One of the great things about living in a new-to-you country is that the holidays come as a pleasant surprise - who knew you were getting Monday off? This coming Monday, as it turns out, is Deepavali. Deepavali, also called Diwali, is a major Indian holiday, and Indians are a big presence in Singapore (including all but one of my work colleagues). It's a "festival of lights" which may have originated as a harvest festival, or may mark the anniversary of the release of a group of political prisoners 2,500 years ago, depending on whom (and what) you believe. Whatever its origins, Deepavali is now celebrated by lighting oil lamps - and now in some places, fireworks - to celebrate the triumph of good over evil in all people. And of course, being an overeducated expert on world cultures, I knew all that without resorting to Wikipedia. Yessir.
But seriously, I really find the whole thing inspiring. Maybe it's the elections and the extremely ugly rhetoric we've heard from some quarters, or maybe it's more personal than that, but I really like the idea of everybody taking a minute to consider the good and bad within and making sure the good side wins. I've had a few wins and a few losses in that area myself lately. Nobody's perfect, huh.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The 401K(eg) Plan
From a friend back in DC:
If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Airlines stock one year ago, you would have $49 today.
If you had purchased $1000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $33 today.
If you had purchased $1000 of Lehman Brothers stock one year ago, you would have $0 today.
However, if you had purchased $1000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling, you would have received $214 today as redemptions. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-KEG Plan.
If you had purchased $1000 of Delta Airlines stock one year ago, you would have $49 today.
If you had purchased $1000 of AIG stock one year ago, you would have $33 today.
If you had purchased $1000 of Lehman Brothers stock one year ago, you would have $0 today.
However, if you had purchased $1000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling, you would have received $214 today as redemptions. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-KEG Plan.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Taking the VERY scenic route
A couple of weeks short of six months since I arrived in Singapore, and now my worldly posessions have joined me. I've managed well enough without my winter clothes, and books I've mostly already read and CDs I have saved to my iPod, but it's still nice to have everything in one place again. As it looks more like my stay here is going to be longer and more stable than I'd hoped, I guess there's poetic justice to having it all finally arrive.
But still, six months? I know it's an awfully long way, but six months?! Really, there was no choice. During the past few moves, I have intentionally kept everything with me regardless of the hoops I have to jump through to get it there, since it's always been unclear where the fates were going to send me next, and how long I would stay there. (The colossal false start that was Luxembourg is the perfect example of this, but it's not the only such example, only the most extreme one.)
But this has led to jumping through a lot of those hoops, and it was only going to get worse. When I first decided to move to France, I went to a great deal of trouble to pack everything neatly back in Denver and rented a minivan to drive it all to the post office...only to discover that I had misread the guidelines and most of my boxes had to be re-packed. I bought the appropriate boxes and did the repacking right then and there, out of the back of the van in the post office parking lot. It took well over two hours and was awfully tedious, although the woman behind the counter complimented me for my patience. ("Most men would have gone off the deep end by now." I was so relieved to be done when she said that that I managed to let it go by - barely.) While decompressing over a well-earned lunch at Red Lobster afterward, I vowed never to put myself in a position like that again.
Only I did. First of all, there were two moves within Denver before I took off for Paris, with everything I still had with me at that point. These were completed by taxi, which ought to earn me a few Palin-points for acting like an ultra-average American on some level or other. Then, when I got to France, all those boxes I'd repacked at the last minute had gotten there safe and sound...but they were delivered to the temporary MBA building at the far end of campus as the real MBA building was being renovated at the time (my colleagues will, by now, have envisioned the long walk back to Expansiel that involved...maybe some of them even saw me lugging those boxes up from the grande ecole).
Never again? Wrong. Luxembourg. That time I rented a truck, which wasn't too bad. Of course, since the whole sojurn in Luxembourg was cursed from start to finish, it's only fair that moving back to Paris couldn't be too easy either. I didn't really make it clear at the time, but the move back to Paris was on extremely short notice. (I wrote that entry immediately after the decision was made, and was too stressed out and depressed to dwell on the whole thing at the time...the fact that I was depressed about moving to Paris shows I wasn't thinking things through very clearly, I suppose!) I found out on Monday morning that I would need to take another class, and by Thursday I was back in the city of lights prepping for class and making appointments to look at rooms.
A week after that, I'd already been back with my rented Citroen to drag most of my stuff back to Paris, but not quite all. I had to come back to close out the apartment anyway, and figured I'd carry the last of my clothes and such in my suitcases. No dice. I overestimated what would fit in the suitcases. Luckily, I had a couple of boxes lying around, so I texted my new roommate for her postal address, ran to the supermarket for packing tape, and just made it to the post office with my two boxes of clothes before a rather nasty rainstorm. The storm meant I was pretty wet for the last train ride back to Paris - all too fitting considering the way things had been going at that point - but I'd conquered the moving beast once again.
