Ghost Stories

The following stories are true, from my own experience.

Ghost Story Number One

One summer night, I was sleeping in a sleeping bag in the front (west) yard of the farm near Cable. It was a bright, moon-lit night, with little or no breeze. I woke up during the night and saw a 8 to 10 large objects in the south yard. The objects looked like sheets hanging on the clotheslines fixed between the trees and the house, EXCEPT they were luminous (glowing of there own accord, not reflected moonlight) and they were moving in a very slow circle, as though dancing.

I watched them, without moving a muscle for what seemed like 10 minutes, but was probably 30 seconds. I finally got up the nerve to make a dash into the house through the front door. I immediately went to my bedroom, which was on the second floor overlooking the south yard. Due to the slope of the yard, the second floor window was as high as a third floor. I looked out the window and could see that the glowing objects were still there, moving slowly in a circle. I went to bed with my head under the covers.

I was the first one to get up the next morning. I immediately checked the south yard to see if anything was there. Nothing was on the clothesline and there was no other sign of the night's activity. I asked my mother if she had left anything on the clothes line the night before and she said that she had not.

Ghost Story Number Two

Our family had six kids and two adults, so there was never a moment when the activity/noise level ever reached zero. One time, when I was 14, the rest of the family went camping in Arkansas for a week. I was elected to stay home to feed the farm animals.

About the second evening, I became aware that the noise level had still not dropped to zero. I could hear voices throughout the house, but I could not quite hear what they were saying. I could hear traffic on the stairs, going up and down one step at time. Not knowing any better at the time, this only raised my anxiety level slightly. I just went on eating kipper snacks. This went on for the entire week (noises and kipper snacks).

There are many strange things about that house. During the 17 years that I lived there, we often returned to the house to find that lights were on, which we were sure had been turned off when we left. Since we had a large family and rarely locked the doors, there could have been lots of ways for this to occur. Later, after we sold the house, I understand that the new owner was unable to keep renters for very long and that the police came several times to find out who the intruders were. They never did.

Ghost Story Number Three

One evening, in about 1960, Oog, Denny Frye, and I were playing in the barnyard of the farm near Cable. It was after dark and each of us had a .22 rifle, looking for targets of opportunity. The old barn, which may have once been a church, sat at the opposite end of the barnyard. We decided to go inside the barn, up to the haymow on the second floor, to shoot pigeons, which liked to roost in the peak of the roof.

We climbed up the ladder to the hole in the floor of the haymow on the south end. The haymow was filled with unstacked bales on the south half and a huge pile of very old loose hay on the north half. It was totally dark, except for a large number of tiny holes in the roof (probably the result of prior hunting trips) which allowed the moonlight to shine through the roof. We carefully moved to the north half and climbed the stack of hay, so as to be very near the peak of the roof.

Suddenly, we stopped. About three feet from us, were a pair of cat-like eyes staring at us, about a foot above the floor. The eyes were 12 to 18 inches apart, just staring. We actually discussed this for a moment. We tried to scare it away by yelling...no response. We waived our hands to see if they were just caused by the moonlight through holes in the roof...nope. Finally, I aimed my .22 between the eyes and fired.

One eye winked.

You never saw three boys move so fast, even though the haymow was totally dark and full of loose hay. We did not even touch the ladder on the way down. We finally stopped under the yard light, about 25 yards from the barn. We then aimed our rifles at the barn and pulled the triggers.

Nothing...the bullets were duds. We cycled through the entire box of .22’s. None fired.

We went in the house, said nothing to anyone, and went to bed.

Early the next morning, we went to the barnyard and retrieved the dud bullets. We could see where the firing pin had struck the rims of each of them in the proper location. We loaded our guns with the duds and tested them. They all fired.

We told no one and did not discuss the incident again. About 25 years later, I asked Oog and Denny, separately, if they remembered that night. They each did, and they each remembered the story exactly as I have told it here.

Probability and Risk

I have had several discussions in the last few days on the subject of probability and risk. One's view of the subject is a clear indication of maturity. Why? Things happen. Doo Doo Occurs.

Risk is a combination of probability of occurance and the impact of that occurance when it does occur. Some event or outcome that is a low probability but high impact can be a high risk (nuclear war).

Probability is usually used to find the most likely occurance or range of occurances. But a mature person looks at the "tails" of the curve. The tails never go all the way to zero (in a normal curve). There is still a finite probability that the really extreme outcome will occur. That means it WILL occur, eventually. Regardless of how many "normal" (middle of the curve) events have occurred.

