Wild Blackberries

Carmen came to visit me this weekend. She arrived on Friday night/Saturday morning just after 4am and left on Sunday around 6pm. Round trip road time: 24 hours! It was so nice to get to see her again.

On Saturday morning, she noticed that I have wild blackberries growing in my yard. She made me eat one after I'd just brushed my teeth and it wasn't so awesome. I tried one later and it was pretty good. I think I'm going to plant some (maybe not so wild) blackberries in a garden. She said that I could grow raspberries too! How cool & tasty would that be?

New Appliances

I upgraded the following appliances: AC/heat, water heater, stove. I got new energy efficient (14 SEER v. my old ~5 SEER, 40 gallon gas v. 52 gallon electric 33 year old water heater) gas appliances. The work all got completed and inspected on my birthday. That was a good present. The city's giving me $2,000 in incentive money along with hooking up a 5 year, 5% interest energy loan. My home warranty company gave me $925 for the air handler which brings my out of pocket costs to $5,600...leading to a $160/month payment. I think I'll save around $80/month on my utility bill, but we'll see what the actual figure is. The crappy thing is that I have to pay an extra $9/month just to be hooked up to the gas...they don't put that part in the brochures.

Anyway, not much to say about the water heater. We never ran out of hot water before and we certainly won't now. It is cool that you can take a panel off the unit and peer at the flame inside through a window. The AC is way better than my old one. You can hear the difference in volume at the return. The stove is sweet. It doesn't boil water instantly like everyone said it would. However, I've managed to make it this far without burning anything although I'm sure that will happen some time. I've made some tasty dishes on it. The oven preheats really fast and you can really tweak the temperature on the stove top.

I think these new appliances will increase the resale value of my house, but who knows by how much. Looking back, I should have got gas when I moved in. Dang. Oh well, I didn't have the money back then (but wait, there was a loan program...!). I would have bought a gas dryer too and saved even more. The guy doing work here tried to talk me into a gas dryer but I already have a matching washer/dryer set and they work well so I didn't see the need to replace the dryer. It would be easy to hook one up in the future.

Come visit if you want to cook on my sweet new stove. I found out that there's a piece for it that you can put over 2 burners and it becomes a griddle! Too bad it's $100. I might try to find one on sale.

Pick #123

None Other - "I Know"

Dejar la sombra

Me visitaste y dejaste tu fantasma. Me siga como una sombra. Para dejarla, fui corriendo por el crepúsculo al oeste para ponerla detrás. Voy a toda prisa para llegarla tan lejos posible antes que el sol se esconde bajo la tierra. En este momento la sombra desaparece y por eso me doy la vuelta y regresar a mi casa. Trato de eliminar la parte de ti que está dentro de mi todavía. Trato de sudarte fuera gota por gota. Cuando cae la gota, como cae la noche, en su lugar llega un trozito de la oscuridad. Ya que he sudado bastante viene la noche. La misma que ha tragado tu sombra sigadora hace poco tiempo. Viene con la noche la oscuridad. Es el fenómeno que nos separa. Ojos que no ven, corazones que no sienten. Aunque estoy liberado por poco timpo, sé que voy a ver la sombra a pasar por afuera mañana.

American Airlines Antitrust

I'm writing a term paper right now about an antitrust case the US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed against American Airlines (AA) on May 13, 1999. They accused AA of predating low cost carriers (LCCs) out of their Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) hub. AA was found not guilty on April 27, 2001. My research question is: did American Airlines price their tickets differently after the DOJ filed suit on May 13, 1999? I wanted to know if they responded to the case being filed, not necessarily the outcome.

Using panel data from the first quarter of 1991 through the third quarter of 2005 with 72,535 observations on 1,935 routes. Controlling for a bunch of stuff, including heteroskedasticity, serial correlation, and clustering of standard errors, I found that there was a price hike of around $30 on the routes involved in the case and an $18 hike in non-case routes after the suit was filed. Higher prices would mean that predation is less likely. So, I conclude that AA was responding to the idea that they were being tried for antitrust. I think it would be much more efficient to get the DOJ to send letters to companies telling them that the DOJ is ready & willing to prosecute if the company doesn't change its bad behavior. As long as the company believes that the DOJ will prosecute, then it should be in everyone's best interest to stop the bad behavior and stay out of court.

Massive Moor

Para informarles

Ya es hora de informar a mis lectores fieles quienes no saben todavía q separé de la novia vieja hace unas tres semanas y media. Fue una decisión de nosotros dos. Fuimos comportándonos bien cuando estabamos juntos y pues somos amigos. Desafortunadamente, la vieja me preguntó si había una otra ya. Como estoy hablando con alguien, tuve q responder q sí. La respuesta la lastimó. Me enojó. No puedo dar la culpa a ella, pero no pienso q es tan mal de mí hacerlo. No estoy muy cerca de la nueva. De hecho la nueva va a irse de este ciudad al cabo de un mes. No es nada serio...pero todo igual, no le gusta a la vieja. Me suplicó que rompía todo tipo de conección con ella. Por un lado me siento como no estoy listo para empezar algo nuevo. Por el otro, ¿por qué no? La vieja dice que no ha pasado bastante tiempo y fuimos en el proceso de mover de un estado de amantes a un de soló amigos. Aparantemente rompí este proceso y tenemos que mover atrás hasta el primer cuadro. Ay! Caramba. Todavía no he salido con la nueva. No he abrazado ni besado ni nada de esto. No trato de esconder información por escribir en castellano porque sé que la vieja tiene una traductora. Imagino que pasan muchísimo tiempo juntas hoy en día.