tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24013156515437375802024-02-08T02:43:56.806-08:00Finding OmahaZachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-33159693167556130912009-11-30T19:30:00.000-08:002009-11-30T20:15:41.740-08:00Oh Tiger.....So everyone has heard about Tiger Woods, his car, and his wife. To sum up my guess on what happened before I get into my thoughts on the bigger picture.....I'm betting that they got into a fit, she slapped/scratched him, he stormed out, she ran after him, busted the car window with the club, and because of the broken window, he was distracted and drove the car over the hydrant, and then into the tree. Is it bad that a husband and wife got into a fight? Of course it is. Should we care any more because it was Tiger, versus Joe Blow from 2 streets over? I'm not sure. Are we, the public, somehow entitled to know more about what happened? Does someone's celebrity come with some forfeiture of privacy? Where does that privacy end?<br /><br />My belief is that when you decide to do something that puts you in the public eye, and especially when that provides you a living, you give up a lot of privacy. If you're an athlete, an actor, reality TV star, you make your living because people want to watch you. You're an entertainer. As an athlete, you don't get paid because you play a sport well. You get paid well because people will pay to see you. When you take that endorsement money, you're getting it because we watch them pitch something to us. Gatorade doesn't pay Tiger because he's a great player. They pay him because he gets a lot of exposure on TV and people like him. There's a lot of people out there that are great at something, even world class in that something, and don't get paid a huge amount of money. When you become famous as an actor or athlete, you're making a decision to put yourself in the public spotlight. <br /><br />Especially when you start accepting the big endorsement deals, you are trading in a lot of privacy for the big payday. Tiger doesn't have to have his face everywhere with Nike, Gatorade, etc. When Nike comes to you with that kind of money and exposure, you have to realize you can't just say "Please give us privacy". If you really wanted the privacy, you wouldn't take the deal. You can't do both. That's just the reality of today's world. Is it wrong to take the deal? Of course not. I fully support someone's ability to make a pile of money in the public eye. You can be a jackass if want. Just please be aware that if you take the public's money, you do have some responsibility to answer them when they ask questions.Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-1898171966069662022009-11-05T17:45:00.000-08:002009-11-05T18:18:59.069-08:00I'll have a Moons over M'Hammy,.....and can I see the wine list?I found a <a href="http://www.7-eleven.com/NewsRoom/7ElevensFirstWorldWineRelease/tabid/343/Default.aspx">terrific news release</a> about a new product at 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven is bringing a private label wine into their inventory. I saw a few other people making jokes about 7-Eleven having a private label wine. This isn't all that funny, as pretty much all grocery stores, Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, etc have some kind of cheap private label wine. For 7-Eleven, trying to give itself some space from other convenience stores with this, is actually a pretty good idea. So what's really funny about this news release? If you keep reading the article, you come to this delicious nugget:<br /><br />Also participating in the launch and carrying the new beverages are Ito-Yokado super- and hyper-markets, York Benimaru supermarkets in northern Japan, Shell Garden upscale grocery stores, <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold;">Denny’s family restaurants</span>, Seibu and Sogo department stores,<br /><br />Denny's will have wine! How freaking great is that? Maybe a nice red with your Grand Slam breakfast? How about a refreshing white with your Moons over M'Hammy? With as many drunken 3am Denny's trips I had when I was in college, the humor of having the option to order wine is just unbelievable. (well, we probably couldn't have ordered wine at that time of night, but still, the jokes would flow like wine). How will it be served? Will Denny's have a collection of wine glasses? Will the wait staff bring it out and open it? Oh my goodness.....I feel a Denny's trip coming up.Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-35804963852073629882009-08-16T13:39:00.000-07:002009-08-16T14:22:59.533-07:00Golf RamblingsSince I'm just sitting here on the couch watching golf, I thought it would be a great time to share some thoughts I have about golf TV coverage.<br /><br />1. The Tiger slurping has to stop.<br />I know Tiger is a great golfer. You don't have to tell me that at every shot. The worst offense of this comes during tee shots. Tiger will hit a shot and they will just fall over themselves about how great of a shot it was. And then the other guy will hit and it will be in pretty much the same spot, except somehow it wasn't as exciting. I think it was yesterday (Saturday), when Tiger hit one of those stinger shots with a fade. It landed in the left first cut. "Only Tiger can hit that stinger". Well, the other guy hit a regular shot, and it landed in the middle of the fairway about 10 yards farther. I'll take the regular shot.<br /><br />I've been able to watch the Directv coverage of the major tournaments this year, and they have a special Marquee group channel that just follows one group. Surprisingly, they usually follow Tiger's group. Watching all of Tiger's shots, especially when you can see of all of his opponent's shots, you have a different view of his game. Listening to the media, he is the most dominant player ever that just can't be beaten, hits all kinds of shots that other guys can't hit, etc. That's just not the case. Look at the stats....he doesn't drive the ball any farther than most guys, doesn't hit more fairways, doesn't get more greens, etc. The way it is portrayed, you would figure he would lead every statistical category. He doesn't. If you just watched the three guys play, you wouldn't think he was the greatest ever.<br />So how does he win? One thing you do notice is that he seems to make more of those 10-12 footers for par. That isn't really something that would jump out in stats, but would explain that extra stroke or so over 18 holes. He also doesn't seem to "blow up". If you ask me, that's the formula for his victories....consistency and a couple more 10 footers over a tournament. Does that make someone "dominant"? I don't know if I would use that word, but then again, I don't know what word I would use.<br /><br />2. If someone has a 6 foot putt for birdie, please show the shot into the green. Watching someone putt a 6 footer is not exciting, watching them throw a dart from 180 yards is exciting.<br /><br />3. While the slurping is still too much, the commentators have started to root a bit for other players. This may have had something to do with golf ratings last summer when Tiger was out. When they just slurp Tiger all the time, people don't get excited about the other players. Hence, when Tiger is out, the people don't care. I really don't understand how the PGA and the networks can seem to market any of the other players. Even today, Rory McIroy is out there playing pretty well, and they're only mentioned him 3 or 4 times. This would be a GREAT chance to follow him a bit, talk him up, etc. <br /><br />4. Nick Faldo is infinitely more interesting than Johnny Miller. I hate Miller.Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-16546157310445319082009-08-10T20:46:00.001-07:002009-08-10T20:46:09.133-07:00So I got a job…..<p>Well, as anyone who would read this blog knows by now, I recently got a job here in Omaha.  I had to resign from my post at Boeing when we moved here, so I had been out of work up until 9 July.  That put my job search at 3 months, which is right about half of what the experts say the norm is.  I’ve heard the normal time for a job search can be 6 to 9 months, so I feel pretty lucky that I got it done in 3.  So what did I think of my job search?  Lucky for you, I have thoughts:</p> <p>1.  Companies are really confused on how to hire people. <br />All you hear about these days is networking.  It’s all about who you know.  Get your resume to the top of the pile. Etc.  But if you look at a company’s hiring policies or talk to an HR rep, it’s all about the online application process.  Setup your profile, search for jobs, click the apply button.  These two policies couldn’t be further from each other.  So what happens?  You can’t get to anyone in either direction.  I networked with people who gave my resume to people internally and had the HR person tell me to apply online, which gets you back to square one.  I had recruiters contact me about positions that were posted online that were already spoken for, but the HR process required the hiring managers to post the jobs online.  <br />These HR policies have to go one way or the other, or have separate hiring processes.  Trying to use an online process to hire people through networking makes it hard for the HR dept and confusing for applicants.  Gravitating towards networking processes really limits a company’s access to a wide range of applicants.  <br />So what’s the answer?  I don’t know.  I just know this current situation is confusing, time consuming, and frustrating.  </p> <p>2.  Job fairs aren’t much fun. <br />Granted, I only went to one job fair.  I spoke to probably 10-12 companies.  Of the 12 companies, there was one (1) company that was taking paper resumes.  The rest consisted of “Have you created an online profile?  Our jobs are posted online”.  What’s the use in that?  I spoke to several people who had absolutely no idea what jobs their company had open.  If they aren’t taking resumes and/or the people that showed up aren’t in the functional areas that are hiring, just leave a bunch of pamphlets with your website and let’s call it even.</p> <p>3.  The social websites can fill a lot of time. <br />Lol….  I spent a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter when I was out of work.  