Lake Superior trip - Day 3 (October 3rd)

Start: Marathon, Ontario
End: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
KM: 413; Miles = 256

Comments:

• The scenery is spectacular
  
• The remoteness is profound
  
• Few gas stations. Few restaurants
  
• We hoped to make it to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario without eating but finally found a decent restaurant at Batchawana Bay
  
• We stayed at the Algoma Water Tower Inn in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. This is a very fine hotel with great service.
  
• We bought a new camera battery at The Future Store: Looks like a Best Buy inside. Turns out that it is owned by Best Buy
  

Two people I will never let in my home

Top: Gail Vaz-Oxlade of Til Debt do us part. Why: This woman is seriously scary. I would never want to let her examine my finances!

Bottom: Vincent D'Onofrio as Det. Robert "Bobby" Goren in Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Why: He could get me to confess to any crime. And I would be sobbing!

Brief thoughts on death (Deut 32:39)

Comment: This could be a reflection on the death of the great visionary Steve Jobs. Or of anybody (like my co-worker who died two weeks ago). Death ... it's going to happen! "And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).

For the last several weeks I've been thinking about Deuteronomy 32:39 - "there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand."

What I see in this verse ... is that God is absolutely sovereign in this nasty business of dying. Man's right response it to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ!

Lake Superior trip - Day 2 (October 2nd)

Start: Grand Marais MN
End: Marathon, Ontario
Mileage: 265

Comments:

• Wish we would have had breakfast at Grand Marais. This was Kathee's preference but I wanted to get on the road. I had this idea of eating breakfast in Canada (eggs and Canadian bacon - also known as peameal.). By the time we got past the border it was past 10. We stopped at a place called Robin's. Had we driven just a little further along to Thunder Bay we would have had better choices.
  
• Gas: We gassed up at Grand Portage, MN. This proved to be wise as gasoline in Canada is very expensive. Our next gas stop was at Marathon and it was $ 1.39 per liter Canadian!
  
• Just past Thunder Bay we stopped at the Terry Fox Memorial and Lookout. We discovered that our camera battery was dead. No camera until we bought a new one in Sault Saint Marie Ontario. While we did not take photos - here are photos others have taken.
  
• We stopped at Ouimet Canyon park just past Thunder Bay. There is a difficult walk down to the canyon overlook. I did not make it all the way - for me just to the suspension bridge - but Kathee was blessed by the view.
  
• Next stop Marathon. Spectacular lake views all along the trip. Two moose crossed the highway a hundred yards ahead of us. Kathee was thrilled.
  
• Driving in Canada: Speed limits are in KPM (Kilometres per hour). 100 kmp is approximately 62 miles per hour. The maximum speed limit was 90 kph or approx 55 mph. Our Buick has a setting that converts the instrument stack to metric - very handy!
  
• Marathon has a very remote feel to it. We stayed at a Travelodge. This was the least nice of all of our accommodations. We had dinner and breakfast in town at a restaurant called Zero 100 Motor Inn. The food and service was excellent.
  
• On Monday morning we filled up in Marathon. There is virtually nothing between Marathon and Sault Saint Marie so it was a wise choice. Gasoline was $ 1.39 per liter Canadian (approx $ 5.56 a gallon).  Credit card use in Canada: There is a 3% foreign exchange fee. (image from my Chase bill below)
  

Lake Superior trip - Day 1 (October 1st)

We left Plymouth on Saturday morning October 1st and drove to Grand Marais, Minnesota. I was least interested in this day because of I-35 which is so boring to me. But we did exit I-35 just past Sandstone and followed Minnesota State Highway 61 into Duluth. We exited 35 because of a giant traffic backup that brought the interstate to a standstill. I did a U-turn and drove back to the previous exit and we continued on 61.

Details:

• Breakfast at McDonald's in Lino Lakes
  
• Lunch at Emily's in Knife River
  
• Ahead of us by about an hour was a fatal accident at Split Rock that killed a Twin Cities woman (AND here). We are grateful for God's traveling mercies upon us!
  
