly rewarded by news that the SEC and Congress both agree with me. For articles on this try here, here, and
here.

Christopher Cox, SEC chair, says it best when he says "Congress never intended that the 404 process should become inflexible, burdensome and wasteful." He also says it should not result in "creating unnecessary compliance burdens or wasting shareholder resources." Instead, SOX compliance can now be risk-based, as in, based on the probability that a certain process would have an impact on financial reporting. This is otherwise known as common sense. On May 23 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved rule changes for SOX compliance.

Now, what are the chances that companies that use SOX compliance as an excuse for every stupid thing under the sun will admit that their ludicrous processes are now unnecessary, if indeed their ever was a true need for them.

Rills

I think we are all going to qualify as civil engineers before the levees are repaired. Sure wish I was still blissfully ignorant, thinking, what is there to know about a large lump of dirt? I mean, how complicated can it be? There's a nice photo of rills, which are erosion furrows, on the MRGO at the New York Times. The experts all agree this is a bad thing.

That article led me to National Geographic, which is doing a story on New Orleans in August '07 and has a nice web site up in the meantime with some videos and graphics.

My civil engineering education is being enhanced by my finally reading Barry's book on the 1927 flood. It covers a lot more than the flood, it's more like the whole history of modern man's interaction with the river. Why did I wait this long to get to it? I think I just didn't want to read about people drowning, but my curiosity finally got the better of me. Good reading, if you also were putting it off, try it out.

Imus is a loser

Last year I went to the LSU-Rutgers womens basketball game, at Rutgers. It was a great game, although LSU lost. This year, Rutgers beat them again. Rutgers is a state university where athletics have long been unable to compete effectively on a national level. They are just starting to come into their own in recent years. Last year, when Rutgers played LSU, they sold out their basketball stadium for the first time ever. The Rutgers football team did unexpectedly well last year as well. Maybe, one day the students will even learn how to tailgate. The students are very proud of their recent athletic success. Rutgers is also a very ethnically diverse university and are proud of their integration and acceptance of all types of people. There is no room at Rutgers for intolerant talk and abusive language.

For now, Rutgers is national news thanks to Don Imus' trash talk of the womens basketball players. I'm glad to see that Imus is not being allowed to get away with this disrespectful, rude, hurtful language. There is no place for radio announcers that are bigots, are mean, play on racial stereotypes, and demean our proud college athletes.

Tax Cut

I've been doing my taxes with Tax Cut and have been pretty pleased with the software except for one thing - it is incompatible with my wireless router. When you buy tax software in a box you have to go update the software or it won't work, and, the software can't communicate through the router. This seems like a pretty amateur mistake to me, and required talking to someone at Tax Cut on the phone to get a working link sent to me that I could download. So, don't wait till the last minute, or you may be sorry. At least for now, the wait time was minimal on the tech support line and the transaction was relatively non-painful.

Day care - some, but not too much, is ideal

One of the headlines of the day http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/us/26center.html?ref=us is that time in day care is linked to both poor behavior up to 6th grade, and to an expanded vocabulary. As the parent of a 2 yr old, I have no difficulty believing both of these statements. I enrolled my child in a "high quality" daycare with a good reputation and high cost, for up to 12-hr a day care, before she was born. She started day care at 5 mos of age, and was beset with ear infections, high staff turnover, and limited napping. The staff took care of her physical needs well as far as diapers and bottles. But after that, if her "primary caregiver" was not in the room, well, she was on her own. When she started to walk it was clear they were not set up to deal with a toddler who wanted to explore and interact. We took her out at 14 mos and went with home based day care instead. This has had its drawbacks as well, including a pregnant care-giver who needs to quit. But in all it has been far superior to formal daycare. In touring facilities I am considering for next year, I usually look at the number of children in the room, and think, no way. However, there are a number of good part-time, generally church affiliated, programs in my area, offering 6-10 hrs a week of care for a 2 yr old, including music, art, and outdoor play. I have noticed a much higher standard of care and "enrichment activities" at the part time programs than at the full time programs. It seems that with day care, less is more. This is little consolation to full time working parents, but seems to be the way things work.