Kaulapi World

Thanksgiving break this week, and of course I’m pretty swamped with work and school coming up towards the end of the semester. I just realized that this is the first year since I started night school that I’ve actually been in town for turkeyday. The last two years I spent thanksgiving in Vegas of all places. Have to say that it was a fun distraction from business as usual.

Busy stretch for work, I think in my few years in the workforce I’ve learned quite a bit about the inner workings of agencies and the ongoing dance between the various power players that drive the process. I got a kick out of reading the list of the various types of professions that are supposedly a good and/or bad match, based on my myers-brigg temperment, which is still a solid ENTP.  The P to J deviation is not nearly as prevalent as before.

On a more somber note, I got news recently that one of my mentors from Madison recently lost an ongoing bout with cancer this past week. I had heard that she was going through a rough time earlier this year which in part lead to her decision that it was time to retire. She was definitely the type of person you just feel fortunate and blessed to have met, one to hold up as an example of a kind and caring human being that we should all strive to being. She always had a moment to spare for the random student who stopped by the office, whether you were a sleep deprived graduate student, or naive freshman in the first week of college. I remember seeing so many students go from timid and apprehensive to being visibly more comfortable being around her even for a moment.

She was a dedicated civil servant, one that broke the stereotype of lazy government workers, even towards the end of her career in an academic program that ranked low on the priority of the ivory tower food chain. I was very impressed with how seriously she took her position, and the amount of passion and zeal that she put into making do with what little resources she was given. It was her personality and presence that drew students, myself included, to volunteer their time to help the program out. She made it very easy to want to help and more importantly, to get involved and in to learn in the process.

She was a mentor, a friend, a teacher, counselor, and spiritual guide to everyone that stopped by that office, whether they stayed for tea, or went on their way and never came back. I especially remember her sheer strength of her spirit during her chemotherapy and her ability to keep a sense of humor, everything from the silly hats during the wintertime. I will always remember her laughter and a broad smile accompanying her occasional serving of brutally honest, real world advice, much of which I have found on point years after I left Madison. I am a believer of the saying that we are all the sum of the people we have met in life, and in living life to the fullest you honor their wisdom and spirit after they have moved on.

Linkes 11/20/2007
Primo making a comeback
Political psychology and Ron Paul
Myers Brigg Rationals ENTP
Ongoing battle between TSA and GAO
Can you imagine being $500,000 in student loan debt?
7 Saving Tips and all that fun stuff
American Lawbreaking and Prosecutorial discretion
Cargill recall listing moo, cow
Seg fees continue to increase and increase
Polling the leaning
Empire of Debt unraveling or crashing

Busy trip home, a week vacation on Lanai, and then a few weeks back in the district in time for the new semester and back to work. Haven’t had much time for a post, as my work and school schedule permits, maybe I’ll post day to day entries to play catch up. or not.

Linkes 8/29/2007 - kinda sparse edition
Protesting the Superferry Alakai.
Pitfalls of contractor qui tam.
Chashu recipe
Article on Market Panics thoughout history
Another housing blog Paper-money

Today marks another 3 years transition for me, this one marking my official transition to a productive member of the full-time work force from a life as a full time student, not so gainfully employed, if you include tutoring and graduate assistantships. Pretty amazing how much things have changed from 3 years ago I was a freshly minted graduate, ready to work, ready to learn, ready to try and make a difference no matter how small or insignificant in the greater scheme of things.

Time flies when you’re busy, thats for sure.

June is here and another summer in the district - number 4 to be precise. In annual fashion I should mention that this entry marks another year of this web-journal, not much for reflection in terms of entries, other than the mirror site over at Webomatica that I have been updating and tinkering with when I have spare time. I’ve been keeping up with this log-journal of sorts since 2000, although the current version only links back to June 2004 since it was getting pretty cluttered.

I’m enjoying my summer corporations class, its an area that I never really thought I’d find an interest in, being that my interests have been outside the corporate and financial world. On the other hand I seem to have an interest in crunching numbers and quantitative analysis, something that might prove to be worth looking into after I finish this degree program. I think my revisiting of this area it goes with the idea that there is a distinction between profitable businesses that provide quality goods and services and compete fairly in the market and corrupt businesses that lobby for corporate welfare and political influence. Somewhere in the mix lawyers can play an influential (good or bad) role in all of this.

