Thursday night's party was fun- probably too much fun. I became what is known in some circles as a social terrorist- that I is I kept blowing myself up with somewhat drunken, snide, sarcastic comments to various people, lol. Thankfully it was not technically a business event even though there were a lot of people from work and companies we do business with. At one point I was instructing a female business associate how not to punch like a girl once she commented on my shiner and then told me she boxes as part of her training. Yes...too much fun I would say.
It made for an interesting trading session in Asia Thursday night as well. It did not make for an interesting get my ass out of bed early fora 7 AM flight to Denver though. I was most annoyed at my ticket reading United, going to the United terminal only to be told no, you have to go to the Continental terminal, we're merging you know? DUH! The monorail was all screwed up and I barely made my flight- running thru the terminal after security in my socks, holding my boots, belt, jacket and everything else. Getting on the plane only to have the male steward say "Nice sweater!" Ya think he goes to my church and sits in the pews?
We all met up except for one of us and had beers at the Denver airport. The last guy to show works for CSCO and had to do some finagling to get the extended weekend off. Apparently Monday he had to do a "deep dive" I had no clue what that piece of corporate lingo entailed so asked the others who are all in major corporations and used to that bullshit. They also explained it was a step up from a "team meeting" and it was supposed to be very "granular" in its work. Holy shit- I was glad I am not in a corporation that bureaucratic. I of course made the determination to use all those phrases ad nauseaum for the weekend, knowing that turning those screws would seriously irk/bedevil the guy who had to do the "deep dive." It worked. The best part however was when I was in the airport to leave I went to the bookstore to get some reading material for the flight home and there was a book displayed on the front table titled Deep Dive and supposedly guided one on how to do it right. Yes I snapped a pic and emailed it to the rest of the group...
The weekend was awesome. The weather was perfect during the day- sunny and high thirties/low forties. The nights were all about cards and beer. I probably was flat in the cards department and there was one incident that really pissed me off though. We were engaged in a game of night time baseball with the rule that id the queen of spades should up, you stopped, re-anted and started again. The pot gets huge since the odds of her showing are high with 5 people playing. The other part of the rule is anyone who folds is out for good. The betting got to one point I though it was too rich and only one card was left unturned. I folded. The last card was the queen. I was out. One of my supposed friends joked the pot is too big let's just split it four ways. I protested and they then voted to do it anyways. I was not happy. Yes I am bitter actually.
The new show- not original as it is a copy of a Brit show- Being Human on SciFi is pretty damn good and the vampire is smoking hot. The werewolf is cute in a completely geek/nerd way. The show is definitely dvr worthy.
The interesting stat that is making the rounds these days is that the market's performance last year is accountable for only 12 days essentially. The first trading day of each month accounted for most of the performance at the end of the year. If you took those twelve days out the markets were only up 1.4%. Thank God the Federal Reserve is not interfering and manipulating the markets in any way whatsoever. The more sad and stunning stat I saw was that there are now 43.6 million people- roughly 15% of the population- on food stamps. How does that count as a recovery. If you have read about Mervyn King's speech on how the central banks of the world are using policies that are destroying the middle class you should. It should also anger you.
So, more snow and ice tonight and tomorrow- great. I have to be up no matter what to make up the six mile run I did not do in Denver as part of my training. It will def be on the treadmill.
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