Coffee Shop Part 10

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Good Morning everyone!

It's a bright sunny day here in the Finger Lakes. Temperature right now is 59°F with a high of 69°F. My kind of day and one more without either the furnace or the airconditioner running!

Jim you are right, I should have known better...... I guess I just have a touch of "What's His Name" disease and totally forgot what was up with that loco. BTW, thank you for teaching responsibility to your children! Like you and Carl, I worked my way through both my undergraduate and my graduate studies. Took ten years after college to pay off the student loans. That was at the same time I was paying cash for my Masters - one course at a time and had a family to provide for and was working 3 jobs. I remember those days well and am very thankful that I was raised on a dairy farm where all of us had to work or there wouldn't be food on the table. I was driving tractor at the age of 5. By 9 I was helping repair heavy equipment. I also had daily chores morning and night that involved feeding the calves and putting down bedding for the cows. Funny I never thought of it as unfair or child labor, or hard work. It was just what had to done and what we did. Different time and place I guess.

Well, I have a couple of trees to finish cutting up and splitting so I can keep warm next winter......... See you all later and have a great day!
 
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Jeffery, that is the ugliest boxcar ever made. Not that it's you fault but that all-door concept looks more like a Pod on wheels than a proper freight car.
I agree completely. The only thing I think is uglier (IMO) is autoracks. I find them repulsive to look at.
 
Afternoon


,,,How do the FED's lose 1/3 of it's (sorry Americas) wealth in one month,,, wealth thats taken since 1913 to accumulate,,,, LOL, thats a huge chunk of money,


check this out

But all is not quite lost yet! The category of Other Fed Assets went up by $15.6 billion last week, taking that category to $80 billion, which is up $40 billion in the last twelve months, which is a staggering increase, given that it has taken since 1913 to amass the first $40 billion. I assume that this is where some of those worthless assets that the Fed is taking off the hands of its nasty little banker buddies winds up.

This disgusting largess at taxpayer expense was partially offset by the Fed selling another $12 billion of its Treasury bonds last week, taking this main asset of the Federal Reserve itself down to $548 billion, which means that they have sold a full third of their ownership of Treasury bonds that they have been gradually accumulating to expand the money supply since the founding of the Federal Reserve 1913, in just the last few months! A third of it gone, in three months! Months! Something very bad is happening, meaning that we're freaking doomed!

And speaking of lying, stinking messes, I am reminded of Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, the laughably incompetent, blowhard chairman of the Senate banking committee, who never saw anything wrong with banks or the actions of the Federal Reserve the whole time as this whole stock bubble, the bond bubble, the housing bubble, the government bubble, the subprime mortgage/derivatives mess were growing, growing, growing, even though Greenspan (and then Bernanke) testified in front of him at least twice a freaking year, each time saying the most preposterous things while Dodd and his stupid little banking committee buddies just sat there and ate it up like the ignorant morons they really, really are, when they were so close that they could have sprung over the desk ("boinggggg!"), grabbed one of those Federal Reserve chairman weenies by the necktie with one hand and slapped the living hell out of them with the other hand, while yelling at them as loud as they could, "Stop this stupid, insane expansion of the money supply before you create consumer price inflation, which is the thing to be feared above all things, or we will fire you and use the IRS to hound you until you die, slowly, screaming in pain, alone, in the dark, in the rain, just like an Earnest Hemingway novel at its most depressing." But did they use that golden opportunity? NoooOOoooo!
 


