View Only Through Smoked Glass

I’m headed to church to do pizza research! I’ll make dough here and take it up there. Their mixer may or may not have a dough hook, and I don’t want to get up there and find out I can’t make dough.

Pray for success. I’m hoping I can give them a product that will knock them out.

Hiatus

I was going to shoot up to my church today to see if I could make pizza with their equipment, but I forgot about our 40-day thing. During the first 40 days of the year, people are doing various things to get closer to God. Most of it is fasting. I’m doing a pretty wimpy variation: Mondays until 6 p.m. If I bake pizzas, I won’t be able to try them until this evening. That won’t work.

I suppose this will work out well, because I need a dough hook for the church’s mixer. Maybe I can find one today.

Here’s my take on the Super Bowl: glad it’s over. On Saturday night, the traffic was unbelievable. Just what Miami needs more of. The Super Bowl is like Hip Hop Weekend. A good reason to stock up on food and stay indoors.

On Saturday night, I saw thousands of cars trying to get to downtown Miami. I can’t figure that out. There must have been an event. Ordinarily, there is no rational explanation for trying to go downtown. There is nothing there, except bums. We have a contrived waterfront mall called Bayside Marketplace, but it’s about as authentic as the Country Bear Jamboree and nearly as exciting as Walmart.

I have to wonder if clueless people went to downtown Miami, assuming it had to be the focal point of a huge celebration, only to discover nothing was happening. And that there was no place to park.

People have a lot of misconceptions about Miami. I’ll help.

1. When you reach the Florida border, you’re almost there. Wrong. You have about 400 miles to go.

2. Miami has great nightlife. Wrong. Miami BEACH has great nightlife. Miami is a different city, several miles from Miami Beach. Miami smells like wino pee, and there isn’t much to do there at night unless you like Denny’s or emergency rooms. There used to be some nightlife in Coconut Grove, but the Beach pretty much killed it. Even the gays left. We still have a Hooters, though.

3. Miami has great beaches. Wrong. Miami BEACH has OKAY beaches. Miami is not on the ocean. It’s on Biscayne Bay. All of the waterfront land is covered by buildings, seawalls, and mangroves. The really good beaches are about a hundred miles away, on the west coast. And Eleuthera’s beaches make our west coast beaches look like landfills.

4. Miami is beautiful. Well, maybe, compared to the place you came from. But Miami is almost completely flat, the coastline is boring and straight, and the beaches, as noted above, are very ordinary. Because of the geography, you won’t see much of the ocean, anyway, unless you’re driving across a bridge or paying a thousand dollars to experience our very average offshore fishing.

5. People who live in Miami will be glad to see you, because you’re contributing to the economy.

Oh, boy. I won’t even touch that one.

I could not care less about the game. I’m glad I wasn’t required to watch it. The older I get, the more unpleasant TV football games are for me. I grit my teeth until they’re over. The crowd noise is like coarse sandpaper on the eardrums. I’ve tried to like football, but it’s like pretending to enjoy Kenny G. to please your girlfriend. The only things I like about football are barbecuing and the funny commercials.

I am told people paid $5000 each for seats yesterday. I must not be the same species as those people. I’m sitting here trying to imagine what, about Super Bowl whatever-number-it-was, would justify that kind of expense, and I’m drawing a blank. Even if I wanted to go, I think fifty bucks would be a king’s ransom. I went to see B.B. King once, and I think I was in the fifteenth row, and I believe I paid thirty dollars. Something like that. I paid $25 to see Maynard Ferguson in a small club, and he came out in the crowd and shook my hand. If you’ve ever spent more than a hundred bucks on a sporting event, your brain needs an MRI.

I have never cared who won a football game. Why should I? It’s not like I know these people. I found out the Colts and Saints were playing the day before the game. Who was I rooting for? Tim Tebow. Although I wouldn’t know who he is, if he weren’t making hippies mad. I enjoyed his commercial. I saw it a few minutes ago. On a blog.

Apparently the Colts aren’t in Baltimore now.

I need to call the church and find out the model number on their old Hobart Kitchenaid. I have this nagging feeling that I’ll have to examine it in person.

Maybe God will provide a Cuisinart.

