Thu - January 19, 2006
Is Apple Computer Really Worth Six Times General Motors?
With the recent run-up on Apple Computer stock, and
the collapse of General Motors stock, I had the hare-brained idea of comparing
the two companies.
As of this writing, Apple's stock price is $79.69, which gives it a market cap of $67.16 billion.
And GM's stock price, as of the moment, is $20.22, giving it a market cap of $11.43 billion.
The problem with the current valuation of Apple and GM is illustrated by their respective revenue statements, for the one year period ending on Sept. 30, 2005:
Total net sales for General Motors for that period: $ 193.5 billion.
Total net sales for Apple Computer for that period: $ 13.9 billion
So, in terms of revenue, General Motors is nearly 14 times the size of Apple Computer. But in terms of stock market valuation, Apple Computer is six times more valuable than General Motors.
Does this make any sense?
As of this writing, Apple's stock price is $79.69, which gives it a market cap of $67.16 billion.
And GM's stock price, as of the moment, is $20.22, giving it a market cap of $11.43 billion.
The problem with the current valuation of Apple and GM is illustrated by their respective revenue statements, for the one year period ending on Sept. 30, 2005:
Total net sales for General Motors for that period: $ 193.5 billion.
Total net sales for Apple Computer for that period: $ 13.9 billion
So, in terms of revenue, General Motors is nearly 14 times the size of Apple Computer. But in terms of stock market valuation, Apple Computer is six times more valuable than General Motors.
Does this make any sense?
Posted at 02:37 PM
Thu - November 10, 2005
The Two Edmund Fitzgeralds
Today, November 10, 2005, is the 30th anniversary
of the sinking of the ore freighter S.S.
Edmund
Fitzgerald during a strong storm on Lake
Superior. 29 members of the crew died when the
Fitzgerald
sank.
The event is remembered today largely as a result of Gordon Lightfoot's famous song.
But there was a real Edmund Fitzgerald, too - he was the chairman of the board of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., which had commissioned the building of the ship in 1957.
As it turns out, Edmund Fitzgerald was an important member of the Milwaukee business community, a contributor and initiator of many public improvements. It is a lesser part of the tragedy that the legacy of Edmund Fitzgerald would be overshadowed by the sinking of his namesake.
Fortunately, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel had the sense to run an article about Edmund Fitzgerald today. With the article are a couple of interesting photographs.
It's worth a read.
The event is remembered today largely as a result of Gordon Lightfoot's famous song.
But there was a real Edmund Fitzgerald, too - he was the chairman of the board of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., which had commissioned the building of the ship in 1957.
As it turns out, Edmund Fitzgerald was an important member of the Milwaukee business community, a contributor and initiator of many public improvements. It is a lesser part of the tragedy that the legacy of Edmund Fitzgerald would be overshadowed by the sinking of his namesake.
Fortunately, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel had the sense to run an article about Edmund Fitzgerald today. With the article are a couple of interesting photographs.
It's worth a read.
Posted at 04:35 PM
Mon - September 26, 2005
Welcome to the 21st century . . .
I flew out to Washington state this last weekend,
for a somewhat informal memorial service for my mother, who died on March 22nd.
Mom's friends out in Washington couldn't come to the funeral in Nebraska, and we
had a great time reminiscing on Saturday.
On the way back home, two interesting things occurred.
The first is more of an observation than an occurrence -- I went into the bookstore at the south terminal at the Seattle airport, and bought a book. The sales clerk was an east African immigrant, a woman who was wearing the traditional Islamic scarf covering her head. The scarf was black, and as I looked at it, I noticed the "Calvin Klein" trademark subtly displayed into the fabric. I assume it was a regular Calvin Klein scarf that the woman had adapted for her religious purpose -- I would be very surprised if Calvin Klein marketed its clothing to practicing Muslims.
I'm not entirely sure what the Calvin Klein head scarf means. Practicing Muslims are purchasing clothing from an American designer known for his decadent approach to marketing. Does this say something about the adaptability of American capitalism? The rapid assimilation of immigrants? The power of marketing?
