Sunday's Column - Sinatra

This Sunday's column was devoted to my visit to Sinatra's house in Palm Springs, which I've already covered here.  On the way back from the desert I called into a bookshop, and with the token my daughter had given me for Christmas I bought a biography of Ava Gardner.  She had been the most influential woman in Sinatra's life, and I really didn't know that much about her.

It is hard not imagine her swimming starkers (which she did a lot) in the pool Sinatra had built in the shape of a grand piano.  Having read her life I can quite understand the perils of falling for a woman like her, and poor "old blue eyes" certainly paid the price.  It's said he never quite overcame his addiction.

Sinatra loved the desert and there are still plenty of people in the area who remember him and some of his wild ways.  He used to leave $20 bills under the table at one restaurant he liked to visit, for the cleaning staff to collect in the mornings.  He would also buy rounds for the entire establishment if he was in the mood.  But woe betide anyone approaching the great man when he wasn't in the mood; and particularly if you were a member of the press.  He could be most unpleasant.

Music Track - Lil Darlin

We thought we were really cool back in 1957, but listening to this I wonder just how cool we could possibly have been.  This was sent to me by my friend, Kevin, and the interesting part of it is that it's two performances separated by 47 years. http://www.flixxy.com/the-diamonds-little-darlin-1957-2004.htm

One wonders if they hadn't got sick of the song after such a time!  I quite like the "tails" in the later piece - probably as old as he is.

Japan

As many of you know, my eldest son lives in Japan with his wife Eiko, and dog Jassie.  I'm pleased to report that although he was on the 25th floor in his office when the quake struck, and Eiko and Jassie were on the 26th floor in their condo in Yokohama they were all OK.  Michael said it was a life changing experience, not the least due to the duration of the earthquake but also the intensity.  Communications were difficult to begin with but emails got through.  Trains and elevators stopped; people were walking home on freeways.

I have seen some of the engineering that goes into modern buildings and often wondered if it truly worked.  Michael confirms that as this was the worst earthquake in Japan's history it certainly does.  There was no damage to their home.  Also Milestone, the catamaran that we are due to sail in a month, is OK.

In a little tribute to Tokyo THE BIG PICTURE this week is one of Tokyoites going about in their normal lives.

Staples

I had occasion to staple a couple of pieces of paper together the other day.  I don't do this very often as I try and keep paper to a minimum.  However as is usually the case, the stapling machine I have was out of staples.  This always seems to be the case - a bit like policemen when you really need them.

This sent me to my modest stationery shelf in order to fill the thing up.  Now, when we dissolved our business down the hill there were a few items that we divided up and I seemed to have inherited the staples - seven boxes of them.  I checked and found that each box contains 5,000.  Now that's a lot considering that I only use at most about ten a year.  So it seems that I have enough to last me the rest of my life provided that is 3,500 years.  Methuselah  better look out!

Derivatives

I had German Measles when I was about 14.  As such I had to take a few days off.  It so happened that at that time Mr. Curwin, our Math teacher did the lesson on "financial instruments."  When I came back I had absolutely no idea what anyone was talking about, and so I've always steered away from the subject.  For any of you who have a similar problem here is an explanation on the truth of derivatives that even I can understand.  It's worth reading through, and I'm grateful to my friend in England for sending it to me.

Congress decided that it's not fair that loans are not available to bars and taverns in poor areas whose customers are predominately unemployed alcoholics. They sent out an order that if banks do not raise their lending in these areas by 300%, they would face punitive sanctions. Therefore one day in Detoit a clever young thing noticed Heidi's bar and approached her with a suggestion.

They both realized that virtually all of Heidi's customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, they come up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers' loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into her bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

By now the clever young thing has become a young and dynamic vice-president of the bank and realises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral!!!

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINK BONDS.

These "securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINK BOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities.

They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and lose over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

Now do you understand? I think I finally do!

