In a low grade horror movie – once you see the slutty teenager take off her shirt – you know that she’ll be horribly dismembered in just a few short minutes. The plot points are fixed. The beauty and artistry, such as it is is to be found in their specific execution. Similarly in Opera – we all know the words, we all know the tune. The performance is what matters.

We’re purchasing a house. I might be surprised and stressed right now if this were the first time we had purchased a house. It is not. I understand the game. I understand my role.

Two attorneys, two real estate agents, and one mortgage broker have spent Friday and Monday calling and emailing back and forth – all in a tizzy. There is a ritual theatre aspect to this whole thing … and now that I know what’s going on I can relax and appreciate the subtleties.

I blocked out most of today and tomorrow with tasks that were time flexible and amenable to doing by laptop. I had plenty of paper in the printer. Plenty of gas in the car.

This evening’s dance began when the “final” version of the sale documents (actually the “purchase and sale agreement”) arrived in my email INBOX with a pleasant “bing.”

The plot says that at this point I am critically late. I am the hold-up. I, having just received 30 pages of legal document, am now to rush around and get signatures on four copies of it. Finally, I will deliver the precious Binding Legal Agreement to the Agent of the Sellers.

The womb of the paper, the pressed dead tree, has been rendered fertile with the printed language from the attorney – but it must be impregnated with the magic, life giving signature of my pen. This is why a FAX just won’t do, or heavens, some sort of electronic acknowledgement. The agreement can’t live without love – without a certain amount of drama. Sure, I can transfer my entire life’s savings from bank to bank with the click of a mouse – but to agree to purchase property I have to drive into South Boston.

So I immediately started attending to my task – by making a cup of coffee. While I was making the coffee, I heard the pleasant “bing” of a revised version of the final document. I gently stirred sugar into the coffee, and admired the mathematics of the curve of the lip of the cup, how it shapes the flow of the coffee to release aroma … enhancing the whole experience.

“bing,” just one more change. My phone rang, it was the realtor – giving me the cell phone number of the escrow agent so I could arrange a place to hurry hurry hurry and get them the paperwork. Called him up. Said I’m happy to meet him anywhere at all in the Metro Boston area, today or tomorrow. Told him I have the check right here in my hand. Oh yeah, and that other pile of paper too.

Eventually, the frequency of the “bing”s slowed. I opened the document and changed it from “legal” to “letter” sized paper so my printout wouldn’t look like ass. Then I corrected the typos that the lawyer – at his frantic $200 per hour – had left in.

Another phone call. Yes, indeed. Got the document. Reading it now. Fixing typos. Typos? Yep. Just a few more. Printing it now.

Now, I get in the car to drive, first to redmed, for her life-giving signature, and then to an exit just off 93 – a beach access of some sort. Second exit from a rotary. 7pm sharp. It seems a bit sketchy, but this is what the seller’s agent wants.

And me, the buyer, the guy with the money – the guy who pays every single person in this drama – it’s my job not just to pay for everybody’s tickets – but also to give them what they want.

So off I go.

So far the performance has been pretty good, actually – but this is just the second act. The finale doesn’t come around until June.

I spent my day waiting for a system crash.

We’ve got this serious, hardcore system lockup that happens sometimes with the customer of the moment. Naturally, it only happens when the system is flat-out running their most important computation. Naturally, it can reasonably said that if this code doesn't work, then the system is useless to us.

Basically, if I get all the systems rocking on a parallel task, then sometimes after a few hours, one of them will crash hard enough that it doesn’t respond to ping. Naturally this takes the whole parallel job with it. Ctrl-alt-delete (through the KVM) doesn’t cut it. Needs a finger-on-the-button hard reboot. Of course, I have remote control over the power outlets for these systems … do I don’t have to fly to Maryland every time this happens … but still.

So, I started down the list: Power, cooling, bad memory, flaky filesystems, …

At the same time I was working down another list: Too much memory use? Too many tasks, colliding on some secret lock-file? Oversubscribing the NFS server

And yet a third: Bad input? Crappy data files?

Finally, I would get the system rocking and go on to other tasks … until after a while I would exclaim:

MOTHER-FUCKER!

Then I would try again.

Thought I got it. I really did. Left. Dropped the laptop at the hotel. Went to yoga. Good, relaxing, and the knee even handled it well.

When I got back to the hotel, I looked at the computer and said:

MOTHER-FUCKER!

Debug debug debug …

I recently wrote a letter to Focus on the Family. I very much did not expect a response of any sort.

I’m pleased to report that I was wrong.

I’ve had a recurring rant for a few years now, that I’ve been happy to deliver over a coffee or a cocktail. The short form goes something like this:

“Financial institutions don’t produce anything. Instead, they act as catalysts – enabling other entities to be more productive than they otherwise would have. Because of the existence of banks who will offer loans, I can start a small business and stock the shelves. That additional productivity has real monetary value and so banks and finance houses have a perfectly valid slice of the economy from which to extract their profits.