Welcome to the 21st century.
The second event was a fun coincidence. At the last minute I was able to snag a seat in an exit row, and once on the plane, I struck up a conversation with an older woman in the next seat, flying back to Minnesota from Hawaii. She lived in Kiester, Minnesota, a small town of about 500 people in southern Minnesota. Two years ago I sold my '88 Saab 9000 turbo to a man who lived in Kiester. As you might expect in such a small town, she knew the guy who had bought the car and had seen my old car driving around.
It really is a small world.
And, for what it's worth, Northwest Airlines seems to OK despite the mechanics' strike and the bankruptcy filing. Both the flight out and the flight back were full, arrived on time, and were otherwise uneventful.
On the way back home, two interesting things occurred.
The first is more of an observation than an occurrence -- I went into the bookstore at the south terminal at the Seattle airport, and bought a book. The sales clerk was an east African immigrant, a woman who was wearing the traditional Islamic scarf covering her head. The scarf was black, and as I looked at it, I noticed the "Calvin Klein" trademark subtly displayed into the fabric. I assume it was a regular Calvin Klein scarf that the woman had adapted for her religious purpose -- I would be very surprised if Calvin Klein marketed its clothing to practicing Muslims.
I'm not entirely sure what the Calvin Klein head scarf means. Practicing Muslims are purchasing clothing from an American designer known for his decadent approach to marketing. Does this say something about the adaptability of American capitalism? The rapid assimilation of immigrants? The power of marketing?
Welcome to the 21st century.
The second event was a fun coincidence. At the last minute I was able to snag a seat in an exit row, and once on the plane, I struck up a conversation with an older woman in the next seat, flying back to Minnesota from Hawaii. She lived in Kiester, Minnesota, a small town of about 500 people in southern Minnesota. Two years ago I sold my '88 Saab 9000 turbo to a man who lived in Kiester. As you might expect in such a small town, she knew the guy who had bought the car and had seen my old car driving around.
It really is a small world.
And, for what it's worth, Northwest Airlines seems to OK despite the mechanics' strike and the bankruptcy filing. Both the flight out and the flight back were full, arrived on time, and were otherwise uneventful.
Posted at 03:55 PM
Wed - March 23, 2005
Sandra Walenz Abbott Vanderpool, June 18, 1939 - March 22, 2005
My mom passed away Tuesday night, March 22nd, 2005,
after an 11-month long bout with pancreatic cancer. I will miss her dearly. My
only joy is discovering that she had some deep and lasting friendships, which I
hadn't known about.
I'll have more later. For now, though, here's a picture of Mom from Mother's Day 2004 -
I'll have more later. For now, though, here's a picture of Mom from Mother's Day 2004 -
Posted at 11:18 PM
Wed - March 16, 2005
Cancer Follow-Up
I know I've been dark for many weeks. Blogging
will continue to be sporadic - long-time readers will remember that last year I
posted about my mother's fight against cancer - at that time it was a cancer of "unknown origin." The doctors
eventually concluded that the origin of the cancer was pancreatic. It only
takes a little googling to discover that the survival stats for pancreatic
cancer are quite grim. 3-6 months was a typical estimate.
As you might guess, the last 10 months have been quite hectic. At the time she was diagnosed, Mom was living in Marysville, Washington, about 50 miles north of Seattle. She was in her last year of teaching, and the age of 64, looking forward to retirement. The plan was to sell the house and move back to the Midwest to be near my brother and I, and our kids. In the end, with a lot of help from my brother and I, Mom was able to move back this summer. One side benefit of moving was better medical care -- since moving back Mom has been treated at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which is a national cancer research center.
