Time passes.  Things are generally quiet, but everyone tosses and turns for the next 45 min.  Daughter likes to put her feet on both Mommy and Daddy.  This is nice for awhile, but then just gets annoying because someone is tap-dancing on your back, arms, and chest while you’re trying to sleep.  Finally…

Mom: Stop!

Daughter: I’m not doing anything wrong…

I’m just trying to love you…

…and Mommy, you were not speaking with love and respect.

Mommy: …

Daddy just thought it was really cute…we’ve been emphasizing that we don’t speak to each other harshly, but with love and respect…glad to see that message is getting through.  But wow…we’d better actually treat each other with love and respect, otherwise we get called on it!

In a sense, we have become her personal Pandora…she tells us what she likes, and we try to give her more like that.

I’d say it started with her pre-school, which introduced her to Peter and the Wolf.  She also took a liking to Habañera from Carmen (as seen in Pixar’s Up)

.

Those two got us talking about instruments in the orchestra, and we learned she likes the sound of double reed instruments, particularly bassoon.  Ok, so then we got her Fantasia to listen to Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

She’s also likes songs that “rock out” or “are pretty funky.”  This list includes:

Black Eyed Peas – just about anything that her parents will let her listen to, or can find clean versions of (harder than you think)

Nikka Costa – Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter

Nirvana – Come As You Are

Janis Joplin – Me and (Taly) McGee

DeeLite – Groove is in the Heart

Led Zeppelin – Pretty much any of their fast songs

Destiny’s Child – Independent Woman (we first played this when she went potty on the toilet by herself)

Daddy: Wow…that’s really good, Taly!  You’re right…this IS the jam!

In 2005, Sara and I volunteered at a Red Cross shelter in Mississippi that housed refugees from Hurricane Katrina.  We helped build a mobile home park for temporary housing, fed and talked with people staying at the shelter, and just generally tried to be useful.  I came out of that experience with two things:

1. Enormous empathy for people and families who’s lives are uprooted, turned upside down, or torn apart through no fault of their own; and
2. Huge respect for the Red Cross organization.  As an organization, they were organized, efficient, and well supplied.  They know how to get things done and respond to emergency situations.  They were also humanitarians — the Red Cross coordinators and volunteers were friendly, attentive, and sympathetic to the plight and needs around them.

The earthquake in Haiti this week is another terrible and tragic natural disaster, killing thousands of men, women, children.  The problems are exacerbated because of the extreme poverty in Haiti, and that huge portions of infrastructure (buildings, hospitals, roads) that were already in poor condition are worse or have been destroyed.

I encourage you to contribute to the immediate and long term effort to help the people in Haiti.  The Red Cross is accepting donations through various channels:

• Donate $10 via text message: Text ‘Haiti’ to 90999

  (this will add $10 to your monthly cell phone bill)

• Donate on the Red Cross web site

The Red Cross uses over most-if-not-all of your donation toward the relief effort, and my experience is that they use it well.  There are, of course, other worthy organizations that are on the front lines of the immediate rescue mission and the long term recovery mission:

• Concern Worldwide
• Doctors Without Borders
• World Vision

Daddy: Are you working on rhyming words?

Daughter: Yes!

Daddy: Ok.  Finds piece of paper.  Can you think of any words that rhyme with ‘Floor?’ Writes ‘Floor’ on paper in big block letters.

Daughter: Whore!

Daddy: Pause…remembers that we’re working on a rhyming lesson not a vocab lesson. That’s right.  Any others?

Daughter: Door!

Daddy: That’s right!  Writes ‘Door’.

Daughter: Be quiet!  I’m trying to go poopie…

Daddy: Oh, ok.

Waits in silence…

Daughter: Poopie comes out of the big hole, and potty comes out of the little hole…

Daddy: Yeah, that’s right!

