Quinn’s Brain, aka QBrain

The short version via pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/mpquinn/Asia2010
The narrative version:
4/7 – 4/8 Dallas to Singapore
4/9 – 4/10 Singapore
4/10 From the Ritz Carlton to the Seabourn Pride
4/11 – 4/12 At Sea
4/13 – 4/14 Laem Chabang
4/15-4/16 Ko Kood and at sea
4/17 – 4/19 Ho Chi Minh City (Siagon)
4/20 Da Nang
4/21 – 4/23 Halong Bay
4/24 Hong Kong
4/25 Homebound
Service Specific Comments on the Asia trip

After check in, we shower and get ready to sleep, by which time it is about 2am. During this time we noticed that there was loud bass music, and we assumed there was a club nearby. Before 3 the music was off so this wasn’t an issue. I got a few hours of sleep then got up and showered again around 6am. Brook still wasn’t feeling well, didn’t want to go anywhere, even just downstairs for breakfast but was interested in room service. The problem is, room service is not a great choice when you can’t eat gluten, but she finally decided on a couple things, so I ordered that up and a pot of coffee for me.

This all takes about 90 minutes, I drink my coffee, and Brook shows no interest in eating anything. I tell her I am going to go swim for about an hour, and she says “I was wondering why you were still here.” Umm… because you have been acting like you were going to die for the last 12 hours.

I swam and came back to the room to find that she still hadn’t eaten anything, so I eat a piece of fruit and some eggs she ordered and hang around for a while to see if she might be interested in eating anything. She does eat some fruit and goes back to sleep, so I head downstairs to have breakfast.

Breakfast is included with our room, but I figured I would try a Singapore breakfast on the trip, runny eggs, toast and kaya, which I think is a sweet coconut syrup they put on the toast. At this point, I need food more than I need culture, so I eat at the hotel.

The breakfast is buffet, so I am not thrilled. After being seated, I am brought a cup off coffee, and it is GOOD. At this point, breakfast just needs to be edible; I can wash everything down with good coffee. There are about a 12 tables’ setup with breakfast, and the first thing I see is Dim Sum. Umm HELL YEAH, I can have dim sum for breakfast? Instead of going into detail about everything I ate, let just go over what was available. There was congee (rice porridge), dim sum, pork rib soup, maybe a dozen choices of fresh fruit, a dozen fresh juices, a dozen jams, breads, bagels, made to order eggs, pastries, muffins, sausage, American style bacon, curry, rice, baked beans and cereals. The food was good, so I was now thrilled that it was a buffet.

I come back to the room, and Brook has eaten some. That is an improvement. I tell her I am going exploring for a while, since she is planning on just sleeping. She lets me know that she will be at the hotel when I get back and if she is not in the room check the pool and the restaurant. That is a big improvement.

Off I go to explore the wonder that is Singapore’s mall system. Now shopping really isn’t my thing, but it is the national past time in Singapore, and their malls are a little different than our malls. Everything is in a mall in Singapore. Walking to the nearest mall from the Ritz takes about 3 minutes, and if you know where you are going (I don’t yet), it can be done with only about 1 minute in un air conditioned space, but completely in the shade. When you first walk in to Marina Square from the Ritz, there are little restaurants, a CVS/Walgreens like pharmacy and a miniature Home Depot. After wondering for a while, and walking through two more malls, I found the supermarket. So everything really is in a mall, supermarkets, hardware stores and pharmacies included.

After about an hour walking through malls, I start to feel the effects of the time change and try to retrace my steps. Lacking female mall navigation skills, it took a while to get back to the hotel, but walking out of Marina Square, I spotted the back door to the Ritz, which required much less un air conditioned walking. Singapore is HOT.

It is now mid afternoon and I totally bonked.

After I nap, Brook gets up and is ready to do a little of something. So we walk around Marina Square for about 10 minutes then head back to the hotel for ‘lunch’. Brook gets adventurous and orders a salad. The food is good, but I can’t believe I am in Singapore eating at a hotel.

We finish up around 4pm, Brook goes back to bed and I explore a little more before going to sleep.

The loud bass music starts up again around maybe 10pm? I sleep through it. Brook calls a little after 3am to ask when the club closes, and finds out that there is no club. The music is shut off for about 10 minutes before coming back on, it was the room below us that was playing the music. I wake up around 5:30am, and can see how that might keep a normal person awake, like me if I wasn’t jetlagged.