Mom has been in and out of the hospital with various complications. In January it became evident that the chemotherapy was not working. Unfortunately there aren't any second-line chemo drugs for pancreatic cancer, so Mom entered a research study for an experimental treatment. Mom's complications continued, however, and there has been no evidence that the experimental treatment has had any effect. In the meantime, she has gotten weaker and weaker, to the point where she has a very hard time tolerating chemotherapy at all. The upshot is that, two weeks ago, the decision was made to discontinue active treatment, and for Mom to enter hospice care. Mom's oncologist was understandably reluctant to make any predictions about long she has left ("we're wrong 95 percent of the time when we give estimates") but when pushed he estimated 4-6 weeks, maybe 8 weeks at the outside. That was two weeks ago.
For the next few weeks for obvious reasons I'll be focusing on spending time with my Mom.
I may have something every now and then, but for the time being my blogging will continue to be highly sporadic. I appreciate your patience. In the meantime I'd be grateful if you could make some room in your thoughts and prayers for my Mom.
As you might guess, the last 10 months have been quite hectic. At the time she was diagnosed, Mom was living in Marysville, Washington, about 50 miles north of Seattle. She was in her last year of teaching, and the age of 64, looking forward to retirement. The plan was to sell the house and move back to the Midwest to be near my brother and I, and our kids. In the end, with a lot of help from my brother and I, Mom was able to move back this summer. One side benefit of moving was better medical care -- since moving back Mom has been treated at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, which is a national cancer research center.
Mom has been in and out of the hospital with various complications. In January it became evident that the chemotherapy was not working. Unfortunately there aren't any second-line chemo drugs for pancreatic cancer, so Mom entered a research study for an experimental treatment. Mom's complications continued, however, and there has been no evidence that the experimental treatment has had any effect. In the meantime, she has gotten weaker and weaker, to the point where she has a very hard time tolerating chemotherapy at all. The upshot is that, two weeks ago, the decision was made to discontinue active treatment, and for Mom to enter hospice care. Mom's oncologist was understandably reluctant to make any predictions about long she has left ("we're wrong 95 percent of the time when we give estimates") but when pushed he estimated 4-6 weeks, maybe 8 weeks at the outside. That was two weeks ago.
For the next few weeks for obvious reasons I'll be focusing on spending time with my Mom.
I may have something every now and then, but for the time being my blogging will continue to be highly sporadic. I appreciate your patience. In the meantime I'd be grateful if you could make some room in your thoughts and prayers for my Mom.
Posted at 04:47 PM
Thu - January 20, 2005
Technical Difficulties
I've been having some technical difficulties - and
am working on them. I appear to have recovered my post-election posts, but now
have lost my "exploding Zamboni" post.
Hopefully we'll get this all worked out. I still have ambitions of moving the blog over to cityoflakes.net with Movable Type.
More to come . . .
Hopefully we'll get this all worked out. I still have ambitions of moving the blog over to cityoflakes.net with Movable Type.
More to come . . .
Posted at 11:44 AM
Fri - August 27, 2004
Testing Out Movable Type
I'm having a Movable Type shake-down cruise --
sorry for the problems. (Back to iBlog for the moment)
Posted at 09:58 PM
Tue - August 24, 2004
Back to Regular Programming
Sorry for the outage, folks. I have two accounts
with my ISP, and my last payment was credited only to one account and not the
other. This error has been corrected.
Posted at 04:21 PM
Fri - July 23, 2004
Vacation
Folks, just a note that I'm taking a short vacation
and **gasp** I'm not bringing the laptop. I should be back in about a week.
I'm going to take **gasp** golf lessons, which will be interesting since it's been at least 14 years since I picked up a golf club. I know some people don't think golf counts as exercise, but it certainly ranks higher on the physical activity scale than blogging.
Thanks for reading, and check back soon !
Greg
I'm going to take **gasp** golf lessons, which will be interesting since it's been at least 14 years since I picked up a golf club. I know some people don't think golf counts as exercise, but it certainly ranks higher on the physical activity scale than blogging.
Thanks for reading, and check back soon !
Greg
Posted at 03:19 PM
Tue - June 15, 2004
Technical Difficulties . . .
I'm having some technical difficulties in
transferring the site to cityoflakes.net
We will return to regular programming as soon as we can :)
We will return to regular programming as soon as we can :)
Posted at 02:12 PM
Fri - June 11, 2004
Is It Over Yet ?