Never again? Close enough. I mean, one can't very well mail 20 boxes of CDs, books and clothes from Paris to Singapore on a reasonable budget, especially without an address to send them to. So I broke down and hired professionals, after once again meticulously packing everything...only to be told they could have done that for me. Just as well, I'd rather have them packed so that I knew where everything was.
Not so fast. The moving rep told me he would have to break down all the boxes, take inventory, and re-pack them at the warehouse in London before they got on the boat for Singapore. He also told me not to send any DVDs because anything more risque then your average Disney movie wouldn't get past the censors in Singapore. (I now know he was wrong about that, but my DVDs are at least safe back in America where I sent them instead.) At least my job would end with the boxes being picked up.
I think they told me to expect the trip to take about three months. Not unreasonable, as long as that sounds, but hopelessly optimistic as it turned out. Other observations, now that it finally has arrived, include the fact that they did not really have to repack anything. Everything arrived just as I shipped it, in the same boxes with my handwriting on the sides and no evidence that they'd ever cut the tape on any of them. Which no doubt means I'd have had no trouble getting the DVDs into the country anyway, even if I did have any porn (which I don't!). At least it's here, in any case.
Amusingly, after the trip took months longer than it was supposed to, the delivery company told me to expect them "between 2 and 5" on Monday afternoon. They arrived at 2:15.
But still, six months? I know it's an awfully long way, but six months?! Really, there was no choice. During the past few moves, I have intentionally kept everything with me regardless of the hoops I have to jump through to get it there, since it's always been unclear where the fates were going to send me next, and how long I would stay there. (The colossal false start that was Luxembourg is the perfect example of this, but it's not the only such example, only the most extreme one.)
But this has led to jumping through a lot of those hoops, and it was only going to get worse. When I first decided to move to France, I went to a great deal of trouble to pack everything neatly back in Denver and rented a minivan to drive it all to the post office...only to discover that I had misread the guidelines and most of my boxes had to be re-packed. I bought the appropriate boxes and did the repacking right then and there, out of the back of the van in the post office parking lot. It took well over two hours and was awfully tedious, although the woman behind the counter complimented me for my patience. ("Most men would have gone off the deep end by now." I was so relieved to be done when she said that that I managed to let it go by - barely.) While decompressing over a well-earned lunch at Red Lobster afterward, I vowed never to put myself in a position like that again.
Only I did. First of all, there were two moves within Denver before I took off for Paris, with everything I still had with me at that point. These were completed by taxi, which ought to earn me a few Palin-points for acting like an ultra-average American on some level or other. Then, when I got to France, all those boxes I'd repacked at the last minute had gotten there safe and sound...but they were delivered to the temporary MBA building at the far end of campus as the real MBA building was being renovated at the time (my colleagues will, by now, have envisioned the long walk back to Expansiel that involved...maybe some of them even saw me lugging those boxes up from the grande ecole).
Never again? Wrong. Luxembourg. That time I rented a truck, which wasn't too bad. Of course, since the whole sojurn in Luxembourg was cursed from start to finish, it's only fair that moving back to Paris couldn't be too easy either. I didn't really make it clear at the time, but the move back to Paris was on extremely short notice. (I wrote that entry immediately after the decision was made, and was too stressed out and depressed to dwell on the whole thing at the time...the fact that I was depressed about moving to Paris shows I wasn't thinking things through very clearly, I suppose!) I found out on Monday morning that I would need to take another class, and by Thursday I was back in the city of lights prepping for class and making appointments to look at rooms.
A week after that, I'd already been back with my rented Citroen to drag most of my stuff back to Paris, but not quite all. I had to come back to close out the apartment anyway, and figured I'd carry the last of my clothes and such in my suitcases. No dice. I overestimated what would fit in the suitcases. Luckily, I had a couple of boxes lying around, so I texted my new roommate for her postal address, ran to the supermarket for packing tape, and just made it to the post office with my two boxes of clothes before a rather nasty rainstorm. The storm meant I was pretty wet for the last train ride back to Paris - all too fitting considering the way things had been going at that point - but I'd conquered the moving beast once again.
Never again? Close enough. I mean, one can't very well mail 20 boxes of CDs, books and clothes from Paris to Singapore on a reasonable budget, especially without an address to send them to. So I broke down and hired professionals, after once again meticulously packing everything...only to be told they could have done that for me. Just as well, I'd rather have them packed so that I knew where everything was.