The Auger

People who don't live above the snow line no doubt are unaware of "The Auger."  It's a wonderful thing.  The problem with snow is that it has to go somewhere and the ploughs that come through naturally push it to the side of the road; both sides in fact.  The result is that the roads here become smaller and smaller with occasionally only enough room for one car at a time.



Big Auger


 Little kids years ago used to rush out and watch certain vehicles passing, and I have to say when the Big Auger comes through it is quite a sight to see it widening the road.  Of course this huge machine is just a bigger version of the one many of us use to clear our driveways.  Here is mine.

Little Auger

They work on the same principal, with a huge swirling corkscrew that breaks up the snow and then pushes it to the back where another blade swirls it upwards through the chute - all clever stuff.

The driver of the Big Auger is a grim looking fellow as he has to concentrate on his target.  He has a control however that directs the flow away from our driveways for which we're all very grateful.

Once the Auger appears, along with the clocks going forward, it's a harbinger of the arrival of spring -  hooray!

Peace Through Superior Firepower

This slogan drives peaceniks crazy, but it has often been demonstrated to be true.  After all, no-one would have dreamed of attacking the Roman Empire at the height of its power.  It was only after they had overstretched themselves and overtaxed their population that the Huns and the Goths began to chip away and eventually take down the capital. 

A friend kindly sent this video to me; it lasts just over eight minutes but is a fascinating explanation of how some intrepid explorers managed one of the greatest journeys in the history of mankind without loss of life.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/451309/thread/1296928404/This+is+just+to+cool+not+to+spread+around

Sunday's Column - Dates

Sunday's column was about the date business in Palm Springs.  Dates are difficult little devils to grow and need constant attention.  It's hard to understand why Mr. and Mrs. Shields left their Iowa home in 1924 to come all the way out here to grow them.

Dates can take from five to 20 years to grow and they have to have the fruit fertilized by hand.  They also have to be permanently moist deep down in the roots, and have all the growing fruit covered with bags in high summer, which in Palm Springs can be very high indeed.

But the Shields' prospered and became successful.  People will travel miles to sample one of their "date shakes,"  I didn't on my visit, although at 10:00 a.m. there were lots of people milling around in the gardens and outdoor cafe, where breakfast was being served under the spreading palm trees.

Palm Springs is at its best at this time of the year and for people up above the snow line it's only two hours away; not a long drive for a 50 degree improvement in temperature.

Of course in the summer it's the other way around to get away from the scorching heat that is the desert.  But for now, enjoy the wonderful climate change and perhaps a box of dates from Shields visitor center.

Music Track - Thomas Tallis

This is a piece of music that was fist composed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth - the first, and not the current one, the second.  That makes its year of composition around 1567.  This version was written in 1909 by Ralph Vaughan Williams who died in 1958.  It is perhaps the ultimate English music and it sounds like it too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-kWBOvfwdg  It takes about ten minutes.
I notice on the U Tube site that 138 people liked this and 3 didn't.  If you fall into the latter category, then  you no doubt will enjoy the video, which again is pure England.
An afterthought is that many years ago I read somewhere that this was considered the ultimate seduction music; no doubt after some oysters and a chilled bottle of good champagne in front of an open fire.  I never tried it!
I found the original Tallis version as well; it lasts about 2 minutes, and is as it must have sounded back all those years ago, it is sung by a choir alone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpVE8mGSpMk  I think Vaughan Williams did a wonderful job of his arrangement.  See what you think.

Harleys

A friend suggested the other day that I write a post on why Harley riders are all equal.  I'm not so sure about that, but I think in a wider context all motorcyclists share many of the same feelings about their activity.  Perhaps unlike driving, there is an underlying fact that riding a motorcycle is fundamentally dangerous.