My complaint has nothing to do with Reagan himself
--- this is the first funeral of a popular ex-president since the advent of
24/7, wall-to-wall, cable news TV world (Nixon doesn't count, he wasn't popular
and it was 10 years ago), but the media coverage is overwhelming
---
BUT CAN WE PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT RONALD REAGAN NOW !
BUT CAN WE PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT RONALD REAGAN NOW !
Posted at 10:14 PM
Thu - June 10, 2004
New URL coming ! cityoflakes.net
City of Lakes is moving to a new URL soon -- http://www.cityoflakes.net
Sorry for the slow blogging but whatever blog time I have had in the last several days has been working on the transition. This should be a remarkable upgrade -- I'm switching from iBlog for Mac OS X to Movable Type.
The cynically political among you might remember that I used gregabbott.org when I ran for City Council in 2001, and that there's another city election coming up next year (or even earlier if Phyllis Kahn and her fellow litigants have their way in federal court). You might also remember that I had several hundred lawn signs printed up with the gregabbott.org URL printed on them, and so I now have to move my blog or reprint several thousand dollars worth of lawn signs (that is, if I choose to run again).
So I'm killing two birds with one stone: upgrading the blog while preserving the option of re-using my lawn signs next year if I run again.
Just a couple of comments - (1) I was tired of the Reagan retrospectives on Monday: it's getting old. (2) check out the Bush campaign website and then read something I posted in March complaining about GOP hypocrisy in exploiting death for political gain.
UPDATE (June 15th) -- The Bush campaign has moved its effort to exploit the memory of Ronald Reagan off the front page, over to this archive.
Sorry for the slow blogging but whatever blog time I have had in the last several days has been working on the transition. This should be a remarkable upgrade -- I'm switching from iBlog for Mac OS X to Movable Type.
The cynically political among you might remember that I used gregabbott.org when I ran for City Council in 2001, and that there's another city election coming up next year (or even earlier if Phyllis Kahn and her fellow litigants have their way in federal court). You might also remember that I had several hundred lawn signs printed up with the gregabbott.org URL printed on them, and so I now have to move my blog or reprint several thousand dollars worth of lawn signs (that is, if I choose to run again).
So I'm killing two birds with one stone: upgrading the blog while preserving the option of re-using my lawn signs next year if I run again.
Just a couple of comments - (1) I was tired of the Reagan retrospectives on Monday: it's getting old. (2) check out the Bush campaign website and then read something I posted in March complaining about GOP hypocrisy in exploiting death for political gain.
UPDATE (June 15th) -- The Bush campaign has moved its effort to exploit the memory of Ronald Reagan off the front page, over to this archive.
Posted at 10:52 AM
Mon - May 24, 2004
Cancer of Unknown Origin
I haven’t blogged for over a month, while
I’ve been dealing with a number of issues. The press of work rarely
changes – as a self-employed litigator I have far less control over my
schedule than I’d like – and the administrative hassle of moving my
law office this month was not small.
But the big issue has been my mother’s health. When I left you a month ago, I was flying out to Washington state for her surgery. Since late February, she has been beginning to experience some medical problems – from the symptoms and the blood tests it looked like ovarian cancer. So mom was scheduled for a full abdominal hysterectomy on April 23rd, and my brother and I flew out to be with her.
As it turned out, the cancer was not located in the ovaries or the uterus – unfortunately it was in a number of other places: a small growth in the liver, near the bladder, in the pancreas, and near some bile ducts. The pathology tests confirmed that it was adenocarcinoma (cancer of glandular tissue), but none of the tests were able to track down where the cancer started. Hence, the diagnosis of cancer of unknown primary origin. Although the primary origin could not be determined, the surgeon felt it was likely to have been the pancreas given the location of the cancer and given how aggressively it had spread.
It didn’t really hit me how serious this was until I asked the doctor, immediately after the surgery, how long it would be before chemotherapy would start – his answer: about two to three weeks **if** she decides to do chemotherapy.