Now, Steve, take a few aspirin and lie down for a while. :) We are not doomed but we are headed for a long recession. The Federal Reserve is exchanging presently declining assets for new money with banks to keep them liquid. This is a bad thing in the short term since the Fed then has to sell off other assets, like T-notes, to keep itself liquid. However, unless you believe the end of world as we know it is coming, those assets they are getting at a 30% discount from member banks will go above par again and the Fed, because it's the strongest financial institution we have, will reap the benefits of the appreciating assets. The banks will have to repay the money they borrowed from the Fed with money they'll have to make by starting to lend again. In the long run, the taxpayers will benefit because the Fed will be net winners in these transactions and the consumer will benefit because banks will be forced back into the lending market again. The Bank of England announced a basically similar scheme last week. This is not a liquidity crisis, it's a credit crisis. At some point, the depreciated assets will again reach at least par and, two or three years down the road, they will be worth more than what the Fed paid for them.

This is also a commodity crisis much like we had in the 70's. Commodity prices are growing faster than normal demand because of speculation, touching off a round of inflation that will have to run its course no matter what the Fed does. However, no tree grows to the sky. Oil and gold were both down big-time today, with gold closing at $889, the first time it's been below $900 in a while. Oil dropped $2.15 a barrel and short positions are finally exceeding long positions. The speculators are already looking to bail out of commodities and take their profits. Commodities will fluctuate up and down for the next two years but the trend will be down. As commodity prices fall, businesses will not be facing the profit crunch we've seen with oil, for example. That will both increase their profitability and lower the need for credit. It will all work itself out over the next two years.

Now, will some innocent people get hurt? Yes, they always do in any economic downturn. Will some, maybe a lot, of companies go out of business due this crisis? Yes, recessions are the Darwinian way to assure that strong businesses survive. Should some people be going to jail because of their lying, manipulating, and covering up? Yes, and I hope we see that too. What I do know for sure is the Fed is not only the basic cause of this crisis, every intervention they do prolongs the crisis. Do I expect to see this change? No, because the Fed has to do "something" and they always will.
 
04-25-2008

Good Morning from Tipton IN ! :D

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Good morning.

It's 68 this morning and I'm hearing something that wasn't in the forecast yesterday. Thunderstorms! Expecting a high of 82 today under a partly cloudy sky.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 4/25/2008


Wind Chill: 68°F
Humidity: 88%
Dew Point: 64°F

So Far Today
High: 69°F
Low: 67°F
Rain: 0.00"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 10mph NNE

Today High: 85 A slight chance of a shower or thunderstorm early..otherwise partly sunny. Highs in the mid 80s. South winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain is less than 20 percent.

Tonight Low: 65 Mostly cloudy. Slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening...then chance of showers and thunderstorms after midnight. Lows in the mid 60s. South winds around 10 mph in the evening becoming light and variable. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.
 
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Morning all.


Poured rain all morning yesterday. Dry in the afternoon so I was able to get a bike ride in. Then we had a loooooong thunderstorm roll through last night. My wife and I were constantly awakened by the booming thunder and our 18 month old daughter slept through all of it. I am jealous.

I was able to get this shot while out riding of the Iowa Northern bringing a load of around 25 hoppers through town. All of the hoppers were marked for DME and ICE, both fairly common around here. The skies were still full of clouds and I took it with my phone so the quality is definitely subpar. I usually have my camera with me on my rides, hopefully better next time.
 
Good morning folks

It was 58 F this morning on the way to work. It is supposed to go up to 77 F. Just on cue we expect rain over the weekend.

The kids had a fun day at my work yesterday. They got to tour the building and in the afternoon we visited one of the big construction projects. They couldn’t go to an active construction area but they did get to see a wetlands replacement site. We also visited a township park where as part of the project they relocated a stream to prevent it from eroding its bank. They took a straight stream and made it meander through the park. We also visited on of the bridge replacement sites, that is being worked on at night and they saw how the contractor had to demolish the existing bridge over a busy expressway.

No modeling last night. I had to clean the fish pond filter and do a few other odds and ends around the house.

This is one of those outrageous kids weekend. We start off with our Cub Scouts participating in a local creek clean-up. Next both kids have Little League games which they may not make. I the evening is my son’s birthday party at the local roller skating rink. Sunday will be recovery and yard work.

