Friday July 11 2014

Kirk Tuck has published his first fiction novel The Lisbon Portfolio. It is  a mere ten bucks as a Kindle download on Amazon. I really liked it, my review posted on Amazon follows.

Swimmer, photographer, Dad, Husband, Blogger (the visual science lab) Kirk Tuck now adds another notch to his accomplishments, action adventure fiction writer. Drawing on his background as a corporate and portrait photographer, Kirk creates just the sort of story that made Alfred Hitchcock famous. Movies like North by Northwest put an ordinary fellow into an extraordinary situation. The audience identifies with everyman who will have to out wit a strange and menacing world around him.

Some action stories like Clancy's use long drawn out narratives (how to assemble a nuclear bomb or spread ebola virus for example) interspersed with action scenes every few chapters. For my money, Kirk has bested Clancy by combining a careful narrative explaining 'about to be' high tech weaponry or skull duggery computer hacking while getting right to the story.

The best parallel would be what Fox terms 'America's Thrill Ride' the 24 television series. High Noon took place in real time with the clock counting down. Jack Bauer and his group endure a 24 hour day to end all day sin every season. Likewise, Henry White is thrown from researcher/observer to field operative. Most of the story takes place over a four day convention in Lisbon. Caution to readers, once you get to the scene in the convention center rest room, the thrill ride really gets going, you are likely to be hooked, make sure you have time to finish the book from that point on.

And so we have Hitchcock style hero, Henry White, Austin, TX photographer set against a somewhat exotic Lisbon setting. The MacGuffin ins question are plans on a micro drive which as in any good action adventure story, everyone and we mean everyone wants. While another reviewer suggested GDS was emblematic of IBM or EDS, I can also imagine United Technologies in league with other military suppliers constantly at work finding buyers for their 'products' especially when the Dept of Defense gives them a pass on some expensive R and D project. IO am sure none of that R & D is simply expensed….

I stayed up until 11:43 Sunday night finishing the book, it's that good. Kirk certainly seems to have done his homework on the high tech stuff. I don't know where he got up to speed on how all the spy guys walk, take shooting stances, etc. perhaps there are more ex Black Ops types in those Austin Coffee Shops than I realized.

Thanks Kirk, I see this is Book 1, let's hope it does not take another 14 years to produce Book 2, the Further adventures of Henry Whitel

Wed July 2, 2014

We have discussed the end of the world condition for Radio Shack. Now even JCP bonds look better by comparison.

With no good will left, and bonds trading at 30% yield to maturity, it looks like investors don't think RSH will make it.

Another brick and mortar electronic retailer bites the cyber dust.

Wednesday July 2, 2014

It's been a long rally without interruption. Here is just how long.

As always the technical indicators are all pointing up, and over bought. I examined two stocks whose charts looked good yesterday. But neither Pandora P nore Westport WPRT have made any money in the last three years, where is the value?

The flood of FED money has meant the markets have been on a tear for the last 18 months. Every rung higher scares those that have been out of the market that indeed, this is the last Fall 2007 rung on the ladder, when, no matter what they say now, the same bullish group was wildly bullish then as well. 

I suspect we take out Dow 17,000 this week. 

Proof that the markets go where they want.

Thousands demonstrate in Hong Kong demanding elections

Civil War in Iraq, Syria, millions of refugees in Lebanon and Jordan

Confrontation in the South China Sea, Viet Nam, Japan  arm against the Chinese

Congress and Administration poll low ratings

Slowest recover, 2% per year, in many a recession

FED fiddles iwth the ecomnomy, record number on Food Stamps

Dow Soars

Go figure

Monday June 30 2014

This weekend I wrote a spoof on the efforts of those now in downtown San Antonio to get the rest of us to move there.

The same thing was happening in Odessa, TX when  a new mayor was elected there in the 1990s. Same story, City Hall and the news paper, both downtown, wanted more people downtown. The result was a Federal Grant that planted trees in the middle of Main Street, but I don't think anyone ever moved downtown. Years earlier attempts ot put a new coliseum downtown failed.

Now here the City Council goes again, buying land to attract a hotel. Here is an excerpt from a radio show In a Monday radio interview with conservative talk show host Jason Moore, Odessa Mayor David Turner defended the city’s decision to bring the project to the area. Turner represents the City adn Moore is the conservative radio talk show dubious about the use of city money for land with no vote by the citizens.

“To get anything downtown, we're going to need an anchor,” Turner said during the interview.

During a Thursday interview, Turner echoed his sentiments about the project.

“Well, if the town expands like it’s has … then there’s going to be quite a bit of land that is sitting vacant downtown,” he said. “It (the project) will help bring in people and drive up the taxable value of an area that is slowly having people moving out.”

During the interview, Moore expressed displeasure with the city spending taxpayer money on the land, and was concerned city officials could spend more without taking the construction issue to local voters.

Turner has previously said that he is against taking the issue to the voters because that would mean the city would have to use more taxpayer money. Instead, Turner and multiple council members have said they want to use the land as incentives to have a hotel chain take on the project themselves.

Long said he is still hoping to have the project located in the downtown area.

