Manta Rays

One of the creatures I always dreamed of seeing while diving is the manta ray.  I often thought about traveling to Yap where the island is “well known” for manta encounters.  I was therefore, very pleased when one of the dives during our trip to Komodo was at a site known as “Manta Point” or “Torolengkoy”   While our dive guide would not guarantee manta sightings, he was pretty confident that we would get to see some of these majestic animals.  These dives would make up for the very sparse Komodo Dragon encounters that we had on the island of Komodo…

Here are some of my manta photographs

Truly looks like stuff out of star trek

The Komodo Diving Honeymoon.

We had a rather incredible honeymoon, spent in large part, under the waters in and around Komodo.  This is by no means a full trip report, but for anybody interested, we stayed aboard the Archipelago’s Adventurer II, which had spacious cabins, incredibly friendly helpful crew, and delicious meals.  If you are a diver, and are looking for a luxury liveaboard, I highly recommend this operation.

This was my first time in the waters of Indonesia, and it was really great. While I personally cannot say that the diving was so great that I’ll never dive the Caribbean again, I am thankful for this perspective, as Indonesia is a very long way from home!

There is a lot of life in the Indonesian waters.  In fact, in the following picture, the black and green nudibranch (Nembrotha Cristata) was not even seen by me when I was taking the picture!  That says something about the abundance of life in the waters, my abilities to spot critters and my abilities as a photographer (i.e., there is a lot of luck involved in getting a nice picture).

Nembrotha Cristata (originally oriented 90 degrees to the right)

Getting Married

Well, I’ve decided to take the plunge!  This summer I am going to marry  Colleen — she is an incredibly good person, with a great sense of humor.  In many ways, she is exactly like myself.  In fact, we are often on the same word, not to mention page.  I used to think my sense of humor was unique, but she truly thinks just like me, which means she’ll never get tired of my sense of humor.  We share similar politics and a similar religion.

We both love to dive.  She has a natural love of sharks, which I find endearing, if not a little nutty, and of course, I won’t miss any dive simply because there are things in the water which terrify mere mortals.  She’s a dedicated and hard working school teacher, who has put up with way more than her fair share of bullshit from a moron principal who, I hope to goodness was fired from her last two jobs and winds up homeless, turning tricks for drug money.   But I digress…

I’m looking forward to living the rest of our lives together, meeting those challenges that come our way and making the best of a wonderful situation!

Madoff Fraud in the Markets

Headlines this week refer to a 50 billion dollar fraud perpetrated by Bernard L. Madoff.  We’ve all been deadened somewhat to the meaning of a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) because the numbers we’ve seen for bailouts, losses, etc., have been so staggeringly high.

I am left wondering whether those who once trusted their money to Hedge Funds (Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was not a hedge fund, but several Hedge Funds have unwittingly invested in his ponzi scheme) will have second thoughts, and start investing in traditional investments such as ETFs, individual stocks and mutual funds.  And, if that is the wave of the future,  how will that impact the markets generally?

Back in April, I had my own funcamental crisis of confidence in the markets, based on nothing more than, “What do I really get for being a shareholder, and is it worth the risk that when the music stops, I will be holding shares that nobody is interested in buying?”   Sadly, the recent events do not inspire any confidence.  If Hedge Funds can be so easily defrauded, an other sophisticated investors so easily taken, what chance does the average Joe have to avoid being fleeced by the markets and those who participate in them?

Sure, the conventional wisdom says to invest in a diversified portfolio to minimize this risk, and had that conventional wisdom been followed here, many people would not have lost their shirts, pants and shoes.  But these days there do not seem to be any safe havens, and a diversified portfolio on seems to get you a large selection of stucks losing half their value overnight.  Hardly a ringing endorsement for trusting my hard earned money to the markets, even to diversified markets.

With all of that said, I remain heavily invested in stocks. I believe that there are many bad apples such as Mr Madoff, but more importantly, that there are many more letigimate comapnies out there making a legitimate profit, and that these profits will translate into higher share prices.   Sure, there will be losses. But eventually the gains will come roaring back, because they really have to.  There is just too much money out there, looking for a place to invest — though if I had $60 million, I am fairly certain that I’d stop the investing roulette game and simply live off the interest paid by Treasuries and municipalities.  However, the institutional investors who are managing our money for retirement, etc., MUST invest somewhere, and as a result, it is my hope that they will continue to pay more for my shares, than I paid someone else for buying them, and in that way turn a nice profit.

This is one diver’s perspective….

Black Friday and the Death at Wal-Mart

This past Friday, Jdimytai Damour was trampled to death by Wal-Mart Shoppers.  My heart goes out to his family and friends.  I am at a loss for words how people can be so careless, selfish and dangerous.  I sincerely hope the video is able to identify those people who contributed to the death by consciously stepping on the man.  I expect a lot of people did not even see him until it was too late.  But, I am equally certain that there were people who simply kept on pushing and shoving knowing a man was down.

It is despicable that people could behave so badly.  A man died, and a shopper essentially says, “So what. Don’t close the store because of one death, I’ve been waiting in line all night.”  No human decency. Makes my stomach turn.

