Anderson Layman's Blog

How I spend my Tuesday nights.........

2012-02-01T06:05:00.000-05:00

The Green Wave won again last night with some solid team
defense and a passing game that leads to lay-ups. Go team!

About money.................

2012-02-01T01:45:00.001-05:00

"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in
his heart."
-Jonathan Swift

On intelligent risk-taking......

2012-02-01T01:18:00.002-05:00

Ben Casnocha writes about the jammed "career escalator." Us
old-timers not wanting to get off, forty-somethings stuck in the
middle, and recent graduates struggling to get on. He suggests
that the employment model of the last century is hopelessly
broken; that it is way past time to stop "job hunting" and time to
begin" investing in ourselves." That he is plugging his new book
takes nothing away from the importance of his message. Full
post is here. Risky excerpt is here:

Risk wasn’t a relevant concept in the days of the career escalator. The idea was to avoid risk, and avoid “high risk” career moves like freelancing. This is exactly opposite of how winners think today. Every opportunity contains downside risk. To effectively exploit opportunities, you have to be take on the right kind of risk, and manage it prudently. In so doing, you build resilience to the seismic industry and competitive changes that destroy professionals on a more brittle ”low risk” path.

There is an entrepreneurial approach to intelligent risk taking, and you may be surprised at how different it is from the stereotyped bet-the-farm, throw caution to the wind approach that people tend to think of when they think of entrepreneurs.

On reading and writing..............

2012-02-01T00:52:00.010-05:00

Justin Wehr, while "helping" his school-teaching Mom try to
figure out how to instill into fourth graders the importance of
reading and writing, offers not much help. Who gets bitten with
the love of reading and/or writing, and who doesn't, remains
pretty much a mystery. Just like most things about us humans.
Still, he writes an interesting post -here. Excerpt here:

I think we’re taught that reading and writing are like eating our vegetables, that they are nice, nutritious skills to have for learning and for professional survival in a world of email. But it shouldn’t be true that that’s why we do them. At least not writing. Reading to me is pretty vegetable-like in that it’s mainly just something I do for learning or amusement, but writing has become so much more important to me than veggie-like nutrition. It is my means of processing the world, of thinking. And probably most importantly it is my means of purging all the gunk that’s building up, the stuff that is bothering me. I call it “cleansing my psychospiritual colon.”

Choosing quantity not quality......

2012-02-01T00:44:00.006-05:00

thanks peter

The semi-annual love letters from...............

2012-02-01T00:33:00.002-05:00

...........our County Treasurer showed up in last week's mail. The
payments of property taxes are actually an important civic duty.
For better or worse, a significant amount of local governmental
services, including the public schools, are dependent upon
property tax collections. So, believing that it is important to feed
the goose that lays the golden eggs, we will be happily remitting
our share. As our friend Jessica reminds us:

Book learning...................

2012-02-01T00:30:00.001-05:00

From Mark McCormack's What They Don't Teach You at
Harvard Business School: Notes from a Street Smart Executive:

Don't Deal in Round Numbers

Round numbers beg to be negotiated, usually by counter-
offer round numbers. Odd numbers sound harder, firmer,
less negotiable.
I hate to hear "a hundred thousand dollars" as a number
thrown out in negotiations. That's the world's most negotiable
number. Make it $95,500 or $104,500. Either way you're
probably gong to end up with more

Home ownership.................

2012-02-01T00:12:00.019-05:00

Mark Perry posts this chart about home ownership. As a visual it
is very dramatic, until you look at the left hand bar and realize the
spreads are fairly narrow. Still, a 3% or 4% change adds up to a
whole lot of houses. Here's hoping we find the right balance soon.

The Law of Unintended Consequences striking again?

2012-01-31T01:45:00.001-05:00

Whenever governmental action takes place, about the only thing
you can be sure of it that the Law of Unintended Consequences
will have its say. Nowhere is this more true than in the world
of housing finance.

We all know that lending standards have tightened considerably
since 2007, but is mortgage money going to be even more
difficult to get in the near future?

From the blog of Mathew Ferrara comes these happy tidbits:

Interest rates remain low and flat. The Fed’s interest rate targets are having unintended consequences. By keeping spreads low, banks see little profit in lending to a shaky housing sector. By promising to keep them low for the next two years, they encourage banks to look for better investments for the long term. Big Banks – currently 50% of all housing lending in America – can easily make money in higher return sectors around the globe, with less risk of political witch hunts, too.