I would like to finish a photo session that I started early in the week. I have it all set-up, just need to take the photos. I then need to evaluate what I want to do next on the layout and/or work bench. I could also enter the locos into the computer inventory.

I hope everybody has a good day.
 
Good Morning Bill , Jeffrey & Carl , Looks like another nice day here on the Niagara Frontier . Lots to do so will just pop in and say hello and hope that everyone has a real nice Friday also !!!!!!!! Howdy Tom
 


Afternoon gents,,, nice and wet here.

finished my Six Sigma training, my brain is now fizzled out for the week, glad it's weekend

Jim i hope your right, i work for a huge American company which is a bit unnerving if you know were i am coming from, whatever happens over your side of the pond will affect us over here,,, what an awful mess it is as well, the good guys get hung and the bad guys walk away, again
 
Mornin' Everyone!

As Paul said, another nice day in Western/Central NY. Right now partly cloudy and 60°F here in the Finger Lakes with a predicted high of 72° later. I have a lot of wood to split and would like to get as much done before the rainy weather comes in tomorrow so i bets get at it.

See you all later.
 
A plane crashed into Toledo Bend Reservoir in Sabine County Tuesday afternoon. No survivors had been found by 9:30 p.m., more than five hours after the crash was reported, Sabine County Sheriff's Office said. A dispatcher with the Sheriff's Office said the plane went down into the lake close to Indian Mounds Recreation Area. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Roland Herwig said air traffic put out a notice that the Cirrus SR22 aircraft was overdue just before 4 p.m. Tuesday. At about 4 p.m., a local department got a 911 call from a witness saying that a plane went down in the lake. Herwig says that the plane was en route from Tupelo, Miss., to David Wayne Hooks Airport in Spring, Texas, near Houston.

The Sheriff's Office said it could not confirm how many people were on board. He said the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating. Herwig said the plane is owned by McAir LLC of West Memphis, Ark. Toledo Bend is on the Texas-Louisiana border. No Louisiana law enforcement agencies were working with the search and rescue.

Texas Department of Public Safety officials say search teams have discovered human body parts among the wreckage of a fixed wing single engine 2006 CIRRUS SR22 that crashed Tuesday afternoon in East Texas. The remains have been taken to Starr Funeral Home in Hemphill.
Fifty-four-year-old Daniel McIntire of Humble, Texas, George McFadden of New York and 34-year-old Heather Hardin of Pecan Island Louisiana all died in the crash. The three are business partners working for Crescent Directional Drilling out of Houston. The companies chief operating officer, Michael Torres, said that McIntire, who was piloting the plane, was the chief financial officer for the company and McFadden was the companies principal owner but was not involved in the day to day operations. A Texas Department of Public Safety operator said witnesses a plane sputtering, but it was obscured by clouds. The plane then broke through the clouds and hit the lake nose first. A dispatcher with the Sabine County Sheriff's Office says the plane went down close to the Indian Mounds Recreation Area. The Sabine County Sheriff's Office spent most of Tuesday evening sorting through the wreckage of the plane that crashed in the Toledo Bend Reservoir, finally calling off the search due to darkness and thunderstorms in the area. The search resumed at sunrise Wednesday morning. A spokesperson with the regional FAA office says air traffic controllers sent out a bulletin that the plane was missing about 3:55 Tuesday afternoon. Shortly after, they received a 9-1-1 telephone call saying a plane had crashed into the Toledo Bend Reservoir. Multiple agencies were involved in the recovery effort, as search and rescue reportedly set up headquarters in the Indian Mounds community, East of Hemphill off of FM 3382. The plane, reportedly an SR22, is listed as belonging to MCAIR LLC of West Memphis, Arkansas. It was traveling from Tupelo, Mississippi on its way to David Wayne Hooks Airport in the Houston area. An NTSB official said the plane traveled in a straight arrow direction for an hour and a half with contact with an FAA tower before taking a nose dive into the water. They say thay is very unusual and something they will be looking into as they continue to investigate.Investigators also say the plane was equipped with a parachute that was never deployed.
 
