Likeness

It was about a year ago, on a sweltering day in Grand Junction, Colorado, that I climbed into a 1980s RV to pass a few moments while waiting for my then girlfriend's music show to begin. The two of us had hoped for a few moments alone to enjoy each others' company without distraction. ---- A friend of my girlfriend and a first time visitor to Colorado had also arrived in Grand Junction to support and partake in the music show. Her name is Sukato. This individual is one of the more eclectic souls to have entered my life. And I write now recalling the first time I saw her perform at an open mic in Brooklyn, NY in which her finger's plucked the violin and her voice screeched a tune that at first berated, before finding the melodies searching for a path outward from the Julliard trained mind. ---- Sukato climbed aboard the RV breaking any hope for a couple to find some peace.

The conversation drifted somehow to a topic of likeness. Not what we preferred to eat, or how a bust would capture our expression, rather what celebrity we looked like. We went around and tried to think of a celebrity's name that would capture some likeness of the others, at the time being mindful to sufficiently flatter. When Sukato got to me, she was struggling to think of the celebrity's name, but it was obvious she had found the dead-on match for me. "Oh, oh, you know....that guy from Capote!!"....It took us a moment...but it came to us...Philip Seymour Hoffman!!!!! Yes, sufficiently flattering! What about Brad Pitt? or maybe Matt Damon? Chuck Norris? even that one guy from Rudy, who also plays one of the hobbits in the Lord of the Ring? But Philip Seymour Hoffman?!?!

I paused for a moment and thought about the character that Hoffman plays in Capote. I don't look anything like the character in Capote, but I let it sink in. Sukato was thrilled with herself and my girlfriend and I giggled confusedly trying to think how this could be the case.

The thought didn't leave my mind however. As soon as I got to a computer, I searched some photos and found one of Philip Seymour Hoffman, which low and behold formed a near match. I promptly made it known to the world that I looked like Hoffman, by posting the image as my Facebook profile.



The idea of being somehow connected in some superficial way, whether i actually look like Hoffman or not, has let me grow more fond of Hoffman and the characters he plays. I have paid a bit more attention to the guy and to be honest, I think he is one of, if not the best actor in the business. Now I'm no film major and won't claim to be any sort of decent critic of the theater world. But Hoffman seems smart, driven, and can fill just about any role and do it superbly. Due to my connecting with Hoffman, I clicked a recent biographical article that the NYT wrote about Hoffman and it tells a story of a guy to who I don't mind being somehow loosely tied.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21hoffman-t.html

And then I see him on The Daily Show a week or so ago, and I bust a gut reliving all these memories. As Hoffman walks to meet Stewart in a baby blue sweater, that is riding a bit high on his belly, it looks like he has been sleeping in for the last few weeks - maybe he is between movies, or maybe he has moved on to a role where he needs a bit more meat on his frame, I don't know. As he talks with Stewart, I can't find anything to loath about the guy. He seems comfortable in his skin, speaks eloquently about any topic, is moderately interested in whats going on, speaks about his family. Where is the drama with this guy?!? He seems like a decent, decent man. Anyway - it gave me the courage to sleep in that weekend and eat a few more bon bons. And look forward to the day when I have kids and a baby blue sweater and can continue my new goal of becoming this guy ------->

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

So to Sukato - Thank you for connecting me with PSH

Consumption, Savings, Income, and the Middle Class

I looked at this video length and thought 'why?' It took me ten minutes and I was screaming out loud, "holy shit, no way!" I had to explain what was going on to my roommates. There are no explosions, no wet kisses - but there is plenty here to make you go 'hmmmmm'. Thanks Elizabeth Warren.



Enjoy!

Your Words Leave Me Standing Here

And all the leaves had been there all along,
and will be so, long after you've gone,
but you're never really gone,
you'll see.

Deep Capture

"Regulatory capture: The core problem for Washington?

