Black Monday 2008

Today in my fictional stock market game I was a genius. I sold a few things short in the AM and had made 10% by the close of the market. Sort of expect more of the same tomorrow and the rest of the week. Panic and mayhem. In the real world my retirement account is taking a pounding. It is amazing to watch these institutions go floating by in the river of woe. This is why you should always hedge your bets in the real world. Of course I wish I'd sold everything in our 401ks, gone short on some ETFs, and then cashed out at night. But I didn't. If you have any play money I'd sell all the financials short and ride them down. It is going to be UGLY! When government officials start addressing the nation about keeping cool, you can bet it will be UGLY!

My prediction for the rest of the week is that almost everything will go down another 3-5%. Google will go up since they keep taking my (and everyone else's) ad money and transaction fees. GLD may also be on the way back up after dipping to the low 70s.

I swam almost 4k tonight, which makes 3 days in a row of swimming, which totally kicks ass.

whew!

Whew. That sums up how I'm feeling tonight after all of our antics over the weekend. Had a nice swim on a gorgeous Saturday morning in Wrightsville Beach for the Pier 2 Pier swim. I got out with the lead pack and hung on...for about three minutes. :P then realized that I needed to slow down or roll over and go belly up. Found a nice rhythm and finished in about 40 minutes flat, which put me 6.5 minutes behind the men's winner, a fella named Chas Peterson, who swims for UNC Chapel Hill and apparently was 13th at the Olympic trials for the 10k open water swim. So, OK.

To translate that into running terms, you could say that the winner is a guy who can run a 28 minute 10k, so as a training race he might run 29 or 30 - being 6 minutes behind that time is still a respectable 35 or 36 minute 10k run. Not bad, right? I will optionally neglect to mention the dozens of teenage girls who also soundly whipped me out there. It was fun either way, saw a bunch of folks we know, and I got 3rd in the M35-39 age group.

Drove home, packed up, picked up Bri, and then we headed off to VA Beach. Visited the Final Kick Sports shop to pick up our packets for the Sandman Triathlon; it is a nice tri-shop with shoes, wetsuits, bikes, and all the other stuff.

Had dinner with one of my athletes and then we headed to Sis-in-law's house to crash.

Back up early, off to the beach to do the Sandman Tri. I wound up having a good race - 3rd in the swim, moved to the front on the bike and held the lead until the end when Brad Pigage caught me; held 2nd until mile 2 when another fella passed me - almost finished 3rd but a strong runner came from way down and put 30 seconds into me in the last half-mile. My swim was good, bike was better than expected - run was about where I thought (painful, uncomfortable, belly flab flabbing about) but the heat really zapped me. Also think the run was a little long. Wound up being 5th overall (an ager beat me by 3 secs) which makes me happy after having a less than competitive 2008 season.

And more importantly, I beat Bri in the 1st annual showdown or throwdown competition. She was 1.5 minutes faster on the run, and won the women's division, but she didn't beat me. :) Just kidding honey, great job.

That's it - coach tomorrow AM, swim tomorrow PM. I may look into doing one more local tri since I feel good.

Weekend update

This weekend I'm pulling an old maneuver, back-to-back races. In the old days I might have won one of them and been top five in the other; now I'm just looking to finish both without having a stroke. But seriously folks...

The Pier 2 Pier swim on Saturday is 1.7 miles at Wrightsville Beach,NC. Conditions should be relatively mild. I haven't done an all out swim race since 2006 so we'll see how it pans out. We're allowed to use swim skins like the PointZero3, which I will. Not much surf predicted so I probably won't take my board down.

On Sunday Bri and I are having a bloody battle royale (with cheese) at the Sandman Triathlon in Virginia Beach, VA. I am going to hammer the swim and bike and then try not to lose too much ground to her on the run. There are some fast guys racing so chances of me being in the money are minimal. Cash purse is $300-$200-$100. Running a 20 minute 5k doesn't hold up against dudes who're running 16-17. Maybe next year. Bri will be gunning for some rent money. Baby's dadda needs food.

Have yourself a good weekend!

US Treasury to bail out Cuba

In a surprise news release destined to foreshadow the upheaval in the markets for months to come, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson announced that the Treasury would be injecting up to $500 billion into the isolated communist state of Cuba. The small island country was recently ravaged by consecutive hurricanes.

"We've used Cuba as a strategic red herring for many years. To allow Cuba to fail now would deprive of us an important ideological and imaginary enemy, right there on our own shores," said Paulson yesterday. "Without Cuba to bash as an example of the failure of Neo-Marxist communism, we would have to turn our eyes to Haiti, or the Dominican Republic," he paused, "and they really don't work within the confines of our military rhetoric."

Cuba, which for years has barely hung onto a diminishing balance sheet due to forced liquidation of assets, like Model T Fords, cigars, grumpy old guys, and floating car boats, had not been seeking bankruptcy protection, or any other form of help from the US. Cuba's net worth is estimated at 100 billion (US), less than five times the amount the US Treasury is seeking to inject. However, by taking out various loans from Venezuela, China, and Russia, all close Cuban allies, it has a book to loan value of seventy-four. A standard acceptable book to loan value of a bank in the United States is ten. The US itself has a book to loan value of about one gazillion.

"Die, American pigs!" wrote Raul Castro, in response to repeated email inquiries. Fidel Castro was regrettably unavailable for comment.

The capital injection will begin as soon as the Treasury can ramp up dollar bill production using unskilled immigrant labor. The cash will be delivered to Cuban nationals in Miami for distribution through their network of relatives who live in underground caves outside Havana.

"It's a short term, necessary evil," said Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve. "I mean, what's more American than owning your own home, watching the New York Yankees play baseball on a flat screen TV in your living room, and hating Cuba?"

St Pete relaxation

We had a good time in St Pete this past weekend. On Friday I got a par on a par 3 145 yard hole. After a series of dismal tees, I put one right on the green and putted for birdie. Almost made it but it ran around the lip. Lots of fun. Total score was 140 something. YeaarrrghhhH!!

Ran around the beach and swam with Bri. Went gambling on Saturday at Tampa Bay Downs. Lost 20 bucks on the ponies and won about 20 on poker. Raked in a few hands but gave some back with shoddy play. The guy next to me played every hand and was just giving his money away. Sad to see but that is life. If we were all winners it would be called winning, not gambling.

In other news, I put together a decent DVD to send to the clinic attendees from the last Powerstroke clinic. It came out pretty good, which is a good sign for the real deal in the works.

In other news, here is a picture of a happy clown.

St Pete Beach!

We are here in St Pete Beach for my Dad's 74th bday weekend. Gonna go golf tomorrow and then I dunno after that. Will be working throughout the day as usual. I would tell you more but then I'd have to write something interesting.

Video editing, guitar hero, and evening masters

Our first master's evening practice went well, about 13 people showed up which is great for the first night. Bri coached and I swam for this one.

Bri is hooked on guitar hero. I would love to post some videos of that but she's banned me from entertaining you with vids/pictures of her rocking out with the Wii guitar. It is awesome.

I am getting into the video editing stuff. Quickly discovered that iMovie 08 does not compare to Final Cut Express 4 for video editing purposes, I was losing a ton of video quality in the process of importing/exporting in iMovie. If any of you have tips on that stuff I will take it.

Swam 3k tonight, which totally rocks.