Kaulapi World

Took a family day trip just out of town, to a nearby farm that let’s people come by and pick their own produce, whatever is in season at the time. We started off with yellow peaches, moved on to tomatoes, and blackberries before our bin was full, when we got back to the store to pay for things, we realized what a great deal it was. That explained the large crowd, interestingly the parking lot was fill of a lot dc and va plates, most of the visitors were actually Hispanic and Asian, I saw at least a handful of diplomatic plates and luxury cars.

Just as we were wrapping up, a huge storm cloud blew in, dropped a swimming pool worth of water on the crowd. It was refreshing, being outside getting caught in the rain, the little guy seemed both puzzled and amazed at the sight of all that water coming down at once, I realized that this was his first time experiencing a thunderstorm outside.  A few kids and adults took to running around in the rain, being that they were already soaked after getting caught out in the fields and it didn’t make a difference if they got more drenched. Something very simple and cleansing about the rain coming down, sudden and unexpected, but fully welcome.

Driving back I reflected a bit on how different the landscape and way of life seemed just a short drive from dc, and all of the crap that comes with the territory of living and working in the district. I had actually bookmarked on my phone a thread to the straw poll taking place in Iowa that day for the republican nomination, thinking that I might want to check in on it. ended up having so much fun picking fruits that I forgot I even had a smartphone at all.

Coming up on more milestones in life, need to remind myself to fully appreciate how great things have turned out so far, despite the usual and unusual setbacks that are more just another part of life. Some can’t really be considered setbacks of they open up to new opportunities in life just waiting around the corner.

Been a rough couple weeks so far following the aftermath of the debt ceiling crisis which proved to be more political theater once again.  Late last week S&P broke the trend of the rating agencies and actually downgraded the US, and then it seems like all hell has broken loose in the financial markets, down 4%-5% one day, and then a quick retrace the next.  Exchanges around the world having technical difficulties due to high volume, governments stepping in to halt trading, or to ban shorting particular stocks or sectors, calls for increased margin requirements, shares of large well known banks getting slaughtered in a matter of minutes.  Its feeling like 2008 all over again, but in many ways worse.

The next looming political battle that will be sure to cause even more uncertainty in the markets is the 2012 budget showdown, which evidently will impact the newly formed deficit reduction committee of 12 congresspeople, at least make their job much harder with all of the distractions that will come from #3 budget battle in 2011.    The downside risk for us as a federal employees is an even greater possibility of a shutdown coming in the end of September, or if the new debt committee is unable to come to an agreement, an across the board cut to all budgets, coupled with a very volatile stock market.  I’ve been feeling like a storm has been brewing for some time now, and it seems like its just getting started.

All in all this doesn’t make for much of a relaxing August, which has traditionally been the time of year where we can take a quick break before a busy fall season.  We decided to try and take it easy by just staying around town, taking the kid out and about. We had talked about planning a trip home, but that got scaled back to a short road trip in the area, and then eventually nixed entirely to cut down on costs.

Meanwhile on more happier news, the little guy has started walking.  I’ve noticed that he had already developed the leg strength and balance to stand on his own, but hadn’t realized it just yet.  Then he just decided one day it was time and now he can’t stop standing up and stomping around the house, hands in the air and grinning ear to ear.

Example of DC cynicism: Whatever the crisis is facing the economy, the powerful elite are “handling it” in the form of closed door meetings.  Regardless of which political affiliation you find yourself cheering on realize that they have too much at stake to disrupt the status quo, so ignore the rhetoric you see on the tv and print, recognize its all a political charade.  Once they get the deal done, it’ll be back to normal, you can continue partying, shopping, watching ESPN and reality TV.  To me this demonstrates a bizarre mixture of blind faith to compensate and distract from a collective helplessness to forces that are bigger and unseen.  The cynicism is more alarming to what it really says: that since most of us are so insignificant to the powers that shape our world, really we are all expendable.  No matter how high you can soar, within a chain of command or bureaucracy, titles, position, power, responsibility, connections, salaries can be taken away from you on a whim, by a single individual, or group of individuals in a closed door meeting.

