The Economics of Renovating the Dead

As someone who lived in Houston for many years, I had the opportunity to see some events at the Astrodome. Houston Astros baseball and the occasional monster truck show were the most frequent things I went to when I was a kid. There was also Houston Oilers football, the short-lived USFL, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and a host of other events that went on there over the years.

But with the development of the state-of-the-art, multi-use Reliant Stadium for football, and Minute Maid Park for baseball, the use of the Astrodome has dwindled over the years. It has essentially become an eye sore that just happens to sit right next to the beautiful Reliant Stadium. And the Astrodome is 42 years old.

Members of Commissioners Court have been reluctant to order the razing of the dome because of the sentimental value it holds for those who attended their first sporting events there or took in a major game.¹

A lot of people in Houston are opposed to demolition due to sentimental value. But sentimental value only goes so far. The dome is 42 years old. It certainly doesn’t hold the history of a Yankee Stadium. This structure doesn’t even resemble the dome when it was the primary sporting venue of it’s time. It’s just bad business to keep pouring money into something that has outlived the initial purpose and goal.

Yet some people are trying to keep the old stadium alive. The good news is but it looks as though the plan may fail. The “plan” is to spend about half the cost of a modern stadium to renovate this old, run down building.

I watched a game between the Houston Gamblers and the San Antonio Gunslingers from 1984 the other night on ESPN Classic from the Astrodome. Even then, the dome looked like it needed a lot of upkeep. The field was in terrible shape, and the overall look left something to be desired. (and that was 24 years ago).

The dome should be demolished and the pieces auctioned off (like they did for Astroworld). The dome is an archaic part of a by-gone era. As much as I like to preserve history, this thing needs to go. The $450M price tag to renovate it could be spent in better ways.

1. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5259827.html [↩]

The Ducks

New album added to the photo gallery. “The Ducks” series was taken on 10/28/07 in Round Rock, TX.

My Workspace

A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. As you can see, I am alive and well.

Why Being Beautiful Is So Important

Because if it weren’t for good looks, some people would have absolutely nothing going for them.

What Makes Hillary Qualified?

“The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” –James Madison

When I interview/hire people for my department at work, I have a baseline of experience that I want them to have before I actually agree to bring them in. When you were hired for your job, you probably had some previous experience that would benefit the company hiring you.

Why is this the case? Because the people that you work for want to make sure you can do the job in the most competent manner possible. They want to make sure that the company will be a better place when you leave than it was when you got there. They want to know you have a good understanding of what is required of you.

I’ve been reading a lot about Hillary Clinton’s qualifications to be POTUS. Let’s take a simpler, yet unique look at Hillary and her five most “popular” characteristics according to the esteemed Senator from New York and her loyal band of followers.

She’s a woman - If this makes one qualified to be President, then there are millions of others out there who are just as qualified. Those people don’t have the resources to buy their way into the system. Therefore, “being a woman” doesn’t count.

She’s a mother - Intriguing. Take a look at some of the people she claims to want to help the most (poor people). Those folks usually have more children than middle or upper class people. Therefore, let’s raid the poor side of town, pick a random woman with 5 kids. By this reasoning, that person would be 5x more qualified than Hillary.

She’s a lawyer - As the late, great Douglas Adams once said, “Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” This applies even more so to lawyers. Aside of being the scourge of society, a J.D. has provides no specific training on running a large country, the most powerful military in the world, and all the bells and whistles that come along with the job.

The ABA Journal has made an astounding prediction that the next President will actually be a lawyer, however.

The three leading candidates in both major parties all have law degrees, USA Today reports. On the Democratic side, they are Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards. In the Republican party, they are Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney.

No matter who is running for President, the same rules apply. Being a lawyer does not qualify one for the office.

She was married to a President - So were 44 other woman in history. This “qualification” means that Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford, and others are qualified to run the country. I think not. If you will agree to vote for Jackie Kennedy or Betty Ford, I’ll concede my vote for Hillary.

She was a Senator - Absolutely. A junior Senator with an unremarkable voting record. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but what makes this stand out from the other 99 Senators? Legislation that she has sponsored has also been unremarkable, and doesn’t set her apart from anyone else. And we’re not counting the hundreds and hundreds of other people who have been Senator in the past. Holding that title does not qualify one to lead the country.

Her only other experience in getting her primary issue (universal health care) pushed through came as First Lady, and failed miserably. What candidate would think that the American people want the same agenda pushed out from another office?