It’s a great way to spend some time because you can be on the PC looking for jobs, but keeping up with friends at the same time.  It helps to keep your head up.</p> <p>So how did I end up getting my job?  I was really hoping to spurn the networking people and get it through posting for jobs on the company’s website.  I did end up with my resume getting passed to the right person at the right time.  One of my Boeing contacts that I had worked with before I quit had passed my resume to another company here in Omaha (BAE Systems).  It got passed to another BAE person, they called, and the rest is history.  </p> <p>So far the job is pretty good.  It’s quite a bit different than working for Boeing.  hehehe.  I’ll write up a post later that goes over some of the differences.  There’s some significant ones which are very interesting.  </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-84736519834161198322009-07-08T13:40:00.001-07:002009-07-08T13:40:39.505-07:00Blurring the line between sports star and person<p>The recent murder of Steve McNair brought up a discussion on PTI yesterday that I thought was very interesting.  <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/08/mcnair.shooting/index.html">Steve McNair was killed</a> by his 20 year old girlfriend in a murder-suicide on the 4th.  The reporting of the killing was interesting to watch unfold, as the first headline was that he had been killed, then it was added that there was also a female killed, then it was a 20 year old female, and then it was determined that her and McNair were together.  McNair had always been viewed as one of the toughest guys in the league, as well as being one of the stand up guys in the league, with a wife and 4 boys.  This now happens, so the end of his legacy is going to be that he was killed by his 20 year old girlfriend.</p> <p>Onto the PTI discussion…..  JA Adande and Dan Lebatard were having a discussion how this changes his legacy.  JA was trying to make an argument that people will look back and see his actions on the field and his philanthropy in a different light than his affair and murder.  I do agree that people will look favorably on his football career, but people WILL remember his death.  So how is this different than what JA was saying?  It’s different because in these days of twitter, blogs, etc, people and fans view sports personalities (and celebrities) as people just like us.  Previously, we looked at these types of people in a different light.  We let them live two lives because they seemed to be different kinds of people.  There was their “on air” or “on field” lives, and then they had a personal life that we kinda let slip.  “Everyone cheats in Hollywood” or “Of course they got divorced, 5 years is a long time to married in Hollywood” or “Athletes travel all the time and there’s all the groupies, so….”  With today’s world of twitter and blogs, this veil is being lifted.  We don’t feel these people have two lives, they have one life like us.  We have found out that pro athletes are like us, except their job is a sport.  These guys have been twittering their problems, and guess what, their problems are a lot like ours.  I’ve been following Ian Poulter (the pro golfer), and he doesn’t seem all that different than me.  He likes to drink beers with his friends, he went and saw the Hangover with a big bucket of popcorn, and he is still impressed with how much stuff Titleist gives him.  It just happens he is way better at golf than I am.  We can kinda see how small the difference is between us.  We can see how we could hang out with these people, or how they would act if they were in a situation like the one we are in.  The closer we get to these people, they become less athletes or celebrities, and become more like us.  </p> <p>From now on, when things like this happen to celebrities, we judge or view their entire life like we would judge our friends or neighbors.  If a friend of yours is cheating on their wife/husband, you don’t split the person’s accomplishments into a good person and a bad person, you judge them as one person.  If you’ve got a good friend that you’ve known for years and have great memories of golf trips, Vegas, dive bars, etc, and then he cheats on his wife, you don’t talk about his great accomplishments of 10 years ago when you went to Vegas and we won $500, you talk about him cheating on his wife.  The memories you have of him are still there, and you will still enjoy those memories.  But, they will be tarnished because of what he’s done.  Everything that has happened still happened, but you add in “but he also just cheated on his wife.”    </p> <p>Hopefully this will help to reinforce to pro athletes that they can be role models and can have a big impact on people.  You can have a bigger impact on people when they are able to relate to you.  Let’s hope we tilt towards this end of the spectrum.</p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-53470013208155327492009-06-30T11:03:00.001-07:002009-06-30T11:03:21.319-07:00The Guess Who Music Discussion<p>Last Friday, B and I made the trip to Memorial Park here in Omaha for the annual Celebrate America concert/fireworks.  This year’s acts were The Guess Who and Grand Funk Railroad.  I’ve been on a classic rock kick lately, so I was pretty excited.  We got down there around 5, and it was HOT.  It had been cloudy all day, so we were not ready for the beating sun.  Luckily, I had made a batch of summer beer (lemonade concentrate, water, beer, vodka), so we managed.  </p> <p>As for the bands, The Guess Who were great.  They played the songs you expected, and sounded great.  Grand Funk was ok….they jammed a bit too much for me.  I’m definitely cool with a band doing some extended solos and having some fun, but when a jam goes on for so long that you’ve forgotten what song they’re playing, that’s too much.  That happened a couple times with GF.  Overall though, very good.</p> <p>So, the crux of this blog post was in response to something the Guess Who mentioned.  They played a couple songs as they were released as an A side, B side 45.  Of course, he made a joke about people not remembering those and kids not having any idea of what life was like before ipods.  For some reason, this ignited my mind to think about two things.  One was how has the delivery and availability of music changed the way we view music, the other was why is music from the 60s and 70s, 70s rock that is, so enduring?  For instance, by the time I’m in my 40s and 50s and I think about the music I loved when I was younger, I’m going to mostly mention bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Skynyrd, etc, more than I’m going to mention bands that were releasing music at the time.  Why is that?</p> <p>The first discussion about delivery is easy to understand, but can be difficult to fully grasp.  In the 60s and 70s when all of this really great music was being released, it was released on LPs and you would listen to it on the radio.  There wasn’t a lot of portability, so if you were going to listen to your favorite music, that’s what you did, you listened to the music.  With the ipod today, actually, it started with the walkman back in the day, we don’t ever JUST listen to music.  Music has gone from being the main focus of our attention to being a soundtrack or background noise.  When was the last time you just sat and listened to music for a half hour?  I’m not talking about listening to music when you’re working out, or cleaning, or studying, just sit and listen to it.  Today, you might be more worried if the music will help you through a workout or if it helps your focus on studying, rather than if it’s something you actually like.  Back in the day, the main focus was to listen to it.  That was something you would do in the 60s and 70s.  “I had some friends over and we listened to the new Led Zeppelin record”.  You don’t hear that any more.  I don’t know if people are having parties to listen to the new Daughtry album.  <br />So how does this affect our view of music?  I think it makes it more disposable.  We like music now because it helps us exercise, or helps us to study.  With the ease of getting new music from itunes or amazon, we almost feel obligated to continually try new music, rather than listening to an album over and over to really learn it and take the time to think about what the lyrics and music is trying to convey.  Not that much music today has much to say.  </p> <p>The other idea was what kind of music are we going to be talking about in 20-30 years?  When my parents talk about music they listened to 20-30 years ago, it was the great music of the 60s and 70s.  Are we going to be talking about the great music of the 00’s in 20 years?  For instance, the top 5 albums of 1969: <br />1.  Iron Butterfly <br />2.  Hair  (soundtrack) <br />3.  Blood, sweat, and tears <br />4.  CCR <br />5.  Led Zeppelin <br /> <br />2005 <br />1.  50 cent <br />2.  Eminem <br />3.  Green Day <br />4.  Mariah Carey <br />5.  Kelly Clarkson <br /> <br />Are we going to want to go to a Eminem concert in 20 years?  Are we even going to remember these bands then?  With the disposability of music these days, we will have processed and thrown out all those people.  Let’s try another comparison:</p> <p>1977 <br />1.  Fleetwood Mac <br />2.  Stevie Wonder <br />3.  Barbra Streisand <br />4.  Eagles <br />5.  Boston <br />Just terrific…. <br />1997 <br />1.  Spice Girls <br />2.  No Doubt <br />3.  Celine Dion <br />4.  Space Jam Soundtrack <br />5.  Jewel <br />Are those even comparable?  </p> <p>So what’s the difference?  One thing that is very apparent, you have bands in the 60s and 70s, and single artists today.  Do we not like single artists as much over the long haul?  I don’t know.  Is it easier for a band to evolve over time?  If you’re in a band, there’s 4 or 5 people with the creative juices flowing vs 1 in a single act.  What about how these bands come to light?  If you’re in a band, you probably fought and clawed your way to a record deal, vs a single act that probably got picked by a record company to promote.  </p> <p>So what’s the point to all this?  Music has, and will probably always play an important part in our society.  Taking a look at how it has changed over time is really interesting.  Unfortunately, it looks like we might be taking it for granted these days with our multitasking lives and our ipods.  