By the way, Kitchenaid makes a 16-cup food processor that is supposed to be much better than a Cuisinart, and it’s not that expensive. Something to think about. If your machine can handle four cups of flour, as this one should, your pizza needs will be no problem.

New Sensation for Me

I had a spiffy time at church today. I am finally starting to blend in. Every so often, I realize it’s a little weird for white Southern lawyer to be part of the cast of characters at a church comprised mostly of Haitians, Jamaicans, and Cubans, but the sensation only lasts for a second.

I think the kookier Christians get, the more post-racial we are. Charismatics are pretty far-out. Now that I think about it, there are a bunch of interracial couples in the church, so maybe my theory holds water.

When I was in law school, there was an annoying level of tension between blacks and whites. It was really bizarre. I guess I found it strange because of my past experiences in an Assemblies of God church, where people were just people. Sometimes I treated black law students as though they were just like everyone else, and they did not welcome it. Many of them separated themselves from the rest of us. Crazy, given that this was in the late 90s.

I’m part of the church’s “armorbearer” team, which is a group of men who do everything from basic security to getting the pastor his Altoids. We had a swell meeting after the service. We’re really coming together. We’re getting our firearms policy straight, and we’re taking steps to get professional security training so we don’t screw up too much. It’s a wonderful club to be in. These guys get it done; that’s what they’re all about. We don’t get to hop up and down on the stage or star in the church’s videos. We just wander around behind the scenes, trying to make stuff work. The people in the more glamorous jobs have their own problems to contend with, so we try to make life easier for them.

There are other volunteer branches in the church that keep things moving. The parking guys. The ushers. The kitchen people. If I try to make a list, I’ll leave half of the volunteers out.

I finally got to root around in the kitchen and make pizza plans. If I can work it out, I plan to go up there tomorrow and try to make a few pies with their equipment. This is just R&D. I have a feeling it won’t be hard to find test pilots.

Their ovens only go to 500°, which is troubling. I’ll have to see if it causes a problem. My guess is that it won’t. I would think thick pizza would actually benefit from a lower temperature.

They have a weird commercial convection oven which could conceivably bake several big pies at once, and they have a traditional gas oven. I’ll just have to see what works.

I think the best approach is to sell slices. This place is not efficient, and to sell whole pies, you need to move fast. And you need to have lots of trays and screens and containers for dough. That would be a pain. And most of our customers won’t want a whole pie anyway.

I want to train the customers to like Sicilian. It’s less messy, and you get much more food for the effort and time. You can cut one pie into eight slices, and every slice is a meal. Except for the gluttons. A 16″ circular pie will only serve four, assuming you cut it in eight slices.

I’m really excited. I’m happy to volunteer in any area, but it’s nice to do something I’m actually gifted at.

It turns out there is a Gordon Food Service four miles north of the church, and there’s a Costco not far off. That means I can get everything I need, nearby. We may be able to get quality stuff delivered by Sysco, but we’re not there yet.

I picked up some starter items. Cutter. Cookie sheet. Tray. Screen. Sauce. Cheese. Yeast. Vinegar. That will make getting started a lot easier. They’ll still have to get a peel and a food scale, and we have to figure out how to make dough. They have a Kitchenaid stand mixer that says “Hobart” on it, but I don’t know if they have dough attachments, and I have to figure out how to use them. A big food processor would be nice.

Light olive oil is a problem. Everyone squeals about extra virgin so much, I assumed the light stuff would be cheaper. But I haven’t found a good price on it. I’m considering mixing extra virgin with safflower oil. You really don’t want a heavy olive flavor in your pizza oil. It works fine in rolls, but extra light is perfect for pizza crust. GFS has a blend I might try. Sometimes the cheap stuff works better than the good stuff.

I sure hope this works out. It would be something for us to take pride in, and it would give people from the neighborhood a reason to walk in the door. And the cafe has been a real challenge for the church, so anything I can do to make it work will be a good thing.

Today I learned something interesting about one of the armorbearer guys I hang around with. He’s an accomplished musician. He plays the trombone. He used to tour and perform when he was a kid. My cousin’s husband is a classical trombone virtuoso, and this guy actually knows who he is. Can you beat that?

I can’t believe I know another person under 60 who knows who Lester Young was. Man, I feel less alone.