Been on edge for the last few days, really for the most part of this year. Some of it has to do with the looming budget situation which I may have been overloading myself with reading and my own style of analysis.  But something about this latest round of political theatrics has me wondering if there is something that a lot of us aren’t thinking about.  Maybe it is fact that we as a country even need to have a discussion about the deficit at all.  The established school of economics is that deficits don’t matter, the last 100+ years of fiscal and monetary policy have made the country very wealthy and prosperous.  We have a number of societal safety needs that were spawned from the great depression to ensure that nobody will be left behind, nobody will starve or go homeless.  The established school of political science has said that are the remaining military and economic superpower, champion of the cold war, and policeman of the world.  We are not Greece.  Then why are we being held captive by the bond raters and growing CDS spreads?  The urgency of some of the commentary recently kind of shatters this illusion of life that a lot of us have grown accustom to, that maybe we really are out of money and out of time.

The large majority of folks in this town are just along for the ride on various levels. This is a company town after all, and the federal government is it. It doesn’t matter much if you are a  federal employee, a contractor (revolving door and double-dipper), lobbyist, non-profit advocate, university employee, or a private sector employee whose business relies on federal contracts. Pretty much everyone in this area is either directly or indirectly dependent on the federal government operating.  I have to include myself to this, to a certain extent, however I refuse to keep my eyes closed to the writing on the wall, and just assume that everything will pass, and it’ll be business as usual.  Even if this is just another example of beltway theater, I don’t want to be caught by surprise should things really get interesting.

Over the years I’ve tracked our personal finances both in terms of investments and day-to-day case accounts as short and long term budgeting tool.  I made a visual marker for each financial milestone on my spreadsheet, green for raises and bonuses, red for bills, one-time payments that don’t come very often.  All of this debt talk has made me draw sort of a financial line in the sand as to when we might have to face the reality of not getting a paycheck.  Given the ongoing uncertainty in the past few weeks on the debt ceiling, I’ve resorted to drawing red lines for every month for the remainder of the year.  Now my once colorful spreadsheet is covered in a sea of red.  Fortunately this being a digital file, I can clear some of the red to clear if things somehow start getting better.

Taking a little break from work, thought the moment was so random but memorable that it was worth an entry. The little guy has camped out under my chair while I’m logging into my work email from home. He has gotten especially mobile in the last month or so, crawling everywhere, and pulling himself up to stand on everything, chairs, tables, the bed frame, the couch, and his daddy’s shirt. He seems to enjoy picking up magazines and pieces of paper and holding them while he is lying on his back as if he is reading them. I take it he’s mimicking me since I seriously doubt he’s interested in the latest cost benefit analysis done by professors of public policy.

Its these little moments that I’ve come to appreciate the most about being a dad.

Been a little vague on the details in this journal on my current work schedule since we used up our maternity/paternity leave, but basically it boils down to me and Hana working out arrangements at our respective workplaces that allows one of us to be home to keep an eye on the little one during the day. For now I have the early morning shift which involves me catching the first train into the city, and committing to a few hours of telework in the afternoon. Hana works from home in the morning and then heads in and stays as late as her office needs her in the evenings. One of the tradeoffs has been that we don’t see each other much during the week, but I can’t even put a value on the chance to spend with the little guy.

Of course we also have both monetary benefit of opting out of daycare, but above all we’ve been appreciating the piece of mind of not having to send him off by himself for several hours a day. We’ve been very glad that our offices were willing to let us work something out, being able to do this has taken away some of the sting that has come with the pay freezes and ongoing furlough threat. It has been a grueling schedule, but so far so good.

Brief update, a just shy of couple months off of seahorse duty now. Been getting the hang of things with the new work schedule, so far so good. I am officially a morning person now, waking up at about 4am during the week, and for consistency purposes, 6am or so on the weekends. For the most part I’m liking the change, I find myself super productive at work now, it being so quiet. The biggest surprise is that I actually function quite well as a morning person, a significant change from all the years as a night owl.

Been noticing sparse, but interesting crowds on the early train, and around the city at 5am. Mostly early morning commuters, with the occasional late night party person who seems to have missed the last train the night before. I also noticed that there is everyday there is a large group of homeless congregating nearby a shelter a few blocks from my office. I hadn’t even noticed it was there in all the years I’ve been walking by it. Even in the past few weeks I’ve noticed the crowd getting bigger, is it the weather getting colder or the economy?

Baby is growing up quickly, getting bigger, stronger louder and much more aware of his surroundings. Hana has started him on solid foods, which I think he enjoys immensely. With the new schedule I noticed that I see baby a lot more than his mother except in the late evening hours when I’m about ready for bed – something I’m still getting used to. It’s all worth it though, wouldn’t trade it for the world right now.

After a busy but tough 2008, the new year is already in full swing.  This year brings a lot of things to look forward to, a new assignment at work, a new division chief,  new semester of law school, and of course the ever present buzz around the district these days, a new administration taking on white house.

