Love of Money = Root of all Evil

Beckett is visiting the aquarium today, so hopefully we'll have some fun pictures up in the next day or two. But I wanted to comment on one obscene aspect of the bailout.

The full article with links is available here

NY AG Andrew Cuomo is seeking to force John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, to release the names of the Merrill executives who shared over $3.6 billion in bonuses before the merger with Bank of America. Thain is refusing, and said this about the bonuses:

"Bonuses were determined based upon the performance and the retention of people, and there is nothing that happened in the world or the economy that would make you say that those were not the right thing to do for the retention and the reward of the people who were performing," Thain said, according to the transcript.

Mr. Cuomo's office recently released information that suggests that Merrill Lynch may have moved up the bonuses in order to pass the cost on to tax payers, and claims that the bonuses were not spread evenly throughout the organization — but were structured in such a way as to enrich the top Merrill executives. Cuomo says that the top four bonus recipients received a combined $121 million, and that 696 individuals received bonuses of $1 million or more.

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So here are my quick thoughts:

1. John Thain is pure evil and Cuomo should keep trying to figure out how to throw him in jail.

2. It has been really tough to see the financial crisis hit New York, in large part because so many of our friends are in the financial industry and have been hit with layoffs. And I'm certain that most of these individuals are hard workers who played no part in the policies that have devastated the economy.

3. BUT, if you are ever in a position where your yearly bonus is a cool 30 million while Rome burns, then I assume you are in a position where you should have, at the least, had oversight over the whole company. If it falls then you get nothing. And hey, how about you not give 30 million to those guys and instead you keep 300 guys employed at $100,000 per year and fire the guy who allegedly needs to be "retained and rewarded" for losing billions.

4. Again, anyone who had any role whatsoever in the loss of all of this money should not collect any bonuses and there is no need to retain anyone. Easy sports analogy: If I lose every game I play, nobody gets rewarded, and nobody is good enough that they need to be given a bonus to be retained. Just ask the Detroit Lions. Their core is so awful that, assuming they could get back 3 or 4 quality players and/or picks, I would assume not even Calvin Johnson is untouchable.

5. Finally, although I feel for those departments that actually made money this year, if your company would no longer exist without the largesse of the federal government then nobody gets bonuses, duh.

Shoot!

Well, Beckett and Dawnell are in Utah, so now I'm the one jonesing for a Beckett fix. So here we go. I finally figured out how to transfer my videos off of my IPhone (yes, my Iphone works as a video camera -- unlocked, jailbroken, and cycorder). Anyway, enough about my IPhone, here is Beckett the baller. Go Becks Go!

Big Hat

I guess you can call this our own version of way-back Wednesdays, or In the Past Fridays, or whatever you'd call it on Tuesday. Back when we first had this tiny little dude I thought the cutest thing in the world was him wearing sunglasses and a hat. See, e.g., below. (I'm ashamed at how legal that citation was, sorry).



Sadly after he turned about three months old Beckett turned on sunglasses and wouldn't wear a hat for more than five seconds at a time. Until, that is, he recently figured out that he could wear hats made for a much larger head on his tiny little dome. Hard to believe that he's already 21 months old.





Dawnell suggested that we add another picture of him wearing a big hat, this one is of him in my woolen green cap. It makes me want to purchase sombreros and fedoras to see what Beckett will do with other types of hats that I own.

Circle of Life

About 30 years ago my grandparents gave me a wooden rocking horse. It's solid wood, pretty heavy, and takes up space. Living in a studio in Manhattan, followed by a one bedroom in Jersey City, I never even thought of passing it on to my own kids, at least not without a move back to Utah.

But my mother's insistence and my stepfather's connections got the rocking horse out here, and I'm pleased to report that Beckett loves it. These pictures aren't posed either, Beckett was just loving on the horse.

Ipod Shuffle

I know we just had Christmas, but Beckett's birthday is coming up in April and I think I know what to get him. I don't know what he's going to expect when he's sixteen.



Thankfully he has his head phones on so we don't have a Alanis Morissette coming after us like Prince did to this lady and her baby:

http://www.tmz.com/2007/10/27/prince-record-label-go-crazy-over-dancing-baby/

I guess we just have to worry about Steve Jobs.

I Love the BCS

I removed the embedded link because it was messing with our formatting on the blog, but I urge everyone to go view the song on Hulu:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/52186/saturday-night-live-update-bcs-song

I promise this is the last BCS and Utah post of the year, but I wanted to share this great video from SNL about how much Will Forte loves the BCS.