Next time you have some time to kill, sit down and put an album on and see if you can just sit and listen to it.  Before you buy a song on itunes, ask yourself why you’re buying it.  Take the time to think about music over time and what music means to you, or if it’s just something you use to keep your mind busy.  </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-57095024518450826602009-06-19T10:51:00.000-07:002009-06-19T11:19:20.802-07:00Renaming GM?With GM hitting the bankruptcy court a couple weeks ago, I've seen several articles talking about whether or not GM should rename themselves. The idea of renaming a company as it exits bankruptcy was been popular lately (<strong style="font-weight: normal;">Blackwater Worldwide to Xe, GMAC to Ally, etc). This can be a good idea for some companies that are trying to escape bad publicity. Blackwater changing it's name is a good idea, as there were some pretty bad things attributed to them in Iraq. But at the same time, it was not a well known company in the first place. If someone asked you to tell them something about Blackwater, the only thing you would be able to pull out of your mind would be that they were the contractors that got in trouble over in Iraq. AIG is another example of a company that would do well with a name change. Most of America knows them as the huge insurance company that didnt' really know what they were doing, overleveaged themselves, and had to have the taxpayer bail them out. <br /><br />What about GM? If you ask someone to tell you something about GM, they could very well have a story about an unreliable car, prodcut disasters, or bad management practices. You'll also hear good stories about generations of people being employed there, stories of Corvettes and Camaros, Buick sponsoring Tiger Woods, and how the new CTS-V outpaces the BMW M5. I think that us, as a nation, are more disappointed with GM than anything else. We thing AIG is a bunch of crooks that took advantage of us, we thing GM has gotten lazy. There's a big difference in those views, especially with regards to brand. <br /><br />I've been thinking a lot about brand lately, after reading Branson's last book, Business Stripped Bare. Branson spoke alot about the value of a brand, and how important it is to protect it. It's a lot different for Branson's Virgin to do that, since the Virgin brand includes things from trains, airplanes, spaceships, and cell phones. But keeping that Virgin idea in all aspects of the business is of the upmost importantce to him. GM struggles with keeping a consistent brand image across it's brands. Granted, that's really difficult when you have Corvettes and Escalades on one side, and G3s on the other side. Overall though, GM has done a lot over the last century or so that has built up its brand. Trying to change a name at this point in a company's history would be a waste of all that goodwill that has been built up. True, things haven't been very well the last decade or so for the whole company, but there have been some terrific successes. The Z06 Corvettes have been awesome, the redesigned Malibu has gotten good reviews, and even though it's not gonna be around too much longer, the G8 GT is a nice vehicle. As always, we look at history in terms of the last 20 years or so, but GM is an example of a company that is larger than the last 20 years. Making a knee jerk reaction to try and drum up business for a few months would be a bad idea.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span><br /></strong>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-47696798018915586342009-06-15T13:43:00.001-07:002009-06-15T13:43:18.827-07:00Where’s the good car movies?<p>I was running on the treadmill watching <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0232500/">The Fast and the Furious</a>.  I know, the movie is ridiculous, but it’s entertaining enough to watch while jogging on the ‘mill.  I love good car chases and generally am a fan of car movies.  As I was running, I got to thinking about what car movies I love.  I came up with (in no particular order):</p> <ul> <li>The Fast and Furious </li> <li>Smokey and the Bandit</li> <li>Gone in 60 Seconds</li> <li>Cannonball Run</li> <li>Days of Thunder (I love Days of Thunder for many more reasons than there are cars in it.  The fact that they used the Top Gun script and used the Find and Replace option in Word to produce a movie is just terrific)</li> </ul> <p>And I realized that is about it.  Why are there not more car centric movies made?  Everyone loves cars, this is America dammit!  While I don’t have the sequels listed above, they did pretty well at the box office….well enough to be considered a financial success.  FF: Toyko Drift was pretty bad, but that was because they got away from the “undercover cop drives car” formula.  You could almost categorize Transformers as a car movie, but we’ll leave that out.  I thought The Transporter series wanted to go in a car centric direction, but they liked Stratham’s action moves better I guess.  So, in the last 30 years since Smokey and the Bandit has come out, we’ve only had 4 or so good car movie ideas.  Gone in 60 seconds was a remake, so do we count that?  <sigh>  It’s depressing almost.  With all the crap that people try to come up with for movies….we love cars.  The horrible Knight Rider remake got decent ratings for half the season until they turned KITT into a freaking truck.  (a truck???? NNOOOOO!!!!)  Off the top of my head, the only major car movie bomb was the F1 movie with Sly Stallone.  That was just a ridiculous premise, so I hate to even compare it to these other ones.</p> <p>I wanted to take a whole paragraph to pay homage to the best car movie made.  It’s actually not even a movie, so didn’t put it on the list above.  The best car movie was actually a set of commercials commissioned by BMW 10 years ago or so.  I was lucky enough to order them from BMW a few years ago and have them on DVD.  The series of commercials is called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Films">“The Hire”.</a>  I believe most of them live on youtube in some form or another.  Here’s a <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ckq6_madonna-and-clive-owen-bmw-commerci_ads">link</a> to the best one, it stars Madonna and “the snap turn”.  We spend a couple hours watching that 9 minute commercial over one St Pat’s weekend back at Rolla.  These commercials should be the outline for any car movie made.  The outline is right there!  There’s even a bit of story there.  Why would someone not slip in and pick this up for full movie?  Arg….</p> <p>In closing….let’s make some car movies!  The car industry is in the crapper right now, a feel good, fast car driving movie could be just what we need to re-awaken our love of cars.        </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-36197027580604375262009-06-09T07:59:00.001-07:002009-06-09T07:59:58.859-07:00Urban Wine Company<p>Another restaurant has come up for discussion, and this week, it’s the <a href="http://www.urbanwinecompany.com/">Urban Wine Company</a>.  Bridget has been wanting to try it out, and since her birthday was yesterday (yay!), we had her birthday dinner last Saturday night.  We were joined by our friend Natalie.  UWC is down in the Old Market area of Omaha.  We haven’t been down to the Old Market much since we moved here because we’ve been busy trying out the options out west.  We do really like the restaurants and bars down there though.  It’s really only a 15-20 minute drive from our house since we live so close to I-80.  We had a really good time, so I’m sure we will start making more trips there.</p> <p>Parking is usually a pain in the Old Market, and it was a double pain since the Taste of Omaha was going on as well.  We got the last spot in the parking lot we chose.  The parking guy told us to park in a no parking zone, so we pretty much got the pole position.  </p> <p>UWC is a pretty cool place.  It has a great setup inside, using the Old Market theme of brick and exposed ceilings.  There were tables and chairs, as well as couches and coffee tables.  Unlike the Reel Martini couches, I would definitely sit on those.  We grabbed a small table and sat down.  Our waitress was very nice, she looked a lot like one of my friends’ wives.  Being a wine bar, they had the option to get wine flights.  Bridget LOVES wine flights, so her and Nat each got one.  Their flights consisted of 3 wines, with a healthy pour in each glass.  I wasn’t really feeling wine, so I asked what they had on tap.  Oh boy, they had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_Tremens_(beer)">Delirium</a> on tap.  I love a good Belgian Ale.  I’ve had <a href="http://www.chimay.com/">Chimay</a> a few times before, and Delirium once before, but it was from the bottle.  Having it on tap is spectacular.  A good Belgian Ale relaxes you like nothing else, except a cigar and a good scotch.  The girls liked their wine, and I liked the Delirium, so everyone started out happy.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.urbanwinecompany.com/menu.html">menu</a> is a bit all over the place, but the food we had was all very good.  We started with the spinach artichoke dip (surprise, surprise).  It did come with some phenomenal pita bread wedges.  We got to UWC a little later in the evening, so when we went to order food, the late happy hour had started (9 pm).  I hadn’t really made up my mind yet, but when I realized there was sushi for $4 at 9, I quickly decided.  Nat and I split a spicy tuna and spicy salmon rolls.  We had gone out to Baby Blue the night before, so I had a good sushi taste still on my mind.  The UWC sushi wasn’t quite as good, but it was definitely good (especially at $4).  Most surprising, I could actually tell we ordered the spicy versions of the rolls.  There was some very nice heat coming off them.  I would definitely get them again.  Bridget ended up ordering their version of a flatbread pizza, and she got shrimp and black bean.  I had a couple pieces to help her finish it off.  She really liked it, I was ok with it.  I’m still a traditional pizza guy, so if there’s not any real meat on there, I’m not quite all the way on board.  </p> <p>We all were very happy with the choice to eat there, and will definitely be there again.  