Daughter: I really, really, really wish I had long bits…then I could go potty standing up…

Daddy: Yeah, that’s pretty cool…

Alice Panda – 4

Originally uploaded by fitzgeraldsteele

We’re huge fans of www.alice.com. Yes, they have great prices on tons of daily household goods, and always free shipping. More importantly, the box provides our toddler with hours of entertainment. We play with it, climb in it, wear it as a hat. When we get bored with that, we tear it down and color and paint on it. When we’re bored with THAT, we recycle the box and a new one comes.

Alice Panda Photo Set (8 pictures).

It turns out, Disney musical music lends itself to playing the “Deez Nutz” game.

Discuss.

Goolsbee made one point that I thought was really interesting, and clearly shows my misunderstanding of macro- vs. microeconomics.  Gooslbee said that earlier this year we were on the verge of “Another Great Depression” and that we NEEDED the Stimulus Package — “when you’re looking in the face of the next Great Depression, that’s NOT the time to tighten the belt.”

One the one hand, I sort of get it.  Left to its own devices, the housing crisis, credit crunch and other economic factors were leading us to a huge Great Depression like problem, so we had to do something to change courses.  On the other hand, I’m not sure I understand how simply spending tons more money really fixes the problem.

Like John Stewart, I can only compare it to my own finances.  If our family was massively in debt, facing creditors, etc.  I couldn’t simply say, “well I’m going to ratchet up my spending to get out of this hole.”  No way, the banks and other creditors would come after me and say “you’d better pay us before you go on your spending spree.”  The only difference might be if I was making some strategic investment, like going to school to drastically increase my earning potential.  Still, that would require me making an arrangement with the creditors…something like “Ok, I’m going to get a new degree, and I’ll be making an extra 20K/year.  So let me do that, and you’ll start to see some of what I owe you in like 2.5 years.”  Hmm…still dubious I’d be able to pull that off.

I think the Obama Administration would argue that the Stimulus/Recovery Act is a means to 1) inject money into the markets in the short term to stimulate economic activity, but more importantly 2) stimulate activity in long-term, strategic investments (energy, environment) so that we can remove the  problems that caused the economic downturn in the first place.

One might argue that the Health Care reform is another long-term, strategic investment in a healthy American workforce that will improve future productivity.  I’m not sure even I  buy that, especially when the Congressional Budget Office says it is not cost effective to invest in widespread preventative care and wellness services.

So, again from my limited economic knowledge and experience, the best we as a country can do is say to our creditors, “we’re working on it, we’re making some changes and we’ll have your money.”  And just hope and pray that they don’t force us to liquidate stuff in order to pay them back.  Not great.  The only saving grace is that in today’s global, networked economy, our creditors want us to buy their stuff, so they have a vested interest in seeing us succeed.

Discuss

So basically, he doesn’t want to advise me to do things that don’t make him more money.  I questioned him on that.  I said I’ve got financial goals for my family, and you have goals as an adviser that’s paid whenever I make trades, and those two goals don’t always match up.  So when do I call you?  His answer was again, call me when you want me to do something that makes me money. 

His advice doesn’t seem very helpful to me.  One good thing that came up was the fact that our family last did a detailed long-term financial plan in 2002 (so long ago, this blog doesn’t even go back that far!).  That was a newly married Jerry and Sara, living in Santa Fe, with no kids and living off a corporate expense account.  I hardly remember those people.  So it’s probably time to revise the financial plan.  The advisor said he’d be happy to help us with that…for $400. 

This was a pretty disappointing call from this company.  When we first started with them in 2002, we really like our advisor.  She listened to us, and helped us to achieve our goals.  About a year ago, we received a neat little workbook from them that again helped us define our goals and ways to achieve them.  Now this guy comes along, and now what I hear is, “your goals are less important to me than my commission.” 

Well guess what, you’re brokerage is about to lose our business completely.  So what’s THAT going to do to your commission?