Example 1: The Space Shuttle o-rings experienced blow-by on several launches. Middle of the curve. Don't worry about it! It finally had a blow-by that was aimed in the wrong direction. Tail of the curve...One shuttle down and seven dead astonauts.

Example 2: The Space Shuttle had between 30 and 70 insulation events. Middle of the curve. Don't worry about it! Finally had an insulation loss at just the right amount, at the right phase of flight, hitting tiles at just the right angle...One shuttle down and seven dead astonauts.

Example 3: Kennedy High School Electric Car Project gives demonstrations at Middle Schools to drum up enthusiam for the program. Lets kids who have learner permits drive the car around a parking lot. Lots of kids drive the car with no problems. Middle of the curve. Some decide to "hot rod it" at 20 Miles per hour. A little less middle of the curve, but the small accidents have no damage or injuries. Low impact. One girl decides to hot rod it, has a small accident, but there is a guard rail at head height. Tail of the curve...Dead on Impact.

This could go on...and on...and on! Maturity is displayed by an understanding that Doo Doo Occurs! The immature have not had enough tail-of-the-curve experiences to have a proper view of probability. They may understand the impact, but that is only half the risk.

e-Pay

e-Pay is wonderfull!

I don't mean any specific service. Ever since the Post Office raised their rates to 37 cents, it has been more cost effective to pay bills by mail. All but a couple of my monthly bills are now on a "send me an e-mail invoice and I'll authorize payment of a certain amount on a certain date" basis. Bills that are fixed amounts, like mortgage, car loan, life insurance, bank service charges are set on an automatic basis. All others require the process listed above. I also get my salary, IRS refund, Iowa State refund by direct deposit. I always make brokerage transactions by wire transfer. It great!

This saves on stamps, paper, time, etc. I highly recommend it!

It's the WEEKEND!

And a long one at that.

About 80% of the rest of the office has already left...most taking vacation, some just on "personal business."

My 10-year old daughter wants to get her ears pierced. Peer pressure. We may let her do it, but she loses major, major credibility points. She has brought this up before, but always backed away because of the pain.

My 14-year old wants to go see the MATRIX II tonight. We would rather that he did not. He won't. We have tickets tonight to a local live theatre show, which we have had for weeks. A new girl has joined his school and her mother seems to be on a total campaign to corrupt our kids. The mother continually tries to set up group trips to "events" that are strictly "R" to "X". She even offers to buy tickets. Outrageous!

Great Quotes of J. M. Keynes

"In the long run, we are all dead."

"The markets can be irrational longer than you can be solvent."

Great Discussion of Deflation

From John Mauldin at Frontline at InvestorsInsight.com

Find it HERE

Republicans Fail Again

The Democrats espouse an awful agenda: "Government knows better than you when it comes to spending your money" and "free sex for anyone, regardless of the cost." and "America is always wrong." As such, I can never support a Democratic candidate for any office, anywhere

Theoretically, the Republicans are different. They try to cut taxes, etc. But they have a fatal flaw also. They compromise, compromise, and compromise. Again and again and again. The purpose of tax cutting is to force a cut in government spending, thereby freeing up more resources to be allocated by efficient decisions of consumers and investors. But the Republicans have moles. A bunch of "moderates" who espouse the Democratic agenda and should really move to that party.

Enough ranting.

Draft Resolution on Iraq

The subject resolution can be found here: xxxx

Back at Work

Why?

Lots of people are out of the office this week. Some are visiting customers, some are at the RAA Show, some are trying to burn vacation and catch a three day weekend. Very little is going on at the staff level. Just documenting what I did for the last three months and trying to develop a useless bottoms-up analysis of the government (read military) repair market for my company's equipment.

Bottoms up means count the worldwide inventory of aircraft by type, determine the avionics configuration, determine the MTBF of the equipments (per flight hour), dollarize that figure, then locate the flying hours per year for each type, then do a sumproduct on the whole thing. This is totally useless, since government only perform the repairs that they can afford. They all have huge inventories of spare LRUs and do not hestitate to cannabilize parked, stored, and retired aircraft. All of the services have big backlogs of unserviceable units waiting for funding. A proper market analysis would look at funding, not flying.

That is one reason I am retiring within the year.

Great Weekend!

What a great weekend!

I had just worked 27 of the last 28 calendar days on our Strategic Plan. Long days, for me...16 hours. The plan was delivered. So I took Friday off.

The weather was perfect: high 60's and sunny on Friday, high 70's on Saturday. I worked in the yard most of both days, plus cleaned out the garage, hung the air chair (a canvas swinging chair) and a hammock. Absolutely wonderful!