Also, three more additional points:

1) Utah had the 56th best schedule according to Jeff Sagarin. He has Penn State as the 55th toughest schedule and Notre Dame is 50th. Can anyone claim with a straight face that if one of those two "storied" programs had been the only undefeated team in the nation that they would not have won the national title? Exactly.

2) Even the focus on strength of schedule is a bit of a red herring, because it assumes that teams "slip up" against mediocre but not good teams within a conference. This doesn't happen to teams in the top 5-10. They lose to other good teams. Florida ended up playing 5 teams that finished the season ranked in the top 25 (and went 4-1). Utah played four teams in the final top 25 and went undefeated. I'll acknowledge that Florida's conference is tougher, but to me there isn't a huge difference between beating the 58th best team in the country in the computer rankings, such as Tennessee, or beating Wyoming, a team that beat Tennessee on the road but is still ranked 122. A top team is going to destroy both squads pretty easily. The true test is success against other good teams, something that Utah had more than enough of this season to justify their National Championship, which is how I will always remember this season.

3) I got really angry last night when I saw a Sports Illustrated commercial honoring Florida's win in the BCS runner-up game because now I can't subscribe to SI to get my limited edition t-shirt, DVD, and commemorative book in honor of the Utes' unrecognized national title. Oh well, at least the BCS saved me some money this year.

The University of Utah

Dawnell and I both graduated from the University of Utah and are both very pleased that we went there instead of other places. But this post isn't about our education. I just wanted to say thanks to a few people. So here you go:

Thanks to USC, for losing to a team that Utah beat. I'd also like to thank you for playing in a conference that got dominated by the Mountain West Conference all season long.

Thanks to Texas, for winning in the last seconds against a team with two quarterbacks who can't throw a pass five yards straight.

Thanks to Oklahoma and Florida, for both proving beyond any doubt that you were not far and away the two best teams in the nation. Yikes that was a poorly played game last night.

Thanks to the 16 AP voters who got it right and voted for the University of Utah as national champions.

Oh, and on a sarcastic note:

Thanks to the BCS for figuring out a way that a team who goes undefeated with victories over the 6th, 7th, 18th, and 25th best teams in the country doesn't deserve to play for the national title. I'm so glad that instead of rewarding perfection we reward a team that runs up the score on its mediocre opponents and loses at home to Mississippi, a team who only lost four times during the regular season.

There are no legitimate counter-arguments in my (admittedly biased) mind. The Utes schedule was sufficient that a perfect season should not be denied the perfect ending.

2008 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS - THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

The night before Christmas, and the kids were looking adorable at our house. Here's Beckett with his friend Anna. The next morning Beckett was fascinated by his new train sets. Dawnell and I were actually more fascinated by the battery-powered Thomas set at the top of the picture, but Beckett is an Ikea dude through and through.

He was also fascinated by the new laptop that his cousin got him. Now maybe Dawnell can check her email without Beckett trying to rip the laptop out of her hands.

But Beckett's greatest joy was riding on his new truck. I'm sure all the parents can relate when I say that my greatest joy these days is seeing Beckett's excitement at the little things in life.

Yea 2008!

May your 2009 be as full of fun as every day with Beckett!

Book Club Brunch

(I stole this photo so it cannot be enbiggened.)

Saturday was our always delightful book club Christmas brunch. We traveled to Addy's lovely home in NJ where we were served delicious food in her adorably decorated living room. We have a secret santa gift exchange and my secret elf, Jill, got me a great box of knitting pattern cards. They're small so you can take them in your bag without all the bulk of a book. They're wonderful. Thank you, Jill!


Then it was time for the hotly contested book swap. We do it white elephant style. After having "Olivia" taken from me I turned into a bully and earned Dallin's (Elise's son) eternal wrath by stealing Russell's Christmas Magic. It's really cute. I wish I was a better person and felt more guilty about getting to take it home.




We wrapped things up with Jenny's traditional reading of Osbert. A tradition that may die this year as Tom will be done with dental school and they'll be moving on. I hope with the miracles of modern technology we may be able to have the reading in the future.

LCAT is still going strong and I love it. Thank you all for being so smart and wonderful. And for actually reading the books and talking about them. I just finished "Escape" and can't wait for January.

Tree Me!

Where do you want me to put this? Oh, on the tree?

Yea, see, all you gotta do is open the string and put it down on the bottom.

Mommy and dude did a pretty good job of looking cute while pretending to put up ornaments. We're all dressed up in our Christmas pajamas. Beckett the Blues Clue, Dawnell the Simpson, and Chris the Grinch.

Daddy and dude were pretty exhausted after their five minutes of decorating though, so they couldn't strike such a sweet pose.

And here is the fake blue tree in all of its glory! Love me the color contrast between blue lights and predominantly hot pink ornaments.