Blood on the screen

About 5 years ago, it was a common situation to have blood on your screen. This was 2002 and we were in the middle of one of the worst sell-offs in modern stock market history. Every day was more miserable than the last and life sucked on Wall Street. On our quote screens at work, a stock that is up for the day is shown in green and a stock that is down is shown in red. Thus on really bad days, the screen was literally full of red...blood on the screen. Luckily for me and for investors around the world, these types of days have been rare since October 2002.

Today was a very bad flashback to those depressing days of 2001 and 2002. We were down 415 points on the Dow. I almost shit myself around 3pm when the market tanked 125 points in about 30 seconds. Something like that really scares the hell out of you, even if you are a professional who watches the markets all day. Even when it is a technical glitch like this one ended up being, it really can freak you out.

We just got our asses taken out behind the woodshed today folks...pure and simple. Sometimes its best to not ask questions, take your medicine and move on to the next day...

How fast they grow

Zach came home from the hospital at just over 6 pounds and he is already somewhere between 9 and 10. When everyone told me to take lots of pictures, they sure were right. The little dude's newborn clothes aren't gonna fit soon and the 0-3 month ones are next on deck. Unbelievable!

Payback time

As payback for locking up Onyx, I am convinced that Zach decided to be a real pain in the ass last night and keep both Cheryl and I up all night with his rather poor attitude. Somehow Onyx and Zach must have decided on payback for my actions of last night (see "I am sick" below if you haven't read it yet)...it is a conspiracy!

But it gets better.... At approx. 6:15 am, Onyx started her morning routine (about an hour earlier than normal) by sitting outside our bedroom door meowing and demanding to be fed. I put her in the garage. When I got up at 7:30 and finally fed her, she proceeded to vomit all the food back up on the floor in front of me. Coincidence? I think not. The moral of today's story is that the kitty rules the house and don't piss her off.

I am sick

I just decided to throw Onyx and Lucy together into Lucy's cage for a few minutes. Considering the cage is only about 3 feet by 2 feet and they don't like each other, this is really fun!

Enough! Please!

I know I mentioned this recently, but I am SO sick of hearing about Anna Nicole Smith. All this crap is going down less than an hour from the Margarita Lounge and I could vomit every time the media wastes MORE time on it. To use the term "circus" is really the biggest understatement of the year.

On another note, all three residents of the Lounge are doing great. Zach is behaving himself for the most part and is six weeks old on Saturday. He has already gained a few pounds and has a new nickname...Meatball.

More pictures of Zach

Here is a link for any of you who want to see more pictures of the Z man:

zachpollock.shutterfly.com

Some perspective on Iraq

I was slacking at work yesterday afternoon and decided I would do a little research on the Iraq war as well as other wars/conflicts since World War 2. As things stand now, we have been in Iraq for about 4 years and the total death toll is about 3100 US troops. Before I go any further, I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea here. I am NOT trying to trivialize the deaths of US soldiers in any way and I am NOT trying to be offensive or indicate that lives are not important. I just wanted everyone to know the actual facts and numbers that we are talking about in Iraq.

Here is the LINK where I got the numbers. The summary looks like this:

World War II (5 years) 405,000 total deaths
Korea(3 years) 54,000 total deaths
Vietnam(11 years) 90,000 total deaths
Iraq(4 years) 3,100 total deaths

So..the next time you hear someone out there say how bad Iraq is and how many Americans are dying, remember these numbers. I think these numbers show how good a job the military does in protecting lives. World War 2 averaged 81,000 deaths per year and Iraq averages 775. Deaths in wars are inevitable and nobody likes wars, but to label Iraq "unprecedented" or "the worst war ever" or any of the other crap I keep hearing in the media is just wrong. End of sermon.

Random Thoughts

I know that I have been a slacker the last few weeks with hardly any posts...my apologies. With Zach now in the house I just don't seem to have the huge amounts of free time I used to. A few observations from the last week:

1) Anna Nicole Smith threw a 7 at the craps table. I did not steal that from you Mr. Hickman...it's a long standing documented Catfisherman comment. I keep hearing about Anna every single time I turn on the TV, but I really could care less about it. Now that I think about it, nobody I know seems to give a shit about it, but it's still out there on every station. Hmmm...

2) The big deal with North Korea seems to be getting no attention on the news, which is rather surprising. I guess snowstorms, Barack Obama and Anna Nicole Smith are more important than a landmark nuclear deal with a dangerous and oppressive dictatorial regime. Sure, the North Koreans could ignore the deal like they did in the 90s, but we should at least give it some news coverage.

3) After last week's episode of LOST, it looked like some of the big mysteries of the island were going to be solved. Last nights episode completely destroyed that and threw the entire world into a state of chaos again. Can any of my LOST co-conspirators explain to me what the HELL was happening in that episode last night??!!??

4) What happened to you K-Daddy? No calls... no emails...no love for your old Florida pals? Drop me a line cause I know something's going on up there in Picksburgh....

Jeremiah Johnson

Last night I was watching Zach for a few hours while Cheryl was getting some sleep. I decided that I had seen "Waterworld" enough times and the College Basketball on ESPN was pretty boring. Enter "Jeremiah Johnson". Since it was playing in the 10:30-1:00 am time slot, I figured I would broaden my horizons and check it out. Has anyone seen this rather "interesting" movie? Although it wasn't very good, it was like driving past a car wreck....I just couldn't look away.

It was made in 1972 and starred Robert Redford. Old Bob Redford was a guy who moved out west to be a mountain man and the movie was all about his experiences in the Rockies. About 75% of the movie had no dialogue whatsoever...it was Robert Redford wandering the mountains fighting and killing indians. He ended up getting married to an indian woman who spoke no English, so the small amounts of dialogue was all subtitled. It was also interspersed with music that was considered "creepy" at the time but is rather cheesy 35 years later. I guess the best way to describe it was a cross between "Planet of the Apes" and the movie "Lost" starring Tom Hanks. Maybe it would be better under frotification...

Happy Birthday Bear!!

Today is Hannah Bear's birthday. You can't deny it - this pup certainly has one sexy mug :)

Happy Birthday Hannah from all of us at the Margarita Lounge!!

Super Bowl Sunday

Super Bowl Sunday in South Florida and it's looking like a cloudy, rather crappy day. I know the NFL loves to have the Super Bowl in warm weather cities (or domes) due to the chance of nice weather, but today it doesn't look like it's gonna work out. Since we are about 45 minutes from the stadium, things aren't real crazy around here. But then again I live in "god's waiting room" where the average age is about 100. Down in Ft. Lauderdale and Miami I am sure the festivities are already underway and people are gettin' lit up.

As for the game, I am unsure about any bold predictions. If the good Bears team shows up it should be a close game. But if the bad team shows up (the one that the Dolphins crushed 31-13), it's gonna be an Indy ass-kickin. I think Peyton is going to have a good game and get the monkey off his back...I'll take Indy by 10 points.

Guess who doesn't like wine?

This is quite an odd thing to happen around the Margarita Lounge...everyone likes wine here, right? Not quite. It seems as though Zach doesn't. Now, before you go accusing me of going off the deep end and being a terrible parent, relax...we didn't feed Zach any wine directly. Cheryl and I went out to dinner last Saturday Night (see "Mr. White Sweater" entry below). Cheryl had a glass of wine at dinner and Zach was up all night screaming after we got back and she fed him. We weren't sure if it was the food or the wine at the time. Yesterday was Cheryl's birthday, so she had another glass of wine. The exact same thing happened last night....he was up all night crying. Maybe I'll have her try beer or mixed drinks...he's bound to like something, right?