Poker game at the house last Friday night. 8 guys. Not bad for two hours notice.
I’ve yet to win any money at my own game. Jeff once again took the pot. An impressive defeat over Luke who appeared to be chip leader the entire game.
Players: Hessle, Joe, Jesus, Jeff, Luke, Phil, Matt, and me.
We moved into our ‘new’ house last weekend. I found this guy in the master closet. Sadly, I ripped off his tail in an effort to get him in my hand for a photo. I hope it grows back.
I watch too many movies. Here’s a list of some of the movies I have seen in the last year….
1. The Three Musketeers 2011 / I saw this movie in 1993. This version was technologically more sophisticated, so for that, it’s worth watching over the 1993 version.
2. Drive / I thought I was watching a movie from the early 90s. I think the theme was intentional. I actually enjoyed this movie. For me it’s primarily the soundtrack. This one pulled it off well. It’s pretty violent.
3. Columbiana / I’ve seen this movie already. It was called Hanna. Even so, these Bourne’esque movies (female versions) are still pretty awesome. Hanna was better, but this was worth watching.
4. The Departed / I chose this from an IMDB top 250 list. It was within the top 50 so I figured I had a good chance. It didn’t quite cut it. I didn’t finish it. Boring.
5. The Ledge / Interesting plot. Scary portrait of Christendom, but probably pretty accurate for a certain segment. Even so, I enjoyed the movie.
6. The Change Up / A few funny scenes. Hardly memorable. Probably not worth watching.
7. Everything Must Go / I love Will Farrell. Old School was one of the finest movies ever made. I love The Elf. I continue to give Farrell a chance and he continues to disappoint. I didn’t finish this movie. Boring.
8. Set up / Bruce Willis. Cookie cutter plot. I used to love Willis’ movies. They’ve gone downhill for a while. There’s no reason to watch this movie.
9. The Conspirator / Interesting. A movie that revolves around the death of Lincoln. Lincoln was a wicked man. This happened to be a good movie. Not very memorable, but it was worth watching. The history of the US is as ugly as the present situation.
10. The Veteran / This plot has been done hundreds of times. Criminal released from prison is asked to do a job. The plot revolves around the job. Boring.
11. Crazy Stupid Love / I love Steve Carell. That love was mostly limited to The Office. Carell has never really impressed me in movies, outside of Little Miss Sunshine. This movie was not worth watching.
12. Bridesmaids / A whole lot of awkward. A few funny scenes. A couple people I like in this movie: Maya Rudolph (SNL), and Melissa McCarthy are pretty funny. Probably not worth watching.
13. Heshser / This was a really odd movie. Entertaining a little, but mostly too strange. I wouldn’t recommend the movie.
14. The Road / The future. The world is dying. Fight for survival. Scary. Interesting. I suppose it’s worth watching.
15. Apaloosa / Cowboy movie. I always enjoy these. This was no exception. Good actors, good plot. This was a great movie and I enjoyed it a lot.
16. Miral / Israel. Palestinians. This was an excellent movie. Excellent. Sub-titled. A good piece of historical insight. It’s not popular to be pro-Palestine. This movie is definitely worth watching.
17. Ironclad / It looked so promising. The cinematography. The soundtrack. A lot of money does not buy awesome. This movie was just lacking. The plot was weak – so no amount of money is going to make this worth watching.
18. Hot Tub Time Machine / A little funny. Going back in time through a hot tub. That’s pretty unique. Unique in itself was not enough. I wouldn’t recommend it.
19. Wrecked / Horrible. I thought for sure it would get better. The movie strung me along in hope that it would take a turn for the better. It doesn’t. The movie was a major disappointment.
20. The Back Up Plan / Jennifer Lopez. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Horrible, Horrible movie.
21. Fast Five 2011 / These have always been entertaining. This was no exception. Vin Diesel versus the Rock. Oh yea. I love both of these guys. This movie cost $125 million to produce. Pretty impressive. I enjoyed it.
22. Xmen First Class / Sick special effects. $160 million to produce. The plot was hardly memorable. But the money spent on special effects certainly made this entertaining. Sadly, that in itself doesn’t make a good movie.
23. Conviction / Hilary Swank is such a good actress. This movie didn’t have the budget of the last two movies at a mere $12 million, but it compensates in a good plot and some stellar performance. This movie is worth watching.
24. Paul / Very unusual. Awesome. I loved this movie. It was absolutely hilarious. Sophisticated script and super entertaining. Very funny. Highly recommended.
