The Snail

So this guy is at home watching TV
he's in a bad mood
there's a knock at the door, so he goes to answer it
it's a snail
the snail says: "Hello, I would like to talk with you about magazine subscriptions."
the guy gets all pissed off
"Get out of here!!"
with that, he kicks the snail off his doorstep and slams the door
two years later
there's a knock at the door
the guy goes over to the door and answers it
it's the snail
who says "what the f&*k was that about!?"

Overthrowing the World Currency Market

Months and months of growing rage at financial institutions hit fever pitch with the bailout of AIG, who were so grateful at a new lease on life that they decided the way to show fiscal responsibility was by throwing themselves a series of $400,000 junkets and re-naming bonuses as "retention salary".

As the US Government bailed out these financial institutions, they did so essentially by printing more money. People don't normally walk around with little slivers of gold in their pockets worth $1, $5, or $20 to pay for things, so that's where a nation bases it's paper notes on the quantity of stockpiles it has in it's reserve. The government can print as much as it wants, but it is important to note that the volume of money isn't as important as the value of money. Print more, what you have it's worth as much.

It's hard for the government to suck up more reserves because of what's available to use. We moved away from using gold to value the dollar a long time ago, and even precious metals like silver are in limited supply.

For example, one problem with the gold standard is that the total amount of gold that has ever been mined is estimated at around 142,000 tons. Assuming a gold price of US$1,000/ounce, the total value of all the gold ever mined would be around $4.5 trillion. This is less than the value of circulating money in the U.S. alone, where more than $7.6 trillion is in circulation or in deposit. Therefore, a return to the gold standard would result in a significant increase in the current value of gold, which may limit its use in current applications.

So what is there to do? How can we keep the dollar strong while also ensuring that AIG-like companies don't continue to laugh their way to the next corporate retreat with no worry of being held accountable? It's enough to focus on the world currency market, which I think can be overthrown.

With what, you ask? Yapese stone money.

Yapese stone money. Carved out of the limestone cliffs and caves of Palau and then transported hundreds of miles away via outrigger canoe & raft by islanders from Yap, the circular stone disks carved with a large hole in the middle. The size of the stones varied widely, with the largest at 10 ft in diameter, 1.5 ft thick and weighing over 8,000 lbs. These stones were valued based on size, craftsmanship, and history. So for example:

- a small stone w/ no one dying in the chiseling and transport back to Yap: least value
- a small stone w/ no one dying, but a famous sailor brought it back to Yap: more value
- a large stone w/ no one dying: even more value
- a large stone w/ someone dying: even more value
- a large stone w/ several people dying: more valuable

- a large stone w/ several people dying & some famous sailor bringing it to Yap: most value

The stones were used in social transactions such as marriage, inheritance, political deals, sign of an alliance, ransom of battle dead or just in exchange for food. Many of them are placed in front of meeting houses or specific pathways. Though the ownership of a particular stone changes, the stone itself is rarely moved. The names of previous owners are passed down to the new one. Although Western-style money has replaced the stones as everyday currency on Yap, the stones are still exchanged in traditional ways between the Yapese.

A Valuation of Existing Yapese Stone Money

In the year 1929, 13,821 stone rounds of varying sizes were counted on the island, however currently only about half of these remain. The reason for this decrease in numbers is their commercial or bank value. The discs areofficially bought by the Bank of Hawaii and have an ordinary exchange rate that is determined by their diameter. For 1" of diameter, you can get $72. So a 10' stone is a fortune for the Yapese islanders.

So: if we can assume that of the 13,821 stones out there, half are still on Yap, that means that 6,910 are floating around and outside of Yap.