One thing is not up for debate. Hillary Clinton, without question, meets three MAJOR qualifications for President of the United States (as outlined in the Constitution).

• be a natural born citizen of the United States.
• be at least 35 years old.
• have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years.

But then again, so do I and millions of other people. On paper, Hillary is no more qualified to be the President than I am to be a brain surgeon. But the hype surrounding her is still for sale at $1500.00 a plate.

The moral of the story? Much of society has reduced itself to voting for the candidate that can lie the best or somehow convince the masses that they will benefit the most by <insert candidate here> being elected. People don’t do very simple analysis (as outlined above) in the decision-making process. This is why the quality of the President has slowly declined since Ronald Reagan left office. Society isn’t getting any smarter, and the outlook is bleak.

Birthday Presents

I got some of the coolest birthday presents this week.

Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy
by Thomas Sowell¹

More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics
by Steven E. Landsburg²

Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t
by John Lott Jr.³

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas Friedman⁴

1. http://www.tsowell.com [↩]
2. http://www.landsburg.com/ [↩]
3. http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/ [↩]
4. http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/ [↩]

Priceless: Apple Passes Dell

Ten years after Michael Dell stated that Steve Jobs should just “shut down” Apple and give the money back to their stockholders, Apple’s value has now exceeded Dell’s.

Michael’s first problem: Leaving the company and giving the keys to Kevin Rollins. If you read that article, you will see that Rollins had the vision of Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder (no offense to two of the best musicians of all time).

Rollins was such a penny-pincher that while he was trying to save a buck on CD Rom drives or RAM, Apple and HP slid in the back door. Then when Michael comes back, they uncover financial scandals ala Enron, Worldcom, and others (though not as bad). It’s like building a castle with all your blood and sweat, only to let the cast of Fast Times at Ridgemont High rent the place for the weekend. What did he expect to happen?

“There’s no party for me here!” -Jeff Spicoli

Clouds

More clouds in the Photo Gallery.

How Marketing Ruins Tradition

Anyone who doesn’t think that college football is a business isn’t living in the real world. There is no way that anyone associated with college football in any capacity can begin to believe that it’s not about the money. You see, I’m not a huge fan of college sports, but I do realize that college football is just as much of a corporation as <INSERT BIG BOX STORE HERE>.

Furthermore, I’m all about the free market, and one of the best ways to generate long-term revenue in the sports world is naming rights. Perhaps the intense furnace-like heat I have been exposed to by sitting on the west side of DKR Memorial Stadium at 4pm on a cloudless September afternoon has skewed my perception about naming rights. But here it goes.

While I embrace the free market, I’m against is selling out the names of the college bowl games. I’m a traditionalist. Don’t hold it against me. The end result of naming rights is usually a mangled form of the original name that just sounds out of place. But marketing drones unite! You see, I am of the old school. I still refer to the Texas-Oklahoma game as “The Red River Shootout“. I refuse to let political correctness dictate the name of a tradition that has been going on since before political correctness was a term. Especially when it’s in my state!

It’s NOT “The Red River Rivalry”, damn it! But now that the marketing demons people with piles of cash have distorted tradition with hundred dollar bills (and lots of them), we’re subjected to the “AT&T Red River Rivalry”. What’s more, back in the good old days when it was called “The Red River Shootout”, I don’t recall anyone ever wanting to shoot anyone, which was part of the reason for the name change. Asinine, political correctness rears its ugly head.

That’s not the worst part. Look at some of the distorted names that represent college football. The Outback Bowl sounds like a place where people go to relieve themselves if they can’t afford indoor plumbing.

Speaking of political correctness, I’m really surprised that someone from the Hispanic community hasn’t complained about the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Perhaps they did and I missed it.

What about the other bowl games whose names consist of only the sponsor?

The Chick-Fil-A Bowl for instance (formerly The Peach Bowl), is a prime example of this absurd naming behavior. Since when did Chick-Fil-A become representative of Georgia in the way and to the magnitude that peaches have? I think Georgia has sold its soul. Does that mean we can call Ty Cobb “The Georgia Nugget”? I think not.

Then we have the Pappa Johns.com bowl. This game is played in Birmingham, Alabama. This makes sense. I can see the direct relation between Alabama and pizza. Plus, any college bowl game ending in “.com” is about 7 years too late to that party. Update your wardrobe, Papa!