Major banks are exiting the mortgage market. Bank of America is trying to shed its correspondent lending business; GMAC/Ally did it last year in Massachusetts. MetLife exited the forward home loan business earlier this year. Credit unions and local banks are not ready to step into that space.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is about to regulate the mortgage industry at unprecedented levels through its “Nonbank Supervision Program.” Essentially, the regulatory burden for mortgage brokers is about to get more complex and bigger. That means new costs for compliance, and guess who pays for those? Consumers, of course. Add in forced settlements for pseudo-scandals like robo-signing, and banks have less and less reason to make housing lending a priority.

Choosing quality over quantity..........

2012-01-31T01:30:00.001-05:00

Calculated Risk, while discussing the current trends of mortgage
delinquencies and foreclosures, notes that real lending standards
are having an impact. Full post here. Impact here:

...those loans originated over the last two years have proven
to be some of the best quality originations on record.

Feeling good.................

2012-01-31T01:05:00.007-05:00

It was getting hungry out yesterday afternoon and, on my way
back to the office after showing a building, fast food was on my
mind. Our town's commercial thoroughfare is just like your
town's commercial thoroughfare - every fast food option in the
world, with a few slow food places thrown in for good measure.

Tired of McDonald's, mad at Burger King for changing their
fries, having Chinese for dinner, oh wait, here's Arby's.
I'm not a big fan of Arby's curly fries, but I do like their roast
beef with Swiss cheese so I parked in their lot and entered
their store.

Having eaten a zillion meals in fast food restaurants, I am pretty
certain that happy positive attitudes are not typically on most of
their menus. Ahh, but today was different. The Arby's crew
was, to a person, happy, cheerful, and laughing, both among
themselves and with the customers. The service was friendly
and attentive. They were clearly enjoying themselves, their jobs,
and each other. That kind of attitude is contagious. While I
was in a good mood when I walked in, I was in an even
better mood when I walked out. Thanks for the treat Arby's,
oh, and thanks for the apres-lunch mint too.

Craftsmanship 101

2012-01-31T00:49:00.012-05:00

Greg Sullivan and Gerard Vanderleun share their love of well-
made, well-worn, and well-repaired work boots - here and here.

"One of life's many small pleasures is the pleasure that comes
from a pair of fine shoes or boots once they are perfectly
broken in. One of life's many small problems is that by the
time the perfectly broken in state is reached with most shoes
and boots those items of footwear are just about worn out."

"As society gets more complicated, people become farther
removed from the physical production of anything. They often
get the same thrill I get when they encounter someone that can
do something with their head, heart, and hands really well."

Good old American craftsmanship on display at Red Wing Boots:

The $116,666 second...............

2012-01-31T00:45:00.002-05:00

Tom Asacker wonders about the economics, and egos, of
advertising during the Super Bowl. Full post is here.
His conclusion is here:

The best marketing will always be passionate people.

Stairway to heaven, or people just having fun?

2012-01-31T00:33:00.001-05:00

Mr. Sun.....................

2012-01-31T00:15:00.006-05:00

.................played at being an artist, and had his way with the
Licking County Courthouse, for about five minutes late yesterday
afternoon. At least one bystander was impressed.

Learners vs. The Learned

2012-01-30T01:29:00.013-05:00

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the
future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live
in a world that no longer exists."
-Eric Hoffer

A poem for Monday........

2012-01-30T01:12:00.013-05:00

IX - Song. - To Celia

Drink to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine ;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst, that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine :
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honoring thee,
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me :
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

-Ben Jonson

Paul McCartney of Liverpool..................

2012-01-30T01:00:00.001-05:00

The Beatles.................................................Yesterday

Opening paragraphs.....

2012-01-30T00:45:00.003-05:00

The first olive moments of daylight, anticipating the imminent appearance of the sun over the English Channel, disclose a wide, misty, green plain descending to the South Downs and the sea. This is the great Weald of Kent. It is a peculiarity of the Weald's terrain - demonstrated in the shrouded past by Romans, Saxons, and Normans - that it would be quite defenseless should an enterprising foe cross the Channel. Were any force to prepare for an invasion, its campfires on the far shore would be visible from nearby Dover. But now, fourteen years after the Armistice of 1918, the Weald is an idyll of peace, and the explorer on foot finds that it possesses camouflaged delights. Its smooth breast, for example, is not entirely unbroken. The pastureland, sloping upwards towards London, is cleaved by a shallow valley. This combe rises to a timbered crest. There among eighty sheltering acres of beech, oak, lime, and chestnut, stands the singular country home of England's most singular statesman, a brilliant, domineering, intuitive, inconsiderate, self-centered, emotional, generous, ruthless, visionary, megalomaniacal, and heroic genius who inspires fear, devotion, rage, and admiration among his peers.

-William Manchester,
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone: 1932-1940

About Emerson...............