The late happy hour items, sushi for $4, and Boulevard wheat drafts and sangria for $3(the girls thought it was a little too sweet), definitely bring it into play for after dinner drinks or late snacking.  A really cool place with a really nice laid back vibe.  Music at a good volume, good crowd, nice people, Delirium on tap….what more could you ask for?              </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-51656718656062887472009-06-04T12:17:00.001-07:002009-06-04T12:19:32.956-07:00Bar rant<p>I mentioned in my last post that I haven’t been very happy with the bars I have been to in Omaha so far. First off, let me mention that I’m not a “club” guy or someone that goes out to the bars all the time. Part of that, for me at least, is that since I’m married, I’m not out looking to pick girls up anymore (not that I was ever good at that). When I go out for drinks and to have some fun, I’m out to hang out with people, talk, joke, etc.</p> <p>So, the couple bars that we have been out to that really disappointed me are The Reel Martini Bar, and The Drafthouse. I’m going to really emphasize the word “disappoint”, because I know that I’m not going to go to a place that looks like a club or a place that is obviously looking to cater to kids right out of college. I was very interested in these places because of what it seemed they were trying to do with their image. </p> <p><a href="http://omahareel.com/">The Reel Martini Bar</a>, sounds like a laid back place that has a cool movie theme, serves good martinis, and is kinda geared towards a bit older crowd that wants to hang out after dinner. They have a great logo too. The website is pretty slick too. (especially if they would finish it) As soon as we walked in, the hip hop music comes BLARING out. I have to yell to talk to Bridget who is standing right next to me. There is no movie motif, save a crappy mural that is on one wall. There is a big projector on one side of the bar, but it’s showing the Cavs-Magic game. Granted, it’s the NBA playoffs, but once you’ve committed to a movie theme, ya gotta stick to it. There are a lot of couches and chairs around, but it looks like they got pulled out of the VIP room at an out of business strip club. Again, the music is absolutely blaring. We order drinks by yelling at the bartender. Granted, the martini’s were pretty good. There was a decent selection, but no more than what any place with a decent drink menu would have. We go out to the patio area, which is a nice idea, but it’s too narrow and jammed up with tables and chairs. We got there at 930 or so, when we left at 1130 or so, the music was still blaring and was getting full of drunk people quickly. Granted, there were a lot of people, but the atmosphere did not match what you would expect it to be. <br />So my problem with this whole thing……why do you just give up as an bar owner? You have this great idea for a bar with a movie theme. Why are there not movie posters everywhere? Why are there not tvs with classic movies showing? People of all demographic groups love movies. You could have movie trivia nights, theme nights, theme parties, etc. Why was the physical bar not setup like a concession area? You know, with candy showing. It would be really easy to setup food items like nachos and hot dogs that you would normally get at a movie theater. There was popcorn, but it was a little popper that I wouldn’t have gotten anything out of. Instead, they have given up and just play loud hip hop music and try and get people drunk. If that’s all you want, just call it something else, paint the walls black and sell shots. I think bar owners underestimate the number of people that like to go out for drinks and such after dinner on the weekends, but don’t want to go to a noisy, hot, sweaty bar. True, it’s not as big as the party crowd, but you can get to those people, you just have to work and keep your atmosphere steady.</p> <p><a href="http://www.drafthouseomaha.com/default.asp">The Drafthouse</a> (might wanna update that webpage too. The coupon that expires in 2007 is a little tacky) was similar. It has a cool name that would indicate that you have a lot of beers on tap, and it’s more of a gathering/hang out bar. We got there at 930 or so, grabbed a beer (from a selection that was not impressive. If you’re called the drafthouse, you better have 25 beers on tap, and not just a collection of Bud, Miller, and Coors products with 2 or 3 unique ones). It was cool to hang out there for about an hour, and guess what? BLARING MUSIC. Why do you have to have music so loud that you can’t talk to someone standing next to you. I don’t know if I’m just old, but what’s the point of going out to be around other people if you can’t talk to them? If I wanted to do that, I would just put on some headphones, crank it up, and drink beer while watching Elimidate and The Fifth Wheel. Anyway, like the Reel Martini Bar, using the name of Drafthouse gives you so many options to have a unique bar, and by just giving up and catering to the easy Friday and Sat night drunk crowd, it’s a little disappointing. Granted, I’m being a little hard on the Drafthouse because I was already really worked up about the Reel Martini place. TDH might be fun on other days, or during football games, but I think when you give up on your theme on Friday and Sat nights, you begin to lose the theme and atmosphere of your bar all the time. </p> <p>or maybe I’m just cranky….</p>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-11054110450638767582009-06-03T08:59:00.001-07:002009-06-03T09:01:37.689-07:00Windows 7 Fun<p>As you may have seen in my twittering yesterday, I wanted to start using Windows 7 more. I had setup a dual boot system a few weeks ago, but didn’t get around to installing the program we use (photoshop, office), so we weren’t really using it. I had decided to take XP off and only use Windows 7. I asked <a href="http://twitter.com/christoc">@christoc</a> about how best to rearrange my partitioned hard drive. He suggested I not take the full dip yet, and made some suggestions that were a bit over my comfort level. So, I decided to just adjust the size of my partitions and reinstall some of my most used programs. </p> <p>I first tried to use the Win 7 partition tool, but it wouldn’t let me increase the size of my Win 7 drive. I shrunk the XP drive down, but when I tried to expand the Win 7, it was a no go. So, I pulled out my trusty GParted CD and did it there. I moved about 100GB from the XP drive to the Win 7 drive. Easy enough I thought……..</p> <p>Well, I rebooted out of GParted, and got a line I had never seen before: <br />BOOTMGR MISSING…. <br />CTRL-ALT-DEL to RESTART <br />ok, maybe the partition misplaced the bootmgr, I’m sure if I restart it’ll be alright. <br />BOOTMGR MISSING…. <br />CTRL-ALT-DEL to RESTART <br />Oh crap. I should know better to just leave things alone. Luckily, we have a laptop at home as well, so I started searching for how to fix this. I quickly found out that this isn’t the end of the world and it is easily fixable by booting from the Win 7 install disk and choosing the “Repair” option. I rebooted with the Win 7, followed the instructions, it found the problem, and fixed it. So, we reboot again…..</p> <p>Alright! No bootmgr missing line. Win 7 started right up. Wait a sec…..Win 7 started right up? I’m supposed to get a prompt that asks me if I want to start Win 7 or XP. Where the hell did that go? I started searching online (this time on the desktop) and found some articles that talked about how to help. Evidently, the boot manager that Vista and 7 uses is different than what XP uses. We are quickly moving out of my comfort range. Several of the articles mentioned that EasyBCD can update the Win 7 boot manager without having to dig into the config files. I follow the <a href="http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_windows_7_xp_installed_first.htm?page=5">instructions</a>, but the articles all mention that I should be able to choose XP from the settings screen. I only have Win 7. I know I didn’t delete XP. I double checked and found the drive in file explorer. What the hell is going on? </p> <p>I did several things at this point, and I’m not sure if any of them helped or hurt, so I won’t mention them. I then remembered that when I was playing with the Disk Management tools, I could make each drive “active”, which it says means there is an operating system on it. Sure enough, the drive with XP on it wasn’t listed as “active”. I switched it back to Active and restarted. The option screen came up and I choose XP and success! I needed to get it done quickly as Bridget had a paper to work on last night. I figured enough was enough and quit playing with it. This morning though….</p> <p>I restart to get into Win 7 and when I choose Win 7 at the boot loader, nothing. DAMMIT! Now what? I ran the Win 7 install disk and repaired the startup, and luckily, that got us back to even. So, I think what happened……</p> <p>When I resized the partitions, two things happened. The BOOTMGR got lost somehow and my XP drive got labled as “inactive”. Running the Win 7 install disk and repairing the bootmgr helped Win 7, but resizing the partition caused Win 7 to not know there was an operating system on the XP drive. <sigh></p> <p>Windows 7 is pretty cool though. </p>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-18450482536249254202009-06-01T10:01:00.001-07:002009-06-01T10:01:39.475-07:00The Classic Summer Meal<p>Yikes, I'm getting lazy on my blog posts again.  I've got a couple things on my mind for this week, so I thought I would start off with something easy.  </p> <p>It was nice yesterday afternoon/evening, so we wanted to BBQ.  I have been on a really nice streak so far this year with my grilling.  I've done several nice steaks and salmon, as well as doing a real good job on the portabella mushrooms.  One thing we have enjoyed a lot the last couple summers was the good ol fashioned hamburger.  I found a good recipe in Men's Health last year, and have been using it ever since.  It is really easy, and really kicks the normal burger up a couple notches.</p> <p><strong>The Perfect Burger:</strong></p> <ul> <li>1 lb beef (I used 93-7)</li> <li>1 egg</li> <li>1/2 cup oats</li> <li>Diced Onion</li> <li>Chopped Spinach</li> <li>shredded cheese</li> <li>Salt and pepper</li> <li>Lettuce, tomatoes, mustard, ketchup</li> </ul> <p>There ya go.  