• We stayed at the Aspen Lodge in Grand Marais
  
• We had dinner at the Pie Place Cafe in Grand Marais
  
• After dinner we drove out the Gunflint Trail about 10-15 miles. We pulled off on a gravel county road and drove back into the woods another 3 miles or so. We turned off the car and opened the sun roof and viewed the majestic night sky! Oh what a sight - "The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork" (Psalm 19:1)
  

Other comments: We endeavored to read one Psalm a day. We began with Psalm 111 and finished with Psalm 118. Among other things (the serious prayer requests!), Kathee prayed that she would see a moose. Stay tuned! Money: I brought along $ 110. Canadian. We only intended to use this for meals. It went really fast! Things are expensive in the way North

We circled Lake Superior

Comment: Just back from our 1913 mile road trip around Lake Superior. We left Saturday October 1st and returned today. I expect to be doing several blog posts about our trip. Meanwhile here's a map of the circle tour courtesy of

www.lakesuperiorcircletour.com

Kodak: The long slow decline of an industry icon

Iconic for decades, time running out for Kodak

Excerpt:

Its legacy spans 13 decades, and boasts many American firsts, but Eastman Kodak (EK), best known for cameras and photography, maybe running out of options and time.

Concerns about the company's future boiled over on Friday, after it hired a law firm well-known for bankruptcy cases, sending its shares down 54 percent to 78 cents per share.

Although Kodak said it has "no intention" of filing for bankruptcy, the fact that its shares closed under $1, and market capitalization shrank to less than $300 million suggests that even the most die-hard investors may have lost faith.

The picture began to fade in September 2003. Film sales were dying, and Kodak slashed its dividend by 70 percent, hoping to gain flexibility as it beefed up spending on commercial and inkjet printers, medical imaging devices and other digital systems. It stopped investing in traditional consumer film.

The next year, billionaire financier Carl Icahn ended a brief, but profitable stint as a Kodak shareholder, saying that the company's business model would not work, especially since it needed to shift gears while its primary revenue source, film, was in decline.

"(What Kodak is doing) certainly might not be enough," he said. "I think it is possibly too late."

In January 2004, the company said it would trim costs by shrinking manufacturing, and cutting some 15,000 jobs, or about 20 percent of its work force, over three years. Its work force has since been pared to about 18,800 -- 9,600 in the United States -- at the end of 2010, down from 86,000 in 1998.

Kodak has been an iconic name in American business. The company's history stretches back to inventor George Eastman's Eastman Dry Plate Company in 1881. By 1885 he had introduced the the first transparent photographic film. The "Kodak" camera hit the market in 1888, with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest."

It rolled out Kodachrome, the first commercially successful amateur color film, in 1935, but George Eastman was unable to see its debut. The ailing Eastman, a pioneering inventor and prolific philanthropist, committed suicide in 1932.

Comment: Once in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Now a penny stock. Weighing bankruptsy

Also famous for Paul Simon's Kodachrome

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Comment: 60 stocks in one basket. From link above click "Download All Holdings CSV". Screen shot of partial. Investors can buy 10 shares for about $ 500. See Yahoo Finance Link

"A billion transistors per human"

IBM Tops Microsoft in Value for First Time Since 1996

Excerpt:

“Computing is now found in things that no one thinks of as ‘computers’,” said Palmisano at a trade show keynote in February. “Today, there are nearly a billion transistors per human, and each one costs one ten-millionth of a cent. Yes, some of these transistors are going into servers, PCs, smart phones, MP3 players and tablets. But an increasing number of them are going into appliances and automobiles, power grids, roadways, railways and waterways.”

Comment: The headline wasn't of that much interest to me but the quote above

Can't charge for the soda .... charge more for the burger!

Banks to Make Customers Pay Fee for Using Debit Cards

Excerpts:

Bank of America, the nation’s biggest bank, said on Thursday that it planned to start charging customers a $5 monthly fee when they used their debit cards for purchases. It was just one of several new charges expected to hit consumers as new regulations crimp banks’ profits.

Wells Fargo and Chase are testing $3 monthly debit card fees. Regions Financial, based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month, while SunTrust, another regional powerhouse, is charging a $5 fee.

The round of new charges stems from a rule, which takes effect on Saturday, that limits the fees that banks can levy on merchants every time a consumer uses a debit card to make a purchase. The rule, known as the Durbin amendment, after its sponsor Senator Richard J. Durbin, is a crucial part of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law.

Until now, the fees have been 44 cents a transaction, on average. The Federal Reserve in June agreed to cut the fees to a maximum of about 24 cents. While the fee amounts to pennies per swipe, it rapidly adds up across millions of transactions. The new limit is expected to cost the banks about $6.6 billion in revenue a year, beginning in 2012, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. That comes on top of another loss, of $5.6 billion, from new rules restricting overdraft fees, which went into effect in July 2010.