Not so fast. The moving rep told me he would have to break down all the boxes, take inventory, and re-pack them at the warehouse in London before they got on the boat for Singapore. He also told me not to send any DVDs because anything more risque then your average Disney movie wouldn't get past the censors in Singapore. (I now know he was wrong about that, but my DVDs are at least safe back in America where I sent them instead.) At least my job would end with the boxes being picked up.
I think they told me to expect the trip to take about three months. Not unreasonable, as long as that sounds, but hopelessly optimistic as it turned out. Other observations, now that it finally has arrived, include the fact that they did not really have to repack anything. Everything arrived just as I shipped it, in the same boxes with my handwriting on the sides and no evidence that they'd ever cut the tape on any of them. Which no doubt means I'd have had no trouble getting the DVDs into the country anyway, even if I did have any porn (which I don't!). At least it's here, in any case.
Amusingly, after the trip took months longer than it was supposed to, the delivery company told me to expect them "between 2 and 5" on Monday afternoon. They arrived at 2:15.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Why I love the progressive blogosphere
There's lots I'd love to say about Gov. Palin and the debate, but I'm too busy at work right now to go into it in much detail. But I did want to offer this up right away.
From Jonathan Chait at the usually-mediocre New Republic:
I don't know how much the right still goes around predicting that the progressive blogosphere will be the death knell of the Democratic party, by way of pulling it too far to the left or creating an echo chamber or whatever...my guess is it's still pretty common. But Palin's misrepresentation of Reagan is exactly the sort of thing they used to get away with all the time (in fact, Reagan more or less built his career on such intellectual dishonesty). Her fans will still believe what they want to believe, but those of us who are interested in the truth can now set the record straight next time we hear people reciting the soundbite in line at the supermarket.
Incidentally, I don't think Palin was lying. I think, like most Reagan-worshippers, she doesn't know much of anything about the truth of his record. It's all too common on the right - when they want to drum up support for a particular point of view, they just say "that's the way Reagan saw it" and there's no further need for discussion. The issue of whether or not he really would have supported the issue in question doesn't matter at all (and, often as not, isn't really answerable anyway since his record is so convoluted and inconsistent, and he spent so much time lying about his own past). In any case, this article has the truth about that quote and what he really was getting at.
From Jonathan Chait at the usually-mediocre New Republic:
Palin's final quote was from Ronald Reagan, warning that without vigilance, "you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."
In fact, Reagan was not warning about a general lack of vigilance about freedom, he was warning what would happen if Medicare was enacted.
I don't know how much the right still goes around predicting that the progressive blogosphere will be the death knell of the Democratic party, by way of pulling it too far to the left or creating an echo chamber or whatever...my guess is it's still pretty common. But Palin's misrepresentation of Reagan is exactly the sort of thing they used to get away with all the time (in fact, Reagan more or less built his career on such intellectual dishonesty). Her fans will still believe what they want to believe, but those of us who are interested in the truth can now set the record straight next time we hear people reciting the soundbite in line at the supermarket.
Incidentally, I don't think Palin was lying. I think, like most Reagan-worshippers, she doesn't know much of anything about the truth of his record. It's all too common on the right - when they want to drum up support for a particular point of view, they just say "that's the way Reagan saw it" and there's no further need for discussion. The issue of whether or not he really would have supported the issue in question doesn't matter at all (and, often as not, isn't really answerable anyway since his record is so convoluted and inconsistent, and he spent so much time lying about his own past). In any case, this article has the truth about that quote and what he really was getting at.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
You mean they listened?
Every time I try to steer the blog in the direction of something other than politics...well, there's not a whole lot going on just now over here anyway (rainy season, but I'm pleasantly busy at work without being overwhelmed, etc.). In any case, I had given up the bailout for lost (that is, I expected the stupid thing to sail through the House), but it's been stopped for now. A nice surprise, but just what were the Dems thinking?! They're poised to gain another 20 seats or so, public opinion is wildly against the bailout, the entire world is counting down the days until Bush goes back to Texas...and they give him a majority of their votes while the Republicans supply the votes against it? Way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, guys! I guess I have to give the Republicans credit where it's due for living up to their claims of fiscal conservatism for once.
What should be done instead? I don't know. I do know that taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill, and I also know that the number 700,000,000,000 was chosen at random because they needed "a really big number". One thing I'd like to see changed immediately is the principle of "it's too big to fail." If a bank is too big to fail, it's too big, period.
The selfish bastard in me can't wait to see how far the US dollar sinks against the Singapore one.