Another of those funny God “coincidences,” I guess.

I Shall not Fear for the Terror by Night

I think I have my carry thing together now. The Truglos are installed, and they work fine. They don’t light up the room, but you can see them in any light, so they’re everything they need to be. I also borrowed the belt pack I gave my dad for Christmas, so I could try it out. It’s excellent. Yank the zipper with the left hand, pull the Glock with the right, and it’s showtime. And when you wear the pack, you don’t look like a gun-toting maniac, except to the small percentage of people who have a clue what concealed carry is all about. To most people, you look like a dumpy tourist who can’t stand to leave the house without a digital camera and a video Ipod.

I think it’s better to look armed than unarmed, but it disturbs gun-phobics, and they’re all around us.

I plan to continue to carry in a pocket most of the time, but that’s not possible with some types of pants, and there are some situations in which I will be more concerned about quick access, and at those times, a belt pack is the prudent way to go. It’s an annoying thing to wear every day, so I’m generally willing to risk the small chance that the extra second it takes to pull a gun out of a pocket will matter.

You can have a seat belt. You can have a seat belt and a front air bag. You can have a seat belt and a front air bag and side air bags and a suit of armor and a trained polar bear and a Gatling gun. Readiness comes in levels, and everybody has to choose one, and you can drive yourself nuts insisting on an unrealistic level of safety.

This is pretty cool. I can have 21 +P 9mm rounds ready for use at almost all times, and now I can shoot in the dark. That sure beats depending on the kindness of strangers. You can do a lot with 21 shots, especially with a highly accurate Glock that’s easy to shoot.

My church permits concealed carry for certain people. That is like a perfect storm of joy. Throw in pizza prepared to my specs in the church kitchen, and you have something that approaches ecstasy.

Every church ought to allow it. It sure beats waiting until the God-hating lunatic with the AK-47 shows up and then praying for God to make him miss.

Churches collect cash at their services. I think criminals are aware of that.

In the future, the secular world is going to become more hostile to Bible-believing Christians and all Jews. A polarization is going to occur–you can see it happening now–and we’ll be in the minority. Might as well get a carry permit and learn to shoot now, before the rush.

It’s very odd. We’re the nice ones, but for some reason we, and not the godless, seem to be ending up with a lot more guns per capita. That’s okay with me. The only thing more troublesome than an angry hippie is an angry armed hippie. Look at the misery they cause without guns, and then imagine them treating firearms laws the way they treat laws against vandalism, theft, indecent exposure, drug possession, and trespassing.

Angry Wiener Dogs Shall Fall and Perish at my Presence

Had a great Saturday morning prayer group meeting, with the usual round of “coincidences” during and after.

We discussed firearms part of the time. We’re going to start going to the range. I may be required to get a little basic security training, so when the bad guys show up, I will know the proper way to become hysterical and incontinent. When I got my permit, my “class” was pretty rudimentary. It consisted of a Cuban telling me things like, it was really okay to shoot guys who aren’t close enough to harm me, provided they’re really big and black. Only he didn’t use the word “black.” If you get my drift.

Diversity is not everybody’s cup of tea, I fear.

I am having Truglos put on my carry piece right now. I put some on my dad’s new Glock, and they look great, so I figured it was a good idea. When are you most likely to need to shoot someone? When it’s dark. And the factory sights just don’t work.

People say the luminous sights will let the bad guy know where you are. Hello? If he doesn’t know where you are, you have no business aiming a gun at him. Situations where you would be justified in shooting a criminal who is unaware of your location are pretty rare. Personally, I’m more concerned about being able to aim than about letting the crook know where I am. And I think the ear-splitting explosions and bright muzzle flashes might tip him off anyway.

I’m going to break down and get a belt pack type of deal. I generally carry in a pocket, which is way better than not carrying, but sometimes I want to be better prepared, and a belt pack is a step up. It’s not as good as a real holster, but life can’t always be perfect.

If I ever end up going with a holster, I guess I’ll get a bigger Glock in .45 ACP. You know what they say. “Go big or go home.” But the 9mm is wonderful. You can carry 21 rounds of very effective ammunition with very little inconvenience.