So after the surgery I hopped on the internet to see what I could find about pancreatic cancer – all of which explained the doctor’s reaction: it is very aggressive, does not respond well to chemotherapy, and is rarely caught soon enough to be dealt with surgically. Three to six months was the typical prognosis. Two of the biggest risk factors for pancreatic cancer are smoking and exposure to petrochemicals – both of which applied to my mother.
Mom had asked me to tell her, after she woke up from the anesthesia, what the doctor had said after the surgery. It was bad enough having to tell her once, but because of the morphine she forgot, so every few hours Mom would wake up and ask me again “what did the doctor say?” I had to tell my mother four times she had Stage IV cancer in several organs, and **if** she decided to do chemotherapy it would start in 2-3 weeks.
On top of all this, recovery from major surgery is not a walk in the park. Mom was in the hospital for five days and she was still pretty weak when she finally went home.
A big complicating factor was (and is) distance: Mom’s only family is my brother Mike and I, and we live 1,400 miles away (I’m in Minneapolis, and my brother in Omaha). Both of us were there for the surgery, and then Mike went back to Omaha the next day. I was with Mom from April 21st to April 30th, and Mike came out and stayed with her the next week, until May 7th. My wife Lynn, my daughter Grace, and I went back out to stay with Mom from May 7th to the 14th.
There's never a good time to get cancer, but some times are worse than others: Mom turns 65 in June, and this was her last year of teaching (7th grade) before retiring. The plan was to work through the end of the school year, sell the house, move back to Omaha, and then be a full-time grandmother.
Getting such a grim diagnosis throws a lot of plans in disarray. If Mom has only 3-6 months to live, does Mom have time to sell the house and move back to Omaha, or is it better just to shut the house down and deal with it "after"? What happens to Mom's retirement accounts if she dies before she retires? (she's not officially retired until September 1).
In the middle of all this, Mom decided to do the chemotherapy -- for obvious reasons, it made sense to see if it would work. The oncologist proposed using two drugs, taking a broad approach. If that didn't work, he was going to recommend the drug used specifically for pancreatic cancer. Presumably the idea was that we'd find out quick enough if the cancer responded to the broad-based chemo, and if not, it was very likely to be pancreatic in origin. Mom is on a once-every-three-weeks chemo schedule.
The first chemo treatment was May 13th, and so far the results are good. Mom's main symptom is fluid build-up in her abdomen, and the swelling has gone down quite a bit since the first chemo treatment (Mom describes it as going from appearing to be 9 months pregnant, to appearing to be 2 months pregnant). The last couple of days have been the best two days by far since before the surgery in terms of energy level and activity. (I'm calling Mom every night to check in on how her day went). She has an appointment with the oncologist on Thursday, so we're waiting for blood tests and official review, but (knock on wood) so far so good.
What an emotional roller coaster this has been, though. In less than four weeks, we've gone from believing that Mom had a grave but treatable disease (ovarian cancer, pre-surgery), to believing she had terminal pancreatic cancer with approximately 3-6 months to live (immediate post-surgical reaction), and now believing she has Stage IV cancer (but likely not pancreatic) that -- against all odds -- appears to be responding to chemotherapy.
This experience has been eye-opening for me. I never would have believed the enormous difference between having 3-6 months to live and having, say, 9-12 months to live. In some ways, the experience pulls me in opposite directions -- one the one hand I'm having the "life's too short," be happy with friends and family reaction; but on the other I'm also having the "get healthy, lose weight, I don't want to die in my 60's" reaction.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the moment I'm ecstatic that my mom has regained enough energy to drive herself to the mall to shop for clothes, two days in a row.
The current plan is for Mom to fly from Seattle to Omaha for my brother's wedding over Memorial Day weekend, to scout for apartments in Omaha while she's there, and after she flies back, to help her move back permanently sometime in the middle of June. A week ago, I was afraid that Mom wouldn't have the strength to do any of this.