One of the good things about my work is that it allows for some flexibility on job assignments, so that if one assignment doesn’t work out for the better, either because of the subject matter, the workload, or the personalities on the team, it’s really just temporary.  Not uncommon in staff management at my agency, I’ve been going through the grueling transition period between assignments, which means that I have multiple sets of bosses and work styles to adjust to.  In the 5 years I’ve been at the agency I’ve never experienced a clean transition from one job to the next.  It really puts you at a tough spot, you want to get some closure on the old assignment, but you want to get off to a good start on the new one.  I’ve also noticed that I prefer to do short-term and periodic projects as opposed to being bogged down on one long-term project, even if it means that I have to multi-task.

My courses this semester started last week and are looking pretty good so far, and they are shaping up to be a good final set to close out at least the classroom portion of my legal education.  I have Professional Responsibility and Practice, which is basically a course on the rules of professional conduct and ethics that all lawyers are supposed to be versed in before entering practice.  My Bar prep course for the semester is Sales & Leases, basically a continuation on commercial transactions law and contracts law, looking into the application of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC).  On the elective front I’ve got Debtor and Creditor Rights, a course that I think is pretty contemporaneous to the meltdown on wall street and the consumer credit markets.  My last elective course is White Collar & Business Crime, something that I think might come in handy again, given the times we are living in.

The entire DC metro is in an inauguration frenzy mode, it seems like daily we get new announcements or updates on the developing security plans, road closures, metro service outages.  I’ve gotten a kick at the uptick on the Obama merchandising and lyrical symbolism and imagry around town.  The street vendors that usually sell bottled water and FBI shirts are all decked out in Obama gear, the metro fare cards now have his smiling face printed on the card stock.  And there are the obvious corporate bandwagoners like IKEA and Pepsi. There is talk around town about who has gotten tickets to the ceremony and the balls, and whether the tickets are to THE ball that Obama and Biden are making an actual appearance at.  All in all I hope that most of the 2M+ estimated people coming to the district for the inauguration are coming with an open mind, its going to be a logistical mess out here with the crowds.

Meanwhile for the policy wonks and politicos, there is the talk about how the new administration will be replacing the old, what changes will be made, and I mean real structural change to the federal bureaucracy, not the campaign slogan, which so far is appearing more and more to me to be just that, a catchy phrase to run an election on, nothing more.  I happen to be in that category of people skeptically optimistic, but really waiting to see how if he can effective transition his administration from one that ran an effective campaign to one that can run the federal government.

One indication that this might not be the case is the decision to open this office of the president-elect, supposedly to assist with the transition period between the election and the inauguration, and to respond to the historically unprecedented challenges the nation is facing.  The fact is that the president-elect does not have any of the executive powers until he is sworn in on Jan 20, it really is dishonest to putting himself out to the American people as if he can do anything in the interim.  Presidents are human beings, they are not super humans that we make them out to be, they rely heavily on their cabinet and staff in the executive branch agencies to get their job done, that is, run the federal government.  As of November 5, 2008 when the office of the president-elect was established, there were no cabinet members confirmed by the senate, and therefore no means to do anything at all but plan for the transition.  Maybe there’s a reason why the Constitution doesn’t provide for an office of the president-elect?

The other point to consider is more of a tactical, and that is that really one of the risks of establishing the first office of the president-elect is that you automatically open yourself up to criticisms with how you and your staff conducts themselves in the interim period, perhaps even before you’ve established your system of spin doctors and public relations.  I think the whole mess with Ill. Gov and the Treasury Secretary nominee not paying taxes might not have been as prominent had the office of the president-elect been pumped up.  Almost like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t, it may have been a better idea to keep a low profile, do things behind the scenes and then take the White House by storm on Jan 20.

Decided to take a mental break from studying, clean up around the house, run some errands, I have a few days more for my 3rd final than I had for the first two. Plan to get back in the grind later this afternoon, maybe try a different coffee shop for a change of scenery.

Went up to Maryland to pick up another earth box, potting soil and some starter plants. Starting earlier this year to take advantage o the good weather and maybe get some more veggies and herbs this summer than last. So far its looking like grape tomatoes, thai basil, italian basil, japanese eggplant, chinese squash, beans two types of goya. Last year I think I started it up too late in the season by the time the plants started producing it was getting too cold and they died off.