2012-01-30T00:31:00.003-05:00

Faithful readers of this blog will understand that this blogger is a
fan of the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson. A hundred or so (out
of the thousands of interest) quotes from Emerson have appeared
on these pages. I never read Emerson in school. I suppose he
just got lumped in with all those other classic 19th century
American writers whose style would never be described as light
and breezy. In high school I found Hawthorne impenetrable, Poe
too frightening, and Crane too dark and real. In college, Professor
Consolo's love for Moby Dick scared me off from Melville and
Thoreau's Walden just seemed tedious. Never picked up
anything by Emerson.

Anyway, at a breakfast meeting about ten years ago, I
paraphrased the well known Emerson quote about the
foolishness of consistency. Friend Jim, an extremely bright tax
attorney, replied with the accurate, and extended, quote:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He
may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall.
Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow
speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though
it contradict every thing you said to-day. - 'Ah so you shall
be sure to be misunderstood.' - Is it so bad, then to be
misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and
Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo,
and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took
flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."

Impressed, I visited the library. It took a bit of time, in that
pre-Google era, to find the quote, but find it I did. The search
was probably more valuable than the finding. Emerson now
occupies a place of honor on my book shelves.

On consistency.........

2012-01-30T00:30:00.003-05:00

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,
adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."
-RWE

The art of living............

2012-01-30T00:14:00.002-05:00

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.
-attributed to James Michener

Thanks Dad...............

2012-01-29T01:19:00.004-05:00

30 years ago, or so, my Dad handed me this photo, cut out of his
Rotarian Magazine. He was close to 70 at the time. I suspect
he wanted me to know that aging was a process that, to some
extent, we each have some control over; that aging was to be
savored not feared; and that, as with all things, our attitude
matters. I've kept the photo close at hand ever since. I suspect it
is now time to pass it on to my son.

Opening paragraphs..............

2012-01-29T01:05:00.006-05:00

"A Catholic orphan of sixty years is not apt to forget the
day he first learned he was born Jewish. It would not have
been that bombastic an event, except that I am running for
the presidency of the United States. The 2008 election is
less than a week away."
-Leon Uris, A God in Ruins

These disorganizations.................

2012-01-29T01:04:00.010-05:00

"A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams. Now the world would be insane and rabid, if these disorganizations would last for hundreds of years. It is kept in check by death and infancy. Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men, and pleads with them to return to paradise."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)

On faith...........

2012-01-29T00:39:00.002-05:00

"God has many doors opening into truth which He opens to
all who knock upon them with hands of faith."
-Kahlil Gibran, Secrets of the Heart

A verse for Sunday...................

2012-01-29T00:35:00.000-05:00

After a bitter quarrel, some resentment remains.
                 What can one do about it?
          Being content with what you have
                  is always best in the end.

Someone must risk returning injury with kindness.
           or hostility will never turn to goodwill.
So the wise always give without expecting gratitude.

                       One with true virtue
                  always seeks a way to give.
                   One who lacks true virtue
                    always seeks a way to get.
         To the giver comes the fullness of life;
              to the taker, just and empty hand.

Tao Te Ching, 79th Verse
as adapted by Wayne Dyer
Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

One of the glories of the ancient texts, written in a language
not our own, is the subtle (and not so subtle) differences in
translation. Here is a different translation of the 79th Verse:

Compromise with great resentment
      will surely yield lingering resentment;
How can this be seen as good?

For this reason,
      The sage holds the debtors side of the contract
         and does not make claims upon others.

Therefore,
      The man of integrity attends to his debts;
      The man without integrity attends to his exactions.

The Way of heaven is impartial,
   yet is always with the good person.

Tao Te Ching
translated by Victor H. Mair

Now, about all those "aging gracefully" posts....

2012-01-29T00:30:00.013-05:00

In case you haven't figured it out, your faithful blogger has his
60th birthday today. Yippee!

Gratitude is always appropriate.....

2012-01-29T00:05:00.003-05:00

Aging gracefully...................

2012-01-28T01:18:00.002-05:00

How to really know something.............

2012-01-28T01:10:00.006-05:00

Ryan Holiday offers the unwelcomed answer (his post includes a
quote from blog favorite Richard Feynman). Full post here.
Excerpt here:
"That comes from rigor and discipline. From humility and understatement. It comes practices, checklists, from methods, and the scientific method. It comes from staying up late reading, not blogging. It comes from having deep connections with a handful of smart people who push you to be better, not networking. It comes from separating ideas from your identity—so you can pick up, discard, pick up, rearrange, discard and pick them up at whim."

Hmmmmmm........

2012-01-28T01:00:00.002-05:00

Glad we got that straight...............

