I got my lens!

In fact, I got 9 of them. Going up for sale as soon as they arrive. Wish me luck.

Edit: Actually, I haven't gotten any yet. They're supposed to ship on Nov. 8. I want to get this show on the road!

Edit: I have them now. Up on ebay as we speak.

Selling America to the World

This article amazed me. I picked it up from an associate of mine. At first, it sounded like a fabulous idea. I loved the idea of making things more efficient, and delegating tasks. Having a top quality assistant, that would not only do my business tasks for me, but also my most menial day to day tasks for CHEAP. It seemed so obvious, that I couldn't imagine things going any other way. And they may not.

But that concerns me. I was talking to my Grandpa the other day about where America is headed. We started by talking about how good Japanese cars are, and how expensive it is to manufacture cars in America, due to the price of labor. But what are the answers to the problems? Can we sustain manufacturing in the US? Goverment subsidies would just distribute the costs among society, not eliminate them. And if we're not manufacturing, what are we exporting?

In a conversation with my buddy Dave we were trying to figure out what we could export that other nations couldn't do better or cheaper. We came up with Investment Banking, and that's about it. And it won't take long for us to be surpassed in that. Our wealth has to come from somewhere, and with increasing deficits, it's looking like it will rapidly dissipate. What can we export though?

We need to exploit something that the rest of the world needs, and does not have if we want to maintain our lifestyles. I can't imagine what that would be. Other countries do better than us in almost every area. Education, technology, science, labor...it almost makes me feel guilty about having it so good. What do we do that merits it? I'm not in any way disparaging what America has done in the past, but I do think it is a mistake to rest on our laurels. We are still a superpower. We need to make sure we continue to deserve to be.

Paul's Lens

These are some pictures I took at Mom and Dad's house with Paul's wide angle lens. I'd like to get a hold of one of those. Nice lens, but a little tricky to use. If anyone out there wants to get me one for Christmas/Birthday/because they're exceedingly generous, here's a link.

Holy Schmoly

I'm not too big about spending my time advertising for large corporations, but wow. This thing is big time. Of course, for the big guy it BEGINS at $3299. If you top out the options, it gets to $18.5k. THAT is big time. Their Aperture program looks pretty cool too. Too bad my brand new Powerbook can't run it.

Happy Birthday Mom

My mother turns 50 tomorrow. I'm actually back home this weekend visiting her. I doubt she reads this very often, or even knows that it exists, but I hope she has a happy birthday anyway.

edit: The T-Shirt is a joke, she doesn't really eat road kill. ; )

33 more.

I need to see how quick I can unload these, but it's kind of a delicate balance. I can't unload them too fast, because I don't have them yet. I'll get them by Tuesday or Wednesday, but I need to figure out how to be here when the delivery guy shows up. I'm not too worried about unloading them too fast, because sometimes holding on to them until the market dries up works better.

Auctions are always exciting, you never know how far they'll go. It's fun to watch them, and check them every once in a while to see how far they've moved.

Power Squid....ATTACK!

Ok, so it's not actually an attack robot, but this is pretty cool. I know I could use one. Lets see how many of my chargers use bulky adapters where the plug is: my phone, Hillary's phone, Hillary's iPod, my Powerbook, my router, my camera battery charger, and whatever else I'm forgetting at the moment. A great idea, someone should have thought of years ago. And $15 bucks ain't bad, either.