Bailing out General Motors (GM), TARP, et cetera.

To say we have been bombarded with bad news about the economy is an understatement. To say we have been bamboozled into approving a $700 billion dollar “TARP” program is, perhaps, an overstatement. But for several days they swore up and down they needed the money to take the toxic debt off the balance sheets, and that the U.S. Government might even profit from the deal. Thousands of manhours were spent studying the auction process that was to be used to price the debt, and eventually they concluded that the money would not be used to buy any such debt, but woudl instead be used for something else.

I don’t even know if they had a hearing about using the money for “something else.” And weren’t there supposed to be dire consequences if it was not used to buy the troubled debt? To say there is a crisis of confidence in our government is, perhaps an understatement. Its a bunch of keystone cops taking our tax dollars and mortgaging our future, and it makes me sick.

Now we hear that the auto industry is about to collapse. Well, friends, the auto industry has been collapsing for some time now. As I understand it, a large portion of their problems comes from high costs associated with deals struck with the unions. I’d like to be loud and clear about this – I DO NOT WISH TO ACT AS GUARANTOR TO THE OBLIGATIONS OWED TO THE UNIONS. I did not make the promises, I should not be taxed to keep those promises. Maybe the Unions overreached and caused the the auto dealers to wind up on the verge of collapse. Maybe it wasn’t there fault at all. But one thing is absolutely certain – its not my fault, and I’m not happy about any proposal which uses my tax dollars to fix the problem.

Times are tough. Employees of the auto industry will have to suck it up like everybody else. Take pay cuts, take benefit cuts, suffer job losses. If GM has to file Chapter 11 and reject various contracts and suffer union strikes, so be it. If the unions want to force the company out of business, so be it. Their members can collect unemployment and find jobs behind cash registers, or in the mailrooms of Detroit.

Or, they could grow up, recognize they are part of the problem and can be part of the solution. But they should not be “bailed out.” A bailout is just another word for taking your money and giving it to someone else who has no real claim to your money, except that they perhaps supported politicians who have the ability to pick your pocket.

It is one thing to put money in place to keep the banking system running, so that I can use my ATM card and write my checks, without worrying about there being money on the other side to cover the transaction. Its an entirely different story when you are taking my money to benefit a select industry. I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more.

This is One Diver’s Perspective.

Credit Crunch, What Credit Crunch?

Well, the news has been out for a while now, but I haven’t noticed any real impact from the credit crisis, other than the deterioration of my stock portfolio.  Granted, I was not really in the market for credit, though I did qualify for, and receive, another credit card with a 0% offer two weeks ago.

What about yourselves? Have you had difficulty obtaining credit? More difficulty than you would have expected based on prior experience?

The Sex Card

I previously posted my thoughts on the “Race Card” and now we have the “Sex Card” apparently being played.

Obama’s campaign has accused the GOP camp of engaging in a “pathetic attempt to play the gender card.” In an e-mail to reporters Wednesday, the campaign noted two other instances of McCain using the phrase “lipstick on a pig” and its use by other Republicans such as House Minority Leader John Boehner and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl.

What engendered this?  Obama “criticized McCain’s economic policies as similar to those of President Bush, saying: “You can put lipstick on a pig … it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It’s still going to stink after eight years.” 

And McCain’s campaign took this as smear against his V.P. candidate, Palin.

Ms. Palin’s use of the word lipstick does not give the McCain campaign exclusive use of the word.  Lipstick on a pig does not refer to Palin, and McCain’s suggestion to the contrary is, in my opinion, absurd. Yet, if McCain wants to call his running mate a pig, that is between himself and Ms. Palin.  Obama is correct, this is the sort of thing that makes people sick and tired of politics.  Its a misplaced hope, but perhaps the two of them can play nice and attack what the other actually says instead of what they claim the other impliedly says.

This is One Diver’s Perspective.

Link to “story”: #mce_temp_url#

Google Chrome

Well, I’ve been using the new Google Chrome browser, and I’d like to report that it works pretty well.  I have noticed a few more “crashes” than with my other browsers, but they are limited to the page not loading and fixed by closing the tab in question.  

The the real difficulty in switching browsers for me is that I use password managment software that is not yet compatible with the Chrome browser.  That means I can use the browser for those websites whose passwords I have memorized, but for my finances, etc., I can’t use the new browser.

I look forward to this browser being developed, and supported by roboform, and hope great things continue to come out of Google.

Sharks in Jamaica

Somebody keeps coming to my site, with the search inquiry of whether there are many sharks in Jamaica. Rest assured, if you are going to Jamaica you will not be seeing any sharks in their waters.  They do have nurse sharks, if you go looking for them – a nurse shark looks like a giant catfish. It does not have sharp teeth, though if you grab one unexpectedly, it might hurt you.

Enjoy your trip to Jamaica. When I asked the same question many years ago, I was told “Jamaica has no wildlife that hurts people, relax Mon!”  I don’t know if its true, but it did put me at ease.