Riding the train home last night after class, thinking about a million things as usual at the end of the day, I noticed from my reflection that I was of scowling out the window. Looking away quickly I thought I saw a familiar face across the train car, but I couldn’t place a name to the face to go up and say hello. After I got off at my stop and was walking home I realized that it might’ve been one of the random linkes that I came across a while back and happened to bookmark because of the interesting entry about Korean-Brazilian cultural identity. To a certain extent reading these online journals and blogs even in passing gives you a sort of sense that you might actually know someone, even a complete stranger that you have never spoken to before. I think in some part what appeals to me about certain blogs as a reader is the bluntness in observations on life experiences. This is in contrast to the more polished, over-edited sites, especially those that are hell bent on promoting the author or trying to sell some kind of a product. After all, since when did anyone make money by just reflecting on life?

Another twist in my daily grind of a schedule is that I’m on call for the next two weeks to report for Jury duty - basically it means that every day at 5:00pm I have to call an automated line to see if I have to report, with the chance of being selected for a trial to last an indefinite period of time. I was given a pass for Monday, but had to report today at noon downtown, being the dutiful government employee I decided to report for work in the morning and then rushed out in time to make the reporting period. After a few hours of milling around in the waiting period (Also reading a few cases) we were told that the civil trial we were summoned for was canceled, BUT still are to follow the on-call status.

While I was waiting I saw the huge mess of media camped outside the courthouse, and eventually the long procession of Ford Explorers and police escorts for the Scooter Libby sentencing hearing. It kind of reminded me what city I live in and what kind of things go down in the center of politics and power deals. I seem to forget this from time to time. Also this morning reported in the post was that the military commissions in Gitmo have hit a snag because of conflicts in the charges with the recent military commissions act of 2006. Maybe the DC court of appeals will have to begin hearing cases again after all. Speaking of trials that might be fun to sit in on, either as a juror or as a member of the general public: the notorious DC pants trial of 2007.

Chicago was fun, good seeing my brother who is settled on the south side, working on the side and playing underground and classical music. It was good to get out of DC for a weekend and see another city for a change. It brought back some memories of visiting the windy city back in college, inadvertently retracing my steps here and there. We stayed at the Hard Rock hotel on Michigan avenue, it was a quirky hotel with a big picture of prince next to the elevators and art deco style furniture. I was able to find a zipcar parked within walking distance of the hotel, and we drove up to Patty’s wedding up in N. Ill. It was a very nice ceremony, a good balance overall. Lots of observations and reflections on this point in life I’m at, mostly how old we’re all becoming and growing up.

Linkes 6/2007
Pre-columbusPolynesian voyagers to Chile proof by chicken DNA.
Leeches and Leeches that file lawsuits

It’s looking like a busy summer alright, already looking forward to the Chicago trip to go to Patty’s wedding, visit the kid brother, and meet up with my folks all in a short weekend. After that I’ll be hunkering down on the books for my corporations class this summer, keeping going with the law training. I’m hoping that with just one class to focus on I’ll be better position to pull of a decent enough performance as an add on for the last semester, build more experience and push on through to the 3rd year. Juggling 4 courses and working full time was pretty challenging.

First day of summer session was today, first impressions of a course are always memorable being that you don’t really know what to expect at first. So far I’m finding some interesting side observations on the readings so far which comes to somewhat of a surprise as that this course isn’t one that at first thought comes to mind as one that I would be interested off the back. I think its the public policy training and all the economic theory that I’ve crammed into my brain that gives me an interest in this area, one things for sure, I’m not going to be closing off any possible interests that might develop through this course of study.

Having some interesting dreams. The theme lately has been that I keep finding secret tunnels and doors in my apartment that lead to hidden rooms, corridors and exits that I never imagined possible. At times I’m able to peal away the concrete foundation and walls with my hands to reveal another passageway. The spooky thing is that some of the rooms I’ve been in before in previous dreams, and they are over the top extravagant, like a luxury hotel room overseeing a cliff with wall to wall, ceiling to floor windows. In stumbling on these rooms I kid myself in not realizing that this was here all this time, and I had been confining myself to only a handful of small rooms.