25. 5 Days of War / Awesome movie. Superb. Movies with an anchor in significant historical events interest me. This one revolved around the conflict between Russian and Georgia. This movie paints a picture the news media didn’t. It reminds me of Miral and the pro-Israelii picture the media presents. Highly recommended movie.
26. Water for Elephants / ok. The movie was entertaining. It had its moments. I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’d recommend it.
27. IP Man 2 / Chinese movie. Excellent. The fight scenes were incredible. This was a great movie if you’re into kung fu.
28. Faster / Vin Diesel. Revenge. A good plot. The acting is a bit lacking, but overall the movie was a bit entertaining.
Yun and I took a trip to Abe’s house in Guaymas last weekend along with her parents. We drove down after work on Friday, departing around 6pm. We arrived around 12.30am. It seems like we used to get there a lot quicker, but there is now a long line to leave the country. Probably not a good sign when people are lining up to get out. Also not a good sign when one gets interrogated when they try to depart. I’ve often wondered what happens if we don’t answer the questions correctly.
Despite the madness at the border – it’s really nice to get away.
The entire weekend was spent mostly sleeping and reading. Excessive quantities of both, which was truly therapeutic. We only left the house once to spend some time in Empalme, a little pueblo on the sea south of Guaymas.
The beach is probably the best this time of year. No seaweed, lower tides, and reasonably warm water (mid 80s). Earlier in the year the water temperature is in the 90s, which isn’t as refreshing when it is 110+ with humidity. Also, the beach is mostly empty, except for part of Sunday.
There was plenty of great food for consumption. Yun made a roast Saturday night and we had fresh jumbo shrimp for lunch. Seafood is so ridiculously cheap – particularly in Empalme. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of shrimp or scallops runs a little less than $10.
We’re hoping to return soon. We talked about a week touring around Sonora in December for an easy getaway. Abe’s neighbor in Guaymas owns hundreds of hectares (2.5 acres to a hectare) that he raises cattle to sell for the beef. Seemingly low overhead. He told me he pays as little as $50 a hectare. That might be a lucrative business some day.
I asked Tavo this last week if he would be willing to build me a home in Mexico. He said he would be happy to do that. Five additional workers would cost less than what I pay Tavo daily. So with 5-6 guys working on a house, I could probably have it done in less than six months.
If we take a trip through Sonora in December, I’d like to look to possibly buy land in Magdalena, Imuris, Guaymas, or possibly Empalme.
Yun and I were given tickets to a baseball game tonight. Not normally our thing, but it was actually a lot of fun.
We spent last weekend in Guaymas on the beach. It was very relaxing and perhaps I’ll put up pictures of that later. I spent most of my time sleeping and reading. I nearly completed Weatherford’s The History of Money and Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation and was able complete Menger’s The Origins of Money. It’s rare that I have the opportunity to nearly finish three books in one long weekend – but that’s the magic of Mexico.
Menger’s book was mostly a disappointment. I was hoping for something more historical. In contrast, Weatherford’s history of money is fascinating and detailed (Weatherford is an anthropologist, not an economist and so offers an interesting angle) and provides a pretty concise historical development from the origin of money to the current age and into the future.
Menger offers more of an explanation as to why money developed as a medium of exchange devoid from the historical context in which that took place. This makes a much less interesting story and really, it doesn’t require much of an explanation to understand the why money plays this role and why that would have occurred in history.
Menger’s book was actually not on my list of 11 books below. I picked it to take a break from the other two. However, it’s on the same subject and so I’m still considering myself on track (it’s just 12 books now).
This was the first of eleven. It was a quick read at 103 pages. Rothbard gave a good summary of the historical events that led up to 1913. A lot of depth. A lot of details.
A few things I took from the book or need to explore further:
– Gold exchange standard (versus a gold standard)
– US monetary take-over of Puerto Rico and the Philippines
– The attempted monetary take-over of Cuba
– The significance of the Mexican silver coin (used all over the world)
– 1910 Mexican Revolution, did the US currency manipulation play a role?
– The Aldrich Plan
Anyone familiar with my reading habits is acquainted with the fact that I am all over the place when it comes to the subjects I choose. I find it all interesting – but the lack of a narrowed focus comes at the cost of never really mastering any particular subject.
I have found that five good books on one subject leads to a pretty comfortable grasp of an issue. The problem is that I have never (that I can recall) read those five books sequentially. I’m easily distracted.