In driving up there I noticed that the only zipcar available was a civic hybrid, something that I had been meaning to test-drive, but never got around to. It pretty much drives like a regular automatic car, with the exception that there’s this battery gauge that swings from “assist” to “charge” depending on if you’re climbing up hill, or breaking. Also the engine cuts out when you’re sitting at a stop light. I suppose it takes some getting used to, I remember talking to someone a few years back when these cars first came out and she was concerned about not having the power or control over the car. I figure as long as the thing doesn’t die on you who cares about power.

Driving up to Maryland I passed a couple of signs at $4.01 a a gallon. Thats a big chunk of change for transportation. When prices of a good or service doubles and triples in a short time frame of months or years, you either adjust your consumption behaviors or continue to throw money down a hole. It seems to be the big story in the news lately, although a lot of media time is being spent on people bitching about oil company profits when they really should be talking about the inflation caused by monetary money supply games. The scary thing about the energy costs going up is that you really can’t hide from it entirely. Even if you cut down on your driving, take the train or carpool, you end up paying for it at the grocery store since most of everything Americans consume is trucked in. While gas was $4.00 a gallon, diesel fuel was $4.22 at that same gas station.

I’m a big fan of zipcar after being a member for close to 2 years now. Being that I don’t have a parking space, and pretty much take the train to work and school, it makes a lot more sense to just rent a car when I need it rather than have to car payments, and insurance and worry about street parking permits. But the biggest benefit especially late is that the gas is free with the rental fees. I remember talking to someone at a party once who scoffed at the idea of even using car sharing programs, something to the effect of how she would never date someone that showed up in a zipcar. This was right before she started complaining about finding parking that night and how the price of gas which was then about $2.00. Lucky for me I was already happily attached at the time, but it kind of got me thinking about how ironic the statement is.

I suppose this is a girl who would appreciate a guy with the big bucks who could afford to blow money on her on top of having money to spend on a nice set of wheels. Then again when you really think about it, if the girl was really smart, she would realize that a guy who was economically aware to discern from good and bod choices would have even more money to spend on her. Then again, this type of guy probably would want nothing to do with such a money grubbing date.

At a certain price, paying for a certain good or service becomes impractical, and consumers seek more affordable alternatives.

Feel like I’ve been running on empty getting back from my work trip. Landed at Dulles at about noon Sunday, to save some money I rode the shuttle and train back home, dropped my stuff off and headed out to catch up on some studying that I couldn’t finish while on travel. Sitting at potbelly’s I noticed that it was pouring outside and the street was turning into a river pretty quickly. After about an hour of this I thought better to go home and check on the apartment – too late, half of the main room had flooded.

Spent the rest of the afternoon and evening clearing out the water, hanging up the rugs, and throwing out stuff. Luckily way back I had the foresight to try and keep everything raised on shelfs especially all electrical outlets raised off the floor to avoid an electric shock.  The only real loses were a bunch of rugs from linens and things and IKEA, no big deal. In retrospect it made for an impromptu spring cleaning.

The downside is that I lost an afternoon and evening which could’ve been invested in studying, and of course its back to work the next day. Back to the grindstone.

Close to the end of March and things are picking up as usual, both on the school and work ends. Looking like I’ll be attending a few conferences for work in the upcoming months, should be good to get out of the office for a change. On the school front I’m coming up on my last push month before finals, looking like it’ll be pretty busy from here on out. Doing some independent research on my own, have to say that I enjoy it a lot more than classes, although it is a lot more challenging since a lot of its well, independently driven. I think maybe after so many semesters of being force fed law its a different change of pace trying to find different angles and theoretical solutions to legal problems. In doing the literature review I’ve been pretty impressed with the level of legal analysis and arguments that have already been made and been published, a lot of them show the amount of time and effort that was probably put into coming up with them.

This has been a tough reminder about the costs and benefits of working on a degree during the evening while holding a full time job. I’ve gotten the full dose of the argument that getting real-world experience simultaneously is irreplaceable, but I think its every once in a while I get more than 4 hours of sleep I wonder whether it puts you in a position of being too stretched out. The main factor that has made me convinced that this has been all worth it is the financial situation and forecast, I’ll be coming out of school well below the average debt load, both the reported average and some of the estimates I’ve heard anecdotally. I don’t envision that I’ll be bound by any golden handcuffs so to speak, no 6 figure debt estimates like I’ve heard from some old classmates that decided to go into other fields like academia or medicine.

