Swine Flu

I'm definitely not a medical student so I'm going to need some help on this. Is the only reason swine flu is so bad because we don't have a vaccine for it? If that's the case, do people who normally don't get the flu shot every year have anything more to worry about? 

Reality Sets In

As I was perusing business news online I happened across this article on the Wall Street Journal's website: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027087650836931.html

After reading something like that I guess we can really begin to see what the government actually intended to have happen with their "helping" of the banking sector. They weren't acting as benevolent saviors in a time of crisis.  Rather, Geithner and the rest of the Obama administration sought to wrest control away from the shareholders and the private sector in general with seemingly little intention of giving said control back. The idea that the "health of individual banks won't be the sole criterion for whether financial firms will be allowed to repay bailout funds" also snubs the American tax payers who were forced to provide the funds. For all the rhetoric assuring everyone that this money would be repaid, the government seems to loathe the possibility of actually get any of it back. 

Housing Rescue Plan

The housing rescue plan put forward by the Obama administration confuses me to no end. A recent article published in USA Today tried to highlight some of the areas to be addressed by the plans. Their analysis, however, was vague at best though through little fault of their own. The administration is also being decidedly vague on any particular parts of the plan. Sure, they lay out basics to help some 9 million homeowners who are deemed to be in trouble. They even plan to throw $75 billion directly at the problem and almost $200 billion more toward Fannie and Freddie. How these plans will ultimately play out, however, is not addressed (let alone how they will eventually be paid for). Besides the issue of whether or not it's too little too late I'm concerned with just how fair a plan like this can possibly be. It doesn't address anyone who followed sensible rules and decided to avoid living so far beyond their means. Instead, people who took on too much debt probably thinking it would somehow magically go away are getting that wish fulfilled. Too much debt was a big part of the problem leading up to this economic meltdown, and now it seems we're OK with handing out "get out of jail free" cards to anyone who made irresponsible choices. This package may help a few people out in the short term, but it will keep mortgage rates too low and the cycles of shouldering too much debt will be allowed to continue.   

Super Bowl Ads

Just finished watching the Super Bowl. While I really didn't care who won it turned out to be a pretty decent game. Unfortunately, the business-minded part of me was disappointed in the ads. I'm almost not looking forward to my marketing class tomorrow because it will mean revisiting these 30 second slices of mediocrity. The vast majority of them were uninspired and did not make me want to put money into whatever product or service they happened to be peddling. My favorite ad was actually the one second Miller High Life commercial. They only aired one out of the series they had done, but it was still really effective. 

I thought the ad mix was interesting in that it really reflected the difficult economic time we're currently going through. Beer ads were prevalent as usually, but so were a lot of commercials for services to help bolster a resume or burnish your image. The ranks of escapist ads were also bolstered by several movie trailers, Priceline.com spots, and other vacation ideas. Durable goods commercials were non-existent, the only cars being advertised were foreign makes, and GE is left banking on their ability to get big infrastructure projects. 

December 29th

People, in my expert opinion, are dumb.

By spending my night in the airport on very little sleep I got to witness a striking array of odd behaviors. 

First and foremost being the lady from the Philippines who was incessantly taping and carting around boxes to be shipped back to her home country. Every five minutes I'd hear the jarring sound of tape being pulled from the roll. Then I would get to watch as she carted the boxes out of the little maze of chairs to some some area she deemed worthy of having her packages. This process was repeated for an unknown number of times as some boxes had to be re-taped and were continually brought back to her seat in the waiting area. 

Imagine it's now about 4am and the airport is just starting to wake up again. My friend and I get back into line with our bags to finally check them through to Lima. Ahead of me in line at the security checkpoint is a girl who would be cute except for the fact that she is extremely tan, too tan really to be seen in public (think almost orange). She goes through the checkpoint as a normal person would, I follow and am waiting for my backpack to come through the x-ray thing when she begins to freak out. Apparently she left her purse on the opposite side of the security point and thought she'd never be able to get it back again. Almost to hysterics she wails "My purse! My purse! Now what do I do! I need my purse!" in the general direction of her mother. The mother, quite fed up and rather embarassed, states what's on the mind of everyone within earshot, "Stop being a moron and ask them to get it! Good Lord!" Needless to say I started chuckling at both of them.

Hungry from, you know, not doing anything for the last eight hours but trying to sleep on uncomfortable benches we decide sustinance is in order. Too early for the American airport favorite: a slice of Sbarro pizza, we head instead to Dunkin Donuts. Delicious, and not as expensive as I would have thought. Sitting at one of the food court tables, we have a prime vantage point of everything that passes through the area. In yet another interesting turn of events we get to see a lady spill a medium orange juice all over the floor. This in it of itself isn't that great, but the response from the Dunkin Donuts people was. They chose not to use a rag or paper towel to clean the spill, no, they used the garbage can itself. They pushed the nearest garbage can over the spilled juice in a feeble effort to hide the mess. About half an hour later a guy finally comes to completely clean the mess. We begin to plot more messes to see how the Dunkin Donuts people would react.

12-1pm Flight delayed for an hour. Look for some Sbarro and a USA Today. No luck. Settle on BK Lounge and hope that our flight comes up soon so that we don't miss our connection to Lima. 

3:45pm Arrive in Miami with just minutes to switch planes. I'm stuck next to some quite guy who's allergic to various parfumes so he sniffles a lot throughout the flight. In-flight movies: Journey to the Center of the Earth. This mangled mess of moving pictures tries to pass itself off as a movie. Spastic acting prevails throughout the film, the dialogue is simply awful, and I find myself feeling sad and achy after seeing it. Next up: Wall-E. Absolutely loved this film. Start to finish I thought it was great (minus a very few slower parts I didn't care about on the colony ship thingy). The level of storytelling that Pixar was able to accomplish was stunning. Definitely has my vote for one of the best films of the year. 

11pm Finally check into hostel. No one else seems to be here. Fun. Now to get some real sleep for a change. Aurevoir. 

Peru Journey Dec. 27th

So begins my journey to South America. 

Unfortunately, I had to leave a family Christmas party early to catch the bus to Chicago from Madison. All this because neither my parents nor my friend's parents were willing to drive us to O'Hare for our 6:00am flight. Kind of understandable in retrospect. This course of action, however, did leave us with almost eight hours to kill in the airport. 

Had we been able to get our bags checked and get on to the concourse things probably wouldn't have been so bad, but we were told we couldn't check any bags until 4am the next morning. Not looking forward to spending the night in the boring part of the airport we tried to make conversation with the staff at the American Airlines desk. They recommended we head downtown to the bars, but we didn't really have any place to leave our bags. One good thing did come out of the conversation in that we were able to switch our randomly assigned seats out for aisle seats in exit rows to ensure enough leg room. Apparently the airline staff is much more accommodating when they're about to close up for the night and feel sorry for a couple of college guys stuck in the airport overnight. 

Boarding passes taken care of we set off wandering the airport to try to find something to do to pass the time. We end up wandering over to the airport Hilton and sitting in their sports bar for a drink. A drink that would cost me $8, or rather enough money to live a day in Peru. Sad. 

Beer finished, passport copies made, and boredom setting in we return to the terminal and grab some seats in the handicapped area and try to grab at least a nap before our flight.

Under Peruvian Skies

For the last two weeks I have been backpacking around the central and southern highlands of Peru with a friend from school. I just got back to Wisconsin and -33 degree weather yesterday. Now I'm finally going to be getting around posting journal entries and maybe some pics from the trip. 

Hopefully, I'll be able to get this all done before the spring semester starts in a few days.