Lawmakers already are determined to re-regulate Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis. But experts say these efforts may be in vain unless some cure is found for regulatory capture -- when regulators eventually come to champion the industry that they are supposed to oversee"

This idea has been on my mind for about two years as I have grown in my profession. The idea of "capture" is an interesting one from the point of view of a regulator/bureaucrat - especially in a small town, where the players are always the same. You get to know those you work with, those you are expected to regulate. A gatekeeper is a tough job, an unsung job. If you do your tasks well, no one will notice. If you mess up, you'll be in a heap on the corner. So where do you find value and appreciation - by working with those you are to regulate, developing relationships, providing good 'service', appeasing, conceding, facilitating, championing. The idea of Deep Capture is not only limited to the financial sector but to every sector involving human regulators. Check out the site

http://www.deepcapture.com/

for some interesting articles and commentary on the difficulties with the concept of Deep Capture.

Medical Insurance

I just received a bill for a minor visit to see a hearing specialist - when the insurance company would not pick it up, the doctor voluntarily wrote off some of the cost.

I have also heard stories of hospitals and doctors reducing the cost of procedures by as much as 2/3rds, if the patient wants to pay in cash and not go through the lengthy insurance underwriting process.

I went to the emergency room in July after an injury on the soccer field - I am still trying to figure out the insurance claim forms, the denial of payment forms, the refiled claim forms, the subrogation and cost containment forms and it is now December. On a positive note maybe I can stretch some of the costs into 2009 to throw onto my 2009 wellness benefit from my employer.

The conclusion is: the health care system is broken. The doctor's are voluntarily willing to take cuts in pay and write down service costs if the insurance companies are not involved, most likely because the health care industry spends a huge chunk of their revenue pushing paper. Doctors and health administrators would never write costs down to an unsustainable level! I can only assumed that they are writing it down to a level which reimburses actual cost with some percent return. I'm sure the finance departments of major health providers aren't sitting in meetings saying "Let's take a loss if we don't involve the insurance companies." Oh and for all you we-have-the-best-health-care-system-in-the-world folks who claim that a single payer system would lead to a reduction in covered health care services, have you ever tried to get the insurance company to pay for a service rendered? - I can't see how we could reduce the specter of non-payment any further through phantom denial of service forms or shear inefficiencies in the current process (and I feel like I have a great health care plan - $400 deductible, 80/20 split for a pretty lengthy list of services)

So the question from here: Can a single payer system match or beat the insurance company in needless paper pushing and rejection of claims/services? I'm not sure, but I bet they could come close. And for doctors - you might then have more patients to treat.

The Madoff Effect

A recent editorial by Tom Friedman caught my eye(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/opinion/07friedman.html). The content wasn't particularly new or edgy. It was more reflective than anything. He spoke about his own generation and the legacy that it was leaving behind. I'm sure the recent Brokaw books and Spielberg dramauckumentaries have all these 50 to 60 somethings thinking. Who will write their history into history and what will be told? After all this was the generation that was destined to bring us free love, world peace, and legal drugs - instead they took their youthful ambitions, got older, had kids, and their free heeling morphed into a world of wealth entitlement based on credit and debt, with magazines labeled "Luxe" and rooms dedicated for the home theater. What happened to those hippies born from great music and synthetic meditation?

What caught my eye was not Friedman's critique of his generation, nor his call for restraint in further reliance on indebtedness, but his comment about the next generations. He said "Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today. I understand why they aren’t." He goes on, "They’re so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester’s tuition."

The comment is poignant, yet then misses badly.

I stopped after the first sentence and swallowed hard. Friedman's question was fabulous. Why aren't we more radical? For god's sake we are the generation of the Wachowski Brothers-(insurgent liberation)! But that is where we stop. We are also the generation of Kurt Cobain(pain and surrender). Of Abercrombie and Fitch(vapid). Of I-lived-happily-and-contentedly-on-my-parents-credit-and-debt. The majority of our generation had what we wanted. We didn't know struggle. So how can we connect to radicalism, if we have no source of discontentment. The only source of spirit would be some general melancholy loneliness evident in the sounds of Death Cab or Weezer, but certainly not a font capable of hurling rocks or flipping police cars (unless of course it involves some sporting event victory, a university campus, and some booze). Some have called us apathetic or complacent. This criticism has some merit, but seems shallow and a partial truth.

