MARCH 31--In a law enforcement first, Ohio cops this month arrested a man for drunk driving on a motorized bar stool. That's right, a motorized bar stool, which can be seen below in a police evidence photo. According to cops, Kile Wygle, 28, crashed his bar stool near his Newark home earlier this month and called 911 due to his injuries. When an officer arrived and asked Wygle what happened, he answered, "I wrecked my bar stool." According to a Newark Police Division report, a copy of which you'll find here, Wygle's homemade ride is powered by a Briggs & Stratton lawnmower engine. Wygle noted that the bar stool could hit nearly 40 miles per hour, but that he was only going 20 when he wiped out late in the afternoon on March 4 (a witness told police that he spotted someone driving a "strange motorized machine" before the crash). A plastered Wygle, who failed a series of field sobriety tests, was charged with DUI and driving with a suspended license, both misdemeanors. His bar stool was not impounded.
So, i don't really have internets again. I didn't want to buy a week since we wont be here a full week. and my roommate is buying it through the one ethernet cable in our room anyway, so i couldn't use it on my computer even if i did buy it.I was going to buy a days worth of wireless for today but they are sold out of them at reception. So basically i am screwed and i am sneaking on my roomies computer right now before she wakes up, because as soon as she wakes up she will be inseparable from it.ANYWAY, none of that matters, because this weekend was amazing!!!!Some of our group (myself included) ended up paying extra to do intro scuba dives and it was SO COOL. All tolled i snorkeled four times and scuba dove three times. The live aboard boat was so much fun too. They woke us up at 5:45AM to snorkel at 6AM, which i did both times. On Sunday morning i got to swim with sea turtles! I made friends with one of them and he made me rub his shell for at least five minutes! He kept turning to make me rub different spots, just like a cat. IT WAS SO COOL! best morning of my life!We ALSO got to do a night scuba dive, where we were attached to an instructor at all times and dove with flashlights. WE SAW FOUR SHARKS!!! scary but really cool!We have lots of hilarious photos to show when we get back. I look extra awesome because my hair is just crazy. Imagine me diving in saltwater atleast 3 times a day, then riding a windy boat and only being allowed one three minute shower a night. No one cared though because it was just too much fun.Anyway, i have so much work this last week it isn't funny. I am not going to get to have as much fun as everyone else, but i guess i will live.I wish i could keep writing, but my roomie will be up in a few minutes, so i need to get off her computer! ah!I hope everything is going well there, i am excited to see you all again!Miss and love you!
| Milk Chocolate | 12.5% | 1 | |||
| Dark Chocolate | 37.5% | 3 | |||
| Hot Chocolate | 0% | 0 | |||
| Fudge | 37.5% | 3 | |||
| Semi-sweet Chocolate | 0% | 0 | |||
| Chocolate with nuts | 12.5% | 1 | |||
| Chocolate Ice Cream | 0% | 0 | |||
| I don't care much for any of them. | 0% | 0 |
Here is a picture of Emma and her best friend from the trip Rachel when they first got to Sydney and were laying out on the beach... (I'll have you know the day I saw this picture it was SNOWING here in Georgia and I was pretty disappointed.)
This is the airplane Emma skydove from in New Zealand!!
And here is Emma and her friends in the sky diving gear. I'm still a little surprised she did it!! She looks a little more concerned about it than her friends do in this picture, hahaha!
And finally, one of the main reasons I will never go to Australia....
(The sign reads: Beware of Bluebottles!!!)
Are you curious about all the doom-and-gloom surrounding the economy, but can't make heads or tails out of what economists are saying? well, I've been attempting to decipher it all and I decided to post what I'm learning here.Basically, a CDS is kind of like a bet. The CDS buyer bets the CDS Seller that some third party entity will fail to meet its financial obligations. As long as that third party is doing okay, the buyer pays the seller a regular premium, like an insurance premium. But if that third party should default or begin to miss payments, then the seller has to pay off the buyer --- the buyer has "won the bet" (click to enlarge):
You can imagine, sometimes a lender would want to do this. If a lender lends a huge sum to a risky company, they might want to buy a CDS so they will get paid something if the risky company goes bankrupt.
However, neither the buyer nor the seller has to have any financial interest whatsoever in the third party they're "betting" on. The buyer might be a lender to that third party, in which case he's trying to protect himself, but that doesn't have to be the case. He can just be a spectator on the sidelines.
Chimney Springs Analogy
Here's an analogy to make things clearer.
It's kind of like if Mike bet Sid that the Esodas next door would default on their mortgage this year. Every month that the Esodas make their payment on time, Mike would give Sid $150. But if they miss a payment, Sid would have to pay off Mike, say, $5000.
Mind you, the Esodas have nothing to say about this. And if their credit is good, Mike might have to pay less per month, while if their credit is bad, the monthly payment would be a lot higher.
How is the CDS market contributing to the current downturn in the economy? Well, let's look at a real world example.
When giant Bear Stearns looked like it was getting into trouble, the CDS market went crazy as speculation grew --- anyone & everyone was trying to "bet" that Bear Stearns would default, driving the price of a Bears Stearn CDS higher and higher. This made Bear Stearns look even more vulnerable and risky, until finally the company could not get the credit to which it would normally have access. So then, they actually couldn't make payments that they would have made in more normal circumstances. Bear Stearns then had to be "rescued" (purchased by JP Morgan, the company that incidentally invented the CDS ) to avoid triggering all of the huge payouts on all of the CDSs taken out.
Problem is, there was an awful lot of this going on, and pretty much no regulation whatsoever. Because ANYONE could purchase a CDS, regardless of whether or not they lent any money to the company, speculation could run wild.
It's as if the Esodas, whose mortgage might only be $150,000, had $10 million dollars of other people's money at stake if they didn't make their house payments. Sounds crazy... but...
...this is what is happening right now to AIG, the biggest of them all. AIG sold a huge amount of CDSs. (see "AIG appears to have sold [CDSs] in large quantities to practically every financial institution of significance on the planet. " ) When times were good, AIG was collecting lots of money in premiums from these CDSs, it was easy cash. But now, as defaults are growing, they are in serious trouble as they have to pay out many times what some of the debt was worth, at a time when the premiums coming in from CDSs are dwindling.
How is all this legal, you might ask? That's something I'll look into in a future lesson.
For more info, check out the Wikipedia entry where I got this info.
Next time, Lesson Two: why some people think "mark to market" accounting is making a bad thing worse.
It was a fun project; I'd make that pattern again. Which, if you've ever made an afghan, you know that's saying a lot.