So I’ve formulated a reading plan and a goal to see if I can stay on topic for once by reading a group of books all related to one subject. Perhaps if I can do it once I can keep doing it?
Below are the next eleven books I would like to read. I am interested in the origins and policies of the Federal Reserve, so I thought that would be a fun place to start (and these eleven books constitute about half of the books I have on the Fed). I anticipate this list taking roughly three months to complete.
1. The Creature from Jekyll Island by Griffin (it’s a large volume, but I’ve been eager to read this for years)
2. The History of Money by Weatherford (also a book I’ve had for years which I’m excited about)
3. History of Money and Banking in the United States by Rothbard (one of my favorite authors)
4. Money: Sound and Unsound by Salerno
5. The Origins of the Federal Reserve by Rothbard
6. America’s Money Machine: The Story of the Federal Reserve by Gloseclose
7. Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation which is a compilation of von Mises work on the matter
8. The Case Against the Fed by Rothbard
9. The Mystery of Banking by Rothbard
10. The Secrets of the Federal Reserve by Mullins (27 five star amazon reviews!)
11. The Fourth Branch: The Federal Reserve’s Unlikely Rise to Power and Influence by Shull ($53.25 on amazon!)
We have been working strong on the house all year. I have employed Tavo 6 days a week since the beginning of January. This was no small cost, but at least the house is getting close to being finished.
The walls are done. The ceilings are done. The texture on the wall is done. The priming of the walls is done. The painting is almost done. Tavo begins laying the tile Monday. I met with him today to go over the plan. He will be done in a couple weeks.
Last weekend was a holiday weekend. We spent the entire time priming and painting the house. We went through roughly 20 gallons of oil-based primer. It was horrible. I have an excellent paint sprayer which made the process relatively fast. But my respirator could only take so much of the fumes and it wasn’t long before I was extremely dizzy and for a lack of better words, thoroughly intoxicated from the paint. The respirator was expensive, but apparently not good enough to last 10 hours. Its useless now until I replace the cartridges.
Removing oil-based paint is no small task. I was saturated in it, including my hair. After a week now, most of it is gone.
Last Saturday I met with the company that is going to built and install the kitchen. I didn’t want to use pre-fabricated units because they are notoriously poorly constructed and notoriously expensive. Instead, it was a better deal to have the cabinets custom build from solid wood (as opposed to particle board). The kitchen will take three weeks to complete.
Once the floors are done I will have Tavo install all of the internal doors. After the doors it will be on to the bathrooms. Yun and I found an impressive brand-new tub on craigslist last weekend. An $800 tub which we paid $100. I love craigslist.
The paint runs about $120 for a five gallon bucket in the stores. We bought 25 gallons of Sherwin Williams Ultra (a highly rated paint) off craigslist-phoenix for $100. We did the same for the exterior paint. That’s a $1000 savings on interior and exterior paint!
Here are some pictures of the progress:
This is the living room. We have a lowered ceiling around the walls. I don’t know what this is called, but we liked it when Tavo suggested it. It works well with the recessed lights.
This is the kitchen. We installed a nice skylight in the center which will go over the island. The kitchen is really big which is hard to appreciate in this photo. The island in the center will be six feet by 3 feet. The two lights next to the skylight are for pendant lights which are surrounded by recessed lights.
The room on the other side of the arched door is the dining room. It too is pretty large and will accommodate a big dining table.
This is the master closet. We had a small skylight installed in there to lighten the room up. It’s a good size closet. We added a vanity area on the left as you enter. Above the vanity area are two small recessed lights. I bought some LED lights for this area that are really nice.
This picture was taken while standing in the dining room while facing the office. We added a medium size skylight to this room which adds a lot of natural light. Surrounding the skylight are four recessed lights. The two outlets seen in the photo are on a protected circuit for surge protection so as to protect computers or other expensive electronics that lightening has a tendency of destroying (the monsoons are currently shaking the house as I write this).
This was taken inside the kitchen facing the opposite direction as the kitchen photo above. It faces the living room and the hallway/entrance to the master bedroom. You can’t quite tell from the photo below, but in addition to the sheet rock, we added a 3/4″ sound deadening material to all exterior walls and to the interior walls. Each room is mostly sound proof.
As you can see, there’s still an enormous amount of work left to do. However, if you have seen prior photos, you’ll note that this is an entirely different home from when we bought it. It’s really nice and we’ve put a lot of work in to it.