I head down to the pool to get a swim in. When I get back Brook is pissed because the music was finally turned off a little after 7am. I ask why she didn’t call reception again.

I excitedly convince Brook to get some breakfast at the buffet with me.

She tries to get some sleep while I going touring before we need to leave for the boat. The pictures cover what I saw better than I could write about it. After getting caught in the rain, I slog back to the hotel to shower and pack up to head to the boat.

May 2nd, 2010 | Category: Travel | Leave a comment

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper  - copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

The short version via pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/mpquinn/Asia2010
The narrative version:
4/7 – 4/8 Dallas to Singapore
4/9 – 4/10 Singapore
4/10 From the Ritz Carlton to the Seabourn Pride
4/11 – 4/12 At Sea
4/13 – 4/14 Laem Chabang
4/15-4/16 Ko Kood and at sea
4/17 – 4/19 Ho Chi Minh City (Siagon)
4/20 Da Nang
4/21 – 4/23 Halong Bay
4/24 Hong Kong
4/25 Homebound
Service Specific Comments on the Asia trip

4/7 DFW-SFO-HKG-SIN Dallas to Singapore

I was really looking forward to the flights between Dallas and Singapore, but it turned out not to be all that much fun.

To get to Singapore, I booked 3 flights (Dallas -> San Francisco -> Hong Kong -> Singapore) using miles in international business/domestic first. The first and the last legs of the trip are typical of what you see in first class flying in the US. There is a larger seat with decent leg room, meal service and alcohol. The 2nd leg, from San Francisco to Hong Kong was a 13+ hour flight, but we had lie flat seats and Cathay is considered one of the best airlines in the world. Since we were flying international business and all the flights were on the same day, we also had lounge access: Admiral’s Club in Dallas, Terraces in San Francisco and The Wing/The Pier in Hong Kong. Lots of cool new things to look forward to.

Our first flight was at 7:55am. We got up at 4:15 and after eating breakfast, showering and packing a few remaining items, I spent the rest of the time prepping things for the house sitter. My mother in law took us to the airport and we arrived around 6:45. First class check in with American is better than coach only because the line is shorter. I was still “offered” self check in, which requires an agent to verify my passport anyway. Pretty painless, but disappointing for “first” class. No luggage to check, so we headed to security.

I think that we went through a first class security line, which I think only exists in terminal D at DFW right now, but Brook said it was the regular line. Very painless, took maybe 2 minutes. D was not busy at all yet.

Another “first class” failure on American’s part. No mention that we had lounge access, or where the lounge was. Obviously, depending on American for information would have been a failure on my part, so we headed to the Admiral’s Club about 3 gates away from where our plane would depart. The staff at the Admiral’s Club are the people you wish you usually got to deal with, nice, professional and competent.

The Admiral’s Club is just a nice place to wait for your flight. It was quiet, has plenty of space and free internet access. The food and beverages are not free unlike some lounges.

The weather report about a week out stated a chance for thunderstorms Wednesday. As luck would have it, the day was crystal clear. The flight left on time, arrived on time and my only complaint was that the food was worse than usual.

Leg one was completed without problem. I picked up some Singapore dollars in San Francisco, since we had about a 4 hour layover. Brook was already stressing about connecting in Hong Kong. Our connection was only an hour, but it was Hong Kong airport connecting between two Cathay flights on premium tickets. I wasn’t concerned, but having someone sit next to you and stress for a few hours can put a damper on your mood.

International security was pretty typical for security. It took about 10 minutes to clear and it wasn’t any different than any other security line other than requiring passports for id.

The Terraces lounge in San Francisco compared to the Admirals Club in DFW was small and pretty ugly (bad color choices). Free drinks and packaged snacks were provided and it was still nicer than waiting in the terminal, but it wasn’t really impressive. I was happy because getting out of DFW was my biggest concern with the trip and I was sitting in San Fran, so that worry was behind me. A Qantas 747 was sitting right in front of the Terraces window, which is a about nose level with a 747, and that and Milan cookies (maybe a little wine) kept me entertained for our time in the lounge.