And to a final critique of Friedman, we are not yet worried about jobs or college loans - at least not yet. That is not the reason we refrain from radicalism. There is something else that may underlie the personality of our generation: a pragmatism born from the failures of our parents. While there is no dearth of issues to get behind, there are also no all encompassing global philosophies gripping our generation and driving it toward some distant change. There is a smattering of special issues that pieced together could be confused for a base movement, but it hardly resembles a Marxian, a Lennonian (John - thank you), or a Reagonite theory which drove masses of humanity to call for change or shaped a world view of a generation (Sorry MLK for not throwing you in, but unlike the others' - your vision is thankfully still on the march). These movements were failures - they colored history but the ultimate vision was rendered altruistic and, dare I say, the followers were found hypocritical. From the Silent Generation, to the Radical Generation (turned Greedy Generation), and now back to another silent generation - maybe we should be called the Melancholy Generation.

We are the tech driven, web blogger, fully connected generation. Yearning for companionship in a world of 24 hour news networks, constant media feeds to personalized websites, and soundbites. This all feeds the insatiable beast, while also degrading our understanding and tainting our every leader and their every idea. The very mass of the information that lands in our lap renders all ideas less-than-perfect, yet a source for rumination nonetheless. Thank god for John Stewart who gave us the ability to shake our heads and laugh at it all and now to Colbert who grants us the permission to stand with our belief in the face of ignorant banter. We don't need late night meetings of the SDS, we throw our caution to the blogosphere. Our discontent does not well up inside because we progressively let go of our emotions via Facebook or personal blogs or even in comment sections attached to news articles. Whether another soul ever connects with the words thrown out, the cathartic process of public discharge is enough to keep psychological tension to a manageable level - or at least for those who would lead any radical charge.

There are great lessons being learned now, by this generation that Friedman cannot comprehend. It has a pragmatism that has given up on pensions and will have to turn to individual accountability for comfort in old age. We will see the future pain of bailouts, even as we realistically see the need for it. These go hand in hand - how can we save for our future, if their are no jobs for us to hold. Tearing at the old farts dealing the terrible hand will only cause us to loose the last few cards that, if we are lucky and place the right bets, may turn out to be runner - runner.

Good Quotes that I like right now

A paradise of flowers in a violent world and a person is darned lucky who only has the blues and you know that's so.
- Garrison Keillor

Every populace and every form of government is at some stage of insurgency and counterinsurgency at all times...Every civil servant is a counter insurgent everyday, and needs to embrace that role.
- Robert C. Jones, Small Wars Journal

Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace el camino al andar.
--Antonio Machado

RSS Feeds

I just geekified big time. Last night I found out the power of Google Reader through the advice of two of my all time favorite geek friends. So on a saturday night, rather than getting drinks and stupidly stumbling around at the drunk tank known as OTP, i spent the night setting up a way to pour an ungodly amount of info into my skull. It's easy, it's efficient, and my god there's so much info out there.

There are a number of sites that will provide links to feeds. I have one here that I want to share. Please send me any other good sites that provide links that you recommend:
http://www.finance-investing.com/index.php

Deer

Today is October 20th, 2008.

The second rifle season began on Saturday. Ben Beall drew an
anterless resident deer tag as part of the Colorado Division of
Wildlife's annual big game license drawing.

Ben could not hunt on Saturday due to prior engagements such as sawing
logs with a blade that he gave up on, cursing Precision Sharpening for
not being faster in sharpening blades, only to find that they had left
a message an untold number of days prior notifying of the blade being
ready. One of the roommates had listened to the message and it was
lost in the saved messages recording which Ben did not hear. He also
coached soccer that day, watching his team blow a 2-0 lead with only 8
minutes left to play. Ben was left with the solace that his boys had
never gone through such a late game brain fart and Ben noted that this
experience was probably great for their mental development. After the
big game Ben walked from door to door in the hilly mountain base area
neighborhood to knock on doors for the Obama, Udall, Brenner,
Hagenbuch save the world ticket, only to find that no one is home on a
beautiful Saturday afternoon. Ben reasoned that maybe the world
doesn't need saving if people know to get out of their damned homes on
a beautiful Saturday afternoon. One moment caused Ben great joy.
While walking by one apartment, he heard a shout come from an open
window "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!!!" Obviously, a college
quarterback had just made a terrible error or Microsoft Word was not
user friendly enough to write the damn letter for the poor faceless
soul stuck in the I'm-inside-on-a-beautiful-

saturday-afternoon hell
hole.