What should be done instead? I don't know. I do know that taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill, and I also know that the number 700,000,000,000 was chosen at random because they needed "a really big number". One thing I'd like to see changed immediately is the principle of "it's too big to fail." If a bank is too big to fail, it's too big, period.
The selfish bastard in me can't wait to see how far the US dollar sinks against the Singapore one.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The whole world is watching
Among my guilty pleasures of late is an American-style diner at one of Singapore's numerous malls. (I suspect Singapore probably has the most malls per capita in the world.) You know the sort of place, kitchy and over-the-top with its decorations from several different long-ago decades, but the food is great nonetheless. It's not really that unusual for Asians to try too hard in their own way to act American, but this place takes it to extremes. Tonight, though, I was in the mood for some comfort food after almost making it through a good but fairly tedious week, so off I went to the diner.
They have a rather wide selection of burgers. I usually don't order a burger because I'm trying to watch my weight (and I'm also now old enough to see that some of the more elaborate specialty burgers are, well, gross), but just out of curiosity I checked that part of the menu tonight. They had a new addition to the lineup: the Obama Burger. Just a reminder of whose side the rest of the world is on, I guess. I did check to see if they had a dish named for McCain...maybe a mooseburger, or something involving extra-aged beef...but they didn't, although their fries are made from McCain potatoes. (I don't think there's any relation, though...isn't the potato company Canadian? I do know they have a big processing plant on Prince Edward Island.)
I chose not to read anything into the fact that the Obama Burger comes with black pepper sauce. If they were trying to be offensive, they probably would have topped it with collard greens or some such.
They have a rather wide selection of burgers. I usually don't order a burger because I'm trying to watch my weight (and I'm also now old enough to see that some of the more elaborate specialty burgers are, well, gross), but just out of curiosity I checked that part of the menu tonight. They had a new addition to the lineup: the Obama Burger. Just a reminder of whose side the rest of the world is on, I guess. I did check to see if they had a dish named for McCain...maybe a mooseburger, or something involving extra-aged beef...but they didn't, although their fries are made from McCain potatoes. (I don't think there's any relation, though...isn't the potato company Canadian? I do know they have a big processing plant on Prince Edward Island.)
I chose not to read anything into the fact that the Obama Burger comes with black pepper sauce. If they were trying to be offensive, they probably would have topped it with collard greens or some such.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Look out, you might get what you're after
Senior year in high school, my advanced English class read parts of the Canturbury Tales. I suppose the most precise thing to say here is that we read "selections from the Canturbury Tales, but for reasons I can't really explain, "selection" is one of two literary terms that I have always actively disliked. (The other is "extended metaphor." But I digress.) As my fellow literary snobs know, the prologue to the Tales is a character sketch of all the pilgrims Chaucer met on the road to Canterbury. After we'd read the prologue in class, we were assigned to write a series of character sketches modeled after it, a tale of a chance meeting with a group of people on a journey and a more detailed look at at least three of them. You might say we were asked to write an extended metaphor of the prologue. You might, but I'd rather you didn't. The tale could be told in rhyme, like the original; but it didn't have to be, as our extremely arrogant teacher wasn't sure we'd all be up to such a challenge. Best of all, we were allowed to work in groups of up to four.
Now, I had four best buds in that class - three guys and one gal - and I always did my group projects with some combination of them. However, on this occasion, the four of them teamed up before I even had a chance to talk to any of them, so I was left to do the assignment on my own. That's high school for you! I was down, but not out. After a healthy dose of teenage angst, I sat down one afternoon at my parents' 1987 Atari 1040 and, in one sitting, pounded out seven or eight pages in rhyme and iambic pentameter about a guy who's driving to the beach and meets a busload of rednecks at a roadside diner. I set it aside to edit and/or rewrite as necessary, but never thought of any way to improve it and just hoped for the best. On the day the assignment was due, we had to recite our compositions in class. After each group (and they were all groups, except for yours truly) had one member read their work, the teacher would provide some positive comments and some critical ones.
But when I read mine - coincidentally just after my four friends who had forgotten me - there was no criticism forthcoming, from any corner of the room. What did the notoriously hard-to-impress teacher say? "Well, what can we say after work like that? Incredible." The four friends? "We don't call him The Venerable for nothing!" By the end of the week I was getting compliments from friends who weren't even in that class. (The teacher had taken the liberty of reading my work to the other classes, as an example of what they could do if they tried harder.)
Six months later on the morning after graduation, as I was leaving the all-night grad party, a girl from the class - whom I had barely known - hugged me and said, "Bye, Dave, it was great listening to all your stories this year." That remains the closest I have yet come to what I'm guessing John Lennon felt at age 15 when he saw Elvis getting mobbed by girls on television and decided to go buy a guitar. Thanks, Laura, wherever you are. Hope you like my book if I ever finish it.
