Happy New Year:

So, new year here, I've been hammered at work, so haven't been able to throw stuff up here as much as I might have liked.

However, looking back, I am at almost 365 posts, and I am at almost the magical one year anniversary here at the old blogger thing. So that's about one per day. Granted, it's been thinner here recently than in the past, and for that, I apologize to the loyal readers. Both of you. You know who you are.

Anyway, it's been a long holiday season for me. I tend to lose some faith in humanity around this time of year. I hate the traffic, I hate the commercialization, I hate the mentality of "to get is way more funner than to give." I hate the guilt trip, I hate the feeling of being some body's ATM machine. I don't like the house clutter, and I don't dig the longer hours it takes to get ANYTHING done. Even the mundane takes an insane amount of time.

I'm a grinch, scrooge, I guess, deep down. Oh, I know, in my heart, I feel the true meaning of the season, and the best part of it for me is to spend time with family and friends. But beyond that, I'm not a lover of the season. I guess part of it has to do with the fact that when you're self employed, time is money, people are money, and when those two things are shorter in supply, you suffer a bit because of it. That frustrates me.

Oh well.

A random:
It's great fun to watch what's going on in the economy right now. I wrote about that a bit earlier over on my other blog. Where nobody goes. The thing about the housing market is that its downturn/slowdown/pop affects lots of other things too. I read about a company the other day that runs daylaborers out to work sites. They've laid off a bunch of people, and they have stopped going to residential sites and are now taking a smaller work force to commercial sites now. The owner notes that if they had not had the foresight to change, they'd be out of business by now.

Another random:
The Agent-In-Charge of the Ogden Immigration and Customs office, who happens to be a friend of mine was telling me the other day about how sucky his life has been since the Swift plant raids to gather up the criminals who also happen to be illegal aliens. He notes that he can deal with the families of the individuals who were gathered up in the raid. He politely explains that they were breaking the law, are criminals who used other people's identities to secure employment, and they will be punished under the law. He tells them that since they want to be part of the country so bad, that they will also have to learn that they need to obey the laws of the country they so badly want to be a part of...

But those aren't the phone calls he hates. The ones he hates are the ones from the hispanic advocates who call and spew all sorts of garbage about how unfair and discriminatory it is to have focused on these people (who broke the law and stole regular law-abiding citizens' identities). Then he mentions to the advocate person how nobody is talking too much about the illegal mexican who was driving with no license or insurance, who was driving drunk and hit that family on Christmas Eve, killing three members of the family. Then they hang up and don't call back.

A third random:
Allen Iverson hasn't even played with Carmelo Anthony yet, and shows that he can't even stay in the game that way - he got ejected after two technicals the other day, playing against his old team. Anthony is serving a suspension for his own childish antics earlier. Whatever.

A fourth random:
An American car requires about $2000 of the sales price to pay for healthcare. At Toyota, the cost is about $300 per vehicle. You tell me why the "Big Three" are struggling. Besides making garbage, I mean. Toyota is about to overtake GM as the world's number one car manufacturer this year. Toyota is run by engineers, the American car makers are run by MBA's.

And a fifth:
Home Depot's CEO has now stepped down, receiving a golden parachute consisting of $210 MILLION as a compensation package. He said that he was stepping down because he had become a lightning rod for consumer groups who claim that there are too many publicly traded companies whose top leadership earnings are out of touch with reality and are against the best interests of share holders. Ya think?

There are more - you'll have to wait for a day or two. And sorry, no pix this time... I'll have pictures from our recent getaway to Laguna Niguel next time. Promise.

That is all.