While I was at the gun shop today, a guy came in with his wife or girlfriend. She carries, and he presumably carries, too, and he was walking a pit bull. Here is a guy who can wear any kind of watch he wants, anywhere, any time. And his Air Jordans will never leave his feet.

I can understand why insecure people like pit bulls, but it seems like a poor self-defense choice, especially when combined with a pistol. You can’t control the dog. You can’t aim while you’re holding a dog leash. And it sounds like a good way to get your pet shot or cut up without achieving much in terms of protection.

It’s also illegal to own a pit bull here.

I’d rather live among neighbors who all had submachine guns than among people with dangerous dogs. About one percent of dog owners (if that) are responsible enough to train and control their animals. And a gun can’t jump a fence and shoot you while its owner is at work.

One nice thing about carrying is that I don’t have to worry much about the irresponsible dog owners around here. They have to worry about me. If necessary, I can shoot their dogs, and if a dog gets loose and runs toward me while it’s being walked, I’ll be shooting in the general direction of the owner, and I won’t be liable for what happens. In fact, if I kill an innocent person, the dog owner, not I, will go to jail and get sued.

Something to think about when you buy a stupid, aggressive, loyal, territorial dog and fail to train it.

I think it should also be legal to shoot small yappy dogs on general principles, but I haven’t gotten anywhere with my legislation drive.

How do we know the Koreans aren’t onto something? I’m just saying we need to be open-minded.

Stand Back

What an exciting moment for the arts. Today I got out my cornet and played a Mozart piece.

It was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

I Googled, anticipating the wise-guy commenters. No, Mozart didn’t actually write it. Be a buzzkill, why don’t you.

The trumpet book was full of stuff I couldn’t stand to play, including “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” “Hot Cross Buns,” and “Jingle Bells,” so out of desperation, I learned how to play an A, and I skipped to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” It worked. I played it unbelievably badly, but then I played the easier songs badly, too, so it wasn’t a problem.

Then I got cocky. I took out my book of standards and looked for something with very few notes in it. I landed on “The Girl From Ipanema.”

Five minutes later, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” wasn’t looking so bad any more. I can sight-read dotted notes and eighth notes OR I can have an embouchure. I can’t do both at once.

I think once I can play a few more notes, I can actually make some music. Badly. That will be fun.

I don’t know much about the trumpet (cornet, whatever), but from my sheet music, it looks like just about every well-known song is published in a range I can’t reach. My exciting high note is an A, and to play anything at all, you have to be able to get up to the F above it.

Someone pointed out that trumpet music is written incorrectly. I should have seen this coming. Music can never be simple. I wondered why my cornet’s G was really an F or F-sharp. I thought the piano was out of tune, but then I noticed that my cheap electronic keyboard was also “out of tune.”

Are all instruments like this? If so, I am even more amazed by Franz Liszt than I used to be. He could play an orchestral score on the piano at sight, while making comments about it. That would be a good trick even if it were written for piano. Now I have to wonder if orchestral scores are written in weird ways, like trumpet music. He would have to know all that, transpose the whole mess in his head, turn it into piano music, and talk about the music, all at once. I think.

What exactly IS an orchestral score? If you have like 75 instruments, how can you have one score?

Don’t tell me. Forget I asked.

I oiled my valves. That was a thrill. Inside, they look like they’re new. Freaky. This horn was probably made in 1961. Somebody didn’t like to practice. That’s my guess.

“Aunt Rhody” probably got him.

“Plunder”?

RE the Men at Work story, I always thought it was “women blow and men thunder.” Seriously.

I never thought that made any sense, but then I never understood “repped up like a dution of the runner in the night” either.

And music critics admit no one really knows the words to “Louie, Louie.”

You’ll Still Need a Tray

Thanks, any and all who assisted with prayer this morning. Things went very well.

I have nothing to do for the rest of the day. What now? If there is one thing I hate, it’s idleness.

Shut up.

Can I bore you again with my supernatural weight loss? I made pizza over and over again for a month, and depending on how accurate my scale is, I either gained no weight or a pound and a half. Because I ate tons of pizza and God made it magically nonfattening? No. I mean, I ate plenty, but I’m pretty sure my permanent increase in self-control kept it down to a harmless amount. I don’t think angels are hovering around my maw, destroying calories miraculously as food gets caught in the gravity well. Although I rule nothing out.