That's it.  I think it took me 5 minutes to prepare and get the mixture all mixed together.  The onion, spinach, and cheese is kinda up to you, I think I ended up with 1/4-1/3 cup of each.  Throw it on the grill on medium-high for 6 minutes a side or so and you're good to go.  We used Sara Lee whole wheat buns.  I'm not always on board with whole wheat buns, but the Sara Lee ones are pretty good.  I also toasted the buns on the grill.  Just put a little butter or butter spray and throw them on the grill for 30-45 seconds.  Don't underestimate the toasted bun.  It makes a world of difference.  It's like the difference between microwave popcorn and popping the corn on the stove.  I guess I always notice because my dad always did the buns and the popcorn like that, so I like to do the same.  Once you're used to things like that, it's tough to go back to regular buns and microwave popcorn.</p> <p>As we usually do, we like to grill a couple portabellas whenever we grill.  Bridget prepares them for me, and I think she uses a little oil and some seasoning salt.  My grill (gas) has an area above the main grill that you can use to grill the mushrooms.  I actually put the portabella right on the burger!  It ended up making the burger a little too thick.  I need to remember to make the patties a little thinner next time.  Overall, wonderful as always.</p> <p>Of course, you have to have a couple beers while you're grilling.  Since we go to Costco, I try and get my beer there.  They usually have some variety packs of 24.  Sometimes they have a Mexican pack, there was a Fat Tire variety pack once, and you can get a Leiny's pack every once in a while.  Lately, they have had a dynamite pack of Sam Adams.  It has Sam Adams Lager, Sam Adams Light, SA Summer Ale, and SA Raspberry Wit.  All 4 beers are really solid.  The Summer Ale has just a hint of sweetness in it.  A lot of the other summer ales out there end up being too sweet, trying to copy the Blue Moon.  SA does a good job of not going too far.</p> <p>Also coming this week, I will tear into a couple bars I have been to since I've been in Omaha.  I might write a little about the GM bankruptcy, but it seems to not be causing any crazy rebuttals from people.  Only thing I have noticed that is pretty funny is that no one is doubting the bankruptcy time.  When Chrysler went into bankruptcy a month ago or so, everyone was declaring that the 30 day time frame was ridiculous.  Chrysler is about out already, so the nay-sayers aren't railing on the 90 day timeframe that is being floated around.  Oh, how the pundits change their tune.  I would have some of these people back on CNBC and such and roll the tape of their rants, see what they have to say now.  Oh well....      </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-90956386003655022172009-05-26T13:52:00.001-07:002009-06-03T09:02:39.574-07:00Be careful what you tweet for....<p>I was doing my usual rounds on the internet this morning, and was reading an article on ESPN about Anquan Boldin firing his agent, the infamous Drew Rosenhaus. I always enjoy reading about Rosenhaus and his antics to get money for his guys. I thought it was great that a player was going to actually fire him, since most of the players just do whatever he tells them to. I read the article and something else popped out that took me a bit to digest. Here is one quote from the article:</p> <blockquote> <p> "I still believe Anquan will be traded before training camp," Rosenhaus said May 8 through his Twitter account. "I hope to work together with the Cardinals to resolve this situation by then."</p> </blockquote> <p>You might have to read it again, but it's not what he said, but how it was reported he said it. "through his twitter account." Later in the article, it also said this:</p> <blockquote> <p>"We recently made a proposal to the Cards for less," Rosenhaus said via Twitter.</p> </blockquote> <p>Again, he is being quoted from his twitter account. I first found this amusing because Rosenhaus is never one to back down from media coverage or a guy that doesn't like to have a mike in front of his face. (Remember the Terrell Owens episodes from Philly). As I thought about it more, I thought it was strange the way his tweets were reported in the story. If you didn't really read everything carefully, you would have glossed over the quotes as if someone had interviewed him. But they didn't interview him. Nor were these quotes in direct response to a particular question. So, you have an unrelated 160 character blurb from someone being attributed to him as though it were a direct person to person quote based on a person to person question. Is this where we are heading? The person that posted this report on espn, did he clear Rosenhaus' tweets as pertinent to the rest of this story, or did he assume? While the tweets do appear to relate to what the reporter was writing about, when is it appropriate to follow up and ask? </p> <p>Look, I like twitter. You can follow me <a href="http://twitter.com/ad1220">@ad1220</a> if you want. It's a cool little piece of technology that is basically a text message to anyone and everyone that cares to look at it. It's a great way to give quick updates to what you are doing. "I'm at the airport" "I washed the car today" "Boeing stock is down" BUT......people have to remember, especially people like Rosenhaus or other celebrities, or anyone that evidently can be directly quoted from Twitter......these 160 character tweets carry almost no context with them. You should NOT be issuing responses or statements through twitter. If you want to write something that will carry any kind of meaning, get yourself a blog and write a long post about it. If you're important enough that people care about what you're going to say, issue a press release. I'm sure tweets that are taken out of context are already ruining lives across the high schools of the nation, it will be interesting to see which nationally known person is taken down because of twitter. </p>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-15712900261599837702009-05-20T08:01:00.001-07:002009-05-20T08:01:56.149-07:00Idol thoughts....<sigh><p>Well, I have some Idol thoughts for tonight's big season finale.  I have to admit I watched most of this year's season.  I did enjoy it (a bit), because they had people on that actually play instruments.  If you're able to play a few instruments, I think that makes you more of a total musician.  And if you're a total musician, I think that gives you a better chance to make it in the industry outside of Idol.  So watching a few of the guys bring out pianos and guitars was a nice change.  </p> <p>As for the final two, I much prefer Kris.  I think he's an actual musician, where Adam is more of a performer.  I know it today's music world the performer is usually favored (as evidenced by many of the performances by other acts), including Paula's horrible lip sync and dance number.  Adam has done some interesting things with songs, but I question Bridget and I always have is how much help do they get with those alternate arrangements?  I doubt Adam is actually rewriting the music.  Do they just tell someone, "Hey, let's do it this way." and then 3 days later there's a new arrangement?  Or do they just dig up someone else's alternate arrangement?  Regardless, I think the judges put way too much emphasis on having them use different arrangements.  It's interesting every once in while, but it becomes tiresome after a while.  For instance, on disco night, not one person actually sang a "disco" song.  I thought that was the point of different nights, to show how you would sing different styles of songs, not how you use the same lyrics and a somewhat similar melody to sing a song that fits in with your performance style.  Oh well.</p> <p>Between the two, I think Kris is the much more marketable musician.  He could do country or pop without any trouble.  He does the acoustic guitar, adult contemporary thing nicely.  Plus, he play instruments, which gives his performances something to look at.  I just don't know what Adam would do.  That squeal thing he does went out with wigs and spandex in the 80's.  How could you sit and listen to a 60-70 minute CD with him doing that?  </p> <p>I just wanted to also make a comment about the atrocious last song.  It was horrible.  It was terrible.  It sounded like the end credits of The Little Mermaid 9, Ariel goes to College.  And did I hear them correctly that the winner has to use that as their first single?  Holy crap, I'd be hiring a lawyer to get me out of that one.  I think Kris tried to take a dive just because of that.  And the song was written to be sung in Adam's lady range, so Kris struggled with it.  Even Kara felt about about sending in the fix once she heard it.  What a terrible idea.</p> <p>One of my favorite web sites, <a href="http://dialidol.com" target="_blank">dialidol.com</a>, actually has Kris winning!  It looks really close, with the margin of error putting both people in play.  If you don't know, Dial Idol uses automated dialing to measure the busy dial tones of each phone line, and then using that data to statistically predict how many people are voting.  For example, if you dial the number 10 times and it's busy 9 times, you're getting a lot of votes.  If it's only busy 2 or 3 times, you're not getting a lot of votes.  I haven't dug into the statistics of how he does it, but it's quite a method.  I believe his algorithm had predicted all of the winners so far, so we'll see how it works this year.