Took the family to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner to celebrate Mother's Day (delayed) and to recognize Alyssa's 99th percentile score on the "Computational Assessement Test." Listened to two of the three sermons I missed at church and one of the three Sunday School lessons...while playing Snood. Went to church on Sunday, ate lunch at a Mexican Restuarant, vege'ed out, played more Snood, etc. The whole day was a total blessing.

Bush bears the burden during difficult times

By Dick Morris, former Press Aide to Bill Clinton

His tie hung low around his shrunken neck like a necklace. His ears seemed larger as his face looked gaunt. Hair graying, his eyes burned with intensity and purpose as he addressed his nation announcing the war. The burden of the presidency seemed etched in the lines of his face. George W. Bush looks like he has aged 10 years in the last 27 months … and matured 20 years. Elected president, he has become a leader.

After Sept. 11, he responded to events. Now he transcends them. As this president faces the tasks imposed by history, he rises from its pages. It’s time for us all to thank the Lord that we have this decisive man in office at this crucial time.

One comes to respect his intelligence and political skill, but more his clarity, his understanding of what is important and his focus on the values he carries in his soul. His wisdom is not the product of complexity or subtlety. It stems, instead, from the simplicity of his profound understanding of good and evil.

In the State of the Union speech, he spoke of his daily task of facing new terrorist threats and the hourly burden of responding. Now we watch in awe at the dignity with which he bears our burden.

Like a gyroscope he keeps his bearing, always rising above the coming horizon. He intuitively knows where he must lead like the needle of a compass shows us the north.

I don’t agree with very much of his domestic program. It is too limited and based on an assumption of governmental inactivity that I do not share. I think that Bill Clinton was the better president up to the water’s edge.

But, on the critical aspect of his presidency, the war on terror, he is right on and has always been. He keeps his political balance as he maintains his internal ballast. His clarity of vision rises above that of his predecessor and his grasp of the requirements of history is deeper and more thorough.

Clinton always lamented that he was not in office during a time of overwhelming national emergency. He once told me that you needed a war to rise to top ranks among presidents. Yet it is the bitter irony of his presidency that he had a war to fight, he just never realized it and never fought it.

Bush would be wasted in another era. His skills would not have been as finely developed as they have been under this challenge. We would never have truly known him. He likely would not have even come to know himself as well as he now has.

Some say Bush’s diplomacy has failed. That’s not true. He succeeded in conducting negotiations without letting his purity be corrupted or his vision dimmed. This is the ultimate success, not failure, in diplomacy.

Others say he has squandered the sympathy the world had for us after Sept. 11. Again the criticism is wide of the mark. He demanded their tears give way to resolution, their empathy to action, their victimhood to victory. He didn’t dissipate global support. He mobilized it and those whose camaraderie was phony fell away.

Bush has not abused democracy, he has mobilized it. Nor has he shattered checks and balances, he has carried them into action. He is not overreaching the powers of his office, he is using them.

Roosevelt, Lincoln, and Churchill all looked different to contemporaries than they do to historians. FDR seemed to emerge as a wartime leader only after Pearl Harbor rescued him from a time of vacillation and indecision during the late 1930s. Lincoln appeared to be weak and unable to harness the moral issue of slavery to the task of winning the war. Churchill seemed an imperialist and an empire builder pining for war in a time of peace.

But history has a different view of all three.

Bush lives amid the ambivalence of democracy, but we are watching a Roosevelt, a Lincoln, or a Churchill in the making.

Dick Morris is a former consultant to President Clinton, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and other political figures.

HOW TO WRITE AN OP-ED

An op-ed is an essay or guest column intended for publication in the opinion section of a newspaper. These are called op-eds because they usually appear on the page Opposite the Editorial page. Scores, perhaps hundreds, of submissions come in to a newspaper every day, competing for space on this page. In most newspapers, the allotted length is between 500 and 750 words. In most cases, te op-ed is intended to present a new, or different, point of view.

Editors have some very concrete requirements for selection, more or less in this order:

1. a provocative idea on any subject

2. an opinion on a current issue that is controversial, unexpected, authoritative and/or news

3. a call to arms on a neglected subject

4. bite and wit on a current issue

Without a forceful point to make, an op-ed is doomed to rejection.
This makes the op-ed page hostile to announcements of events, status reports or plain old news. This is the news section for blunt opinion, advocacy, denunciation, outrage, astonishment--all the heavy emotions. Editors want to be leaders in shaping the public debate, and you will do best by helping them achieve that goal.

WHAT NEWSPAPERS WANT

The editors of local and regional papers who choose which op-eds to use look for strong local interest. They don't want a generic slant. Tell a local story--of a real person, family or group and how your issue has affected them.

