Blog on Blogging

A week ago I had no blog and now I'm writing three of them. "What the hell has happened?" you ask, with a puzzled expression on your face. The same thing that always happens - I become immersed in the things that I take on. I begin to see applications and pathways expanding from the original ideas that I'm exposed to. This is the way I always do things. It's the way I do software; the way I became a sculptor and moldmaker, and then a writer and film-maker. The fact is that when I am interested - I am really interested. The idea of a blog only had meaning to me as something abstract, until I was given the assignment of putting one together for class. Part of the assignment was to make a couple of posts to the blog within a couple of weeks. I know, I know I'm the overachiever sort. I simply can't help myself. I took that couple of postings to mean posting at least once a day if I could find something to post about. Clearly, I have no problem in that area. I should have known by the evidence at hand: I spend too many nights unable to sleep because of so many ideas clamoring for my attention.

Who knows where this will lead?

Perhaps in a couple of years I'll find myself standing in front of a group of anonymous people saying these words, "hello - my name is Jon and I (see me - pulling myself up and squaring my shoulders - in the face of making the terrible admission I'm about to make) . . .am a blogger. "

I love this kinda thing

I've been researching for a narrative film script that I'm working on with two partners. Our story revolves around a simple alternative to fossil fuels. I came across this a couple of days ago:
Very interesting.

OMG - it's a day later and I've convinced myself! As I looked at what was being offered it became more than interesting to me and I bought the books. I'll be in the process of converting my car (a '97 Honda) over the next few weeks. I'll post updates of my progress in this blog (or I may start another one just for that exploration). Well there you are - I did start another blog beginning with a copy/paste of this posting. If you want to see that one which will document my experience...
You Can Get There From Here.

The more I look at the technology the more I like it. In the meanwhile I've signed on as an affiliate so that others can get the information as well.

If you want to support my experiment you can begin by Clicking Here.

Life On The Street

As I was leaving Union Square last night I was confronted by a terribly thin man who sat with his back against the wall of a building. He held a sign declaring that he was homeless and a veteran. He was bearded and garbed in several layers of rather dirty clothing. He was shaking the change he'd collected in an old stained cardboard coffee cup, and asking for donations from passersby. He had the look of someone who really did need assistance. Having no money to give I handed over a half of a sandwich that was left over from my lunch. He took it, though somewhat grudgingly, and asked me if the bread was organic. . .

I Skipped Sunday's Post

Xo Zoo Me

The Great Temple of Apple

Thursday night the worst possible thing happened. My iPod died! It simply stopped working; a black screen. Honestly, I did everything I could to save it: I pressed the Menu and Select buttons for a full 5 to 8 seconds, I switched the Hold control back and forth until my fingernail was in danger of being bent backwards, I considered mouth to mouth but alas, to my surprise, I could find no mouth. Taking desperate measures I escalated the issue to the next level and made an appointment with the Mac Genius iPod expert at the store on 5th Avenue. I carefully selected the 5:40 time slot considering the length of the journey, crowd density, and subway issues so that I would be able to arrive on time. True to the way of things the subway did have a problem and I was forced to get off several long blocks away from my destination. I hurried along the windy and frozen streets, knowing that if I arrived late they would give my spot away to someone else. It was 5:35 when I entered the Mecca of all that is Macintosh and hurried to the iPod bar. I was early! Success. I was greeted by a smiling energetic person, who was somewhat reminiscent of a Scientologist offering to give people "personality tests" in the subway. I was informed that, yes my appointment was for 5:40 - A.M! (insert stunned pause here) OMG, I was almost exactly 12 hours late! (or early - I never did figure out which) I immediately threw myself upon the mercy of Mac, and the greeter took pity on me. He introduced me to Eyven, a woman higher up in the chain of command - obviously a young goddess in the organization - who made the decision that I would still be given sanction to see a real Mac Genius. I had been granted favor. I was in. The Genius, for his part, quickly looked at my iPod, pushed buttons, hummed a little tune, tapped a pencil on the counter and then took my hand to lead me in prayer over the deceased. With that ministration completed he poked at his keypad with the pencil and handed me a brand new toy. Just like that. I gratefully kissed his ring. As I thanked him and stepped away I was instructed to say a couple of, "Hail Jobs - full of ideas, clever are thy works," and I was released, squinting and bedazzled, into the PC dominated world above.
In conclusion I wish to state for the record that in spite of vicious rumors circulating the net, the great and wondrous Apple is not a cult, and all people who enter the building are exactly the same people when they leave .
Really. . .
We, are the same now.

Lose $10B? Open a new office.

Citi Loses Almost $10B, Slashes Dividend - washingtonpost.com: "The news sent Citigroup's shares skidding 7 percent, wiping away almost $10 billion in market value on top of the $125 billion the shares already have lost over the past year."

So let me get this straight: Citibank is in the midst of a downturn to the tune of nearly $10Billion just in the last Quarter. Right. Lets put this in perspective: if a person were to count $10Billion by hand figuring 1 bill counted each second it would require 347 years! (Amount derived from http://www.zodl.net/billion.htm) Let's just say that it's a lot.

Considering that I'm not really all that good with numbers and can only guess at what the hell is actually going on with the banks who lent money for mortgages - with stipulations in the mortgage contracts that specify while the interest rates were low the payments would remain low, but if the interest rates when up the payments would go up.

Okay, that sounds pretty simple on the surface of it. Still I'm left with questions: how do the interest rates go up? I mean who is in control of that seemingly arbitrary number? I've actually included an answer to that question below, but don't get all excited. Its not really all that satisfying.