</p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-74890954612506857272009-05-18T09:50:00.001-07:002009-05-18T09:52:16.037-07:00Berkshire Hathaway Weekend in Omaha<p>I'm a couple days (yikes, weeks!) behind this on this, but Bridget and I went to the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder's Meeting on Saturday! BH is, of course, the company headed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett" target="_blank">Warren Buffett</a>. I've always been fascinated by Warren and his outlook on business and life. I've been following BH for a year or so I guess. He is a frequent guest on CNBC which I will catch in the mornings sometimes. I've read a couple books on him, including his latest and official autobiography, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Snowball-Warren-Buffett-Business-Life/dp/0553805096/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241730571&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life</a>. That book is a freakin monster though. It's around 900 pages, and the pages include a lot of text. I'm about done with it, but I've been working on it for a few months. (update: I finished it) It's a good book, but some of the parts are a little too long and wordy and drag on a bit. </p> <p>So, for our big day, we got down to the Qwest at about 800 and made our way into the arena. It was PACKED. We walked around a bit and finally found some seats ALL the way on one of the sides. Luckily, they had screens suspended from the ceiling, and one of them were right in front of us. So, we couldn't see Charlie and Warren straight on, but we got a good side look. BH puts together a movie that goes over a lot of their businesses. It shows a bunch of commercials from companies like Geico and Coke. There were a bunch of funny parts, including a skit where Warren was working at NFM selling mattresses. One of the mattresses had a pocket under the bed to hide your money. It was pretty humorous. Warren has quite a sense of humor.</p> <p>The movie ended around 930 and we got to the Q&A. I guess in the past all questions came from the audience and it had gotten to the point where people were just asking random questions, rather than talking about the business. The format changed this year where questions were submitted to a 3 person panel (including my girl Becky Quick), who then asked the questions. They did have some questions from the audience, but it was not too much. I wrote down some quotes I liked:</p> <p><strong>"I don't think you can teach high finance to people that can't use credit cards." - Charlie Munger</strong> <br />This came in response to a question about finance intelligence. The discussion came to whether the industry should concentrate on education. Charlie makes a great point that you can't just teach people to do something like this. If you don't understand that you shouldn't spend more than you make, how are you going to learn PE ratios, revenue streams, etc. This goes very well into a little theory I have that access to information doesn't equate to higher intelligence. (I'll get to that later)</p> <p><strong>"If you need a computer to do a cash flow analysis, move on." - Warren <br />"Higher math can hurt you in investing" - Charlie <br /></strong>Both of these quotes were a part of several discussions on how high level math is actually hurting the industry. Both stressed several times that if the value and earning power of a company doesn't jump off the page, you should move on. If you need to figure out tenths and hundredths of discount rate to see if you should invest, that's too deep in the weeds. Keep to whole numbers and obvious wins. I don't have the exact quote, but they also mentioned that if you have an IQ of 150, you should sell 30 of it and just use 120 to invest. Good stuff.</p> <p><strong>"Emotional stability is more important than higher math or intelligence." - Warren<br /></strong>This is an extension of the last quote, but also defines it more. It's more important have the cajones to hold onto a stock over time than coming up with a crazy equation to tell you when to buy or sell. </p> <p><strong>The competitive advantage of BH isn't our ability to pick stocks, it's BH's unique model of buying well run companies and letting them continue to run their business their way. - unexact quote from Warren <br /></strong>As expected, several questions focused on who would take over after Warren and Charlie are gone. They both answered the question well in stressing that the way the company makes money isn't just hinged on their ability to pick stocks. They have created a culture that allows BH to buy good companies, and that those good companies actively lobby for BH to buy them. BH is really the only company out there that does that. Also, the person who is tabbed to take over is from the inside and should do a good job when he is tapped to take over. </p> <p><strong>"Authority comes with the person, not the position." - Warren <br /></strong>This quote came from a discussion on Ajit, who is the insurance genius. The question was how do you replace him and find someone else who can write the speciality insurance he does. Warren just flat out said you can't replace him, and whoever takes over after him won't have the same freedom. This is a GREAT quote that really should apply to all companies and all positions. Most companies get so worried with positions that they don't take the time to match up the authority with the person. Take the current issues with CEOs for example. A person might be a great leader for a company, but he may not have all of the technical skills. Does that mean he can't be the CEO? No, it just means the Board might need to assign some of the authority else where, or put in some more checks and balances. That's not a bad thing. If you're promoted to a new position, your skills don't change just because the authority of the position changes.</p> <p> </p> <p>Overall, the day was great. After the QA session we walked around the booths of the various companies under the BH umbrella. We got some excellent peanut brittle from See's, but we did not buy any underwear from Fruit of the Loom. We enjoyed a $1 dilly bar from DQ, but did not buy any boots from Justin Boots. It was quite a scene. We will definitely be attending next year. Hopefully under our own passes from our own BH stock :)</p>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-28086529195834103172009-05-15T12:01:00.001-07:002009-05-15T12:01:13.934-07:00Chrysler dealership closing criteria?<p><img src="http://omaha.com/neo-images/photos/medium/0515lsdavidcity.jpg" /> I was enjoying some lunch today (grilled cheese and deli chicken sandwich) and reading my daily Omaha World Herald and found an interesting article regarding the recently released dealership closings for Chrysler.  I have been a supporter of doing a pretty extensive makeover with GM and Chrysler for some time, and I agreed that the number of dealerships needed to be reduced.  I hadn't seen a criteria for closing dealerships, but I had assumed it would be based on location and profit.  I figured they would do a big cut of multiple dealerships in the same town first, and then find the ones that have bad customer service or bad sales records.  I had hoped that there would also be some human eyes to look at special situations other than numbers, but it looks as though that was of course, not the case.</p> <p>This <a href="http://omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10634485" target="_blank">article</a>, which is a shorter version of the print article, talks about the Kobza Motors dealership in David City, NE.  David City has 1 dealership in town of around 2500 people.  From the article, it sounds like a good portion of the people in town use the dealership.  From looking at the google map and searching on "Chrysler" the nearest dealership is in Columbus, NE, which is 25 miles away.  Are those dealerships poaching each other's business?  I would bet not.  Are they profitable businesses?  I don't have their numbers, but if they have been able to survive in a small town for decades, I would think they do plenty of business.  If the dealership is not "stealing" sales away from other dealerships, and they are able to stay in business, why would you tell them to stop selling cars?  </p> <p>If I had to guess, I would say they don't sell (or buy from Chrysler), whatever the decided minimum amount of cars is.  So what?  What difference does that make?  How else are you going to get your vehicles into these people's hands?  If we are talking about the middle of Nebraska, I would say they sell a lot of trucks, which is the bigger profit margin vehicle.  </p> <p>So you have a dealership in a small town, good public relations, been there for decades, low cost (small number of employees, land/rent is probably cheap), no competition from any other dealership, and sells mostly high margin trucks.  Yeah, let's get that closed.  </p> <p>And we continue to wonder why GM and Chrysler have so much trouble....</p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-68648845501720702642009-05-11T20:25:00.001-07:002009-05-11T20:26:45.654-07:00Loft Redo Part 1<p>The time has finally come to get the loft of our new house together. Our house is a ranch, but a portion of what would normally be the attic is a finished loft area. It's about 500 sq ft, so it's a pretty big space. Presently, we're not really using it. My older Samsung DLP, old couch and chair, and the other bed are currently up there. Here's some pics of the before: (Sorry, I didn't clean the pictures up. I'll clean the finished pictures up more to make it look like an even bigger improvement. Similar to the weight loss infomercials when the girl loses 50 lbs, but also has a new haircut, makeup, clothes, and usually new boobs.)