I think there is some symbolic references to what is going on in my personal life and perceptions, especially in the past month or so, persons of whom I am very protective of in some difficult times. I’ve noticed that I’m not anxious at all in these dreams though, in fact I’m more thrilled at the prospect of finding rooms and passageways that I’ve overlooked, or been too busy to notice before. It seems like every time I look there is someplace new to explore, and each time I feel strangely at peace.

Linkes 5/21/2007
9mm violence on the rise in Honolulu
Ron Paul Can’t say that, can he? Sure, why not?
Foreign Policy of Freedom - Bomb or Subsidize
Why China must be scapegoated
Ron Paul - SC debates party crasher
Live Science - top 10s geek style
Torture - its ok now?
DC demographics shifts, compared on a national scale.

Finally pau with finals. Right now I’m feeling both utterly beat mentally and physically, and yet at the same time very liberated. Don’t know how I ended up doing, there were a few exams that didn’t turn out as nearly as well as I had hoped, but whats done is done I guess.

One week off till summer school.

Got done with a Trust and Estates exam last night and just got up from my first 6 hours of sleep in about a month. I feel a lot better about this one compared to my first exam, given the amount of material I was able to review in a short amount of time. Although with any of these exams you really have no idea how you did until you get the grades. one more to go, but its a take home and is due a a few days. Just have to stay focused and theres a light at the end of the tunnel. It really has been a perfect storm these past few weeks, month even, it seems like work, school, personal life, and more and more all comes at once and you just have to deal with it. Still not pau yet, but I’m still standing I guess.

The symbolic dreams are back again. A few nights ago I had one where I was holding the door to my apartment shut with my back, because there was a constant wind blowing it open and I couldn’t get it to shut completely and stay shut. After a while of this I noticed that there was a side door/cabinet that I had never seen before. While still holding the first door shut I opened the side cabinet which revealed a bunch of pipes like an old radiator and a tiny hallway leading away from where I was standing. once I opened the cabinet the wind seemed to be somewhat diverted enough that I was able to close the door. I wondered what was down that hallway. Part of the significance is that this is one of the few dreams that I’ve had in my apartment up in DC. new sense of home, maybe, and all of the symbolism that comes with it.

Last night I had another where I was back home in Hawaii, many years in the future. I had rode the rail line that they are supposedly planning on building and I was either down in Waikiki or by Kaka’ako, down by the water in some kind of a tourist trap. There were a lot of boats in a shallow harbor and I was watching an old local man going fishing with a bunch of tourists standing around, yapping and eating lunch. For a while I was distracted with the tourist’s conversations, a few of them started talking to me. I noticed the old man caught a medium sized fish by snagging the hook on the side of the fish and pulled it up. Immediately the fish started growing bigger and bigger, with its teeth widening alongside its mouth. I noticed that the tourists were both frightened and intrigued.

As the man pulled up the fish he quietly was talking to it as he removed the hook, and then gently put it back in the water, rubbed its belly and the fish grunted back at him like a dog. Then it swam along the water on its way. the old man then jumped in the water and somehow was able to tread alongside the fish by moving his feet, gliding through the water at his ankles. They were like two old friends who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. The violence of the hook snagging the fish was necessary to restart their acquaintances and then they could go along their way. I noticed that the tourists of course were not noticing any of this. A bunch of them came and asked me which rail line to catch to manoa or someplace, and I told them that I wasn’t as familiar with exactly how the rail line works, despite being from there originally.

Jump either earlier or later in the dream I was back at an old work place, I was talking to a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years, but they recognized me. I was going there to get a copy of a record or something, and ended up walking around the place. apparently they had remodeled and made part of it a bank.

For the several months now I’ve been following the coverage of several housing related blogs and informational websites that present a very compelling list of arguments why it might be a very bad idea to buy real estate in the current market conditions. Although many of them are focusing on the San Francisco bay area, I think the rationale can be applied to other metro areas that have seen exponential rises in housing prices since 2000. I think the authors have to have laid out very well reasoned yet painfully simple economic analysis which I have yet to see sufficient evidence on the other side to present a compelling case. One author addresses just about every sales pitch that has been thrown around by real estate agents and mortgage brokers about why everyone should be buying a house, and its always a good time to buy.