Ben has rambled so long, that he no longer remembers what he did with
the rest of his saturday afternoon. He does remember saturday night
because he ate a shit load of food that silas cooked - fresh trout
from stagecoach, pork chops, corn, pizza, chips and queso, 'boo'
cookies (its halloween), and a bottle of wine - while watching silas'
for-some-reason beloved red sox stave off elimination.

Sunday came with big expectations but little fanfare. With thoughts
of driving north of Hayden and setting up hunting camp. Ben instead
squandered the day away and did little but stare vacantly at his
computer screen tracking his two fantasy football teams accumulate
points, watching online video clips of Meet the Press, The Daily Show,
The Colbert Report, financial advice from Erin Burnett, and random tid
bits from The Youtube. Of substantive progress however, Ben did pick
up his room a bit and strip the sheets from his bed (which he did not
take the time to replace and later ended up using only the mattress
pad at bedtime). Around 3pm, Ben, exasperated with his own laziness,
counted his losses, emptied the hunting clothes onto his floor, threw
on some orange and crossed RCR 36 to tresspass on private property.
It didn't take him long to find the most deer he had ever seen on
Copper Ridge.

The problem with second season hunting is that the weather is far too
nice and the leaves far to dry and obstructing. With every step Ben
created a cacophony of noise that warned every deer from Steamboat to
Maybell of his approach. After he had heard 15 deer bound off in
front of him, the night descended and left Ben frustrated yet excited
for the next day.

As is always the case, a day of hunting action is always followed by a
day of hunting inaction. Ben spent Monday sitting, waiting, drinking
far too much coffee from a thermos, and growing progressively more
sweaty and less patient. On a good note, due to the coffee, Ben was
able to leave a mark of his territory at every turn. The only
opportunity for the day was at a watering hole where Ben jumped two
does who, as dumbass deer will do, sat and looked at him for 5 minutes
out in the open. The only problem was that they stopped in a position
so that one doe was lined up immediately in front of the doe to the
rear. If only Ben had drawn two doe tags in the Colorado Division of
Wildlife's annual big game license drawing, he may have taken the shot
and told the story later of killing two does with one shot. No such
luck!

Happy for the day and the walk, yet disappointed in what seemed to be
a sure thing, Ben returned home for lunch, a trip to the office, and
then a sunset hunt in the original destination north of Hayden.
Little did he know, Ben's plans were not meant to be.

Upon returning home, Ben found a message from Aztec Drilling regarding
the repair of the well hydrant and the possible methods or
complications for its repair. Knowing the poor service provided by
the service industry in Steamboat, Ben jumped on the offer for Aztec
to come out right away to look at the well. In order to move the
truck and show the well drillers where the switch was to turn off the
pump, Ben stayed at home cleaning the garage and doing other minor
things that he had been putting off for months. After Aztec had
repaired the hydrant. Ben was feeling rushed to get to Sleeping Giant
- he had since modified his original plans because there was no way in
hell he would be able to make it to Hayden unless all he wanted to do
was sit down at the Highway Bar for a beer - and he ran down the back
trail to the garage carrying a small CD player to place in the ever
more cluttered garage addition. Half way to the garage Ben noticed
two things out of the outside corner of both his right and left eye.
Out of his left he saw that Beth Boyd had just returned home and was
grabbing a few things from her car. Out of his right eye, Ben noticed
the scurrying of about 8 mule deer about 20 feet from the trail. Not
knowing what to do with all this, Ben first set down the CD player to
clear one of the three things from his mind. Having placed his gun
and hunting articles in the truck in front of the garage, he decided
to try to get to the gun without spooking the deer. But then there
was Beth, would the deer spook by her movements. Seeing as Ben had
already cut down all the brush on the entire hillside, he was not
impeded by brush and leaves as he had been "out in the wild". He
stealthily made it down the trail, got Beth's attention to take cover,
snuck through the garage, retrieved the gun, rested the gun on the bed
of the truck, checked to make sure that the truck metal rack was not
in the line of his shot, picked what he thought was the biggest doe
out of all the little things, and fired a single shot. The doe fell
40 feet uphill from the garage, rolled down the hill, jumped once when
it hit the driveway, and landed in the back of the truck. The doe
even gave Ben and Beth a snickers bar too!