Given that one 10' diameter stone is valued at $8,640 base, premium stones could fetch as much as $20,000 given the above value constraints. Making assumptions on overall numbers and values and rounding for ease of calculation, that would mean:

Large Stones: 4,607 in existence
10' = 120". 120" x $72 = $8,640

1,152 high value: $19,640 = $22,625,280
1,152 moderately high value: $16,640 = $19,169,280
1,152 moderate value: $13,640 = $15,713,280
1,152 standard value: $8,640 = $9,953,280
Overall value of large stones: $67,461,120

Following the same calculations for medium and small stones, you end up with:

Medium stone overall value: $59,498,496

Small stone overall value: $51,535,872

Total value of existing Yapese Stone Money: $178,495,488

So what's the overall goal? Well, in overthrowing the world currency market, Yapese Stone Money would mean that greedy groups like AIG wouldn't be able to fleece as easily, and couldn't hand out bonuses as easily. Likewise, drug runners wouldn't be able to do that whole suitcase full o' hundreds as easily. Can you imagine watching a show like Miami Vice where they were conducting a transaction? Sonny Crockett decked out in pastel t-shirt and over sized linen dinner jacket smokin' a cig walks up to a dealer, who goes "you got the cash"? Crockett ominously motions over to a flatbed, straining at it's suspension with 20' of stacked stone discs loaded and strapped down. Jan Hammer's electro-symphonic tunes him away in the background.

World Domination

Is it possible? Yes. So here we go- our Step 1 plan in world domination:

A rough estimate of current world cash reserves would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 trillion.

Subtracting out current Yapese stone money value leaves a need for $9,999,821,504,512

So if we only focused on the 10' discs that are rated at a high premium, that would mean that 509,155,881 tablets need to be carved out of the Palau hillsides.

To carve these, I feel that the most efficient and cheapest way of doing this is with child labor. Since we aren't in the US, we can use them, and only pay them $.25/day. What a good deal!

If we employ 100,000 children to carve stone tablets, overall cost is $25,000/day- relatively cheap given our goal of amassing $10 trillion!

509,155,881 tablets carved out at a rate of 1/day by 100,000 children results in 100,000/day, or 36,500,000/year.

36.5 million tablets a year will leave us in complete control of the market in a little under 14 years.

Not bad, huh.

Now if only I can figure out whether there is enough land in Palau to make 509 million tablets and where to keep 'em all. I think my condo isn't large enough......

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To fly? Or to be Invisible? The never ending argument

The other day at Microsoft, one of my close friends overheard a few coders who work on an XBox game argue for 10 minutes about what was better- to fly, or to be invisible?

How do you answer this? These two guys, who looked like they were end products of 10 straight years of Dungeons & Dragons games, SciFi conventions and Lord of the Rings fan clubs were quite into the discussion. They were taking their individual sides personally and passionately.

So just out of curiosity, this very question has been posed to others in a man-on-the-street way. Just throw it out there and see what sticks. "Hey, we have a question for you". Surprisingly? This works.

From responses we have received, here are some insights into what the benefits of each are:

To Be Invisible:

- You can help people who do not know you are there
- You can listen in on conversations
- You can sneak up on OBL and take him out
- You can get into places without paying
- You can go to the Louvre and steal the Mona Lisa

While the last one wasn't followed up with any explanation on how no one would see a painting floating down the hallway unnoticed, there were some interesting aspects of each.

To Be Able To Fly:

- You can save money on airfare
- You can save people on a sinking ship
- You can jump off a building and fly down the center of a street above cars
- You can wave in the windows of a plane at people in-flight
- You can get to the Louvre to steal the Mona Lisa, and then get away while the invisible guy is still wandering around down below.

So clearly, the Mona Lisa came up in a discussion about this and what would be the best way to steal it.


What about this? If you could fly, why not just put on one of those Harry Potter invisible cloaks and then you have the best of both worlds. When you want to be invisible, you throw that thing over your head. Problem solved, right?

I think I had it all summed up for me in one joke I heard a few years back.

Superman is flying along at the speed of light. As he's flying, he thinks to himself, "man, I'm horny!" and starts looking around.

Using his telescopic vision, he spots Wonder Woman, laying naked in the grass next to her invisible plane. "Oooh!" Superman thinks. "Here we go!"

So he swoops down on Wonder Woman and at the speed of light, humphumphump! Then a microsecond later, off he goes! Back up at 20,000' and feeling good about himself.