Why, you ask, am I bringing all this up now? Two words: Lehman Brothers.
Of course I was delighted when I got the chance to come to Singapore last spring, but I had been hoping to get a job in a bank. I did make the first-round cut in a couple of places (not Lehman's, though - I don't think they hired anybody from my class), but with no prior banking experience, it just wasn't going to happen in this economy. I didn't feel too sorry for myself over that this summer, as I was just glad to be employed somewhere. But I now feel secure enough in my current job to admit that I really didn't think it was going to fly for a while. It was boring (sometimes it still is, but things have picked up), it wasn't what I had planned to do with my degree (but then I always knew I might have to fall back on something else at least temporarily), it wasn't very well-paid (that's about to change), and I missed Paris. Who wouldn't miss Paris, of course? I told myself getting a job there without an EU passport is just about impossible anyway, but it isn't really. Difficult, but not impossible...if you can afford to wait around until somebody turns up willing to sponsor you. I, of course, could not. On top of everything else, after the false start in Luxembourg, I figured it was just a matter of time until the same happened here.
As I've discussed before, things have improved quite a bit after that slow start. I'm not rich yet, but business is picking up and it looks like there's going to be a lot of business-travel around Asia coming up pretty soon (not to mention a possible trip to Las Vegas in February). But that's beside the point. Whether there's a pot of gold down at the end of Orchard Road or not, it's a steady income that I can count on for the time being. If I had gotten a job with a bank...well, no need to dwell on that right now!
Now, I had four best buds in that class - three guys and one gal - and I always did my group projects with some combination of them. However, on this occasion, the four of them teamed up before I even had a chance to talk to any of them, so I was left to do the assignment on my own. That's high school for you! I was down, but not out. After a healthy dose of teenage angst, I sat down one afternoon at my parents' 1987 Atari 1040 and, in one sitting, pounded out seven or eight pages in rhyme and iambic pentameter about a guy who's driving to the beach and meets a busload of rednecks at a roadside diner. I set it aside to edit and/or rewrite as necessary, but never thought of any way to improve it and just hoped for the best. On the day the assignment was due, we had to recite our compositions in class. After each group (and they were all groups, except for yours truly) had one member read their work, the teacher would provide some positive comments and some critical ones.
But when I read mine - coincidentally just after my four friends who had forgotten me - there was no criticism forthcoming, from any corner of the room. What did the notoriously hard-to-impress teacher say? "Well, what can we say after work like that? Incredible." The four friends? "We don't call him The Venerable for nothing!" By the end of the week I was getting compliments from friends who weren't even in that class. (The teacher had taken the liberty of reading my work to the other classes, as an example of what they could do if they tried harder.)
Six months later on the morning after graduation, as I was leaving the all-night grad party, a girl from the class - whom I had barely known - hugged me and said, "Bye, Dave, it was great listening to all your stories this year." That remains the closest I have yet come to what I'm guessing John Lennon felt at age 15 when he saw Elvis getting mobbed by girls on television and decided to go buy a guitar. Thanks, Laura, wherever you are. Hope you like my book if I ever finish it.
Why, you ask, am I bringing all this up now? Two words: Lehman Brothers.
Of course I was delighted when I got the chance to come to Singapore last spring, but I had been hoping to get a job in a bank. I did make the first-round cut in a couple of places (not Lehman's, though - I don't think they hired anybody from my class), but with no prior banking experience, it just wasn't going to happen in this economy. I didn't feel too sorry for myself over that this summer, as I was just glad to be employed somewhere. But I now feel secure enough in my current job to admit that I really didn't think it was going to fly for a while. It was boring (sometimes it still is, but things have picked up), it wasn't what I had planned to do with my degree (but then I always knew I might have to fall back on something else at least temporarily), it wasn't very well-paid (that's about to change), and I missed Paris. Who wouldn't miss Paris, of course? I told myself getting a job there without an EU passport is just about impossible anyway, but it isn't really. Difficult, but not impossible...if you can afford to wait around until somebody turns up willing to sponsor you. I, of course, could not. On top of everything else, after the false start in Luxembourg, I figured it was just a matter of time until the same happened here.
As I've discussed before, things have improved quite a bit after that slow start. I'm not rich yet, but business is picking up and it looks like there's going to be a lot of business-travel around Asia coming up pretty soon (not to mention a possible trip to Las Vegas in February). But that's beside the point. Whether there's a pot of gold down at the end of Orchard Road or not, it's a steady income that I can count on for the time being. If I had gotten a job with a bank...well, no need to dwell on that right now!
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