I love pizza more than just about anything on earth, but once I got Sicilian figured out, I no longer had an overpowering urge to make it. That is completely bizarre. I never got tired of pizza in the past. I ate it every day for long periods. I had no problem with eating it twice a day.

As long as I had sauce, cheese, and flour, I had to make pizza until the supplies ran out or my arches collapsed. But I’m sitting here right now with no idea what I’m going to have for lunch, and I have delicious Costco cheese and two kinds of sauce handy, and the only thing I’m sure of is that I’m going to have something boring and healthy. This is like a crackhead turning down rocks in favor of Sanka.

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to help anyone else get what I got. Nobody cares. When I talk to people about it, they start telling me all their diet secrets. That’s a completely different subject. No relevance at all. I’m not on a diet. I have diet secrets, too, but they don’t work. This is a different thing. I just eat less. No one understands. God just dropped it on me. I don’t even know why. I hope he shoves a few more presents off the back of his sleigh. Or chariot or whatever.

I’m right down here! Look me up on Google Earth. I’ll paint a big X on the driveway. Or maybe a yud.

Imagine Moses talking to someone about parting the Red Sea. The other guy would say, “Yeah, you can build a caisson with lots of slave labor and spend about ten years pumping the water out,” and Moses would go, “Dude, I just waved a stick.”

After a few minutes, Moses would throw up his hands and say “whatever.” Or “oy.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m talking Chinese. “God fixed me so I don’t overeat!” “Yeah, I’m thinking of doing Slim-Fast.” “No, GOD FIXED ME SO I DON’T OVEREAT.” I feel like Lego Darth Vader trying to make people understand he’s not Jeff Vader or Mr. Stephens, the head of catering.

Obscure reference. See Youtube. Search under Eddie Izzard.

I have to watch that now.

Support Sought

I have to take on an unpleasant job this morning. Prayers for a decisive victory would be appreciated. God has shown himself powerful and faithful at my side, but it’s always best to have others praying for you.

I Need an Agent

I played a song on the cornet today!

As predicted by a reader, it was the bane of all beginning music students: “Hot Cross Buns.” I honestly think I’d rather listen to “My Sharona.”

I was atrocious, but I played the notes.

Onward and upward.

I’m surprised I didn’t realize what a great instrument the trumpet (cornet, whatever) could be. Most of the trumpet music I’ve heard has been jazz, and the artists don’t really knock themselves out shooting for feeling and finesse. It’s mostly speed, high notes, and musical legerdemain. I’ve been listening to clips of other types of horn music online, and it’s extremely impressive stuff.

Which is ironic, really, because the main thing jazz players try to do is impress.

Epoxy = Talent?

I am starting to suspect that the embouchure drives a lot of horn players insane.

Today I started trying to play my favorite song, D-E-F-G-F-E-D (look for it on Sony Records soon), and I made a strange and disappointing fuzzy sound. I decided to do what I always do when I have a problem. I Googled.

I found a site with some good stuff on it. A guy named John Lynch makes a product called the Asymmetric Mouthpiece, and his promotional site features some material applicable to all horn players. He says you shouldn’t situate your mouthpiece so half of it is on each lip. Instead, move it so 2/3 of it is on the bottom lip.

I gave this a shot, and it really seems to help. I’m not sure why everyone else says to do it the other way. Presumably, they’re not stupid.

His mouthpiece has a thicker bottom rim on it. He says this will extend your upper range by up to seven semitones. But he doesn’t make cornet mouthpieces, and he advises cornet players to simulate the effect with plumber’s putty.

The obvious problem here is that anyone who can stand the feeling of plumber’s putty against their lips can save the $73 cost of a mouthpiece.

A horn player named Nick Drozdoff has a Youtube in which he shows a cornet mouthpiece with a glob of putty in it. He didn’t like it, so he ended up buying a Harrison Wedge cornet mouthpiece. My guess: he never heard of Devcon, JB Weld, or Marine-Tex. Any of those products should be much more satisfactory.

I may get another mouthpiece and glom some Devcon onto it. What the hell.

Parallel, or Knotted Together?