Boarding for First and Business was directly from the lounge, so that was cool. You don’t want to mix with those unsavory coach passengers. All joking aside, the 747 holds just short of a million coach passengers, so having a separate line was really a benefit.

I picked seats upstairs because there was a rumor that the seats upstairs were longer. This isn’t true, and if we fly Cathay in business again, it will be on the main deck. The upper deck’s storage narrows at the front of the plane, which caused problems with bags fitting for about a third of the passengers, including us. Brook’s Zuca got stuck in some secret compartment and a couple passengers had to put their bags somewhere on the main deck. Other than that, the seats were exactly as I expected. I barely fit length wise, and had no problem with the width. People have complained that Cathay’s business seats are confining. This is not a problem for tall people. Anyone over 6 foot can look right over the wall, so they might be bad if you are short and claustrophobic. These seats would be horrible if overweight.

The service was great. I don’t know what else to say. The upper deck was full except for 2 seats but the flight attendants seemed to be on top of it. The American flight was full up front too, and the service crawled because of it.

The food sucked. I was pretty disappointed across the board. The cheese board was ok. Most frozen dinners would have beaten what was served. This flight was a lunch dinner flight. For lunch I had the beef tenderloin, which is easy to over cook and figured it was my mistake for ordering it. So for dinner I ordered the stir fried noodles which was the Chinese option. Cathay claims to serve the best Chinese food in the air, and if they are the only ones serving Chinese food in the air, they are right. Just to be clear, my experience with Chinese food is not limited to Panda Express. I have been known to eat duck feet, eat in restaurants where menu items that are only in Chinese cannot be ordered in English, or even frequent restaurants where the roasted duck in hanging in the front window with it’s head still on. The stir fried noodles sucked and the vegetables (mee choy?) were just ok. Very disappointed. Appetizers, including the salads, were edible but pretty poor and I passed on all the desserts.

The wine was fine Something Landon.

My normal bed time was about 4 hours into the flight, so I expected to be able to fall asleep. Nope. I tossed and turned and finally gave up, watched 4 hours of movies and then was able to finally get a solid 45 minutes of sleep. The lay flats are definitely better than trying to sleep in a coach seat, but being able to fall asleep in the air without being exhausted seems to elude me.

Now things get exciting, in a very bad way. About 3 hours outside Hong Kong, Brook’s hand pops up over the side “I need you to call someone.” She used to seizure and faint when she was younger that has something to do with her brain not regulating sleep normally. That is my best guess as to what happened. The flight attendants took good care of her and tried to make her comfortable, but there was nothing anyone could really do.

Now I have something to be worried about. Is Brook going to be ok? Can she make it to Hong Kong? If we make it to Hong Kong, can she make the flight to Singapore, or do we need to stay in Hong Kong and get medical attention? Where are we going to stay? How are we going to get there? How am I going to pay for a cab since I don’t have any Hong Kong Dollars on me? Many people speak English in Hong Kong, but language could be an issue. I have travel insurance, but the long term issues never even crossed my mind, the only thing that matter was having a plan if Brook couldn’t make the Singapore flight.

At that point, there was no possibility of sleeping or even enjoying a movie.

When we got to Hong Kong, Brook felt like crap, but decided feeling like crap in Singapore was the way to go, so the plan was to get on the Singapore flight.

Remember Brook stressing about the tight connection in Hong Kong? We were the last people in business off the plane. A long stop at the restroom was needed, so that put us behind any coach passengers connecting, but we still had a good 10 minutes before we could board when we got to the gate. Promise, nothing resembling running to the gate, Hong Kong airport is just that efficient. Security was amazing. There were about 5 people in front of us, I was asked to take out my laptop and put it in a bin that the guy had waiting for me. A label was put on the first item and the last item on the belt, and I was handed the matching label. I walked through the metal detector with my shoes, watch and belt on, my liquids packed. I was baffled it went so fast. I love Hong Kong airport.

We get on the plane, and we assume that we are sitting next to each other. Well it turns out there was one seat between us. The owner of the seat shows up and I tell him “This is my wife, do you mind sitting in my seat” (both are aisle seats). What does he say, “Since I wasn’t given a choice in the matter, I guess I will.” Hmmm… I just gave you a choice dick head. A little bit later, he is asleep and the Purser comes by to introduce herself to me… so I stole some guy’s seat with status with Cathay. He woke up a little later, so I told him I was enjoying his status, he laughed and went back to sleep. He was probably as sleep deprived as I was.