Does anyone in the blogosphere want to buy a house in Marysville, Washington, about 35 miles north of Seattle? It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch-style, about 1600 square feet, attractively located on the intersection of 45th Dr., N.E. and 88th St., only 6 blocks from Exit 200 off I-5, and quite close to some major stores, including Home Depot, Walmart, and Fred Meyer. Mom is contemplating an asking price of $190,000. If you're interested, let me know -- I've got pictures.
So, at least for the moment, I can exhale a little bit, and resume my snarky posts about the election.
But the big issue has been my mother’s health. When I left you a month ago, I was flying out to Washington state for her surgery. Since late February, she has been beginning to experience some medical problems – from the symptoms and the blood tests it looked like ovarian cancer. So mom was scheduled for a full abdominal hysterectomy on April 23rd, and my brother and I flew out to be with her.
As it turned out, the cancer was not located in the ovaries or the uterus – unfortunately it was in a number of other places: a small growth in the liver, near the bladder, in the pancreas, and near some bile ducts. The pathology tests confirmed that it was adenocarcinoma (cancer of glandular tissue), but none of the tests were able to track down where the cancer started. Hence, the diagnosis of cancer of unknown primary origin. Although the primary origin could not be determined, the surgeon felt it was likely to have been the pancreas given the location of the cancer and given how aggressively it had spread.
It didn’t really hit me how serious this was until I asked the doctor, immediately after the surgery, how long it would be before chemotherapy would start – his answer: about two to three weeks **if** she decides to do chemotherapy.
So after the surgery I hopped on the internet to see what I could find about pancreatic cancer – all of which explained the doctor’s reaction: it is very aggressive, does not respond well to chemotherapy, and is rarely caught soon enough to be dealt with surgically. Three to six months was the typical prognosis. Two of the biggest risk factors for pancreatic cancer are smoking and exposure to petrochemicals – both of which applied to my mother.
Mom had asked me to tell her, after she woke up from the anesthesia, what the doctor had said after the surgery. It was bad enough having to tell her once, but because of the morphine she forgot, so every few hours Mom would wake up and ask me again “what did the doctor say?” I had to tell my mother four times she had Stage IV cancer in several organs, and **if** she decided to do chemotherapy it would start in 2-3 weeks.
On top of all this, recovery from major surgery is not a walk in the park. Mom was in the hospital for five days and she was still pretty weak when she finally went home.
A big complicating factor was (and is) distance: Mom’s only family is my brother Mike and I, and we live 1,400 miles away (I’m in Minneapolis, and my brother in Omaha). Both of us were there for the surgery, and then Mike went back to Omaha the next day. I was with Mom from April 21st to April 30th, and Mike came out and stayed with her the next week, until May 7th. My wife Lynn, my daughter Grace, and I went back out to stay with Mom from May 7th to the 14th.
There's never a good time to get cancer, but some times are worse than others: Mom turns 65 in June, and this was her last year of teaching (7th grade) before retiring. The plan was to work through the end of the school year, sell the house, move back to Omaha, and then be a full-time grandmother.
Getting such a grim diagnosis throws a lot of plans in disarray. If Mom has only 3-6 months to live, does Mom have time to sell the house and move back to Omaha, or is it better just to shut the house down and deal with it "after"? What happens to Mom's retirement accounts if she dies before she retires? (she's not officially retired until September 1).
In the middle of all this, Mom decided to do the chemotherapy -- for obvious reasons, it made sense to see if it would work. The oncologist proposed using two drugs, taking a broad approach. If that didn't work, he was going to recommend the drug used specifically for pancreatic cancer. Presumably the idea was that we'd find out quick enough if the cancer responded to the broad-based chemo, and if not, it was very likely to be pancreatic in origin. Mom is on a once-every-three-weeks chemo schedule.
The first chemo treatment was May 13th, and so far the results are good. Mom's main symptom is fluid build-up in her abdomen, and the swelling has gone down quite a bit since the first chemo treatment (Mom describes it as going from appearing to be 9 months pregnant, to appearing to be 2 months pregnant). The last couple of days have been the best two days by far since before the surgery in terms of energy level and activity. (I'm calling Mom every night to check in on how her day went). She has an appointment with the oncologist on Thursday, so we're waiting for blood tests and official review, but (knock on wood) so far so good.