Knowing that these plans worked out more or less is worth some peace of mind, or relatively speaking at least. I’ve been keeping a cautious eye on the state of the financial markets and housing bubble/crash ever since moving out here back in 2004 when the market was really taking off and everyone I knew was saying buy, buy, buy before you get priced out. partly out of the reality of my situation, being right out of school, with little savings to boot, other part of my sense of the situation that it isn’t smart to take on interest-only, adjustable rate loans on a $600,000 condo or $900,000 3 bedroom townhouse, no matter what the expected appreciation rate was, and no matter the assurances from an industry expert that I could qualify with current credit and modest government salary. After crunching some numbers, I decided it was better to rent, save, and wait to see what happened. My gut said that the prices would eventually have to come down, at least to a historical average, although I had no idea when it would happen. I also reasoned that the low interest rates were temporary, as with any monetary cycle, and then when they did increase, the shocks to the holder of the mortgage would be pretty steep. an increase from 2% to 4% would represent a doubling of a monthly interest only payment, and unless my income was likely to double on a monthly basis, this was a very stupid financial deal to accept. In the meantime I reasoned that if prices didn’t come down, then the new reality is that nobody can afford to own without continue to rent and save until a combination of our salary and savings would increase to a point that we could buy something outright, or with at least a hefty down payment.

Somewhere around 2006 I starting coming across various blogs and websites that are out there that were offering an alternate opinion to what I was hearing in the main stream media about all the middle class, self-made tycoons of real estate investments, more along the lines of what I was thinking, that all of the appreciation and speculation was imaginary, and doomed to fall eventually, and maybe fall hard. They were all really good about poking holes in what were mostly absolute statements, and raising good questions about the economics of these business transactions, many of which were never raised by the mainstream media.

Now the latest trend in news stories revolve the ongoing proposals to bail out people who are stuck in depreciating real estate assets and resetting mortgages despite all of the paper-success of recent memory. I often feel like I’m in Econ 101 again reading about the pitfalls of moral hazards and individuals ignorant of their own risk curves, many of the recent news reports have talked about “average” Americans who are finding themselves suddenly in hard times financially in the recent downturn. There are a few things that are similar in each of these stories, first is that the individuals are living paycheck to paycheck, even making a salary that is well above the national average when some event comes along (sickness, layoff, mortgage reset) and they are unable to cope because of their lack of any savings whatsoever. Secondly there is this inability or unwillingness to face the shitty reality of the situation and make some tough financial decisions (sell the house, get another job, go on a budget), and finally there is always this call to the government to bail them out, as if they had no control over the situation.

Unfortunately it seems like too many of us have gotten so used to the assurance that a lifetime of debt is normal and sustainable both on the personal and macro levels that when it comes around and bites us in the ass it really hurts and we are unwilling to deal with it without some reflection and self sacrifice. Don’t know for sure what is around the corner, but I’m not too optimistic overall. The volume of the message that all of this is unsustainable in the long run is getting louder with each multi-bullion dollar bailout of a bank, each FED rate cut, each report of housing prices crashing and industry layoffs.

Badgers make a sweet 16 run, and are matched up with the tourney’s cinderella 10-seeded Davidson, who knocked out area favorite 2-seeded Georgetown for a shot at the elite 8, and final 4. Seems like de ja vu from the last time Wisconsin made it this far, there was talk about them lucking out playing lower seeded teams all due to a lot of upsets in the bracket.

Strange dreams, a recurring one no doubt, it comes in pieces, all of them have a sense of urgency and loss. There are two that stick out, one is I’m riding a subway train and I discover that one of the passengers has left a whole stack of partially used fare cards behind in a seat. I don’t know who this person is, but I am left on the train counting a whole stack of paper train currency, wondering what the right thing to do is. I dont’ know whose these belong to, so there isn’t much a point in reporting them as missing, worse yet, If I give it to a station employee there is a chance that they’ll just pocket it. While I’m sitting there counting the cards, 3 secret police officers get on board and two of them recognize me, and all three take a seat next to me.

The agent that sits next to me is very friendly as I am introduced by my other friends. I notice that the other passengers visibly tense about these three, and are looking away from our small group, and are avoiding eye contact with us. We kid around, talk about the weather, and the local sports teams. I have to notice that the agent next to me is carrying a very lethal looking submachine gun, semi-concealed. He offers it to me to take a closer look – the gun is an impressive work of mechanized technology. Weird things are that the sights are below the muzzle, and the clip is very small and compact. It feels very light but sturdy in my hand. At that time I kind of have an “aha” moment that I’m not in DC anymore, I’m not even in the present time either. I don’t recall how this dream ends.