It's this danger that I think puts off a lot of people but there are enough out there to make riding around on two wheels a very popular activity.  Of course, the danger can be diminished by training and keeping yourself fit and aware.  There is no doubt that riding a motorcycle makes you a better car driver as you see the road in a different way.  Also motorcycles have some advantages over their metal boxed companions; they are smaller and take up less room; they are quicker, and they can stop faster.  Nonetheless to fall off a bike in traffic is going to be a very unpleasant event.

Harnessing this danger will provide the rider with a different feeling towards travel and even a short uninteresting journey will be more exciting than in a car where you are insulated from the environment, and to some extent its dangers.

So even though Harley riders are in no way created equal, they have two things they all share: The love of riding, and also the love of a particular marque.

Fir Trees

On our usual morning walk the other day we passed by a small front yard where the boys like to stop and pick up their p-mail.  Standing there I happened to notice that there were three very different types of fir trees standing next to each other in the yard.  I was also sorry to note that I couldn't give them a name, although I've lived in this alpine setting for twelve years and been coming up her for almost 30.

This lack of knowledge made me realize that most plant and tree names I learned when I was very young - it seems that adults felt it necessary to impart this type of information to all young people back them.  I wonder if they still do it?

Of course, moving to a different country in a very different climate, much of what I knew is somewhat outdated now as most of the flora is totally foreign.  But I do think I have to make the effort and find out the names of our different trees.  So a visit to the local Discovery Center is in my future. 

It's just on the other side of the lake and is a mine of information about all local nature.  In fact it might just be time for me to do another article on the place, as it's quite a feature of Big Bear.

If you go to www.sbsun.com/trevorstreasures you can see ten videologues I did about three years ago of my favorite places in the Inland Empire, the Discovery Center is featured on the last of these.

NEW FEATURE

I have been asked to put a posting on the blog on a regular basis.  It is now at the bottom section above The Big Picture.  It will be changed every week.

It is called The Right Track and it will be a view of things here in the US, and also in the world from a personal point of view.

The title of the post says much about its content.  Basically it's a view from the right hand side of the political and societal spectrum, and may annoy or upset my left wing friends - Yes, I have a few!

If you agree or disagree and want to add your voice, please email me at trevorsummons@hotmail.com and I'll try and post comments that are of interest.

Hats

I quite like hats but I don't wear them, unless the weather is really bad.  I like hats on women too, but I notice that few wear them.  Perhaps they have the same reaction to them as I do, namely that they make your head scratchy.

Now these are panama hats and I've never worn one of them.  Mostly really old men used to wear them when I was young.  As a really old man today, perhaps I should consider getting one.  But then it would end up in the closet along with the cowboy hat I seem to have collected somewhere.  Of course, I have the ubiquitous baseball hat(s) kicking around, and my favorite, which was a black one with the Harley logo, I lost last year while sailing with Michael in Japan.  I still miss it.

I notice too that some of the glitterati like to wear, what we in England used to call flat hats or cheese cutters.  They were always the province of the working class or the upper class who wore them while shooting.  I've got one sculling aorund but I wouldn't dare wear it.  I used to wear a gray bowler a long time ago, but eventually I felt stupid and stopped.  It was a good trademark for a while though.

It's worth noting that baseball hats seem to need instructions on how to wear them. Young men in particular feel it necessary to put them on incorrectly; let's all repeat "The Peak Goes in the Front!" I think we've run the gamut of trying it to the side and the back and various places in between. It's over, let's get back to normal!

Rummy

I heard Donald Rumsfeld interviewed the other day; he's out there hawking his book around and having to put up with some quite impertinent questions from young liberal interviewers.  No matter how you feel about him, he's tried, I'm sure, to do the best he can for his country as he's been in the public arena since 1962.

I probably won't read his book, but I did find one of his remarks of interest.  He said that soon after he went into the State Department he was told by an older man to remember one thing: "At any one time, two thirds of the world is up to no good!"

I'm sure with such a view of the world, and my experience tells me it is right, you are bound to have a certain attitude towards it.

One other of the many memorable quotes Rummy has made is: "It's easier to get into something than get out of it!" How true.