And even though retailer groups had argued that lower fees were important to keep prices in check, consumers were not likely to see substantial savings. In fact, they are simply going to end up paying from a different pot of money.

Or as Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, put it after passage last year of the Dodd-Frank Act, “If you’re a restaurant and you can’t charge for the soda, you’re going to charge more for the burger.”

Comment: Durbin amendment was not consumer friendly

Friend and co-worker passes

Identity released of man killed when ATV rolls over

LADYSMITH - Officials have released the name of the 47-year-old man found dead Monday afternoon in Rusk County after an ATV rolled on top of him.

John Wolf, Dayton, Minn., died in the accident on property he owns in Rusk County.

According to the Rusk County Sheriff's Department, Wolf was dead when emergency responders arrived at a property in the town of Rusk in response to a 4:10 p.m. report of a person trapped under an ATV.

A preliminary investigation by the department found that Wolf was removing brush from a hillside on his property when the ATV tipped over, ejecting the victim and rolling on top of him.

Comment: We used to be in the same building and floor. I saw John twice last week. Very sad!

15 Stunning Statistics About the Jobs Market

15 Stunning Statistics About the Jobs Market

Excerpt:

#6, 40 months. The average duration of unemployment is more than three years.

Comment: Maybe better: "15 Depressing Statistics About the Jobs Market"

Boulder: Cougars in the carport

Colorado cougars routinely traverse urban areas, study finds

Excerpt:

Tracking data also detail AF69's move that week from foothills north of Boulder Canyon to a neighborhood where she killed a young buck, which she cached under a conifer tree near a house, covering it with landscaping mulch and pine needles.

"The interesting thing is that she's living in these neighborhoods but she is rarely seen," Alldredge said. "By and large, this cat is making a living in the urban-exurban environment. She's killing deer. She's doing the best she can in this area where she was born and raised. Part of the city is her home range."

The growing body of research on how AF69 and other cougars survive as Colorado's human population expands includes a case where a cougar cached a deer carcass in a suburban carport under a Chevy Blazer.

Comment: For Bikebubba - former Boulder resident! (See map w the article)

Pandora's box in Libya: 20,000 SAMs

Nightmare in Libya: 20,000 Surface-to-Air Missiles Missing

Excerpt:

U.S. officials had once thought there was little chance that terrorists could get their hands on many of the portable surface-to-air missiles that can bring down a commercial jet liner.

But now that calculation is out the window, with officials at a recent secret White House meeting reporting that thousands of them have gone missing in Libya.

"Matching up a terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile, that's our worst nightmare," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-California, a member of the Senate's Commerce, Energy and Transportation Committee.

The nightmare has been made real with the discovery in Libya that an estimated 20,000 portable, heat-seeking missiles have gone missing from unguarded Army weapons warehouses.

The missiles, four to six-feet long and Russian-made, can weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They lock on to the heat generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a combatant's shoulder, and are accurate and deadly at a range of more than two miles.

Comment: I wouldn't want to be flying internationally in light of this!

On Obama’s dropping of his g’s and how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

AP Labeled “Racist” For Accurately Transcribing Obama Speech

Excerpt:

During his speech, Obama attempted to fool the black audience into thinking he was one of them and not a paid teleprompter reader for Wall Street by dropping the g’s at the end of his words.

“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” Obama lectured the audience. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

However, after the Associated Press accurately transcribed Obama’s dropped g’s, MSNBC aired a debate segment asking whether the decision not to “clean up” Obama’s words was “racist”.

“On MSNBC, the African-American author Karen Hunter complained the news service transcribed Obama’s speech without cleaning it up as other outlets did–specifically including the “dropped g’s,” reports Yahoo News.

“Hunter called the AP’s version “inherently racist,” sparring with New Republic contributing editor and noted linguistics expert John McWhorter, who argued the g-less version “is actually the correct one,” noting that the president’s victory in the 2008 election was due, in part, to how effortlessly “he can switch into that [black] dialect.”

It goes without saying that Hunter’s claim is completely ridiculous. Obama’s dropping of his g’s was blatantly deliberate. If the AP had “cleaned up” his speech it would have been completely misleading and inaccurate.

Hunter claimed the AP transcriber didn’t “fix” Obama’s grammar because of the color of his skin, while failing to mention the fact that transcripts of George W. Bush’s speeches were routinely transcribed (accurately) by including dropped g’s and other idiosyncratic styles of speech. She then ventured further into the realms of absurdity, claiming the AP writer was using a secret “code” through which to express his racism.