Back down on the grass, Wonder Woman says "hey, what was that?"

The Invisible Man says "I have no idea, but my ass really hurts."

And to me, that joke in a nutshell spells out the two, and why it is best to be able to fly.

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Cherry Blossoms

Just finished the isloated cherry blossom painting that I wrote about earlier- titled uniquely "Cherry Blossoms". Maybe I can spend more than two seconds thinking up a better title for this. But at least for now, I'm actually pretty excited to see how it turned out. In many ways, I believe that it keeps from being too busy yet still captures the essence of cherry blossoms that explode around the Washington DC Tidal Basin every March/April.

I did include some impressionist overtones to the work- specifically in the petals and also the branches where I blotted in some petals and tried to color the branches with shadowing. Might have worked, might not have. But I'm still pretty happy and it's hanging in the loft as I write this.


To create this painting, I used two references- one was an inspiration that I took from "The Apprentice", believe it or not. There's a ancient Japanese-style art lithograph hanging outside Trump's board room that I caught a glimpse of and which gave me the background shading idea and basic imagery concept. Then I used a few pictures I took of Tidal Basin cherry blossoms to identify which branches I wanted to paint and which I felt allowed for isolation of the blossom groupings. To specifically identify a type of blossom to give me flower foundation (is that an actual term?), I used the image at right. I didn't know it at the time I started, but there are apparently several different varieties of cherry blossom, stemming from several different variety of cherry tree. Go figure. In retrospect the fact that there are multiple cherry trees in the whole cherry tree family makes complete sense. But I think I spent even less time thinking about that then I did in naming my painting. So now I know. Huh. The things you learn.

I have painted flowers in the past, some abstract some natural. The below painting is of a desert cactus flower on a smaller 5"x5" canvas. It's one of the first paintings I completed, sometime during or around '94 when I was still stuck in 29 Palms. In the spring, the Mojave desert comes alive with April rains, longer days and mild temperatures. On one occasion I quite literally stumbled across this barrel cactus with flowers bursting out the top. It's one of my first paintings so I hadn't quite yet learned how to create depth or use shadows but I have a thing about going back to correct paintings- I don't like to do that because then they'll never be done. So instead, I'll just look at it, enjoy it and recognize that it was a good first shot at painting. Please note dad's thumb in the bottom right for artistic panache. Fantastico!


Then there's my strange habit of hitting abstract paintings from time to time. I'm not really quite sure why, but I like to try different styles from time to time. The below painting- "Crazy Pitcher" was finished last year and is about as out there as I get in paintings. It follows the red, white and blue theme that I like to use from time to time and it gets mixed reviews on likability.

Now, on to two smaller paintings and a larger climber painting that I want to knock out in the next couple days. Maybe I'll complete them, maybe I wont. But with taxes and tons of gym time to look forward to, I'm entering crunch time.

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Super Tuesday

Time and again I have said that Republicans are the only party who can screw up a one-car funeral procession.. and I am a Republican. Reason being that Republicans are fully capable of taking a good thing and hosing it all up before the final message has settled- infighting or imploding via own member dumb-assedness. Then there are the Democrats- the only party incapable of developing a plan for how they want to run a one-car funeral procession. Instead, it never happens and everyone looks for someone to blame. Thus, the American political machine grinds on in confusing and mind boggling fashion.

Here's a quick, high-level 411 on how delegates and nominations work within the two parties:

Republicans: Primary/caucuses involve registered party members going to voting centers on the identifed day and casting their lot for the party candidate of their choice. Almost all states involve a winner-take-all approach where the majority of votes capture all state delegates, aligning toward a specific candidate. Fairly straightforward in process, but the streets leading to the fall National Convention are paved with the carcasses of candidates who weren't quite attractive enough to one special interest group or another. The threshhold of delegates needed to capture party nomination is 1,191.