Anyone who has taken a high school class in economics, or even glanced at an Econ 101 book should be able to understand why many of the pro-housing advocates in this current market make no sense at all in their sales pitches. Unfortunately emotion and fear of market exclusion is a very effective tool at getting people to stop using their heads and make very poor financial decisions that could haunt them for the rest of their lives. In many ways I liken the current state of the real estate industry a lot like the diamond industry, the luxury sports car industry, selling overpriced, over-marketed consumer goods that are suck up a substantial amount of the average person’s disposable income, guaranteed to depreciate in value, and ultimately amount to nothing more than another meaningless status symbol when it really should be something more practical: a roof over your head and land to maintain and maybe pass on to your heirs one day.

The subprime stock implosion and mainstream media coverage of toxic/exotic loans that sound a lot like credit cards with their low introductory rates that double or quadruple after a couple of years is all troubling. Especially since a lot of these loans were apparently given to all being given to people who normally could not qualify for a standard, fixed rate loan. They were banking on the fact that their houses would appreciate at 25%, 50% a year or something, and they would eventually sell it for a profit, or refinance the mortgage and take more cash out on the equity. Unfortunately now that the real estate market is tanking, it looks like it’ll just get worse as more and more mortgages reset to the higher rates, and more foreclosures go through. In the next couple of years there might be a lot of broke homeless people with bad credit finding it hard to find someplace to even rent.

I think that everyone who is thinking about buying a house or condo should at least read and digest the wealth of information available online before taking the debt plunge. The housing market is so out of whack right now that it could be financially fatal to buy in the current inflated market conditions.

Housing Blog Linkes:
The Bubble Meter
Housing Panic
Marin Bubble
Hawaii Real Estate bubble
DC housing blues

Been a busy couple of weeks, had the benefit of being on an early spring break from classes, a good rest from night school, some reading here and there, but most importantly it was a chance to get back into the gym on a regular workout schedule. It really adds to the energy levels and routine, plus it gives me about an hour to read a few cases, although it isn’t really easy to take down notes in the margins while riding a bike, it still helps.

Bit of a lengthy list of links for this post.

Linkes for 2/17/07 - 3/5/07
Kaufman’s Rules: 1-7 | rules 8-14 | 15-21
MCA of 2006 - Dodd Amendment , blogger coverage and similar legislation up north?
I really hope they’re wrong about this too
Smarter than a 5th grader and Superficial greeks

Some news back home:
Algae wins at the state capitol Limu wins at blaisdell arena
Masu’s Teri Chicken recipe and Ramen eating contest photo finish
Family detention facilities in PR sucks to be immigrant families

Sexuality and religion:
Rotting gametes , and the Vatican Method of birth control
Sleeping position psychology?

Market Crash of 2007?
Bloody Tuesday Dow down 400 points , and Greenspan’s warning
Subprime problems looming and more mortgage Lender BS
Something to think about financial insecurity in America all around

Baggage of citizenship, war on tactics:
Perspective of a wannabe Canadian, occupational hazardsclandestine employment
Face and voice of America zero credibility, domestic security in plain english
VA funding and support for the troops
DHS resisting pay for performance time to unionize

Busy past two weeks, things have been moving at work, a welcome change of pace, things were getting bogged down in the process of how things get done, but otherwise business as usual I suppose. Got snowed in on Wednesday, trucked the hill in my snow boots to go to the store which was an adventure with all the unplowed snow still on the ground.

Linkes 2/4/07 - 2/17/07
Mistrial in Watada court-marshal, free speech and the military
One of the reasons why living in Hawaii costs so much
Badgers Badgers Everywhere
Medical Aid in Cambodia
Secret contracts tend to cost a lot
63% now antiwar hopefully in time for round II?
24 Fiction and the TV generation and real life.
Can’t happen here? too late.
War on America waged from from within hiding behind the extremist myth?
With us or against us
Cody’s Books closing in Berkeley
Hawaii market refixing refixing? Kaka’ako apartments