Ironic Story of the Day

The Westchester County government is a layer of government that many argue is excessive. There are few counties that have their own government between state and local. More than one candidate for County President has run on the platform of eliminating County government altogether.

In today's local paper, there was a story that the County government has add a new employee to the payroll. That person's job - look for overspending and waste. Oh the irony!

Friggin Jets

Can't even count on the Jets NOT to lose. An 11-5 season without Tom Brady at the helm. What can you do? When Brady went down in the first game, I still expected they could win the division. They had a talented D and a well-stocked offense even with a "caretaker" was leading it. It turned out, the "caretaker" was much better than I expected and the D was much worse. I could not have foreseen the Dolphins would also go 11-5 and beat us on tie breakers. Frankly, I can't believe we went 11-5 and didn't even take the wildcard.

When the Jets signed Farve I contended that they were NO better under Favre than they would have been under Pennington (or Clemens). As that turns out, they were worse. Favre has been horrible most of the season, and likely will not return. He, single-handedly, killed the Patriots today. That is the biggest irony.

I feel the same way about the Patriots not being in the playoffs as I did about the Red Sox not beating the Rays in the ALCS. Sure, I would have liked the outcome to be different, but we've had enough success that I can't be bitterly disappointed. I've had bitter disappointment regarding sports teams before, and this isn't that feeling.

Christmas

Christmas was a huge hit this year. Given the circumstances, we opted for less expensive but in greater quantity. In sum, we spent less, but still maximized the joy of Christmas.


Although Christmas is huge for Katie, Emily was super excited for Christmas this year. We tracked Santa on-line, we left food for the reindeer, and she begged to sleep in Katie's room on the floor so she could look out the skylight. In the final week, it was 100% Christmas 100% of the time.



As tradition holds, we read Twas the Night Before Christmas before bedtime...


... and left out cookies and milk. This year, Emily left a note which she had written weeks earlier.


By morning there were lots of presents to open.

Sleeping bags.

Softball glove.

New jeans.

Real Mommy baby doll.

Santa even brought drums. I had told Katie I never thought Santa would bring a kid drums. Looks like he made a good compromise.

It was a musical Christmas as they each got a guitar - seen here being backed up by their oversized Kooky Pens.

They both utilized the digital camera given to them by Gramma and Poppy. If you look closely, you can see that Emily created her own design on it.

Later in the day, word must have spread among the reindeer community that we fed Santa's hoofers. A couple showed up looking for their own treats. If you zoom in, you can see that one of them even has antlers. We don't see many with antlers around here - so he MUST be from the North Pole.

Finally, we dodged a bit of a holiday bullet. On this morning (Dec 26), Emily awoke and tossed her not-so-proverbial cookies. Better today than yesterday.

Merry Christmas.

Very Creative!

Bloomberg News reports that Credit Suisse is going to pay its Managing Directors in illiquid assets currently held on CS' books. This is a very creative idea, and in the end could work out well for everyone.

Credit Suisse has been one of the best managed financial organizations throughout this crisis (and by definition through the last few years). They aren't completely blameless (else they wouldn't have the illiquid assets in the first place), but they haven't let it sink the firm.

The partners will receive interest in a pool of assets that will remain on CS' books. It will help retention (not that anyone is going anywhere these days), and potentially be a winfall. It could also be worth little, but in that case, CS has paid it out instead of cash.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=abJOQQI18SAE&refer=home

Tex are Can ah

It sounds like the Red Sox are closing in on First Basemen Mark Texiera. The Sox brass has flown to Texas to potentially ink a deal. I hope we get this guy as much as anyone. We need a strong, reliable bat in the lineup, and no one scared me more on the Angels at the end of last year than facing him.

The guy can hit and play the field. Here's his stat line on his 54 games with the Angels:

Average: .358
On-Base: .449
Slugging: .632
HR: 13

Although those are the best numbers of his entire career, his other seasons aren't too shabby.

But here's a couple things that scare me a little, and would give me cold feet in signing him to a 8-year $184 million contract.

1. He's only made the All-Star team once, and it was back in 2005.

2. Baseball Reference.com (good stat site: www.baseball-reference.com) measures something called similarity scores. It allows you to compare players from different eras. Here are Texiera's comps:

Miguel Cabrera (2003-2008), Glenn Davis (1984-1993), Zeke Bonura (1934-1940), Bob Horner (1977-1988), Ripper Collins (1931-1941), Don Hurst (1928-1934), Kevin Mitchell (1983-1988), Aubrey Huff (2000-2008).

Dropping off names I clearly wouldn't know, lets stick with Cabrera, Mitchell, and Huff

Not exactly a murders' row even though Cabrera's a pretty solid player, and can play multiple positions. Huff just signed a FA deal last Winter for $8 million. Far from $23 million. Texiera is better than Huff, but is he $15 million better?

Baseball Reference also does similarity scores based on age. Here are Texiera's comps for players through 28 years old:

Carlos Delgado, Kent Hrbeck, Fred McGriff, Jim Thome, Will Clark, Jeff Bagwell, Willie McCovey Richie Sexton, Shawn Green, Paul Konerko

Ok. This list is better - but who's kidding who. I was hoping it would say Babe Ruth. We'll be saddled with this guy for a long time. I just hope he's worth it. I know its blasphamy around Boston, but I would have rather spent $27 million per year on A-rod last year. Think about it. I said it at the time, but in retrospect it looks even better. Last offseason, sign A-rod after his opt-out, move him back to short, trade Manny, keep CoCo and Ellsbury, develop Lowry as your future 3B. In that scenario, you'd have had kept the same power in your lineup and improved your defense. Manny would have been gone earlier, and we would have picked up something in his trade. Maybe you still got Bay, and CoCo remained the fourth outfielder.

Thanks-mas

We had a really nice weekend. Saturday was Moore Day, as dubbed by the kids. My parents, sister and her husband, and one of my brothers and his family came and spent the day at our house. It was a sort of Thanks-mas, an equal point between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Saturday afternoon was loaded with Rock Band and Guitar Hero concerts on the XBox. Alison prepared a great meal, and the day was enjoyed by all.



We exchanged Christmas presents. A little bird helped my parents get the kids Disney's Sing It, for the XBox, and quickly, Sunday morning turned from Classic Rock air guitars to Hannah Montana Karaoke. By later that morning, everyone had hit the road, which was good, because we had our golf club's Christmas party.



As I watched the Bills fumble away their win against the Jets, the Kids saw a puppet show followe by a magic show. Eventually we got to see Santa. I must say, fortunately for us, Santa looked a little better than the time I saw him at Walmart last week.


We had a little issue last year, where some faulty glue convinced the girls that the club's Santa was only a stand-in, and in fact he was being played by "Magic Dave." I assured them, it was NOT Magic Dave, but I could have talked til I was blue in the face. This year, Katie thought the beard was a hoax, but Emily was certain it had been real. It doesn't really matter, I guess, since neither told him what they wished for.


Emily has crafted Santa a note for which she plans to leave for him on Christmas Eve. I'll share it with you now as is:


"Dear, Santa

did you relly give presints when you
wher a teen ager? how did the
rainder fly?

Love, Emily"


Hopefully he'll answer...

"For myself, I would be happy to see conservatism exit from the political scene--provided it takes liberalism with it. I would like to see us enter a post-ideological era in which policies are based on pragmatic considerations rather than on conformity to a set of preconceptions rooted in a rapidly vanishing past. " - Richard Posner (Judge, United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Senior Lecturer, University of Chicago Law School, Economist)

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/

Agreed.