Democrats: The same basic primary/caucus set-up as Republicans, involving registered party members voting for their candidate of choice. But then they go and share their delegates- splitting them up proportionately amongst candidates based on vote results. Unlike a scorched earth, winner-take-all concept where a clear front runner quickly emerges based on majority rules, no winner quickly emerges but everyone does manage to feel happy and like a winner regardless. Perhaps I forgot to mention that thrown squarely into this mix are something called "Super Delegates". 842 delegates (almost 40%) of the 2,025 needed to declare victory. Not chosen via voting, these delegates are instead individuals picked by Democratic fat-cats who can cast their votes however they like. For example, Bill Clinton gets one. Hmm.. I wonder who his delegate vote will go to? No matter what voters choose in their state primaries, Super-Delegates will have a significant impact on the Democratic nomination process above and beyond mere mortals casting their votes in a booth.

Checks and Balances

Beyond the shadow of a doubt, I am amazed at the foresight of our Founding Fathers in the way they established our Government. How they developed a system of checks and balances that 230 years later are still as effective as the day they were founded is astounding to me. Maybe they knew we would still be human in 2008, and that absolute power absolutely corrupts. That doesn't take rocket science... or whatever they had back then. The ultimate design strength of our system is the ability to ensure that no one branch of Government -Executive, Legislative or Judical- can become more powerful than another. Built into this is the inherent design that keeps one political party from becoming too powerful as well. Equilibrium at it's finest. Good one, George. You da man.

In 1994, Republicans developed and marketed a plan to the people called the "Contract With America". It worked. How a guy named after an amphibian and having an affair with a Congressional staffer drove that train is beyond me. But it essentially paved a way forward, established a road map for conservative values, and was designed to offset a Democratically controlled Congress and Presidency. Checks and balances in action. Democrats had President Clinton, Republicans controlled the House and Senate. Equilibrium.

In 2000, all that changed and from that point through 2006, the Democrats had anger and no plan in one election after another. The collective groaning crept in and reached fever pitch in 2005. So much for the group hug. But then in 2006, corruption, party-based decisions without public welfare in mind crept into the mindset, and it became clear that power had again become corrosive- this time under a Republican lost path. The ghosts of George, Tom, and Ben popped back up, checks and balances came back into play, and despite having no clear message or any path forward, voter disaffection drove Democrats back into the Congressional driver's seat with great fanfare. Equilibrium again.

Simply amazing. In 1994, and 2006, voters made sweeping changes based on dissatisfaction, and here we are. Balance restored, more moderation in Government and exactly the way that the majority of the country likes it- conscious of this or not (I think the safe money is on not). Too much of anything- Ice cream, steak, Ex-Lax, partisan politics.. and you get a stomach ache.

So Here We Are

Obama is pulling in millions more than Hillary in a manner unique to current fundraising models. Democrats are in a virtual dead heat between the popular vote and delegates needed to secure the nomination. Surprisingly, there is no clear leader. Bad blood between Hillary and Obama is leaving some to wonder whether party unification in the Democratic arena will erode all that they have worked so hard to gain. Where's that group hug again?

Then there's McCain. A Naval Academy grad, former Hanoi Hilton war hero, deficit hawk and national defense stalwart who can reach across party lines to work with the likes of Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter. At a time where the vast majority of people in the nation keep saying over and over that they want change- and a Republican candidate who can do that- what do a small number of conservative Republicans do? Complain -loudly- about how they don't "like" McCain, stating that "they won't vote for him", saying they will vote for Clinton before they vote for McCain. Are you kidding me?? Are you related to Bill Belichik or something?

To me, all this means that a November win by whomever the Democratic nominee happens to be is hardly a slam dunk. Think George Bush in 1992 with his predicted landslide over Bill Clinton all but ordained the summer before elections. It also means that the Republican nominee- at this point looking like McCain- is also hardly a solid bet. It does tell me one thing though- whoever the two candidates are, they had better look to Congressional approval ratings, the ability for maverick candidates to gin up incredible support and the whole concept of checks and balances to figure out how to keep this great country on track.

So. Based on Super Tuesday, it's shaping up to be an interesting summer.

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