• Random joint pains for no real reason.  Mine is mostly from my shoulder; I get knees and ankles as well.
• I don’t know, and don’t care that I don’t know, what’s the cool current music.
• I’m being marketed to.  Not just internet-targeted, but by the traditional TV/advertising marketing.  Case in point…I think this State Farm commerical with LeBron James is hilarious.  A few minutes after I first saw it, I realized to appreciate this commercial you need to 1) be old enough to know Kid n’ Play (by the way, I’ve seen “Kid” doing stand up comedy – very funny), and 2) you have to know and appreciate current NBA phenom LeBron James.   Adding to that that everyone in the commercial is African-American, and you get that the commercial is target to 30+year old African American males.
  
• I have a 6-disc changer in my Volvo SUV.  All six discs are some form of children’s music.

baby loves disco – minneapolis

it’s coming (with love) this february when we’ll celebrate our first ever momma-poppa-baby valentines day party. whether your baby is 7 months or 7 years, february 14th is the day for that special date.

Anyway, Sara and I were talking about our Sesame Street music memories.  Mine seemed to be more extensive.  I think because I had the Ernie and Bert Sing Along record when I was young.  As my mom will attest to, I listened to it all the time.

Thanks to the internet, I found a site with all the songs available for free.  I still have lots of the words memorized…why my neurons want to keep those floating around in my head, I have no idea.  It was a fun memory, anyway. 

For those with 2 year olds, may I suggest A Very Simple Dance to Do, with the caveat that you may be doing an action dance over and over again.

 I distinctly remember there was a slow song on that album, Morningtown Ride, that I didn’t like because it was right after a fun and silly dance song.  It totally ruined the mood.  But it was a record — you didn’t have any choice but to listen to the song.  I find it funny that my daughter does not have any concept of that.  Whether its music, video, or whatever information she wants, she will have it instantly.  This may be why it is hard to explain to her that she has to wait 3 hours for her Jello Jigglers to be ready.

Hope you all are having a great Christmas. We’re having a nice time at home. Nana and Papa Reinertson are coming to visit this weekend, and some rumors that Auntie Savannah is coming down as well!

I have a feeling that Santa will be good to Taly this year.

 The Reckoning: White House Philosophy Stoked Mortgage Bonfire

As early as 2006, top advisers to Mr. Bush dismissed warnings from people inside and outside the White House that housing prices were inflated and that a foreclosure crisis was looming. And when the economy deteriorated, Mr. Bush and his team misdiagnosed the reasons and scope of the downturn; as recently as February, for example, Mr. Bush was still calling it a “rough patch.”

The result was a series of piecemeal policy prescriptions that lagged behind the escalating crisis.

I’m glad that we still have some companies that take the time and effort to support investigative journalism.  Can’t get this kind of reporting from the blogosphere.  Yet, anyway…

A GPS device mounted inside the life-size ceramic figurine led sheriff’s deputies to a nearby apartment, where it was found face down on the carpet. An 18-year-old woman was arrested in the theft.

Giving up on old-fashioned padlocks and trust, a number of churches, synagogues, governments and ordinary citizens are turning to technology to protect holiday displays from pranks or prejudice.

We got to the tree sale, quickly picked a tree (a little 5′ Scotch pine).  There were three college girls doing the sales.  Once we picked a tree, they trimmed it and strapped it to the top of the car.  I went to see the man in the trailer to pay. 

As I was leaving the trailer, the man smiled and said, “Thanks, and Merry Christmas,”  That Merry Christmas totally changed my outlook of the whole affair.  Suddenly, it wasn’t about going through the motions and getting this task done so we could get home to eat.  I remembered that the whole thing is about the gift of Jesus’ birth.  And that its supposed to be fun!  And I get to share that fun with my 2 year old daughter (who was huddled in the car with mommy, listening to her new favorite song – Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley…that’s a whole different story).  So I totally changed my attitude about the whole situation. 