2012-01-28T00:55:00.002-05:00

Lords over all they survey...................

2012-01-28T00:37:00.001-05:00

thanks andrew more cool animal pix here

On competition............................

2012-01-28T00:11:00.001-05:00

Believe.....................

2012-01-28T00:10:00.011-05:00

From The Tao of Pooh:

"In order to take control of our lives and accomplish
something of lasting value, sooner or later we need to learn
to Believe. We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto
the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit
around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door.
We simply need to believe in the power that's within us,
and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others
and competing against them, things begin to work for us."

Knowing when to hold 'em...........

2012-01-27T01:38:00.004-05:00

"Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but
sometimes of playing a poor hand well. "
-Robert Louis Stevenson

Lending standards have gotten tougher....

2012-01-27T01:30:00.001-05:00

Are we sure "global warming" is all bad....?

2012-01-27T01:15:00.004-05:00

Opening paragraphs..............

2012-01-27T01:05:00.002-05:00

"Selfmade men always do a lopsided job of it, and the sheriff had come out conspicuously short on the capacity to sympathize with anyone but himself. No doubt ears were still burning at the Fort Peck end of the telephone connection; he'd had to tell that overgrown sap of an undersheriff he didn't give a good goddamn what the night foreman said about dangerous, get the thing fished out of the river if it meant using every last piece of equipment at the dam site. This was what he was up against all the time, the sheriff commiserated with himself during the drive from Glasgow now, toward dawn. People never behaving one bit better than they could get away with."
-Ivan Doig, Bucking the Sun

Just trying to be helpful.................

2012-01-27T00:45:00.027-05:00

On transitions...........

2012-01-27T00:22:00.005-05:00

"In every winter's heart there is a quivering spring, and
behind the veil of each night there is a smiling dawn."
-Kahlil Gibran, Self Portrait

Aging gracefully................

2012-01-27T00:09:00.000-05:00

To the ear of the auditor.................

2012-01-27T00:05:00.008-05:00

The 100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language list - here.
And no, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious did not make the cut.

thanks tigerhawk

On reading the "tells"................

2012-01-26T01:29:00.001-05:00

A public service reminder.........

2012-01-26T01:11:00.002-05:00

thanks Jessica

Still one of my most valued possessions....

2012-01-26T01:10:00.002-05:00

Oh yeah...............

2012-01-26T01:09:00.001-05:00

Aging gracefully................

2012-01-26T01:08:00.004-05:00

Well, actually...........................

2012-01-26T01:00:00.001-05:00

Fun with statistics...........

2012-01-26T00:55:00.002-05:00

Mathew Ferrara recently posted some statistics to help us
Realtors learn about, and understand, our customers. Our
company does not sell houses, but still...........useful stuff.
The full post is here.

Three things stood out for this reader. First, it is happily noted
that agents are more useful than the Internet, although I am sort
of curious about how that question was worded. Second, if only
1 in 10 U.S. adults owns a tablet computer and yet 40% of
iPad owners earned more than $100,000 last year, then why
wouldn't our fearless government be helping more people own
iPads? Just wondering.

The final thing, and maybe the most important lesson contained
in these stats, deals with the "generational" communication styles.

44% of Gen Y’ers prefer texting to face-to-face meetings
The typical Gen Y’er sends 3,000 text messages a month.

I can't fathom sending or receiving 100 text messages per day.
Of course, the statistics don't show how many of those texts go
to the same person. Maybe it takes 10 texts to convey the
same information as one face-to-face or one phone call. But
still, if as a salesperson, I am seeking a client relationship, it is
incumbent upon me to be flexible enough to communicate in
the style best suited for each client.

Except twittering. I draw the line at twittering.

Anyway, here are Mathews 33 stats us Realtors should know:
----------------------------------------------------------

Buyers:

-37% of recent buyers were “first time” buyers – a drop from
      50% in 2010
-They typical buyer was 45 years old – up from 39 a year ago
-37% of buyers were under the age of 31; 32% were over 55
-While all buyers use the Internet to search for homes, for 35%
         of them, it was the first step in the process; 21% started
         by contacting an agent
-21% of buyers were single females; 12% single males
-64% of all buyers had no children under 18 at home
-Buyers found real estate agents (83%) slightly more useful
         than the Internet (81%)
-92% said open houses were very- to somewhat-useful sources
         of real estate information
-Buyers found the home they purchased in the newspaper 5%
          of the time
-58% of buyers wanted to see videos when looking at property
          online
--------------------------------------------------------------
Sellers:

-The average seller was a Baby Boomer (45-65 years old)
-The typical real estate consumer moved 18 miles from their
           previous home in 2011
-66% of sellers remained in the same state; 67% in the same
           county
-46% bought a larger home, 31% purchased the same size;
           23% downsized
-25% of sellers sold their home within two weeks of entering the
           market
-63% of sellers had no children under the age of 18 at home
-Job relocation and the need for more space were the primary
           reasons people sold their home.
-Most sellers had been in their current home for 9 years.
-61% of sellers were repeat clients or referrals from friends
           and family
-66% of sellers only interviewed 1 real estate agent
-Sellers found their agent through the Internet 3% of the time;
          direct mail 2%; newspaper 1%.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Technology

-Gen X’ers (35-45) have doubled their use of social media since
         2008
-1 in 6 minutes spent online is on Facebook
-$50,000-75,000 is the typical income range of a Facebook user
-Single women use social media more than single men
-200 million consumers access social media on their smartphones
-After Google, consumers search YouTube the most (2 billion
         streams daily)
-Consumers spend 1 in 3 minutes watching video on their mobile
         devices
-1 in 10 U.S. adults owns a tablet computer
-40% of iPad owners earned more than $100,000 last year
-44% of Gen Y’ers prefer texting to face-to-face meetings
-The typical Gen Y’er sends 3,000 text messages a month
-Gen X and Gen Y used web-based email 20% less last year

On work..................

2012-01-26T00:36:00.004-05:00

"All growth depends upon activity. There is no development
physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means
work. Work is not a curse; it is the prerogative of intelligence,
the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization."
-Calvin Coolidge

A good reminder............

2012-01-26T00:20:00.004-05:00

thanks Jessica

Fair taxation........................?

2012-01-26T00:12:00.002-05:00

Seven wonders...........

2012-01-25T01:30:00.000-05:00

The opening prayer at yesterday's Rotary meeting spoke to the
Seven Wonders. Not the Colossus at Rhodes, nor the Hanging
Gardens of Babylon, and not even the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Nope, we have been given the seven wonders of smelling, seeing,
hearing, feeling, tasting, laughing, and healing. May we use these
powers with awareness and appreciate the gift with a spirit of
gratitude. Can I get an Amen?

photo courtesy of

On stout heartedness........

2012-01-25T01:18:00.016-05:00

It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being subject
to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly
listlessness for fear of what might happen.
-Herodotus, The Histories, (as cited everywhere)

Far better is it to have a stout heart always, and suffer one's
share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen, and
never incur a mischance. Moreover, if thou wilt oppose
whatever is said by others, without thyself showing us the
sure course which we ought to take, thou art as likely to lead
us into failure as they who advise differently; for thou art but
on a par with them. And as for that sure course, how canst
thou show it us when thou art but a man? I do not believe
thou canst. Success for the most part attends those who act
boldly, not those who weigh everything, and are slack to venture.
-Herodotus, The Histories, Book 7, Chapter 50
as translated by George Rawlinson

Opening paragraphs..........

2012-01-25T01:07:00.002-05:00

"I don't care what you say, 18,000 pounds (sterling) is a
lot of money. The British Government had instructed me to
pay it to the man at the corner table who was now using
knife and fork to commit ritual murder on a cream pastry."
-Len Deighton, The IPCRESS File

Happy.....................

2012-01-25T01:00:00.000-05:00

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being
happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the
world.”
-Robert Louis Stevenson

2012-01-25T00:55:00.001-05:00

Just some images...........................

2012-01-25T00:31:00.036-05:00

...........to remind us, that while we are pretty smart, clever, and
inquisitive, there are just some things us humans are just going to
have to make our best guess about. Here is a quick run through
of some of APOD pictures for January. If you haven't visited
the Astronomy Picture of the Day site.........well, you're missing
something special - here.

A Full Sky Aurora over Norway

January Aurora over Norway

IC2118: The Witch Head Nebula

Facing NGC 6946

Grand Spiral Galaxy NGC 1232

Saturn's Iapetus: Painted Moon

NGC: The Little Ghost Nebula

Infared Portrait of the Large Magellanic Cloud

A worthy traveling companion....

2012-01-25T00:20:00.000-05:00

"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us, or we find it not."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Aging gracefully

2012-01-25T00:06:00.005-05:00

In love with old books....................

2012-01-24T05:46:00.000-05:00

Cultural Offering shows us the benefits of engaging all the senses:

He smelled O'Connor and Fitzgerald, Aristotle and Johnson.

Later he would taste them. Bedside light casting an incandescent glow as he leaned against two pillows and read. His eyes devoured the pages and went back to repeat the good phrasings. He might even whisper those parts aloud. Loud enough to hear but not so loud as to wake her up.