“You don’t have to navigate town or deal with traffic or even know the town, you’re right there,” he said.on the topic of hte City trying for a downtown hotel.

Sunday June 29, 2014

Pat DeGiovanni, CEO Centra San Antonio

Don Frost, President Frost Bank

Dear Pat and Don,

I read your Big Dreams Still Attainable piece in the Opinion section of the Express-News Sunday. I see you are still beating the drum for the ‘community vision for downtown.’  Well frankly guys, if you define community as those of you who are already downtown, it is true. But not so much for the Rest of Us ROU.

One of the delights of San Antonio, as opposed to say downtown Houston or Dallas, is that downtown is, well somewhere else. The real downtown for San  Antonio is spread along north 410 from 281 to I 10. It is no accident that Nustar is building north of the RIM. 

And it’s not like this idea has not been tried before. The Tower Life Building and the Majestic Theater both opened right at the top of the 1929 stock market boom. HemisFair ’68 along with the Convention Center opened just after the peak in the markets in 1966.  Today both are being updated in what is surely another Skyscraper Theory Anniversary. The Skyscraper Theory states that ‘never before attempted structures’ are conceived of in good times. By the time the building is completed, the good times are usually over and the developers struggle with what has become a White Elephant. The Empire State Building, conceived of during the Roaring Twenties, opened to the worst real estate market in history in the early 1930s The Burj Tower in Dubai, replicated the same series of emotion and has yet to rent up.  And sure enough, Greg Jefferson reports both a new skyscraper and a fruit basket turnover move for CPS and the City is underway.

Decades ago I actually worked in Downtown Houston. Then as now I wondered why all the ROUs at Houston Lighting and Power had  to be Downtown. CPS employees today face the same traffic jam   The answer of course, is that the ROU do not need to be downtown. The ones that really want to be there are the CEOs, the bankers, and the newspaper. That was the case both then and now in Houston and in San Antonio.

And by the way, you assert that if the AT& T center and the Baseball Park had been downtown we would be ‘light years ahead.’  The Spurs played in the Alamodome for ten years and begged for an alternate venue. What we would be ahead in is a massive traffic jam at every game.

But this is not a message of complaint, no sir, not at all. In fact I am proposing a forward thinking solution to ALL these problems.   Demonstrating the kind of ‘light years ahead thinking’ that I know you admire, here goes.

• The New Skyscraper should be named, CEO Center. It will be considerably more upscale than whatever is planned now. The reason is that it will not contain a single Dilbert Cubicle. No sir, lavish mesquite paneling, ankle deep carpet, and multiple bars, luncheon, and supper clubs will be featured throughout. How’s that for creating Class A Office Space?  Let the rents start at $35 sf per year, well on the second floor. And as for folks living downtown, let it contain several floor of condos, assuring that the CEOs will never be late to work, during the week they can live right there.  
• Mayor Castro signs an Executive Order, in homage to his new boss Barack Obama. Effective immediately cars are barred from a forty block area in downtown. Frankly the most entertaining thing bout downtown is not the Riverwalk but watching a VIA bus attempt to turn the corner on a  street corner laid out 300 years ago for burro drawn carts. (Don’t doubt me, the streets around the Tobin Center look like spaghetti on a plate).
• This accomplishes multiple goals in one fell swoop. With cars banned from the area, the Streetcar proposal vaults to a necessity from a mere desire (streetcars being named desire after all, see Tennessee Williams).  And in the best Castro/Obama fashion, this means going green. We don’t just cut down on carbon fuel cars downtown, we banish them.  This also makes it considerably safer to walk around downtown.
•  And finally, this eliminates one big  reason the ROU simply don’t go downtown, yep, we’re lost. Exiting the parking garage at ‘stodgy Frost Tower’ none of the ROU have  any idea which way I 37 or I 35 or the Alamodome or anything else is located.  Like the Everly Brothers song about the streetcar circling Boston whose passengers never returned. The better bet is to head back to the Plaza Club and reconnoiter.

So there you have it. The ROU get to stay in our preferred habitats with easy parking and in and out access all over San Antonio from North 410 to Southeast Military, where by the way more and more are moving. Those who love downtown can really live it up in a swanky new office building knowing that they are all going green with every streetcar ride.

And as for the notion that the Mayor does not have Executive Order Authority, just have Julian look into the tv camera and say,

I won’t apologize for taking action when no one else will.

Sure solving problems in one fell swoop is a big job but that’s what college professors are for. 

Friday June 27, 2014

Hillary Clinton claims the famous couple was broke when they left the White House. Well

that is not the case now.

Harry Truman, a former President admired by both parties, never made a dime off being President. He retired to Missouri, never taking money for a speech as the former President, ie, never  banking on the job.

The Clinton fortune now runs to the hundreds of millions, good work if you can get it. 

Having a Founndation to spend %$50 M a year on your travel helps.

Is there a line that is being crossed here?  When a politician retires from public life, they get to keep their campaign funds. So even if Hillary does not run, she keeps all the money raised, and is doing pretty well in the speaking department herself. 

Should politicians be able to keep the money they raised to run whe they don't, run that is, We report, you decide.