Pssst...Greece defaulted yeterday

Last night was a momentous evening as I attended my last mandatory school concert.  My youngest is going into middle school in the autumn and music is an elective- one he did not choose.  I admit though that concert was not half bad.  Two highlights:  1)  The kids did a piece by Carl Orff- you know him, everyone does.  Carl Orff wrote that song from The Omen aka Carmina Burina.  The piece the kids did though was "Street Song."  It was so good I am going to find some Orff on iTunes and put it on my iPod.  The funny part was the music teacher stated that Carl Orff is incredibly complicated music- so complicated she would only do his pieces in college with professors- yet the guy also was a huge believer apparently in making music accessible to children and most of his pieces can be performed by them by getting broken up into small parts and using very simple instruments.  She proved that point.  b)  There was a blues composition created by one of the 4th grade students.  Again the music teacher admitted that blues are one of the harder types of music to compose and she did not study them until her junior year in college- so pretty amazing a 4th grader could do it.  Not to sound crass, boorish or mean spirited but the most amazing part is the 4th grader is a mini Stephen Hawking- the whole wheel chair and voice synthesizer.  He was tested for the gifted music program and scored in the 98th percentile.   He got a standing ovation from the audience after his piece was sung.

I looked around the concert at one point and saw parents and siblings all using cell phones to play games, take picture or videos and I thought to myself how the hell did my parents make it through all the damn concerts they had to go to?  I was in the band until 6th grade- after which time it was not cool- and played the trombone.  I was not happy with that because I wanted to play the trumpet.  I was never better than second trombone mostly because I did not practice.  Looking back I now realize the trombone is way frackin' cooler than the trumpet and I should have practiced more.

After the concert I went over to PJ and ST's house and had dinner with them and the husband.  I am not a fan of reality tv.  I really avoid it at all costs.  I think hope we are close to the end of this cultural morass.  However last night I got stuck watching it during dinner.  'The Voice" was on and I was a guest so I could not suggest we change the channel to anything- hell even the Golf Channel would have been better- other program.  Two things I took away form the show:  Adam Levine is frackin' hot and he is on the list now I think and Cee Lo Green has really small hands and all I could think of was that ad for either McDonald's or Burger King making fun of the guy with small hands because he could hold the big burger.

We then retired to the cottage to go to bed.  We were getting ready for bed when the husband asked if I'd be able to sleep ok.  You see we had taken the closet doors down to paint them.  I had to explain to him that yes, monsters can enter closets from the Glooming but only if there are doors and they are partially open whereas closets without doors are technically alcoves and monsters cannot enter alcoves from the Glooming ever.

Today was my last training day before the big race Saturday.  It was as short run so yes I hit "Firework" for constant loop and ran my three miles in just under 27 minutes.  The race Saturday morning will be interesting to say the least.  We have the boys this weekend so we will be out of the house before they are awake.  The husband had the excellent idea of having ST come over and taking them to SBUX for breakfast and sort of baby sitting them until we get home.  Then we will treat ST to lunch and Green Lantern in return Saturday afternoon.  Speaking of movies, we saw Super 8 this past weekend and it was not bad at all.  It was classic Spielberg and the cinematography was brilliant.  It is definitely worth seeing in the theaters.

So in case you missed it yesterday Greece extended the maturities of its debt.  That is a default in all but name.  I double checked with my bond friend and he confirmed yes, the end result 12 months down the road is exactly the same as if they did a default in name.  His other ominous comment is that Europe is very quickly running out of road to kick this can.  A corollary to that is late today, there were some vague rumors floating around that the good ol' Bundesbank has fired up the printing presses and is secretly printing Deutschmark marks again.  A newsletter I read daily and I have the utmost respect for the writer said this morning that Greece doesn't matter.  I replied that I respectfully disagreed as Greece matter because it is the very short fuse that will cause Spain to blow up and once Spain blows up there will be a breech into the core- France.

But we have no direct exposure to Europe right?  Wrong.  We may not hold as much Euro debt as the Europeans do but we are all counter parties and counter party risk is the one that is more dangerous as the only way to hedge it is cut off certain parties.  That leads to a vicious circle of really bad things.

Princeton was at the gym today.  It started the day right but what made it even more sunny this morning was whistling at the hot guy riding his bike at Hoboken Terminal and dismounting at the bike rack just as I walked by.