What an emotional roller coaster this has been, though. In less than four weeks, we've gone from believing that Mom had a grave but treatable disease (ovarian cancer, pre-surgery), to believing she had terminal pancreatic cancer with approximately 3-6 months to live (immediate post-surgical reaction), and now believing she has Stage IV cancer (but likely not pancreatic) that -- against all odds -- appears to be responding to chemotherapy.
This experience has been eye-opening for me. I never would have believed the enormous difference between having 3-6 months to live and having, say, 9-12 months to live. In some ways, the experience pulls me in opposite directions -- one the one hand I'm having the "life's too short," be happy with friends and family reaction; but on the other I'm also having the "get healthy, lose weight, I don't want to die in my 60's" reaction.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the moment I'm ecstatic that my mom has regained enough energy to drive herself to the mall to shop for clothes, two days in a row.
The current plan is for Mom to fly from Seattle to Omaha for my brother's wedding over Memorial Day weekend, to scout for apartments in Omaha while she's there, and after she flies back, to help her move back permanently sometime in the middle of June. A week ago, I was afraid that Mom wouldn't have the strength to do any of this.
Does anyone in the blogosphere want to buy a house in Marysville, Washington, about 35 miles north of Seattle? It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath ranch-style, about 1600 square feet, attractively located on the intersection of 45th Dr., N.E. and 88th St., only 6 blocks from Exit 200 off I-5, and quite close to some major stores, including Home Depot, Walmart, and Fred Meyer. Mom is contemplating an asking price of $190,000. If you're interested, let me know -- I've got pictures.
So, at least for the moment, I can exhale a little bit, and resume my snarky posts about the election.
Posted at 11:39 AM
Wed - April 21, 2004
Airport Blogging
Off to Seattle again . . .
Just a note that blogging will be somewhat
intermittent over the next 9-10 days. I'm flying back to Seattle to be with my
mother, who is having major surgery on Friday and who'll be in the hospital for
5-7 days afterwards.
For those who care, my blog is typically written on my main office machine, a flat panel Apple iMac 17" 1.25 GHz. But for this trip, I've moved the program and files over to the PowerBook, a 15" Aluminum 1 GHz with wireless networking.
So here I am, waiting for my flight in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, using the airport's wireless network to blog (only $6.95! for 24 hours!).
Driving into the airport I saw a C-5 transport take off right over the highway -- an impressive sight. It must have been loaded because it was moving awfully slow - although I wonder if the apparent slow speed was an optical illusion based on the plane's enormous size.
Mom's surgery is Friday at 10 a.m. (PDT). I'm not particularly religious, but at times like this you tend re-evaluate your relationship to the infinite unknown. So if you're reading this and you have some room for my mother in your thoughts and prayers I'd be very grateful.
For those who care, my blog is typically written on my main office machine, a flat panel Apple iMac 17" 1.25 GHz. But for this trip, I've moved the program and files over to the PowerBook, a 15" Aluminum 1 GHz with wireless networking.
So here I am, waiting for my flight in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, using the airport's wireless network to blog (only $6.95! for 24 hours!).
Driving into the airport I saw a C-5 transport take off right over the highway -- an impressive sight. It must have been loaded because it was moving awfully slow - although I wonder if the apparent slow speed was an optical illusion based on the plane's enormous size.
Mom's surgery is Friday at 10 a.m. (PDT). I'm not particularly religious, but at times like this you tend re-evaluate your relationship to the infinite unknown. So if you're reading this and you have some room for my mother in your thoughts and prayers I'd be very grateful.
Posted at 04:08 PM
Thu - April 1, 2004
Light Blogging For a Few Days
Blogging will be irregular over the next several
days. I'm flying out of town to be with my mother, who is sick.
Posted at 10:06 AM
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Published On: Jan 19, 2006 02:44 PM
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Published On: Jan 19, 2006 02:44 PM