</p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsAoa3gHI/AAAAAAAAA6A/BnT4dk_6TL0/s1600-h/IMGP2260%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="IMGP2260" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsBO3q83I/AAAAAAAAA6E/paic26FMhxk/IMGP2260_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="244" height="164" /></a> <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsBkSRilI/AAAAAAAAA6I/g44eAjuQfcI/s1600-h/IMGP2270%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="IMGP2270" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsCHyx5fI/AAAAAAAAA6M/JdNtd-qiJDc/IMGP2270_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="244" height="164" /></a> <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsCWYKf0I/AAAAAAAAA6Q/8ifNfhm9qng/s1600-h/IMGP2267%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="IMGP2267" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsC6InxkI/AAAAAAAAA6U/tAPphsPuE2I/IMGP2267_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="244" height="164" /></a> </p> <p>We had been using one of the ground floor bedrooms for the office. It just doesn't work, as I need some room to spread stuff out. I've always been a fan of the L shaped desks, but couldn't ever get a room with the right size. Enter the loft! We ended up getting a Sauder desk from Nebraska Furniture Mart. Here's a link to desk on <a href="http://www.nfm.com/DetailsPage.aspx?ProductID=28617694" target="_blank">NFM.com</a>. We didn't get the hutch, as you can see from the pictures that the room slopes into the corners. </p> <p>I ran by the Mart to pick up the desk this morning and got it home a little after lunch. The thing was heavy, 160lbs in the desk. I carted the pieces up a couple at a time and got to work. A few hours later, the desk was done. The desk is going in the corner where the bed was. </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsDefNhAI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/S12aBCUX2M8/s1600-h/IMGP2275%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border: 0px none ;" alt="IMGP2275" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_JXKSJAoBk_I/SgjsDiCAxcI/AAAAAAAAA6c/LB4vDQf51DA/IMGP2275_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" border="0" width="244" height="164" /></a> </p> <p>I got the desk put together and in place when Bridget got home. I'm gonna finish up moving the computer and the rest of the office stuff upstairs tomorrow. Luckily, I twisted my ankle pretty good out in the backyard due to some uneven sod settling, so that might get a little sore.</p> <p>Hopefully more pics tomorrow....</p>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-73761101482407447322009-05-10T20:29:00.000-07:002009-05-11T20:44:19.204-07:00I'm bringing the Po' Boy back<p>Holy crap.  Bridget and I enjoyed a new restaurant on Saturday night and it absolutely blew me up.  I was astounded, which I haven't been at a restaurant in awhile.  The place of interest is <a href="http://absolutelyfresh.com/?q=node/117" target="_blank">Shucks Fish House and Oyster Bar</a>.  It's a little place up on 168th and West Center.  We got there about 730 on Saturday night and didn't have too long to wait.  Let's get into the ratings:</p> <p>Style:  Bridget said it best, "It's like a legit Joe's Crabshack."  It had a beachy theme, reclaimed wood on the walls, regular tables and booths.  The restaurant wasn't huge, but it gave it a homey feel.  Music was audible but not overpowering.  People were very nice, you could tell everyone was friends and enjoyed working together.  Good crowd included families and older couples.</p> <p>Drinks:  They have a nice collection of bottled beers.  It didn't appear to have any beers on tap, but if you have a nice diverse collection of bottled beers, I'll let it slide.  I believe the number of beers was over 60.  I picked the Goose Island IPA, which was terrific.  I like some IPAs and dislike some IPAs, I really liked this one.</p> <p>Food:  AWESOME.  JUST AWESOME.  I was not ready for how good the food would be.  We got the calamari rings for appetizers.  They were good, but overshadowed by the rest.  For the entrees, we got an order of jambalaya and a Fresh Fish Po Boy.  Both were just amazing.  The jambalaya was nice and spicy.  The po boy was beyond description.  It was packed with fried fish fillets.  Barely fried, though.  They do a great light breading and light frying so it's not overly crunchy or greasy.  The sauce on there was great.  I believe it's called muffetta or something like that.  Louisiana style.  Awesome.  </p> <p>Price:  Price was good.  Both entrees were under $10.  For that price, and that level of food satisfaction, it may be the best bargain I've ever seen.  Beers were 4.50 a bottle which is a little steep, but it was Saturday night.  They have happy hours from 3-6 during the week, so might need to go there to grab the beers.</p> <p>I will be back.  Soon.</p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-87317213566313425852009-05-06T09:09:00.001-07:002009-05-06T09:09:58.398-07:00Windows 7 RC is on baby!<p>Today was an exciting day.  I installed Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate) on the desktop today.  I followed Lifehacker's guide to setup a dual boot system.  They had a nice write up <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5240931/lifehackers-guide-to-upgrading-to-windows-7-rc" target="_blank">here</a>.  It ends up sending you to another write up they did when the first beta came out on how to do a dual boot system.  It was really pretty easy, even for a non windows admin like myself.  </p> <p>I downloaded the W7 ISO and burned to a DVD then downloaded GParted and burned to a CD.  I had to go into my BIOS and reset the boot priority, the default was Removable Drive-HD-CD, which I thought was weird.  I reset it to CD-Removable-HD, put my GParted boot disk in and tried again.  Still nothing.  Hmmm....  I went into the CD priority, and it had my old IDE DVD ROM drive first, followed by my SATA drive.  I had thought that it would try the IDE drive, and then the SATA, but I guess it just checked the IDE and went out.  I reset that priority to do the SATA drive first and tried again.  SUCCESS!  GParted was pretty easy to use.  Shrink the used partition down and create a new one.  </p> <p>I then threw the Windows DVD in there and went to installing.  Choose the custom option to install W7 on the new partition.  Install was fine, except I got a 2 mixed up with a Z on my product key.  I always do that.  grr.  W7 came up just fine, connected to the internet, and downloaded firefox.  Everything working like a dream.</p> <p>I restarted the machine, got the option to boot XP or 7, choose XP, and everything over on partition 1 is still golden.  </p> <p>I must say, I'm feeling pretty good.  </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-30844196688089799932009-03-30T12:40:00.001-07:002009-03-31T06:22:30.597-07:00Mutual Fund Monday 3/30/09<p>Another Monday has reared it's ugly head upon us. GM still couldn't get their house in order, so the Barack had to finally be the one to push Wagoner out. I understand some people's worry about socialism and government interference, but hey, don't run your company into the ground and it won't be an issue. Is Immelt being pushed out at GE? Is Mulally being pushed out at Ford? No, they're not, because they have their house in order. The lesson from all this? Be a responsible CEO. If we have to brush up against socialism for our Executive class to understand their responsibilities to all their stakeholders, then so be it. I don't endorse it, but something has to change.</p> <p>So the title of the post is Mutual Fund Monday. I thought an easy way to do a post once a week would be to use the Yahoo Fund Screener to pop out some mutual funds that might be worth looking at. I am in the process of changing jobs, so I will more than likely be rolling over my current 401(k) to an IRA, so I'll have some decisions on how I want to divy up my current retirement stash. </p> <p>I read an interesting article in Money (I think) a year ago or so that gave a real nice procedure for looking for Funds that don't suck. Of course, the main goal of picking Funds is finding some that are going to give you a chance of beating the SP500 index, which you can own in an index fund or ETF with no loads and very small expense ratios (<.25 or so). The procedure was using the screener to pick funds with no loads, 4 or 5 Morningstar Rating, low ratios, manager tenure of at least 5 years (with the longer the better), and a good performance rating (top 30% for example). Let's go to the first screen!</p> <p>Screen:</p> <table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="400"><tbody> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Category</td> <td valign="top" width="198">Any US Stock Fund</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Rank in Category</td> <td valign="top" width="198">Top 30%</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Tenure</td> <td valign="top" width="198">More than 5 years</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Morningstar</td> <td valign="top" width="198">4 Star Min</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Min Investment</td> <td valign="top" width="198">less than $2500</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Front Load</td> <td valign="top" width="198">None</td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="200">Total Expense</td> <td valign="top" width="198">Less than 1%</td> </tr> </tbody></table> <p> Running that gives us 103 Funds. 100 is still a lot of Funds to pick from, but it's way better than 6 or 7 thousand! Let's sort on Manager Tenure and see who leads the pack. I'm always intrigued by the Manager Tenure, it's interesting for a Fund manager to be at one place for 20 years or so. So, building on that manager tenure, let's sort on longest tenure. The longest tenure is...73 years. 73 years! How does that work?</p> <p>This week's fund is: <strong>ING Corporate Leaders Trust B (LEXCX)</strong></p> <p>So what's going on with a 73 year tenure? Looking up the profile on LEXCX, it says that it is a grantor trust that was formed in 1935. I looked around and found the prospectus at their site, and in 1935, they created the fund by buying an equal number of shares of 30 top American companies. Over the years, companies have failed, been bought, and merged, and now there are 23 companies. How great is that? The annual turnover: 0%. Category average: 68%. Having no turnover also saves a lot in expense ratios, .49% vs 1.28%. That's definitely staying ahead of the competition. </p> <p>The alpha and beta of LEXCX is also an interesting study. The beta is .91, which means that the risk of LEXCX meeting the SP500 return is less than the SP500, giving it a nice risk rating. On top of that, the alpha is over 3, meaning that for the risk involved, you'll beat the SP500 return by 3 pts. Wow! For less risk, you should beat the SP500 by 3. Awesome.</p> <p>I like long periods, so comparing 5 year performance (which includes a bunch of the last 6 months mess), LEXCX is down 1% vs 6.63% for the SP500. Beating the market by that much over that much time is a nice point. Sticking with long term strong companies is always a good way to invest long term.