It’s a beautiful day, and I feel fantastic, and I just had to have some more coffee and goof off, so I’m writing again.

Last night, our church had a guest speaker. No point in saying who he is, but he runs a megachurch.

I was working as an “armorbearer,” which means I wander around with an earpiece, aggravating people. I tell them to quit propping the fire doors open. If an armed criminal comes in and tries to take the offering, I stand on a chair and scream in a high-pitched voice until he goes away. Stuff like that.

The sermon didn’t get off to a great start. He told two jokes we had heard the previous week from another evangelist. I don’t think anyone told him that, but the crowd laughed nervously.

His message, as I understand it, was this: we are supposed to “release” angels to help us. He said he did this all the time, and it was how he got a huge church with rich tithers.

I am extremely leery of this stuff. To me, it borders on sorcery. I have read the entire Bible, and I can’t recall a single instance of a godly person commanding an angel, unless yelling at demons counts. The impression I get from angelic encounters in the Bible is that the angels are polite and helpful, but that they really don’t want us getting close. They get upset when we kneel and bow. They don’t offer to serve us. They make it clear that they serve only God. One supernatural visitor told Joshua he was not on Joshua’s side. He said he led God’s angelic army. That’s pretty blunt. Joshua was a very righteous person, and the visitor (probably Jesus, because he received worship) wanted him to understand that there was a difference between being on God’s side and being on Joshua’s side. In any case, he made it very clear that Joshua’s army and God’s army were different organizations.

The angels killed the Egyptians when Moses crossed the Red Sea (according to some), but Moses didn’t tell them what to do. Presumably, angels destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but they didn’t need Abraham and Lot to command them. The angel that heralded the conception of John the Baptist was downright cranky with Zechariah. He made him mute. The angels that appeared at the tomb of Jesus didn’t offer to do anything for the disciples. An angelic army helped David, but he did not get to talk to them.

Jesus told Peter that what he bound or loosed on earth would be bound or loosed in heaven. Many Christians think this means we can “bind” and “loose” events and angels. But the Jews interpret it differently. Messianics say it only means Peter, like rabbis before him and the Popes that followed him, was given authority to decide what was right or wrong. So if he made a mistake with regard to doctrine, people who obeyed him were excused, because God would back him up.

That’s a troubling thought, because it would suggest that all of us should belong to the Catholic or Orthodox churches, with all of their problems and errors.

Anyway, the guy I heard last night said this gave him the authority to loose angels. I am not ready to accept that. I have heard another prominent preacher say the same basic thing, and I don’t like it. It’s like the saints; it reminds me of voodoo. You command (or ask) spirits other than God to do stuff for you.

On the other hand, asking God to send angels to do things for us is very scriptural. Jesus made it clear that he could do that. He said he could call for legions of angels to protect him, so presumably, there is nothing wrong with asking God to send angels to make things work out for you. God promised us angelic help in the 91st psalm.

So the message I got last night was this: don’t forget to ask God to send his angels to fight for you. That, I think, is safe. But you will never catch me telling an angel to do anything. It scares me to death. I guess it’s like calling the police. It’s okay to ask the dispatcher to send a car, but you can’t call the cops directly and order them to come to your house.

I think there would be big problems if angels had to listen to us and do what we told them. It would be like giving Somalia the hydrogen bomb.

Last night I started wondering what I would do, if my church got into serious heresy. Then I remembered what happened twenty years ago. My church made mistakes, and I quit, and in the end, I was the loser. I think this angel stuff is unstable dynamite in a truck without shocks, but I will not quit again.

Every church has error. You have to latch onto the best church you can find, and relax. Maybe sometimes you have to turn up your nose at something it offers. I’m not sure. How much faith are we supposed to put in our earthly authorities? Division is bad, but becoming a slave to the erroneous doctrines of men can be worse. What is the greater sin: dividing the church, or practicing idolatry in a church that has lost its way? The Bible says rebellion is as bad as witchcraft, which is idolatry. But does that include rebellion against a badly confused church, or does it only mean rebellion against God himself?

Bringing evil doctrine into a church can be rebellion, which makes things even less clear.

The big win I see here is that I have matured enough not to let something like this blow me off the deck of the boat. That’s more important than resolving nonessential issues of doctrine.