We were pretty close to the first people on board (allowing me to unwittingly steal that guys seat), and they bring around drinks in these little tiny glasses, even the water. At this point, I have been flying for 24 hours, and need as much water as I can consume, and water is about the only thing Brook is interested in. So I keep snagging waters, but it comes to take off, and they want to take Brook’s little glass of water. Like an intelligent person, she asks for a bottle of water that she can keep during take off. “OK” and the flight attendant goes and gets her one. That was the only personal size bottle of water I saw on the entire flight. Why do I think that would have played out differently on American? Cathay’s food might have sucked, but I can’t complain about the service.

The flight was uneventful. It was full up front, and the flight attendants seemed rushed. Went with the beef again because nothing looked good and it would at least go with red wine. Only had 1 glass (about a 1 oz pour, no joke) of a pretty cheap Shiraz. The steak was over cooked and it was served with French fried potato wedges. Nothing good comes from reheating French fries in a steam oven. After picking my way through the appetizer and the main, I decided to try the chocolate cream cake dessert. It was the highlight of the meal, and that only means it was edible enough that I finished it.

On the plus, Cathay’s coffee is MUCH better than American’s. The coffee is so poor on American, I have started choosing the caffeine headache over drinking their coffee. I would even go out on a limb and say Cathay’s coffee is actually good.

We made it to Singapore on time. Brook needed to use the restroom before we cleared immigration, which meant we were behind the entire plane. Singapore’s immigration still only took about 10 minutes. There were more than 10 lines for immigration and we landed at midnight. Singapore must want people to come into their country.

I, or my travel agent actually, had arranged for a driver to take us from the airport to the hotel. Before we had time to worry about where we were supposed to meet the driver, Brook spotted a sign with my name on it. He walked us to a spot on the curb where we waited for a few minutes while he ran to get the car, and then we rocketed to the hotel. His first pickup was 7am and it was now just after midnight, so we were all ready for the day to be over.

Once we got to the hotel we were quizzed about our Zuca’s. Now I have had flight attendants and security ask about the carry ons before, but that is always when you are in the process of going somewhere. Now that we were at the hotel, we could actually be quizzed. Moral of the story, if you don’t like to talk about luggage, don’t buy a Zuca.

We are staying at the Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore. Nice hotel, but it was picked because of the views. I hope some of the pictures turn out well, because the views are great.

The cheapest room with a view was booked, but we were upgraded to a corner suite. If you don’t have status, get a travel agent that does. Neither I nor my wife has ever stayed in a Ritz and we were upgraded to a corner suite, were offered a butler drawn bubble bath, $50 room credit, and daily breakfast ($50/person/day). Thanks Linda.

Check in was in room, so we were shown to our room and completed the check in paperwork there.

That covers the trip to Singapore, and hopefully the rest of the trip will be less exciting and more enjoyable.

May 2nd, 2010 | Category: Travel | Leave a comment

April 7th Leave DFW for Singapore. The flights connect in San Francisco and Hong Kong on the way. The flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong is over 14 hours.

April 8th around midnight, arrive in Singapore.

April 9th explore Singapore on our own. Singapore is a very modern country, English is the primary language and is known for its high quality cheap street food. A day of eating and shopping.

April 10th spend the morning exploring Singapore, then get on the boat after lunch. We are taking a cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong on a “western” cruise line. English speaking staff and familiar food. The ship only holds 208 passengers, so it is pretty small.

April 11th and 12th cruising to Thailand. This is where we plan to catch up on sleep lost from flying to Singapore.

April 13th Arrive in Bangkok Thailand. Today’s agenda include watching Thai kick boxing at one of the large kick boxing stadiums, shopping and eating.

April 14th Time to get some culture. Today will be spent touring temples. Thailand is predominately Buddhist.

April 15th Beach party on an island off the coast of Thailand. I will be swimming off the beach before enjoying whatever is being barbecued on the beach.

April 16th Cruise to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

April 17th Ho Chi Minch City dinner at a previous governors mansion.

April 18th A trip of the Mekong to see the floating markets. I will have bug spray.

April 19th Cruise to Da Nang Vietnam.