We immediately went to a store to buy a tree stand.  Not knowing any better, I got the four-leg small tree stand just like we had when I was a kid.  Turns out, that’s a really sucky tree stand.  We couldn’t get the base of the tree down into the water dish.  I had to go borrow a saw from my neighbor to cut off some of the stump and branches, and we’re still having trouble.  So we’ve gotta do some research to see what’s new and innovative in Christmas tree stand design.  Even with continuing tree stand drama, I’m excited about Christmas, and for Taly at Christmas.  This morning I went and dug out our Christmas boxes from storage, and I can’t wait to decorate the tree (Taly started last night…she found the twine used to tie the tree to the car, and put that on the tree…so she’s in the mood already).

Last night, we watched a bit of Rudolph on TV.  Taly lost interest about 20 minutes into it.  BUT…this morning I pulled out the Rudolph Build-a-bear that Auntie Heather got her last Christmas.  When Taly saw it, her face lit up, and she ran and hugged it, turned on the red nose light and the music a few times.  Then she sat Rudolph on a kitchen table chair next to her.  It was all very adorable.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Google Flu Trends

We’ve found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. Google Flu Trends uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity in your state up to two weeks faster than traditional systems.

In other words, people search for ‘flu’ when the have the flu.  So Google knows right away when people are getting the flu, as opposed to the CDC, who has to wait for aggregated reports from around the country.

If you look at the data (and you know you want to), there seems to be two peaks to the flu season…one in Dec and one in Feb/March.  Anyone know why this is?  Two strains of flu? 

Last year, our whole family was out with the flu from Christmas to Valentines Day.  Luckily, Sara and I never totally sick at the same time, but T was coughy/runny nosed through the whole thing.  Maybe one day Google will be able to search our bodies for all the germs and filter them out.  =)

Taly: “Thank you for crocodiles, and bears, and tigers, and birdies, and Ya-Ya (Auntie Heather), and suckers, and noodles, and videos, and Boz…and Boz…and Boz…and Taylin, and Nana, and Mai-lei (Nana’s dog), and Bella (Nana’s other dog), and Trooper (Ya-Ya’s dog)…”

Daddy: Amen!

Sorry Papa and Jack-Jack, you didn’ t make the cut tonight. 

• Obama’s plan: If you have a plan you like, you keep it.  If not, you may join the expanded Federal Employee health plan..  Large businesses and wealth taxpayers may pay more in taxes, and may face certain fines if conditions aren’t met.
• McCain’s plan: Families get a $5000 tax credit for health insurance.  They may buy insurance from any company in the country, through deregulation of state laws regarding health care.  Employee benefits paid on my behalf by my employer becomes taxable.

One problem with evaluating the two based on tonights debate is that they clearly rely on different data sources, or different interpretations:  Obama mentioned the average annual cost of a health plan is $12,000, McCain said it was $5,800.  Who’s right?  Who knows.  It helps to find some comparisons and analysis of the two plans.

For what it is worth, the problem I have two problems with McCain’s plan.  They both stem from my previous frustrations in trying to objectively evaluate between different health plan options:  health insurance companies are for-profit corporations, who are out to maximize profit.  That’s fine — all businesses should.  But that means that they’re looking out for their bottom line, and their shareholders,. That may or may not mean they put your best interests first.

First, the McCain plan does not seem to address cost of care — your copays, coinsurance, etc.  It seems to me that, no matter who you believe, that $5k tax credit he proposes will go straight to my provider by cost of coverage (the part that now comes out of your regular paycheck).  Widening competition between providers may, as McCain proposes, lead to lower cost of care.  It may also lead to companies getting the cost of coverage below $5k, but making up for it by more cost of care charges — increasing copays, prescription fees.  This is similar to what the airlines are doing — low ticket price, but they slap on tons of extra fees.

