5 Things on a Friday: Skiing the Super Bowl

Happy Friday, friends.  Let’s get to it.

5 Things on a Friday: Hot Human Sacrifice & Santa Claus’s Bones

Man, this week just flew by!  Shortest week ever!!!

Just kidding.  This week sucked.  It was long as all Hell.

Happy Friday!

Friday Mad Science: Putting Ourselves Back Together

I feel better.  

I suffer from a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which I would personally argue is not a disorder, exactly, considering that most people struggle when they don’t get enough sunlight.  But whatever.  My symptoms are complicated by the reality that I work in a windowless bunker in Midtown Manhattan, and they were complicated even more this past weekend when temperatures in New York and Connecticut dipped into the single digits alongside several days of snow and overcast skies.  I usually deal with my SAD by swimming and bike commuting, but I couldn’t get to the pool early in the week, and with the weather, cycling was impossible as well.  This left me with far too much energy, too many ugly brain chemicals, and not enough light.  At exactly the same time, I was also dealing with some profoundly negative thoughts about a project I’ve allowed to become entirely too personal.  By midday on Tuesday, I was bouncing off the walls.  I found myself snapping at my wife and indulging some rather nasty fantasies…  This was not good.

I finally got to the pool Tuesday night, and it was a Godsend.  My main sets were as follows.

5 Things on a Friday: Death of the Interview

Wow, what a crazy week!  Holy cow!!!

Let’s start with The Interview.  I was really looking forward to seeing it; Sally and I even talked about going Friday on our date night.  Bu that ain’t gonna happen, it seems.

Sally's First Post

Last month I asked Dan if I could start a blog on his blog site, and his answer was "Yes, but what are going to write about?"  I looked at him like a monkey lost in a jungle and said, "I don't know.  I guess I will write about what I know best...  Health, fitness, good eats, wine parings, shopping, and pretty much everything you don't write about."

For the past month I have been thinking about what my first post was going to be, and basically, I would love to write about many things. I have even written up articles in my head a few times. And since this is site of lists, I decided to write a list about what I am going to write about.

Here are the first five topics that I'd like to write about:

Friday Mad Science: All Finance, All the Time

This thing with Cypress only seems complicated.  In reality, I think it’s pretty straightforward.  

The Flag of Cyprus

Like Iceland, Cypress is an island-nation in the Eurozone that doubled down on investment in the banking sector until the banking sector made up most of its domestic economy.  This makes some sense in the current, post-modern world because banking is one of those sectors that relies very little on anything other than faith and confidence and a bit of well-trained staff, and little European island nations seem to be able to come by these things in great abundance.  Moreover, while larger nations may have things like natural resources, or a large, well-educated work force, or maybe a large, poorly-educated but extremely cheap workforce, island nations must pretty much either trade or starve.  In the modern world, “trade” has really meant “international finance”.  So, bottom line, Cypress was--and is--part of the Eurozone, and like a lot of smaller, more successful Eurozone economies, they went all in on an industry where they could compete and thrive.