Money, in truth, is only an agreed upon idea of exchange; of value.

My wife and I have a fixed rate loan with another company so it's not an issue for us, but I need to think of it this way, if my payment can remain the same throughout the term of the loan - that means that the bank is willing to accept that amount of interest being paid. That's a decision that we all agreed to, but lets face it when interest rates go up the bank is in no way losing money because I'm paying less than the guy who buys a house now at the new rates.

So how is it beneficial for a bank to foreclose on a homeowner when the interest rates become so high that the owner cannot make the payments? Wouldn't it make more sense for the bank to continue to accept ongoing payments from that customer.? Isn't an ongoing payment better than no payment? Why would a bank want to force a family out of their $100,000.00 home because they can only pay $800.00 per month instead of $2400.00? The bank is then left with a house it doesn't want so they're willing to sell the foreclosed home at a fraction of the $100,000.00 value. Sometimes no one wants the house because the entire neighborhood have been foreclosed upon and people don't want to live or invest in ghost towns. How does this benefit the bank or the homeowner? It only benefits the investor who has scored a major deal because of someone else's pain.

As I mentioned above I did some wandering on the net and found the following explanation on who sets the mortgage rates: "... huge banking conglomerates like Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. answer to a higher mortgage rate power -- namely, the secondary market. The secondary market is where Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and other mortgage investors ply their trade. These huge agencies -- which were founded with government help decades ago to make the mortgage lending process more efficient -- purchase loans that lenders make, then either hold them in their portfolios or bundle them with other loans into mortgage-backed securities. Those securities get sold to mutual funds, Wall Street firms and other financial investors who trade them the same way they trade Treasury securities and other bonds.As a result of this business model, investors -- rather than bankers or mortgage brokers -- are in the driver's seat when it comes to setting mortgage rates." http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/mtg/20020722a.asp

So again we're looking at investors being the driving force behind the interest rates and consequently the rate of foreclosure. Yet I cannot continue to believe that having a steady payment over a period of years amounting to $100,000.00 is not at least equal to or better than nothing at all or a fraction of the actual value.

Ultimately, it appears to me, that all of this is about interest being equal to how much can be squeezed out of the consumer at any given moment. I suppose in some circles (say the character played by Michael Douglas in the film Wall Street) that philosophy is all that there is. Whether we like it or not we do live in a society governed by investors. It's an all American thing. Super wealthy investors in China and Saudi Arabia are buying up quite a lot of all that is American. They want to play the game too. To the investor - the game is to be richer, isn't it?

So what does the largest bank in the US do when they have just posted the largest loss in their history? They open a brand new branch, polished and gleaming, high tech and marvelous in every way, just outside the Grand Central Station exit to Park Avenue. I don't suppose they had to get a loan to do that.

You can bet that on this day investors are exulting at their win (convoluted though it might be to people like me), what they have made, the money in their pockets, the luxury cars they drive, the lives they have manipulated, and the unknown families; losers, who did not play the game very well at all. They can go on home now to posh lives of forgetfulness and denial and visions of more ways to gather more wealth. Today they have all the money they've ever wanted. Tomorrow however... will be a new day with a new interest rate.

Small things are not so small...

A few weeks ago I was entering the train station at Times Square. As I went down the steps there was a very large, very drunk, and intimidating guy hassling every woman who walked past. When I say hassling I don't mean at the level of making rude remarks, I mean that he was using his bulk by standing aggressively in their path, and using his really foul mouth to make women afraid. It would have been less than stupid of me to confront him. However, as I reached the bottom of the steps I went directly to the station booth and reported what was going on. The woman, safe in her glass and metal booth, looked in my eyes and asked, "so what do you expect me to do about it?" Frankly, in that moment, I had several perfectly usable sarcastic remarks come to mind, but instead I calmly suggested that she contact the cops. She told me she was too busy and the maybe I should call them myself. Let's just say that I felt frustrated. What I really wanted to do was to scream rude things at her, but I didn't. Instead I went through the turnstile into the station to look for a pay phone. (No cell reception down there.) Naturally, there was a pay phone, and just as naturally it was broken. It was only as I turned away from the sticky and disgusting non-communications device that I found myself looking directly at three uniformed officers. I went over and told them what was going on upstairs, and reminded them of the often advertised credo of New York City, "if you see something - say something." The fact is that I did see something; I did say something. The problem apparently was that what I reported had nothing to do with guns, knives, or bombs. I was not reporting an abandoned suitcase or backpack tucked under a bench. I was not reporting potential widespread death or destruction. This was just a big besotted jerk. What I was doing was making an attempt to live in world that cares about the things that make a difference in everyday life, such as respect for others, personal dignity and other such arcane ideas. I suppose I wasn't alerting the authorities to the sort of terrorism that the slogan infers, but it was after all - terrorism. If we as NYC citizens see something and say something and the response is , "so what?" I'd say we're in trouble. The woman in the booth simply didn't want to take responsibility for what was happening on her watch - which is, after all, pretty much her job description. The police did go off to take care of the problem, and assured me that they would speak with booth-woman. I felt better after that because for my part, I felt that I had done some small thing - right.
It's just the way I see this...

Why - "I See This?"

It's obvious that the way I see things is not always the way other people see the same things, so I thought that it might be interesting to begin speaking about what it is that I'm looking at . Certainly there some who will relate and some who will think that I'm out-of-line. With that in mind I'll start off gradually...