Second, and this is the big one, evaluating and choosing between health plans is hard.  I spend half a day reading documents, calling providers, writing notes, building spreadsheets, and talking with my wife.  I doubt that every American has the time, patience, access to information, analytical ability to do that.  And that was only comparing between 5 employer sponsored health plans, and for a single event — the birth of a child.  The thought of trying to expand that type of decision making to every plan in America, and how they cope with any possible illness or injury that may come along, is mind boggling.  Assuming you can gather all the info from all the providers, and somehow normalize it so that each one is using the same terminology, and put them together in one place, its basically impossible for a person to make any kind of objective judgement on which plans are best for which health scenarios.  Solving this type of optimization problem requires a PhD in Operations Research, and very complicated math and statistics.  My mom, my brothers and sisters, my neighbors, are not going to do that.  They are more likely to go with the first thing that sounds ‘ok,’ or whatever salesperson has the best pitch.

This is kind of like the banking industry.  Thanks to electronic banking, I can choose basically any bank in the country.  Now I can compare those banks on different criteria good savings interest rates, but what about checking rates, debit card fees, overdraw penalties, IRA rates, customer service, proximity to home.  But I then have to make a value judgement on the relative importance of each one of those.  Eek.

Bottom line for me is that McCain plan seems to lead me towards 1) less money in my pocket in the event I get sick, and 2) way more headaches trying to get the best deal.  Under Obama’s plan, likely nothing changes and I continue on with my employer-based coverage.

Birthday cupcakes!

Originally uploaded by wdecora

Thanks to Auntie Wendy for posting tons of pictures of Taly’s Birthday party at Wilson’s Apple Orchard.

You can see many more photos of the party on her Flickr page:

But let’s be ‘glass-is-half-full’ kind of people.  As I mentioned on an earlier post, one way you can compare the quality of your investments is how you do compared to the market.  According to Google Finance, the Dow Jones is down 35.3%, and the S&P500 is down 38%, so we’re doing a bit better than the market (yeah, diversification).  Second, I’m still far from retirement, so there is potentially a long time before I would draw from this account.  Finally, the market is a lot cheaper now…some people would argue that this is an excellent time to buy stocks, especially value index funds.  That has been our investing strategy.  Again, over the long term this could turn out ok.

Still, it is not fun to watch value just disappear through no fault of your own.

… I imagine that I’ll be able to find one picture of Taylin’s face, and tell it, “this is Taylin.” The software is then smart enough to look through the image itself to find pictures of Taylin’s face, without me having to label the picture.

Google Photo Search « Deez Steeles

It’s kind of fun when you’re predictions turn out to be correct.  Wouldn’t have thought it would be 2 years in the making, though.  See Picasaweb Name Tags.

Hawkeye Cupcakes

Maybe someone out there could help me understand 1) exactly what would’ve happened if the government hadn’t stepped in, and 2) how this will affect me in my current home, and when we go to refinance or buy a new home when our ARM is set to balloon in 4 years?

economy, homes, fannie mae, freddie mac, government, mortgages

“Under Iowa’s short-term focus, ongoing spending
continually exceeds available ongoing revenues. A
longer-term financial plan is sorely needed to map our
financial future—this one-year focus, “kick the can
down the road” approach, has to stop.”
- D. Vaudt.  Auditor of State

A similar report was released in August.  Kudos to the Iowa audit department for very clearly describing the issues with Iowa’s accounting and budget issues.  Looks like its time to write another letter to…somebody.  =)

Tags: iowa, budget, accounting, audit, state, spending

Pandora Smirnoff Ad,
originally uploaded by fitzgeraldsteele.

While listening to a Russian composer, Pandoa gives me an ad for (formerly) Russian Vodka. Random sponsor ad or targeted marketing? Either way, I thought that was funny (cause it’s true).

Not that White Grape stuff, though…I had some Honey-infused vodka when I visited the Ukraine…I thought that was spectacular.

For example, if I have to look you up in my high school yearbook, you’re feed-worthiness score goes down.

Any others?

Tags: socialmedia, feed, worty