But the smell was what kept him coming back.

Full post is here.

Compelling ingredients.....

2012-01-24T01:49:00.003-05:00

Duke Long takes a look at Main Street, U.S. of A. and wonders
what it will take for local retailers to survive, not against the Wal-
Marts of the world, but, against the ever growing e-commerce
industry. We rent to a number of local retailers and so are very
much interested in their viability. Duke's answer: take advantage
of your compelling ingredients.

Strive...................

2012-01-24T01:32:00.003-05:00

Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from
affectation, a friend of justice, a worshiper of the gods, kind,
affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. Strive to continue
to be such as philosophy wished to make thee. Reverence
the gods, and help men. Short is life.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6, Verse 30 (excerpt)

About money.............

2012-01-24T01:07:00.002-05:00

"Money is like a stringed instrument; he who does not know
how to use it properly will only hear discordant music.
Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who
withholds it, and it enlivens the other who turns it upon
his fellow man."
Kahlil Gibran, Tears and Laughter

Aging gracefully........................

2012-01-24T01:03:00.006-05:00

A Brandywine heritage................

2012-01-24T00:35:00.003-05:00

Since we've looked at Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, and Andrew
Wyeth, it seems silly not to continue to the next generation.
Jamie Wyeth, son of Andrew, was born in 1946. Home
schooled in an era when that just wasn't done, he had some
advantages, considering who was home teaching him. He was
barely 21 when some of his great oil portraits were completed.
Jamie Wyeth said about painting portraits, "To me, a portrait is
not so much the actual painting, but just spending the time
with the person, traveling with him, watching him eat,
watching him sleep. When I work on a portrait, it's really
osmosis. I try to become the person I'm painting. A successful
portrait isn't about the sitter's physical characteristics - his
nose, eyeballs and whatnot - but more the mood and the
overall effect. I try not to impose anything of mine on him. I
try to get to the point where if the sitter painted, he'd paint a
portrait just the way I'm doing it."

Portrait of John F. Kennedy 1967

Andy Warhol - Facing Left 1976

Shorty 1963

Draft Age 1965

Andrew Wyeth 1969

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson 1975

Lest you think that Jamie Wyeth was only a portraitist, here is a
sampling of some of his other works:

Beach Roses 1995

Blueberry Mulch 1963

Engulfed 1972

Mischief Night 1986

Night Pigs 1979

Winter Pig 1975

Pumpkinhead Visits the Lighthouse 2000

Dawn, The White House 2000

Roots 1971

Steps 1972

Now pinch hitting for the Mighty E.......

2012-01-24T00:31:00.010-05:00

One of Eclecticity's favorite linkage stops was the blog of Fred
Reed. With the Mighty E. is still on sabbatical, I'm trying to pick
up some of the slack. Fred's latest rant details his perception that
not one of the current presidential candidates is worth voting for:

"I want to roll back the onrushing police state and return to constitutional government. The plunge into totalitarianism is a far worse danger than World War Two, in which the US was never in danger of being invaded, and in which the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Who do I vote for? No candidate (except Ron Paul: ERP) is against sovietization.

"I want to end our stupid wars, now. Yesterday. Who do I vote for? There is no anti'war candidate (ERP). Obama sends the troops anywhere he can think of, and all the Republicans want to attack Iran."

mulct.................

2012-01-24T00:30:00.003-05:00

This word for the day is brought to us by Mr. Webster and his
Third Edition of the New World College Dictionary:

mulct              v.       1. to punish by a fine or by depriving of
                                    something   2. to extract (money, etc.)
                                   from someone as by fraud or deceit.

as in:

To quote Fred Reed, "We must create jobs (how?), get
America back to work (how?), and favor all the vague
platitudes intended to mulct fools. All right, I hereby
declare myself mulcted. So why vote?"

Paul Krugman, trying very hard..........

2012-01-23T07:53:00.000-05:00

..................to be an optimist:

But the economy is depressed, in large part, because of the housing bust, which immediately suggests the possibility of a virtuous circle: an improving economy leads to a surge in home purchases, which leads to more construction, which strengthens the economy further, and so on. And if you squint hard at recent data, it looks as if something like that may be starting: home sales are up, unemployment claims are down, and builders’ confidence is rising.

Furthermore, the chances for a virtuous circle have been rising, because we’ve made significant progress on the debt front.

That’s not what you hear in public debate, of course, where all the focus is on rising government debt. But anyone who has looked seriously at how we got into this slump knows that private debt, especially household debt, was the real culprit: it was the explosion of household debt during the Bush years that set the stage for the crisis. And the good news is that this private debt has declined in dollar terms, and declined substantially as a percentage of G.D.P., since the end of 2008.