Here’s the crux: Everything is fine as long as the productivity gains associated with the existence of banks exceeds the money that those banks extract from the economy. However, we need to keep in mind that banking does not actually produce anything. When banking, trading, hedging, or scamming come to be seen as actual productivity – then we have a critical error in our judgement that will eventually come crashing down.

Neither banks nor stocks nor funds actually produce value. So long as the finance system is an enabler of increased productivity, all is well. However, when the finance system comes to be seen as a growth engine for the creation of wealth, in and of itself, that is when problems start.

I never had numbers to quantify my impression that we were treating the stock market not as a catalyst but as a growth engine. Paul Krugman’s column today gives me those numbers. Apparently finance was less than 4% of the economy during the 40’s, 50s, and 60s. At the peak of the recent bubble, finance was 8% of GDP.

Let me say that again: We had 8% of our GDP that simply didn’t exist. The “P” in GDP stands for “Production.” Over 20 years, 8% … math math math … yup. That’s the problem.

One definition of insanity is “doing the same thing, and expecting a different result.” I think I may be insane.

For one thing, there’s the travel: In Norfolk VA all last week, got back last night. Had a very pleasant evening at home. Today I plan to go to physical therapy and then to follow a house inspector around the house that we’re likely purchasing.

Oh yeah, we’re probably going to purchase a house. posted some pictures. Today we go in to try to get a feel for what is crazy about this one by following an inspector around. Note that on house purchase number three I am no longer wondering whether there is some complete insanity here – but about the nature of the insanity that I know is there.

It’s a hundred year old victorian within walking distance to a red line T stop, has tons of sun and lots of space, is on enough land (1/4 acre) to support my gardening habit, and, and, and. Most interesting to me is the fact that it’s got 300A electrical service and the rooms are independently wired with cat-5e switched through a telco closet. The house served for a time as an office building, but is and always has been zoned residential. We shall see.

Following the inspection, we’re bundling into the car and driving to Maine for a weekend with S and A. They’re awesome, and I’m really looking forward to it. Sunday, we drive back, I have another pleasant night in my own bed, and then it’s back on a plane to Maryland on Monday morning. Friday, I meet redmed at the airport (note, not home – still in Maryland) and we attend sacredangles senior recital, plus chill with justkidding_nr, thx4asking, and derangedqueen. Sunday, we fly back and come home.

So far, the only travel I know about for the week after that is out Wed. night and back Thursday morning.

In unrelated news, I stilled the cabernet sauvinon last night – and it seems like it might turn out pretty tasty. The American Ale is, as expected, hoppy and fun … and the Bass clone is going to rock.

I haven’t yet taken the time to read this article with any attention to detail – but on the whole it seems to capture my understanding of our current financial situation.

To wit: Our initial attempts at saving the financial industry have failed because they assumed that the bankers and wall street types would act altruistically in order to save their own system. We acted as if they were trustworthy stewards of taxpayer money … which of course they are not now and have never been. They are profiteers. They took our money and put it in their own pockets.

It’ll be near impossible to outplay wall street in terms of writing rules and regulations that will cause them to act for the common good so long as they are not motivated by any desire to advance that common good.

We took the wrong approach trying to work with them as partners. They simply need to be driven into bankruptcy. Yes, this will suck for everyone, but it sucks more to give handouts to these jerks.

Short form: I am entirely satisfied by the conclusion of Battlestar Galactica.

Long form:
My favorite parts of the series that did not involve Starbuck and her penchant for doing sit-ups in a sports bra had to do with the fact that the Cylons have a theology that works. Their God is a God of mathematics – but also a God with purpose. That would be just as silly as other theologies, except that they have a large set of results that seem to say that they’re working with something real. They have prophecies, mysterious clues … even faith … and that faith seems to work to their net benefit over the long term. More specifically, their prophecies work out quite nicely. The overlap of a science driven world with visions and prophecy that accurately reflect the world appeals to me. In a fictional context, of course.

Baltar puts it well in the Opera House / CIC:

God is a force of nature. Good and evil? We invented those.

The conclusion satisfied me by bringing that back. Baltar and Caprica 6 were always something slightly other within the context of the show. I mean, what was with their useful, prescient hallucinations? Sure, they’re human and cylon. They would have to be in order to play their recurring role. But the secret of resurrection? Invented and lost. Invented and lost. The cycle continues. Those two are something else – not particularly interested in seeing the cycle continue, but not willing to let the spark die out, and also not willing to just speak up because we have to solve the puzzle ourselves. The secret to their resurrection? Perhaps that’s God.