April 20th Da Nang – Nothing planned.

April 21st Cruise to Hanoi We don’t dock until 6pm, so probably nothing today

April 22nd Kayaking Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

April 23rd Cruise to Hong Kong

April 24th Leave the safety of the ship and tour Hong Kong.

April 25th Fly home, Hong Kong to Tokyo, Tokyo to LA, LA to Dallas. We leave at 8am and arrive home at 8pm by the magic of the international dateline, but we will be in a plane for about 20 hours.

March 30th, 2010 | Category: Travel | Leave a comment

I didn’t plan any breakfast places ahead of time, because I usually only need some coffee when on vacation and I am good to go. Well with LALA time and in room instant coffee combined, I as quite grumpy by the time people started moving, so I hopped online and found someplace that served a gluten free breakfast and I could get a caffeine fix.

Easily the best place we ate during the trip. Everything was good from the coffee to the breakfast sandwhiches. It is pretty hidden away in Santa Barbara, and I am glad I found it during my quick search.

I would go into what I ate, but there were four of us, and between us we ordered maybe 12 things off the menu, between drinks and breakfast plates and sides, and every single item was good. I believe the owner was working the counter, and she was friendly, brought us our food on outside where we had pulled two small tables together, checked on us several times and cleaned up dishes as we finished. It was amazing service for a place where you order at the counter.

If you enjoy a tasty breakfast, this is the place to go. Not much of a view being that is is on a small back street about 2 blocks off of state, but the food was impressive. Next door is a Crush cupcakes, but traveling with the gluten free girls means I have to keep my sweet tooth in check.

Crush Cafe’s menu

November 27th, 2009 | Category: General | Leave a comment

Let me preface this review with the fact that this dinner got started off on really the wrong foot. We spent the day wine tasting in Santa Barbara all morning, and our party returned to the hotel and took a “nap”. Now my wife and I are shifted two hours from Central to Pacific time, and we are early risers (4:15am regularly). The other half of our party is, well, LA. They probably don’t own an alarm clock, and they eat dinner at 8pm. After our “nap” we wake up for dinner at a time we would be well asleep at home, and I am quite dehydrated from drinking too much wine in the morning and not enough water. We get ready and try to get ahold of the other couple, but they aren’t answer their cells. We are in the lobby and my wife sends me to their room to check on them, and still no response from knocking. I return to the lobby, both my wife and I are tired and a little upset. We walk to Buchon, and I don’t know the cross street, but it is only 5 blocks away. After I am sure we have walked past it, I get my wife to pull it up on her iphone and we back track a block to the restaurant.

At this point, my dining companion is in such high spirits, I would really rather be dining alone. She is radiating “pissed off” quite visible, although she denied it then and will probably deny it now.

Even after all that, we still went sat down to have dinner, because I was really excited to try Buchon.

The service was mediocre for this kind of establishment.

The wine list was great, with a focus almost exclusively on California wines, with some excellent options by the glass. I had a wonderful Pinot Noir.

The food on the other hand…

I ordered the braised pork cheek and sage ravioli to start. The asparagus was good, but everything else was amazingly disappointing. The heirloom tomato ragout was thin and tasteless, the pork cheek was somehow dry in texture while still having a gelatinous fatty feel.

As the main course I ordered Bourbon & Maple-Glazed California Duck Breast, it was better. It was a decent dish, but there was no contrast to the sweetness. The succotash was sweet, the glaze was kinda non existant, the duck was breast was rare and didn’t contribute much to the dish flavor or texture wise, and their was a duck leg confit, that was easily the most boring duck confit I have experienced. The vegetables were again the best part of the dish, and they were just good.

At this point I asked my wife what her opinion was, and she said everything was ok. I gave Buchon a fair shake, with two dishes that should have been interesting and tasty, but was disappointed in both. I finished my single glass of wine, paid the check and left Buchon disappointed.

I don’t think the circumstances tainted the taste of the food, but it is possible, but highly unlikely. I have tasted good food under worse circumstances.

November 27th, 2009 | Category: Food | Leave a comment

I was in charge of dinner reservations for our Santa Barbara trip, and I took this place off the list more than once. First, it is Italian, and half our party is gluten intolerant. Second, it was a hike from Santa Barbara. But I read so many good things about it, I bumped it up to the top of the list.