Full essay here

Opening paragraphs...........

2012-01-23T01:50:00.001-05:00

"On an autumn morning of the year 1800, the Reverend
Abiel Holmes, aged thirty-six, handsome, widowed, and
lonely, sat down in his study near Harvard Square in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, to begin the writing of his new
book. It was his fourth book; it was to be called American
Annals, and the very contemplation of it caused its author's
blood to run faster."
-Catherine Drinker Bowen, Yankee From Olympus: Justice
Holmes and His Family

Us chameleons..................

2012-01-23T01:45:00.002-05:00

How to dress like a real estate agent? Yeow. 35 years into this
gig and now I find there is a way "to dress like a real estate agent."
Oh, wait...........................

How to Dress Like a Real Estate Agent -- powered by ehow

A poem for Monday.........

2012-01-23T01:31:00.001-05:00

An Old Man's Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man -- one man -- can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.

-Robert Frost

photo courtesy of

We have met the enemy...............

2012-01-23T01:06:00.003-05:00

"When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s
a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down.
But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true.
The networks are in business to give people exactly what they
want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is
optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a
revolution! But the networks are really in business to give
people what they want. It’s the truth.”
-Steve Jobs

From Maria Popova's always interesting Brain Pickings blog,
comes this quote and a look at Clay Johnson's new book about
the "information overload", The Information Diet: A Case
for Conscious Consumption. An excerpt from Johnson:

"Like any good diet, the information diet works best if you
think about it not as denying yourself information, but as
consuming more of the right stuff and developing healthy
habits.“

Hmmmmm.

Aging gracefully................

2012-01-23T00:42:00.004-05:00

Find a way................!

2012-01-23T00:17:00.018-05:00

"I found the road to wealth when I decided that a part of all
I earned was mine to keep," so says Arkad, the hero of George
Clason's tale, The Richest Man in Babylon. Somehow, this is a
lesson that never gets taught in school. My generation decided it
was more fun to spend our money and then save what bit was left,
instead of following Arkad's method of first saving/investing a bit
of money and then spending what was left. It takes time and
discipline to be an investor, maybe that's why so many neglected
the program.

Anyway, this all came to mind when I stopped by the local Chase
branch Saturday and saw this sign:

Thanks for the reminder. Paying yourself first is the
only true path to financial independence.

Asking important questions...............

2012-01-23T00:15:00.001-05:00

and getting funny answers. Enjoy

Choosing life..................

2012-01-22T17:09:00.000-05:00

Ray Visotski notes the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade by re-posting
the story of his bond with his adoptive parents. Powerful stuff.

"The answer, I am told, was provided when that bruised,
sickly three month old, complete with almost healed
cigarette burns on his body, reached up and took a hold of
the man’s finger and wouldn’t let go.

"That baby was me."

If you have to get a tattoo.............

2012-01-22T00:59:00.000-05:00

thanks swiss-miss

Critique.............

2012-01-22T00:58:00.000-05:00

Not so sure what to make of Spengler's latest essay,
but I love this line:

"After reading his critique, I understand somewhat
better what I was trying to say."

Sunday's verse...............

2012-01-22T00:57:00.001-05:00

6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature,
yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age,
who are coming to nothing.

7   But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden
wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory,

8   which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they
known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 But as it is written:

     “ Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
        Nor have entered into the heart of man
        The things which God has prepared for
       those who love Him.”

10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For
the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit
of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things
of God except the Spirit of God.

12   Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the
Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that
have been freely given to us by God.

13   These things we also speak, not in words which man’s
wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he
know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself
is rightly judged by no one.

16 For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he
may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

The Holy Bible, King James Version
1 Corinthians 2:6-16

All the time.............

2012-01-22T00:52:00.002-05:00

Whitehead quote continued.....

2012-01-22T00:42:00.002-05:00

the continuation of yesterday's quote:

"The general greatness of the community, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, is the first condition for steady prosperity, buoyant, self-sustained, and commanding credit. The Greek philosopher who laid the foundation of all our fine thought ended his most marvellous dialogue with the reflection that the ideal state could never arrive till philosophers are kings. Today, in the age of democracy, the kings are plain citizens pursuing their various avocations. There can be no successful democratic society till general education conveys a philosophic outlook.
-Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (1933)

Aging gracefully............

2012-01-22T00:41:00.001-05:00

The kingdom...............

2012-01-22T00:39:00.002-05:00

His followers said to him, "When will the kingdom come?
"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said,
'Look, here it is,' or 'Look, there it is.' Rather, the father's
kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people do not
see it."
-The Gospel of Thomas
Verse 113

But it's not on the curriculum............

