Home Alone

So, Allison went back to NC for the week to visit her family. This leaves me with lots of time to finally catch up on reading and computer games - two things I have less time for when she's around.

We had a good weekend though - went out to dinner on Friday night to what I consider is what American food should be right now: a place like Quinn's up on Capitol Hill. Seasonal local greens salad, wild boar sloppy-joe style sandwich, well made fries made fresh from real potatoes. Basic recipes, executed well using quality local ingredients at a fair price... satisfying.

Our Valentine's day dinner was Mama's Mexican - to continue the trend of not going anywhere remotely fancy or romantic on Valentine's day. The place was surprisingly busy. (well, not really surprising - their shredded beef for the burritos is great - and dinner for two is ~$25 including a beer and margarita)

And then Allison made a marionberry cobbler though, which was tasty.

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Quick gripe on how the present administration is trying to 'sell' its national bailout plan. From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123471581432090221.html one of the objectives is:

"raising home values that have been plummeting"

Ok - remind me how we got into this mess in the first place. Oh right - home values which rose faster than wages.

Which goes back to my inflation/deflation thoughts last year. Will wages be inflated to match home prices (trying to keep the average income/average home price ratio to the historical under 4, not over 5 as in recent years)? I'm betting not, by choice. Perhaps by default in 3-30 years or whenever we have to start paying back the mountains t-bills that other countries have been buying from us so that we can pay off bank debts.

What is the solution? I still tend to think bankruptcy is a valid option for any insolvent institution - too big to fail should be too big to exist. Let those companies that didn't over-leverage pick up the pieces and grow based on sound and sober leadership.

More clothing oddities.

Pre-owned but very good shape 100% cotton oxford cloth button shirt at Goodwill: $8

One trip to the dry cleaners to 'start from scratch' with said shirt: $2.50

Brand new 100% cotton oxford cloth button shirt at Martin/Osa: $12.99 (on sale from $60)

Nearly cheaper to buy new than to buy used for clothes these days.

Spring Cleaning

Random Finds and Observations:

Apart from some pre-Euro-denomination money that Allison had, we have a combined foreign currency reserves of:

2 Mexican Pesos
50 Jamaican Cents
1.66 Euros
1.10 Swiss Franc
60 Czech Haleru (Koruna Cents)
1.88 British Pounds
1 Yen

Need to go to these places (again in most cases). And then buy a soda.