Comment: I hope black votes consider the 27-Year High On Black Unemployment

Black unemployment shot up like a rocket during the month of August, rising from an abysmal 15.9 percent to an even more shocking 16.7 percent. Much of the increase was driven by Black male unemployment, which rose from 17 to 18 percent. Black female unemployment remained steady at 13.4 percent, and Black teen unemployment experienced a dramatic increase from 39.2 percent to an astounding 46.5 percent.

Identify this tree

In my front yard. Has a leaf pattern like an ash but produces a seed ball like a sweetgum

Looking for help. Email me at jrpeet [at] jrpeet [dot] com or leave a comment. We live in Plymouth MN

In the garage - I think "Scutigera coleoptrata"

Comment: I saw it darting along the garage wall as we went to the car last night (leaving for church). I asked Kathee if she had seen it - she missed it. It moved very fast. I estimate 2-3" long. I saw it this morning again - still.

Kathee it ready to mash it the next time it appears.

Scutigera coleoptrata

Messing with the 401K program

401(k) Tax Changes May Be On Fast Track


Excerpt:

One of the more controversial and sweeping proposals pitched during the hearing would do away with tax deferrals for for 401(k) plans and IRAs, replacing them with a flat tax credit.

"The purpose of the retirement income system is to promote an adequate retirement, not to promote tax sheltering through 401(k)s," testified William Gale, a co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Brookings Institution.

Not only do the existing tax rules provide less immediate benefit to low- and middle-income households, they are also relatively ineffective at inducing new saving," he says. "Contributions by high-income households to tax-subsidized retirement accounts are more likely to represent funds that are reshuffled from existing savings to take advantage of the tax benefit rather than a net new addition to saving. In other words, the current tax incentives to increase saving have relatively low bang for the buck because they merely subsidize shifting saving for high-income households rather than raising the total amount of saving in the economy."

Comment: 4 pages ... good read. My view ... GIANT mistake to mess with this

Retirement Planning: The financial capital-to-living expenses ratio

5 Checkpoints on Your Race to Retirement

Excerpt:

How much money do you have set aside? You'll need, all in, at least 15.7 times your pay in your nest egg to fund your living expenses in retirement, according Hewitt Associates' Retirement Income Adequacy at Large Companies: The Real Deal 2010 study.

Happily, part of that 15.7 will come from the net present value of your stream of Social Security benefits, which Hewitt estimated to be 4.7. Thus, you'll need only at least 11 times your pay set aside in your defined contribution plan or other accounts earmarked for retirement. And, the "number" goes down a bit more if you have a defined benefit plan. That counts for 2.1 times pay on average. So, if you have a defined benefit plan, you'll need just nine times your pay to fund your retirement.

One bright spot about Hewitt's number of 15.7 is this: It reflects an explicit assumption that employees will bear the cost of post-retirement medical care, and that medical costs will increase at a rate greater than general inflation. Speaking of expenses, most experts say getting a handle on all your expenses, not just health-care costs, is a must-do for your checklist. Read Hewitt's study here.

Other firms, meanwhile, put the number at 10 times your salary. According to a Lincoln Financial Group study, would-be retirees should aim to have at least 10 times their income at a typical retirement age. There is, however, a caveat. "While the 10X score can help people gain perspective on the need for retirement planning, it's important to note that this is a baseline number and should only be used as a conversation starter," said Chuck Cornelio, president of the defined contribution business for Lincoln Financial Group.

Cornelio said savers should discuss their 10 times pay number with a financial adviser to determine whether this number fits their savings needs, or should be adjusted based on their individual circumstances.

Comment: Excerpt is just the first of 5. Scary thinking about this. 4 years away (Lord willing)

Trunks full of $$

Attention:Beneficiary,

My name is Mr. Tom Brown from Randle Delivery service in New York. I am contacting you on a very strict and confidential basis concerning some of your belongings in our company's possession.

I am the clearance officer for the above company and have stumbled on some valuable information that concerns you. During a routine inspection of unclear consignments in our warehouse I discovered two diplomatic trunk boxes that bears your name as the beneficiary. On further verification by scanning, I found that the consignments is filled with hard currency of $8.5m, in US dollars.
I strongly advice that you contact me immediately and reconfirm your information as stated below to me for further instructions on how you can claim your consignment

Comment: So that's what happened to my $$.