Change Your Hopes

The Dow is bellyflopping again. Is this going to be the week when liberals say, “Hey, we put an undistinguished junior Senator in the White House, and he turned out not to be God”?

I wish I had had the guts to day-trade over the last year. I’d be retiring to the Caymans. But a little voice inside me kept saying, “Al Qaeda could bomb the NYSE tomorrow morning.” Then, I thought, I’d be retiring to an appliance box next to the landfill.

Of course, that wouldn’t affect day traders, because they sell out every afternoon.

So maybe I’m just stupid.

No, now that I think about it, a bomb during the trading day would wipe out a trader, even if he sold out every afternoon.

Funny story. I used to day-trade. One day I bought a huge amount of Cascade Communications. It went up. My policy was to sell out at the end of the day, but I thought Cascade looked really good, so I changed my mind. This is something you never do, if you’re a day-trader. Then I changed my mind again, and I sold, and the sale went through about a minute and a half after the closing bell. That happens. Cascade was at about 64 dollars per share. I forget the figure. I sold at the peak.

Next day I went into the SOES trading place, and everyone was staring at me. Someone asked if I had sold Cascade after the bell. I said yes. They pointed out the current value. It was about 42. Bad news during the night.

An experience like that will make you stop thinking adult diapers are funny. Some poor soul ate my giant loss while I sat at home, cheerfully waiting for the Domino’s guy.

I had a lot of lucky experiences when I traded. I sold Iomega at something like 54, right before it plummeted and died. Once an Internet error resulted in me ending up with twice as much of a stock as I was legally allowed to buy, and I made $4000 in one day, before I knew what was wrong. Schwab never caught that one. I went shopping for a digital piano that afternoon.

I had something like that happen to me at the SOES joint, and by law, they had to confiscate the profit. They must have loved me.

I went a whole year with only one loss. I dropped about $600 on Microsoft. No one believes that story. My law school registrar believes it. I gave my profits to her.

Overall, my SOES experience was a bust, so I quit. I should have stuck it out. It’s a very easy way to make money, if you have the disposition for it. You sit at the computer every morning, and you get up and turn it off when you’ve made at least a few hundred dollars. Sometimes you eat it, but my experience was that it was possible to make it average out in my favor. I screwed things up by making changes that added stress to trading, and stress leads to bad trades. I could have fixed that. In fact, I did. The year I only had one loss came after my SOES days, but by then I was in law school.

The main problem with day-trading, apart from the fact that 99% of the people who try it will lose all of their money, is that you don’t do anything productive or interesting. You just move stock around. Nobody quits his boring job as a jazz singer so he can live his day-trading dream.

“What did you do at work today, honey?” “I bought and sold stock with people whose faces I never saw.” “What did you do at work today, honey?” “I bought and sold stock with people whose faces I never saw.”
“What did you do at work today, honey?” “I bought and sold stock with people whose faces I never saw. Then I punched Needle-Nosed Ned Ryerson in the belly.”

And if your Internet connection craps out, you pretty much have to shoot yourself in the head. Or scramble to sell your stocks over the phone, which is lots of fun, pushing one button at a time.

You have to be a real psycho to sell short. You can sell a stock at 1 and then have to buy it back at 100. Ouch. The losses are unlimited. If you buy Ford at 4, all you can lose is 4. Sell it short, and you have to worry that the next day, they’ll invent a car that runs on something inexhaustible, like mainstream media distortions.

What are we all going to do, if the inevitable bear market is finally here? I think I have some magic beans in a drawer somewhere. Maybe I can train Marv to lay golden eggs. I don’t think that works very well. You probably have to feed the bird gold to get gold out of it, so you come out behind.

Grass is edible, right?

Maybe I’ll set a thousand dollars aside and buy three or four houses with it in June. Or I could just trade mangoes for them. Or just walk in and take them, because no one wants them.

I shouldn’t be flippant. People are suffering, and their numbers will increase.

Up the road from me, someone built a condo complex. It is not a nice place. It’s in a comparatively seedy part of South Miami; the buildings around it are full of small apartments packed with college students. The condos aren’t much to look at.