And it was great.

This place is known for its food, not for its service. The location is a kinda strip mall/shopping center, but really small town. I am pretty sure the building was purpose built as part of the “town center” for Santa Ynez, but since I am unfamiliar with the area, the architecture didn’t look like everything else I am used to in the DFW area. The building was a traditional two story farm house appearance with wrap around porch, dormer windows, standing seam metal roof and pier and beam foundation (or maybe just the porch was pier and beam). The interior of the dining room had the open kitchen in one corner with a bar around it, and then typical restaurant tables and chairs filling a rather small room. The place was packed.

There was a group waiting when I walked up to the hostess to check in. This totally threw her off. Apparently she was getting ready to seat them, and didn’t know how to tell me that it would be just a moment. Quite funny. We were seated immediately after she returned.

The waiter was quite laid back, to the point that I doubted any of the gluten intolerance information was getting through. Everything turned out fine, for the most part.

The food was excellent. We started with 3 appetizers between 4 of us, and should have just done two. The caprese and carpaccio di bue were well prepared. The rollio veneto, a pizza roll made with smoked mozzarella and radicchio, was awesome. We raved about it so much, one of the gluten free girls felt obligated to lick the center of one of the rolls. That was enough to make her sick later, oops.

The only problem with the rollio veneto was that both men ordered large plates of pasta, and both men were already full. A large plate of pennette con funghi e salsciccia left me stuffed. It is a traditional penne with a tomato mushroom sausage sauce, where the bits of sausage and mushroom were small enough enough to stick to the pasta. It was amazing. The girls raved about their gluten free dishes (Fagioli con Salsiccie and Calamari alla Positano) and all the gluten free dishes were shared, thus we know the culprit was a single lick to the pizza roll.

Everything was washed down with a bottle of Brunello. It was my first Brunello, and while I was assured it was a good representation of the wine, it wasn’t my favorite. Of course, having a wine list with almost a dozen Brunello’s to choose from was a treat.

In summary, the food was outstanding, the service is what you would expect from a small local restaurant and the wine list was great if you like Italian wines.

November 27th, 2009 | Category: Food | Leave a comment

This is going to be a quick review, since it has been way too long (four weeks) since we ate there.

Location: The Shop’s at Legacy is a nice little open air mall that provides plenty of free garage parking if you are willing to walk a block instead of valeting, but there really wasn’t much of casual interest there. The wine bar Cru nearby, and I would like to stop in for wine and a appetizers, but we weren’t that early, and we aren’t really big enough eaters to pull that off. The area is nice, but rather boring.

Atmosphere: The restaurant was nicely decorated, and the patrons well dressed. The lighting was low, steak house style, but the building had floor to ceiling glass windows, and the walls were dark but not wood paneled. Probably a little on the trendy side.

Service: The service was great. Our waiter was not stuffy or pretentious nor overly friendly. He had been with the restaurant for quite a while and had worked previously as a sommelier, so he was very familiar with the menu and the wine list. Since it was our first time, and we passed on appetizers, he brought us a their signature appetizer to try, small order of bleu cheese potato chips, which I devoured. They were very good, and I hate potato chips. His wine recommendations were intelligent. I asked about a glass of interesting wine on the menu (Atlas Peak, non vintage cab blend), and told him I usually drink Pinot Noir, but I had tried everything on their menu except the Pinot they were out of and wanted to try something new (by the glass menu, not their full wine list). He said I might like the Atlas Peak, but it was a very non standard Cab, and also recommended something else Pinot like. I told him I would take the Atlas.

Our server returned with our wine, with two glasses for me. I got to sample both the Atlas and the recommended. He was spot on with his recommendation, on the dry side with lots of mineral which was very similar to a lot of Pinot I have had recently. The Atlas had a very soft mouth feel, with a lot of red fruit flavor without being fruity or sweet. I went with the Atlas.

Food: We shared the small potato chips, which were very good, and might have been the best thing I ate that night. I enjoyed the Jasper’s Greens salad, which was mixed greens, candied pecans and blue cheese. The vinaigrette was a very light lemon, whose tartness just offset the sweetness of the pecans and the tang of the cheese. I enjoy bold flavors, but someone else might have found the bleu cheese dominating in the salad.