2012-01-21T01:30:00.004-05:00

"The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all
things - the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine
from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine
to the bad and the counterfeit."
-Samuel Johnson

Construction industry treading water...............

2012-01-21T01:17:00.001-05:00

thanks bill

A bit confused about money....?

2012-01-21T01:15:00.009-05:00

"The moment that barter is replaced by indirect exchange mediated by money, ready intelligibility ceases and abstract interpersonal processes begin that far transcend even the most enlightened individual perception.
"Money, the very 'coin' of ordinary interaction, is hence of all things the least understood and - perhaps with sex - the object of greatest unreasoning fantasy; and like sex if simultaneously fascinates, puzzles, and repels. The literature treating it is probably greater than that devoted to any other single subject; and browsing through it inclines one to sympathise with the writer who long ago declared that no other subject, not even love, has driven more men to madness. 'The love of money,' the Bible declares, 'is the root of all evil' (1 Timothy, 6:10). But ambivalence about it is perhaps more common; money appears as at once the most powerful instrument of freedom and the most sinister tool of oppression. This most widely-accepted medium of exchange conjures up all the unease that people feel towards a process they cannot understand, that they both love and hate, and some of whose effects they desire passionately while detesting others that are inseparable from the first."

-F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Uh-oh.......................

2012-01-21T01:00:00.002-05:00

"...the disease of short-sightedness..."

2012-01-21T00:42:00.001-05:00

"But the motive of success is not enough. It produces a short-sighted world which destroys the sources of its own prosperity. The cycles of trade depression which afflict the world warn us that business relations are infected through and through with the disease of short-sightedness. The robber barons did not conduce to the prosperity of the Middle Ages, though some of them did die prosperously in their beds. Their example is a warning to our civilization. Also, we must not fall into the fallacy of thinking of the business world in abstraction from the rest of the community. The behavior of the community is largely dominated by the business mind. A great society is a society in which its men of business think greatly of their function. Low thoughts mean low behavior, and after a brief orgy of exploitation, low behavior means a descending standard of life."
-Alfred North Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (1933)

conduce............

2012-01-21T00:41:00.001-05:00

This word for the day is brought to us by Mr. Webster and the
Third Edition of his New World College Dictionary:

conduce v. to tend or lead (to an effect); contribute

as in:

I wasn't sure what the word conduce meant in the Whitehead
quote above, so I looked it up.

Aging gracefully................

2012-01-21T00:30:00.000-05:00

Opening paragraphs.........

2012-01-21T00:15:00.002-05:00

"When I was twelve I thought that when the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a headline about the 'struggle for control of the West Bank' it meant the other side of the Mississippi River. I thought that my shiny gold velour pants actually looked good. I kept a giant sack of Nabisco Chocolate Chip cookies under my bed so that they might be available in an emergency - a flood, say, or a hurricane - that made it harder to get to the grocery store. From the safe distance of forty-three, 'twelve' looks less an age than a disease, and, for the most part, I've been able to forget all about it - not the events and the people, but the feelings that gave them meaning. But there are exceptions. A few people, and a few experiences, simply refuse to be trivialized by time. There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child's mind; it's as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever. I'd once has such a teacher. His name was Billy Fitzgerald, but everybody just called him Coach Fitz."

-Michael Lewis, Coach

Displacement........

2012-01-20T01:14:00.002-05:00

"One of the great destroyers of societies is untamed passion. The seven deadly sins all spring from errant passion: pride, lust, envy, anger, avarice, gluttony and sloth. Any form of society that would be virtuous must quiet these passions. It must, in short, displace them from the center of social dynamics."
-Michael Novak, This Hemisphere of Liberty

On bringing knowledge alive.........

2012-01-20T01:10:00.004-05:00

"Soc took an old dictionary from his drawer and held it in the air, 'Use whatever knowledge you have but see its limitations. Knowledge alone does not suffice; it has no heart. No amount of knowledge will nourish or sustain your spirit; it can never bring you ultimate happiness or peace. Life requires more than knowledge; it requires intense feeling and constant energy. Life demands right action if knowledge is to come alive.'"
-Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior

On dice...................

2012-01-20T01:09:00.000-05:00

"The life of man is like a game with dice; if you don't get the
throw you want, you must show your skill in making the best
of the throw you get."
-Terence

Opening paragraph.......

2012-01-20T01:00:00.002-05:00

"The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.
She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was
no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the
color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were
still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow
on the sea."

Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

Well, I would certainly hope so...........

2012-01-20T00:57:00.004-05:00

aging gracefully.................

2012-01-20T00:36:00.003-05:00