Then there’s the Humanitarian Bowl and the Insight Bowl. Both of which I would have guessed would be played somewhere on the west coast (San Francisco to be more specific). I was wrong. (Idaho and Arizona, respectively). A mere geographical oversight, I’m sure. Since when does one of the most violent sports in the country get associated with the word “humanitarian”?

Then there are the bowl games that haven’t sold out yet. My respect! They include The Gator Bowl and the Alamo Bowl. That’s pretty much it. Our last ties to the good old days have dwindled down a reptile and some settlers who were overrun by the Mexicans. Don’t mess with Texas (please).

GMail: As Much as I Try

I would really like to use GMail as my primary mail application. I’ve tried and tried, and cannot bring myself to change over from Yahoo! Mail. I don’t care that Google’s stock price is over $600.00 as of this writing. There are some things that other companies do better than Google.

Yahoo lets you filter your mail into real folders. With GMail, everything gets dumped into the inbox, and you can apply a “label” to it for the purpose of filtering from the inbox. Not the best way in the world to accomplish this.

You can select default fonts in Yahoo! Mail. Playing around with the fonts in GMail causes the mail to be displayed on the recipient’s side in a manner that wasn’t intended (larger font, etc …)

Yahoo! Mail is $20.00 for ad-free, unlimited storage. While GMail is great with 3 gigs and counting, the ads are still there, and it costs a very unreasonable amount to get more storage. I’m not sure what they’re trying to achieve by charging so much for extra space.

Google/Gmail Upgrade rates:

10 GB ($20.00 USD per year), 40 GB ($75.00 USD per year), 150 GB ($250.00 USD per year), 400 GB ($500.00 USD per year)

Furthermore, there are strict limits to Picasa photo storage (1GB), where as Yahoo’s Flickr is also unlimited.

Google isn’t the best in the business with these things. When it comes to search, Google is king. When it comes to mail, photo storage, and a few other things, they’re not there yet. Even if the stock price is rivaling Berkshire Hathaway. Just my opinion.

Wings Over Houston

Went to the Wings Over Houston show today. Other than some rain, it was good times. I was feeling kinda cheated afterwards since it was $20.00 to get in, and started pouring rain about an hour into the trip. But I got what I was looking for … some decent photos. This year’s array of talent features an impressive parade of modern civilian aerobatic and state-of-the-art military hardware.

More photos like this in the gallery!

The Economics of Getting Screwed

As hard as I try, it’s sometimes difficult to support our government. One might think (and hope) that the government would do every thing within reason to help out those brave men and women who serve on the battlefield. When they fail at that, it’s not a pretty situation. When the slap in the face is so blatantly obvious, it pisses me off.

When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush’s surge. ¹

So goes the story of 2,600 heroes in the Minnesota National Guard. As far as the rules go, National Guard troops who are deployed for 730 days are eligible for education benefits under the G.I. Bill. This means help in financing that Bachelor of Science degree, or that MBA. It’s the least the government can do, right? Problem is, some pencil-pushing accountant who thought that it would be cool to show how much money we can save had the orders for these troops drawn up for 729 days (one day less than is required for benefits).

“It’s pretty much a slap in the face,” Anderson said. “I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership… once again failing the soldiers”

Meanwhile, our friends at the GAO discovered that the entire country is getting screwed by a different class of bureaucrat by way of first-class upgrades on flights around the country … at a cost of MILLIONS. (oh yeah … because they thought they were entitled to it). Perhaps some of our elected class in the House and Senate can get off their collective asses and get something done about this. Perhaps?

1. http://www.wcsh6.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=71741 [↩]

Texas Summer Moon

Moon on a warm, late-September night in Central Texas. More of these in the gallery.

Frogs (Bufo valliceps)

A few months ago after cutting the grass in the oppressive heat, I took my old tennis shoes off on the front porch. A few days later, a frog had decided to make that his home. He’s there every day, and even brings over a girlfriend once in a while. We’re putting water on the shoes to keep it damp for him. He seems to be appreciative of his new home.

The Gulf Coast Toad (Bufo valliceps) is a species of toad native to the United States, in the states of Louisiana and Texas, and south into Mexico around the Gulf of Mexico region. Gulf coast toads are a medium sized toad species, ranging from 2″ to 4″ in length. Their back varies in color from nearly black, to shades of brown and grey with a distinctive white or yellowish colored stripe down the center, and sometimes lighter colored patches on the sides. Their underside is yellow or cream colored. Their back is covered in small tubercles, while their underside is normally devoid of them.¹

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufo_valliceps [↩]