Afternoon, everyone.
Jeffrey, the Cirrus SR 22's have a serious design flaw. One of the selling points was the parachute that's built into the aircraft. I don't know how many have crashed nw but it's a substantial number compared to the number sold. Not one has ever deployed the parachute. I wouldn't be flying in one of those things until someone figures out what's wrong with the design.

Steve, it's my opinion that things like Six Sigma are one of the cancers that are eating away at business. We've gone through all the buzzword training...MBO, Black Belt, Six Sigma...and we keep getting less competitive, not more. We have reached the point in management that having black belt or Six Sigma training automatically makes you a better manager. It's a muddleheaded idea that's locking out people with good managment skills because they can't pass these stupid courses.

Carl, they do get some geat thunderstorms in Iowa. I was camping out near Iowa City one night during the summer and I think we had thunderstorms and hail all nght. This was in the days before weather radios and a toranado touched down about two miles north of us and I never knew it. I sure hope you have a weather radio and have it on - dangerous times ahead for the midwest.

Ray, have fun wood splitting - sounds like you have perfect weather for it.

Another hot day here with a high of 91. There are some cloulds building up and a few scattered thunderstorms but nothing organized. We could use some rain here since it's been hot and we haven't had any rain in a week. Doesn't look like we'll get anything today but there's hope for the weekend.
 
Tonight was ACE,,, we went to the eldest boys annual school singing contest, he sang a Take That song called Shine, he didn't win but loved it all the same, all the girls were whistling at him doing his dance, i think he'll have a few girlfriends next week at school after tonight :) , we had our own version of ray at the controls of the music mixers and so on, a fantastic night i would say.
 
Good evening all!

I got some wood split and stacked this morning. I decided that the grass was high enough that I had put off the inevitable lawn mowing issue as long as I could. Pulled the lawn mower out of the shed, filled up the gas tank, and nothing. Got some good exercise pulling the rope though. Cjecked pout the electrical stuff and decided that it was not getting any spark as it didn't want to even cough on ether. So I go off the the Auto Parts store (after my trip to Canandaigua to feed my sister's rotten cat.... Or is that my rotten sister's cat...????), get a new plug and pull the rope. Yea, it sputters and starts and then dies....... So since this piece of crud has had carburator problems since the day I bought it, I decided to get a new one. Then had to go down to church to check on some equipment for a dinner/talent show we are holding the first weekend in May. The bottom line is that I got some wood split, but the lawn is still not mowed for the first time yet and tomorrow it is supposed to rain.......

May get more snow next week. That would be nice.........:rolleyes: ;)

"we had our own version of ray at the controls of the music mixers"

Steve, you had an old bearded, deaf guy doing sound?:eek: :p
 
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Good morning.

It's a pleasant (and very humid) 70 degrees. Thunderstorms are expected to turn up later in the day. Looks like I got the grass cut just in time. The high is expected to be 82.

Today's Weather for:
Sundown, LA 71446-6114 4/25/2008


Heat Index: 70°F
Humidity: 94%
Dew Point: 68°F

So Far Today
High: 71°F
Low: 70°F
Rain: 0.00"
Rain Rate: 0.00"/h
Gust: 5mph SSW

Today High: 82 Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 80s. Light and variable winds.

Tonight Low: 62 Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the lower 60s. Light and variable winds.
 
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Good Morning Bill & Jeffrey ! Another great start today but the Mid-West Storms are gonna hit us in early afternoon .12 days over seventy , can't beat that . My bulb plants have all popped up eaarly . People are planting there summer plants but look out around here things change in a flash. Like next week when it's suppose to hit in the thirties. Oh well enough to worry about . Like 4 dollars a gallon of gas and no bread on the table . Seems like the further we go forward the backer we go . Have a wonderful day all !!!!!
 




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