They have a sign up. It says prices start at $775,000. Every time I see that, I wonder when they’re going to catch the misprint. These little places are probably a thousand square feet each, and the area is nothing special. They’re not close to downtown Miami, so the commute is bad. What were they smoking when they made that sign? My guess: they’ll sell for under $100,000 each. Well, my real guess is that they won’t sell at all. The builder will grit his teeth and hold onto them because he refuses to take a loss. Then the bank will get them. Then they’ll sit empty, because the bank is afraid to flood the market. After that, I think monkeys and possums move in and Denzel Washington walks by with a Bible in his backpack.

Miami is full of new construction. I can’t understand it. No one wants this stuff. Why build? My dad thinks people are building because they took loans, and they have to do something with the money.

Oddly, people in construction say they have no work. Can that be possible? The new construction proceeds at a snail’s pace. Maybe that means they’re putting up lots of buildings, but they’re not hiring enough workers.

Pretty soon American bricklayers will be standing in the parking lots at Home Depots in Mexico.

Maybe people are building because they think they timed the bottom of the market. Talk about blood sport. It’s like jumping out of a burning building, only to see the firemen move the airbag.

I will be praying for America today. I’ll pray we turn this around through faith and obedience. Misfortune is only misfortune if you don’t profit from it. We could reap a harvest of joy and blessings from this mess. If the only help God gave us was in the form of prosperity, we wouldn’t benefit at all in the long run. Fleeting blessings are nice, but lasting ones are better.

If you’re taking a beating today, be encouraged. Nothing can hurt you if you’re in God’s will. Things that look like defeats will turn out to be victories. It may not be easy to feel blessed when things look bad, but that doesn’t mean the blessings aren’t there. God can throw you off a bridge onto the deck of a yacht. He can force you out of your job the day before a disgruntled employee shoots everyone in the place. He can drive you to trade your mansion for a shack with a chest full of diamonds buried in the front yard. He makes things work out.

Still, I think I’ll quit refreshing the page with the Dow Jones average on it.

Sorry

Should have posted these sooner.

From Heather:

Need prayers for my mom, Penny. We got a call from the gyno-oncologist today and there was a lesion on her pap last week. She has to have blood work today and then a PETScan next Tuesday. Please ask the Lord to cleanse this cancer from her body.
I need you to know that my grandmother was treated with a synthetic hormone called DES while she was pregnant with my mom. DES was taken off the market in 1971 because it causes cancer. Many of you know that my grandmother did die of breast cancer. Somewhere along the way in the daily business of life, we forgot about the DES diagnosis until Penny was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Penny NEVER had the venereal warts that have been advertised to cause the cervical cancer. Nor was she promiscuous-she has been celibate since her divorce, because of her deep and abiding faith in God.
Paedric and I need her in our lives and need God to cleanse this cancer from her body.

This next one is about some babies that disappeared in Haiti. I would assume you can find out all about it at Mercy and Sharing. Philanthropist Susie Krabacher has been going nuts over this. Evidently, most of the babies have turned up. Reader Cindy says:

Steve,

Most of our prayers have been answered. 30 of the 32 missing children from the abandoned baby unit have been locate. Keep praying for the two who are still missing.

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14298637

Thanks
Cindy

I don’t know where my brain was when I wandered off without posting these, but there you go.

FAIL

Today I got an annoying letter from the Republican National Committee. They put it in an envelope that looked like the ones the government uses, and they put the word “audit” on the outside of it.

They do this to scare people, so they’ll notice their junk mail and take it seriously. It must seem like a pretty good joke to their marketing people. I didn’t think it was all that funny. Audits are not very pleasant, and in these times, a lot of people are getting real audit letters, and the IRS is proceeding to ruin their lives. Why not put “FORECLOSURE” on the envelope while you’re at it?

I sent them an email demanding they remove me from their mailing list and informing them that I was all done sending money. They can pull their jokes on someone else. I supported them, and they rewarded me with a juvenile postal prank.

This is the kind of marketing that cost us Congress and the White House. It is astounding that they would do something this crass, tactless, and counterproductive. Terry McAuliffe and James Carville must be their fundraising advisors. The Democrats should send letters like this out, pretending to be the RNC. It would win them a lot of new voters.