That Apple stock you bought on May 1 (not even five months ago) for $10,000. It’s worth about $14,400 today. (The ten-grand would be worth $44,600 if you bought Apple stock with it when NewMexiKen first mentioned it in January 2005, when the iPod Shuffle and the Mac Mini were introduced.)
Oh, and the Google IPO shares you got for $10,000 three years ago August. Those 117.65 shares are valued at $65,882 at the moment.
This article appeared in The New York Times four years ago today. NewMexiKen has posted excerpts before, and it just sounds like a fascinating place. The article begins:
Drive for hours through the high desert of New Mexico, cross the Continental Divide, and fetch up in the tiny town of Quemado. Go past the adobe brick church and the Christmas tree, constructed of elkhorn, at the Chevron station. Park across from the bar, closed because the proprietor is keeping ”hunter’s hours.”
Wait. After a while, a van will pull up. Get in. The driver, who says his name is Robert, will know the way, but as soon as the van turns off the paved road you will be hopelessly lost, disoriented in a seemingly featureless landscape of scrubby grass and barbed wire fencing. After almost an hour, when the van pulls up at a tiny cabin, get out. Watch Robert drive away, leaving you and your five fellow travelers alone under a vast blue sky.
But not quite alone. Behind you is ”The Lightning Field,” an enormous and astonishing installation of 400 lightning rods, a work of art so immense and so changeable that is occupies the desert landscape like a living thing. The mystery of the road trip and the enforced isolation are all part of getting to know it.
Larry Hagman, who dreamt of Jeannie before moving to Dallas, is 76 today.
Bill Murray is 57 today. Nominated for an Oscar for Lost in Translation, NewMexiKen still thinks Murray’s best effort was as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day.
Faith Hill is 40.
Owen and Andrew Wilson’s brother Luke is 36 today.
September 21st is an important date in fantasy literature. Stephen King is 60 today. He was born on H.G. Wells’ birthday (1866-1946) and on the 10th anniversary of the publication of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit (1937). The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media has a little about each of the three.
411 years ago today (1596) Spain named Juan de Oñate governor of the colony of New Mexico. 223 years ago today (1784) the nation’s first daily newspaper, the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, began publication. The Library of Congress has a little more about each.
Functional Ambivalent posted this a year ago and I linked to it then. It resonated with me again today as I reviewed past entries. You should still go read Tom’s whole post, but here’s the essence:
If you’re a libertarian and you vote Republican because you like lower taxes, you’re empowering people who would ban books, set up a huge federal broadcast censorship aparatus, give the President the power to arrest and imprison without evidence or appeal, and empower everyone in the medical supply chain to decide who gets treatment based on their own standard of moral worthiness. You’re almost literally selling your freedoms for a few dollars in after-tax income. That’s what you vote for every time you vote Republican.
… was authorized on this date in 1950. According to the National Park Service:
Fort Caroline National Memorial was created to memorialize the Sixteenth Century French effort to establish a permanent colony in Florida. After initial exploration in 1562, the French established “la Caroline” in June 1564. Spanish forces arrived 15 months later. Marching north from their newly established beachhead (San Agustin) the Spanish captured la Caroline in September, 1565. Nothing remains of the original Fort de la Caroline; a near full-scale rendering of the fort, together with exhibits in the visitor center, provide information on the history of the French colony, their interaction with the native Timucua, and the colonists’ brief struggle for survival.
Whoa! You mean the French and Spanish were here even before the English at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock?
… was established on this date 42 years ago. The National Park Service tells us:
Storm tossed seas, as well as gentle breezes shape Assateague Island. This barrier island is a tale of constant movement and change.
Bands of wild horses freely roam amongst plants and native animals that have adapted to a life of sand, salt and wind. Special thickened leaves and odd shapes reveal the plant world’s successful struggle here. Ghost crabs buried in the cool beach sand and tree swallows plucking bayberries on their southward migration offer glimpses of the animal world’s connection to Assateague.
Assateague’s wild horses are well known, even to many people who have never been to the island. The “wild” horses on Assateague are actually feral animals, meaning that they are descendants of domestic animals that have reverted to a wild state. Horses tough enough to survive the scorching heat, abundant mosquitoes, stormy weather and poor quality food found on this remote, windswept barrier island have formed a unique wild horse society.
Read more about Assateague’s Wild Horses.
Lifehacker has an item on How To: Beat the Procrastination Habit, but I decided I’d read it later.
Oil closed today at $83 and change, and it takes $1.40 to buy a euro.
NewMexiKen doesn’t understand all that, but I think it’s probably not good news.
Oh, and for the first time since 1976, the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar are 1:1. Hang onto those Canadian quarters people won’t take. They may be worth more than our quarters soon.