Timeliness is another characteristic editors look for. Even if your op-ed does not break new ground, you may be able to find something current to tie it to: a holiday, anniversary, election, upcoming conference, report, vote in Congress or some pending action by local or state government.

Sometimes, the signer (author) of the op-ed can make a huge difference. Even though you draft it, having the op-ed signed by a local or national expert, your group's president, a member of the clergy or a well-known politician, could make it more likely to be chosen.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO WRITE:

Call the newspaper first to confirm the name of the editorial or op-ed page editor, and to find out the criteria for submissions. Some newspapers accept op-eds by fax--but ask first. You should also ask about the approval process. In most cases, the newspaper will call you to clarify some of the facts only when they've decided to print your piece.

USING PROFESSIONAL HELP

Often, the person who drafts the op-ed has experience and information to relay, but relies on a writer with past op-d successes to shape and edit the draft. The problem is that newspapers are inundated with unsolicited op-eds; some big city papers get more than 100 each day. Using writing and placement professionals can sometimes make the difference in whether or not an op-ed gets published, however it does not guarantee placement. The tighter, punchier piece will have the edge over its competitors.

The typical process involves a discussion between you and writer to decide on the subject and form. A first draft by you. An extensive edit by the writer.
Minor tuning by you. A final draft by the writer. An okay from you before mailing to the target newspapers. The final version should be what you want to say, said in a way that can help you achieve your goals and that is likely to get published.

Don't be suprised if the newspaper asks for revisions. Typical requests include shortening, verifying facts, or providing a timely news peg. You and the writer can work together on this final leg of op-ed production.

GETTING STARTED

The first ste in writing an op-ed is to think through what message you want to deliver to readers. What are your goals for this op-ed: recruiting volunteers, starting a grassroos campaign, sustaining or increasing public funding, passing new legislation or educating opinion readers and the public?

Defining the goal will help you to determine which audience you need to reach:
the general public, local or national policymakers or specific groups like voters, teachers, doctors or senior citizens.

Defining the audience will also help you to determine to which the op-ed should be submitted: your local daily or weekly paper, a professional journal, a state or regional paper like the "Denver Post" or "Boston Globe," or the much more competitive national papers like "The New York Times" or "The Washington Post."

Other helpful hints for writing op-eds: consult materials that already exist--newsletters, speeches and policy papers--for background information; concentrate on one issue; work from an outline; keep sentences and paragraphs short; avoid cliches and jargon, and back up assertions with credible facts. Here are 10 helpful hints to consider when writing the op-ed:

1. Try to reduce your point to a single sentence. For example, "every child deserves a family."

2. See if your sentence passes the "wow" test or the "hmmm" test; if not, the point needs sharpening.

3. Any point worth making will have to be defended. Muster your best four supporting arguments or data bits and state each one in a single paragraph. Be as specific as possible. Avoid starting sentences with "There is/are" to employ the active, rather than the passive, voice.

4. Raise the opposition's best arguments and demolish them with countervailing facts, withering irony, condescension or whatever is appropriate, but deal with them.

5. Let yourself become emotional. Write a dozen such paragraphs and choose the best one.

6. Ask yourself what is the minimum background information a reader absolutely has to have in order to grasp your point. Write two paragraphs that summarize this information.

7. Imagine your target reader browsing through the newspaper on a workday morning, impatient to find, something interesting, gulping coffee, checking the time. What kind of statement might catch this person's attention? If you can raise questions, surprise, intrigue or baffle your reader into reading beyond the first paragraph, you stand a chance the editor will let you put the entire op-ed in the paper.

8. Now, write the piece. Write about 1,000 words (four double-spaced pages) maximum. Restate your key points in the final paragraphs.

9. Cut out half a page: Eliminate repetition. Trim words, not ideas. Check every word ending in -ly and see if you can't eliminate these and all the other adverbs.

10. Submit the piece at 750 words. Don't forget to include your name, title and affiliation at the end

The Real Strategic Issue of Iraq

Look at this article from Time Magazine. Although they are not the most reliable source on earth, this is a really good discussion of the importance of Iraqi oil to the political make-up of the entire world.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,450939,00.html

Working on The Strategic Plan

Late in the evening. Working on sizing the addressed market for a strategic (5 year) plan. What a waste of time!

I spend hours and hours developing very detailed build ups of the market from large data sources. Then make "adjustments" at the end so that the answer matches what the bosses want. I guess that is a form of Bayesian Analysis.

I just found a major spreadsheet error in some intermediate steps. When corrected, it made no difference in the final answer.
I guess that it beats working for a living.