</p> <p>So what are some problems? When you have only 23 companies, it's tough to not be too concentrated in a couple areas. LEXCX has a couple areas that could be worrisome, or good, depending how the next few decades pan out. Not surprisingly, having formed the fund in 1935, you've got some interesting holdings. From the prospectus, (granted, this is from Dec 07 and the percentages will be different), the two biggest sectors in LEXCX are oil (35%) and transportation (17%). The oil is as you would expect, with Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Marathon. The transportation is two train companies, Burlington and UP. How many funds these days have 17% of their holdings in two train companies? Are trains sexy investments? Probably not. But if you think that rising oil prices are going to cause the railroads to continue to win freight back, you've got a hell of a play with the oil companies (oil prices causing the push to coal fired trains for delivering freight).</p> <p>So, should you maybe have a cut of this in your IRA? You know, it looks fun to own. It's fun to talk about, and it's an interesting story. With a lot of oil, it could continue to perform well if the price of oil continues to go up. It has some other real nice blue chips like P&G, and GE. Would I put everything in there? Of course not. Is it maybe worth 20-25%? I think you could make a good case. I bet I end up with a little of this one in the end. </p>Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-20935605402968837272009-03-27T07:46:00.001-07:002009-03-27T07:46:44.142-07:00How do you buy a mattress?<p>I was checking out <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5186786/dont-get-fleeced-buying-a-mattress" target="_blank">Lifehacker</a> this morning and they had an interesting post about how to buy a mattress.  I thought this was interesting because I got to thinking about the things that I have no idea how to buy.  In this day of endless customer reviews, review sites, technical specs, etc; it's usually easy to find the information you need to make an informed decision.  As I have gotten use to this, when it comes to buying some items, like mattresses, I just have no idea how to proceed.  I thought I would come up with a list of items that are kryponite to my purchase researching skills.</p> <ul> <li>Mattresses - How do you even start to know what to look for?  Memory foam, pillow tops, etc.  What??  How do you know what to compare to other mattresses?  So you get stuck looking at a bunch of logos and brand names which mean nothing and a bunch of prices that don't really mean anything.  The other big knock on mattress shopping is the price?  How do you compare prices?  The price listed is never the actual price because you can't keep track of what is on sale, how the sale works, etc.  It's just a mess.</li> <li>Furniture - Furniture isn't quite as bad.  The issue with furniture is that it's usually a big purchase, and the two requirements that are important is durability and how long the cushions stay comfortable.  There is no way to tell either of these items by looking at the furniture in the store.  There isn't really an industry standard "rating" for cushion durability.</li> <li>Blinds - Thank God Bridget took care of this for me.  String, vinyl planks, cords.  Yikes.  I probably would have passed out trying to decide what the best value is.  How do you assign values to this stuff?</li> <li>Dishes - We bought some dishes right after we got married, and they're chipping all to hell.  How can you tell if something if plates are more apt to chip than the next one?  I can't do the research to check on this.  On the other hand, I picked out the great china we got for our wedding.  I guess I'd probably have to chalk that one up to luck.</li> </ul> <p>So why do we have trouble buying some things?  I've read some interesting books lately on neuro-marketing, which is a new science that explores why we buy one thing over another based on how your mind works.  Very interesting stuff.  For me, I believe neuro-marketing would say that I have trouble with these kinds of purchases because the lack of a good comparison.  If you don't have a good "anchor" on what something should cost, your mind struggles on assigning values.  I don't know what a "good" mattress costs, versus what an "excellent" mattress costs.  On the other hand, I can easily look up what a 3 series BMW costs, and what a Nissan Altima costs, along with all the features of each one.  This allows me to put some kind of a value on the features of each one.  While the cost of the cars would be much more than the mattress, I would have a much easier time making the decision on which car to get.  </p> <p>or maybe I'm just too analytical for my own good......</p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-21475673146471284912009-03-22T14:55:00.001-07:002009-03-22T14:55:20.964-07:00Johnny's Italian Steakhouse<p>After a productive Sunday afternoon of cleaning and organizing the garage, it's time to write up a quick post about last night's dining excursion.  For our first "date" night out in Omaha, Bridget and I headed up to Village Pointe to try Johnny's Italian Steakhouse.   I'm going to try and keep a somewhat consistent review method of restaurants/bars, so let's see how this works: <br /></p> <p>Johnny's Italian Steakhouse  3/22/09</p> <p>Style:  JIS had a Sinatra/Martin/Rat Pack feel to it.  Dark wood tables, low lit.  Plenty of Sinatra playing in the background.  I'm always up for some Frank or Dean, so that's always a plus in my book.  While I do love Frank and Dean, the overall feel was a bit too chainy for me.  When I'm out at an Italian restaurant, I like for it to have that family run feel to it.  Not necessarily that I feel like I'm eating at someone's house, but that some family members got together and bought the pictures, tables, etc.  JIS didn't quite have that.  It wasn't over the top chainy like 54th Street, but enough that you could tell there was description given to someone.  Unfortunately, a family with two kids sat down in the table next to us towards the end of the meal.  Kids were well behaved, but the toys they were playing with where the wind up kind.  That buzzing sound they make when the toys are walking around is very annoying.  Props to the kids for being quite and playing with their toys.  Thumbs down to the parents giving them annoying toys to play with during dinner.</p> <p>Drinks:  Appeared to have a normal stocked bar.  Drink menu had some specialty martini's and such.  I was in the mood for a manhattan with Makers Mark.  They put a LOT of MM in there.  So much that I had to spend the entire meal nursing it down so I didn't pass out.  Whew.  Should have ordered my usual Tanqueray and Tonic.  Oh well.  That one was on me.  Bridget got some wine <yawn>.</p> <p>Food: Food was very good, but not outstanding.  We had some fried mozzarella wedges for an appetizer.  Nicely fried and breaded, but the mozzarella could have been a bit fresher (I think).  I've had better mozzarella apps before, and I think the difference is due to making your own or using the pre-prepared ones.  I had a parmesan encrusted new york strip with garlic mashed potatoes, which came with a salad.  The salad was mediocre at best.  Tasted like a bag salad from the grocery store, topped with ranch dressing from a tub.  The steak was outstanding though.  Cooked to a very nice medium rare.  The parmesan encrustation was a parm butter sauce or something like that on top.  It was spectacular.  Really, really good.  The garlic mashed potatoes were good as well.  Not quite garlic-y enough for me.  Bridget got crab stuffed shrimp, which appeared to be shrimp with crab cake in it.  Very good.  Would have been outstanding had they used bigger shrimp. <br />Overall, the entrees were very good, but the lack of effort on the salad was really disappointing.</p> <p>Price:  Nothing wrong with the price, $25 for the steak seemed reasonable.  </p> <p>Will we go again?  Yes, there were several other steak entrees that looked really good.  The steak I had was good enough to keep my interest high on the other ones. <br />Is it a place when friends come in town and we say we have to go there?  I would say no.  Not quite enough to set it apart from other chain Italian restaurants like Carraba's. </p> Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-3626892638108254192009-03-20T08:14:00.000-07:002009-03-20T11:03:56.058-07:00Taco John's, I am back!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.tacojohns.com/images/food/food-main.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 119px;" src="http://www.tacojohns.com/images/food/food-main.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>It was a wonderful day yesterday. I finally made it back to <a href="http://wwww.tacojohns.com/">Taco Johns</a>! Bridget and I went out to run some errands at Costco and Target and I convinced her to make a stop at TJ's. I picked up 3 Tacos and a small potato ole's with cheese. MMMMM, the taste is the same as I remember.<br /><br />I previously lived in Ottumwa, IA, where there were several TJ's. I lived there during my middle school and early high school years, and we would frequent the TJ's quite often. Being guys in the early 90s, spending the night at a buddies' house would consist of running by the video store to rent a couple Nintendo or Super Nintendo games (hopefully Street Fighter 2), grabbing some 2 liters of Mountain Dew, and stopping by for a couple "6 pack and a pound" sacks of heaven. Nothing like it.<br /><br />Of course, having lived in St Louis for 6 years, many people will tout the awesomeness of White Castles. While a case of Whitey's after the bar is nice, I would like to match it up with some TJ's. Since I was younger during my previous TJ encounters, I am anxious to see how they do after a good night of drinking.<br /><br />Sounds like a challenge.Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2401315651543737580.post-66693327156536122602009-03-19T08:14:00.000-07:002009-03-19T08:16:56.604-07:00First PostMy wife and I recently moved to Omaha due to a business relocation. She is originally from Omaha, but I am new to the scene. This blog will catalog some of our restaurant choices, events, and other happenings. I also will take time to talk about other things that will pop up in my mind, like business, politics, etc, so it should be fun.Zachhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104799557876191473noreply@blogger.com0