“But by my calculation, more U.S. senators (72) voted today to condemn a newspaper ad attacking Gen. Petraeus than voted yesterday (56) to lengthen the time off troops get from the frontlines in Iraq, thereby reducing individual soldiers exposure to actual attacks.”
“Newt Gingrich says he’ll run if voters give him $30 million. I wonder what it would cost us to get him NOT [to] run?”
— FARK.com
“All around the country these days, all anyone can talk about is how bad the Irish have looked in their first three games. NBC is going through its archives to decide whether to start showing Blossom reruns in future weeks.”
“The best way I can describe it is it felt like somebody bungee jumped off my right nut.”
— Ken Griffey on his injury, via Awful Announcing
NewMexiKen bought a bag of birdseed last month. Most mornings for a few weeks I’d spread some around the back patio. While I sat here amusing and informing my seven readers, I’d watch the birds come and eat the seed, fight with each other — you know, the whole bird nation dynamic.
The seed ran out and I haven’t gotten any more. The jays came by a few times and gave me some crap about there being no seed, and the doves still come around with a mournful look wondering what happened. (Get it? Mourning doves, mournful look. Damn, I can be so clever.)
Anyway, I think I read once that if you start to feed birds you take on some sort of obligation to be consistent because they become dependent. I assumed that wasn’t true this time of year, but is it? If I buy another bag of seed and train the birds to come by again, am I under some sort of ethical obligation to keep it up? Is it just a seasonal thing? What about when I go away? Do I have to take 50 or a 100 birds to the pet hotel?
Oh, and there’s the whole thing about identifying birds. I think bird watching and life-lists are a hoax. I can’t differentiate among the run-of-the-mill little birds. You seen one sparrow, you’ve seen ’em all if you ask me.
(But I did buy a field guide to Birds of New Mexico
Aidan celebrated his fourth birthday yesterday, opening gifts even as he moaned that he didn’t want to be four. He wanted to stay three. (We all know how you feel, kid.)
As usual, there was older brother Mack surveying the take. Mack, who’ll be 7 in December, claims full custody of all his own toys and gifts, of course, and enforces his ownership with brute force.
But, being the older brother, Mack also claims half-custody of all of Aidan’s gifts.
It’s mine! That’s Mack’s hand on the left and Aidan’s hands on the right. Look at the strength they’re each using to control the package!
Almost as much ice cream as boy.
Jill reports: “Now Aidan is spending the day trying to keep Reid [the youngest brother] from taking any percentage.”
Designer notebooks Field Notes are soft-cover, pocket-sized memo books for jotting ideas, making lists and sketching. Each 3.5×5.5″ Field Notes book contains 48 pages of graph paper and from all appearances, will survive your back pocket a lot better than the stiffer Moleskine.
Check ’em out at Lifehacker. There’s a $5 dollar off deal from the company in a comment if you buy three packs of three notebooks (otherwise it’s $9.95 for three notebooks, plus shipping).
A tearful [San Diego] Mayor Jerry Sanders made a dramatic shift yesterday, explaining that he can no longer oppose same-sex marriages because he does not want to deny justice to people like his daughter, who is a lesbian.
…He began by explaining his refusal to veto the council’s decision, saying his beliefs had “evolved significantly” since 2005, when he established his stance on civil unions during his first mayoral campaign.
In the time since, he said he realized he could not accept “the concept of a separate-but-equal institution.” Because of that, he continued, he was unwilling to send the message to anyone that “they were less important, less worthy or less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage.”
The mayor, now crying openly, noted that he has close family members and friends in the gay and lesbian community, including staff members and “my daughter Lisa.”
He had promised to veto the measure right up until it reached his desk.
Of course, he is up for reelection next year and did almost lose to a surfboard shop owner last time.
As the we noted here a few days ago, as Jeff Foxworthy says: “If you ever start feeling like you have the goofiest, craziest, most dysfunctional family in the world, all you have to do is go to a state fair. Because five minutes at the fair, you’ll be going, ‘you know, we’re alright. We are dang near royalty.’”
Here’s two of the four examples from the Alibi Weblog (click to go read all four).
Father to group of kids outside of the Monkey Man booth: “You will hold hands or I will fuck you up!”
Mother to daughter at the petting zoo: “Janessaaaaaaaaaaaa … you think you know everything, but you’re just a little shit.”
On his blog, Paul Krugman gets off on, as he warns, a small rant about the Pertraeus hearing coverage. Read it all, but he begins:
One of my pet peeves about political reporting is the fact that some of my journalistic colleagues seem to want to be in another business – namely, theater criticism. Instead of telling us what candidates are actually saying – and whether it’s true or false, sensible or silly – they tell us how it went over, and how they think it affects the horse race.