You know he doesn't like that name.

Starbuck achieves full bodily-assumption Nirvana. What was she? An angel? A fully realized sentient being? Something entirely else? This is where the prophecies of the cylons fell down. She was, to them, the armageddon. The doomsday being – leading everyone to their annihilation. Their prophecies know her – but only as the agent of chance and circumstance that lead to the cycle continuing. Her annihilation was not so much the players as the play. Starbuck represents the power of guts and of living with the heart rather than the head. Of course the buddha would be one hell of an athlete.

Aware of death, but not afraid. Break the cycle. There must be some kind of way out of here. Hell yeah. Break what cycle? Birth, death, rebirth, suffering, war. That cycle.

The visuals were hard to beat. Galactica taking one last savage beating, right in the pincers of the colony. Adama looking at his hybrid CIC. Roslin, unable to effectively triage – to give up on even one more person. It was really a thing of beauty.

And, of course, Starbuck back to her old self for a bit: Could we not tell her the plan?

Finally: Adama gruffly talking to Roslin’s grave after a hard day’s work continuing to build their dream home – perhaps years after her death – brought a tear to my eye. A speck of warmth to my cold, dark heart is worth four seasons of loyalty. Yes, it was even worth gutsing through all of season three, and the first half of four.

I’m working onsite with a new customer today, and I discovered this wonderful machine that dispenses excellent coffee when you push a button.

* Click
* grindgrindgrind
* wooooosh
* dribble

And then you drink really good coffee.

The guy I’m working for walked by while I was happily pressing the button and holding my mug under the spout for a refill. He commented “yeah, now I know how the pellet animal feels.”

That’s about the long and short of it.

click

I’m sponsoring a scholarship. While it says “RI Atheist Society” on the top – this is my baby.

I just mailed out a copy of this announcement to more than 30 high schools and colleges in Rhode Island. Mail merge is simple and fun, once you get past the insane complexity of it.

This is a shameless plug: If you know a student in or around Rhode Island who could use a thousand bucks for educational expenses, please point them at this thing. I would love to see lots and lots of submissions.

I asked friends to share their strategies and targets for charitable giving. In the spirit of “show me yours …” here’s our current plan:

We’ve got a budget that works pretty well these days. It took about 3 years of effort to get good at home budgeting – and it turns out that you don’t need too much cool software at all. You just need a way to track expenses by major category (auto:fuel, groceries, books, dining out, etc) and the discipline to reconcile it every month. With a few months of real data in hand, it’s possible to see where your money is going and to make changes – a little at a time – in a couple of categories at a time. We used to be really bad at this – we got better with practice.

Within that budget, there’s space for charity. We’re shooting for “10% of the monthly paycheck”, but we’re not there yet. As atgatg put it, 10% feels like a substantial, yet achievable and sustainable fraction. We certainly won’t be 10% less happy if we put 10% of our cash into making positive change in the world rather than (for example) eating more sushi.

So anyway, I’ve got a system where I know my monthly budget for charity. This means that I can write checks with impunity. That might seem trivial, but knowing how much I’ve got to spend – and that it’s not coming out of anything else (i.e: yes, we can still go to the movies even though we gave $100 to whoever) is a huge psychological advantage. I don’t have to go to redmed and have a new conversation every month about how much we can afford. Instead we can skip right to “who gets it this month?”

Within that, we looked for a split between major ongoing support for a few organizations and minor support for lots of them. Not knowing any better, we just split it 50/50 between major and minor. Every month, 50% of the budget goes to the group(s) who are getting ‘long term’ support. Our major target at the moment is Family Health Ministries. They’re the ones with whom we go to Haiti, and I trust them completely.

The other 50% is up for grabs on a monthly basis. I’ve got a stack of potential charities pinned to my corkboard. When I get a request for money, or when a new charity comes to my attention, they go on the stack. When I do the bills at the beginning of the month, I pick up that stack and go through it with redmed. We sort it and then write checks for what seem like reasonable amounts (relative to the group) until we’re out of money for the month. Sometimes it’s a single check to the top of the stack, sometimes groups want a couple bucks here and couple of bucks there and we get to support several of them.

If a group doesn’t make anywhere near the top of the stack for a long time – I usually discard them. No hard feelings – just keeps the stack manageable.

If something urgent comes up (“hey! My kid is walking 10k for charity, can you help out?”) we’re flexible enough to put a bit of next month’s money into it, and I’ve got a way to be sure that I don’t spend the money twice.

Beyond looking for “balance,” I don’t have a specific system to manage:

* Personal interest (old college clubs, etc)
* Local vs. global
* Targeted (this one classroom) vs. general (women’s education worldwide)
* Even semi-selfish (NPR) vs. totally altruistic (stoves for Darfur)

Anyway, that’s what we do.