For my main course, I asked the server between the Rotisserie Roasted Prime Rib and the Hickory Grilled Flat Iron Steak. He hands down recommended the prime rib, which has won awards. The prime rib was good, but I was not over welled. There was a good 2-3 inches of smoke ring around the prime rib, but that only accounts for about 25% of the meat. After that, it was just plain prime rib. Good, but I have had just as good prime rib that has not won any awards.

Sadly, no dessert for me. This is typical, since the portion size at a restaurant is usually larger than the largest portion I would prepare at home. I am considering resolving this by ordering appetizers, salads and dessert, since so often the creativity of a restaurant lies there. Well, the salads aren’t creative, they just make me feel less gluttonous.

Overall: I enjoyed Jasper’s and would be happy to take people there.

November 27th, 2009 | Category: Food | Leave a comment

I am tired of hearing that the stock market is the place to invest, long term it has returned X%, and X% is greater than anything else. Buy and hold is still the way to go with the latest market downturn.

If academics where financial geniuses, they wouldn’t be academics.

From 1871 to 2008, the average rate of return for the stock market has been 8.76%.

That number and similar long term numbers are thrown around regularly as to why the stock market is still the best place to invest long term. This is absolutely true if you are Yale or Harvard, and your trust fund really will survive for hundreds of years, but for mere mortals, we need to take a few other things into consideration.

First, most people don’t start saving seriously when they first start working. Second, even those serious savers aren’t saving number initially, because their income increases so much the first 5 to 10 years of their careers. So instead of looking at a 137 year window of investing, the window should be much smaller.

Most people who do a good job saving will be looking at a 30 year window before they have need to start making draws against their retirement funds. So instead of looking at the average rate of return over 137 years, people should plan for the worst 30 year period that we have experienced, and know that it could be worse than that.

Doom and gloom I say? It could be worse than that? The average rate of return ending Feb 28, 2009 was -5.8% for the last 10 year period (45% loss overall). There are two strong bull markets and two strong bear markets in that time period, and the bears won.

I am not even considering inflation. If you retirement started at the end of Feb, you were probably worth about half what you were a year earlier. You could have stuck everything in a savings account in the beginning of 1998, missing out on another 56% gain from the internet boom, and still been much better off than if you had left everything in the market from 1998 to 2008.

Instead of using 8.76% in your calculations, use 5%. 5.09% was the lowest compounded rate of return I found for a 30 year period. If you plan for 5% growth, and get lucky enough to average 10% growth, it is much easier to live on extra money then not enough.

April 9th, 2009 | Category: Finance | Leave a comment

I have been reading a lot about underfunded pensions. This isn’t just a problem with GM and Chrysler, this is a problem with pretty much every pension fund in the US. If I wasn’t being force feed so much news on the topic, I wouldn’t give a shit, because I will never have a pension, but since I have, I gave a little thought to the math behind pension funds.

My conclusions, pension funds managers are idiots.

First, lets say you are a company that has been around forever, has grown considerably over that time, employees pay into the pension 20-40 years and the payouts lasting 20 years. The company has grown and so has the number of employees funding the pension. In good times like these, the pension should be net positive cash flow. By this I mean the outgoing retirement benefits being paid are less than the incoming funds from existing employees, thus the pension fund has a growing net asset base and the existing base is never touched.

Now, in this ideal situation, I believe that this is true.

Next, take a company (or government) that provides a pension and has grown linearly with time, or just at a much low exponential rate than a highly successful company. The cash flow should still be net positive, because you have more people paying in then are taking a draw.

In this situation, I do not believe this is true, because pension fund managers allow companies (and governments) to underfund the pension, creating a cash flow problem, and thus to meet current obligations, assets have to be sold, thus decreasing the size of the pension. Thus, pension fund managers are idiots.

Finally, take a company that offered a pension, but is now bankrupt. If this company has met all obligations to date, the remaining balance in the pension should allow the pension to make payments for 20 years.

In this situation, the funds start out underfunded and the asset base, the portfolio of the pension, contains too much risk. Not only could the pension not meet obligations because it started out underfunded, but being invested in risky assets means that there is variable chance that the pension will even last as long as its current value would indicate. Thus, pension fund managers are idiots.

April 9th, 2009 | Category: Finance | Leave a comment