“Don’t get me wrong—I love to play golf, I love to win, and I’ve loved the time I’ve spent on the PGA Tour, but winning this easily isn’t making me any better,” said Woods, adding that he has been searching online and making numerous phone calls to locate a golf tour where the players are “at least twice as good as the opponents I’ve faced up until now.” “It’s not about the money, as I’ll play for free if I know I’m being pushed to even half of my ability.” Woods added that he would consider playing certain PGA Tour events next year if Commissioner Tim Finchem allows him to spot the field 10 strokes, play at night, and use only a single golf ball and a 2-iron.
“You show me someone who doesn’t have skeletons in their closet. That person is a saint.”
— Albuquerque City Council candidate Paulette de’Pascal after it was revealed the B.S. and M.B.A. degrees she claimed on a candidate’s questionnaire were from the unaccredited online Almeda University. Tuesday de’Pascal acknowledged that she never took any classes for either degree.
Misrepresenting your education isn’t a “skeleton in your closet.” It isn’t even about your education. It’s about lying.
The Rail Runner commuter train collided with a vehicle Wednesday, killing one person, state police said.
The collision occurred just after 6 p.m. at a private crossing midway between Los Lunas and Belen. It was about a quarter of a mile from where the train struck a sport utility vehicle last month, killing two people.
At top speed the Rail Runner is moving 116 feet a second. People aren’t used to trains moving that fast — and they usually don’t on rails that have grade crossings. One of these collisions is going to kill people on the train.
Let’s say you discover an old lamp and rub it, and out comes a genie offering to grant you a wish. You are greedy and devious, so you wish for the ability, whenever you play online poker, to see all the cards that the other players are holding. The genie grants your wish.
What would you do next?
Steven D. Levitt tells us not to do what these guys did.
“In the news, firefighters in Lansing, Michigan used a forklift to remove a 900-pound man from his home.”
— Scott Adams has more.
Walt Mossberg likes the iPod Touch but feels it falls short of what it could or should be.
For all its beauty and functionality, the Touch has some quirks and downsides. It’s the first iPod model I’ve ever tested that fell significantly short, in my tests, of Apple’s battery-life claims. It’s also the first iPod that lacks any physical buttons for controlling music playback.
Vanity Fair has an article by Evgenia Peretz, Going After Gore. Here’s the summary:
Al Gore couldn’t believe his eyes: as the 2000 election heated up, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other top news outlets kept going after him, with misquotes (“I invented the Internet”), distortions (that he lied about being the inspiration for Love Story), and strangely off-the-mark needling, while pundits such as Maureen Dowd appeared to be charmed by his rival, George W. Bush. For the first time, Gore and his family talk about the effect of the press attacks on his campaign—and about his future plans—to the author, who finds that many in the media are re-assessing their 2000 coverage.
Early in the article, which Bob Somerby has recommended, is this:
How does he feel about it all? “I feel fine,” [Gore] says, “but, when I say that, I’m reminded of a story that Cousin Minnie Pearl used to tell about a farmer who was involved in an accident and sued for damages.” To paraphrase, at the trial the lawyer for the driver of the other car cross-examined the farmer, saying, “Isn’t it true that right after the accident, you said, ‘I feel fine’?” The farmer said, “Well, it’s not [that] simple,” before going on to explain that the other car rammed into him, throwing both him and his cow from his car. When a highway patrolman came by and saw the cow struggling, he shot him between the eyes. The farmer continued, “The patrolman then came to my side and said, ‘How do you feel?’… so I said, ‘I feel fine.'”
Hullabaloo has some good commentary on all this.
Earlier today there was a loud boom that rattled my windows. I’ve since learned that it was a “controlled” explosion at Sandia National Laboratories about 15 miles away. Be assured we were told, it’s perfectly safe.
I don’t know about you but NewMexiKen hates it when there are ‘splosions at the place where they store nuclear weapons.
“[Warren] Buffett is deeply addicted. He once said, ‘Bridge is such a sensational game that I wouldn’t mind being in jail if I had three cellmates who were decent players and who were willing to keep the game going twenty-four hours a day.'”
— David Owen in a good article on the history and current status of bridge in last week’s New Yorker, “Turning Tricks.”
So, how long before we hear the words: “If the tape ain’t admitted, he must be acquitted”?
Some other flotsam from O.J. Simpson’s arrest on suspicion of robbing some memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel room:
• NBC’s Jay Leno, on wildly differing accounts of what transpired: “Luckily, Patriots coach Bill Belichick was there and videotaped the whole thing.”
• Among the T-shirt offerings already available on eBay: “When O.J. goes to Vegas, he stays in Vegas.”
• ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser, during Monday night’s Eagles-Redskins game, on the state of the NFL: “The Packers are 2-0, the 49ers are 2-0, the Cowboys are 2-0, and O.J. is back in jail. It’s like we’re back in the mid-’90s again.”