Inside Job

97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes is certainly a good recommendation, so even though I fell asleep on my first attempt, I knew I wanted to see this documentary.

Inside Job (2010) dir. Charles H. Ferguson

Source

First of all, why do all these other country's leaders speak such spectacular English?  I feel like such a US centric loser sometimes.  Ok, topic at hand.

How did the economic world crash in 2008?

As a movie, it was a little dry and you definitely have to pay attention.  No multi-tasking during this one!  But the complicated topic was presented very clearly and from what I read online, it seems to be a pretty fair/unbiased presentation of what happened.

I just finished it (#59. Watch 2/20 documentaries: CHECK!!) and have to say, wow, our country is in worse shape than I thought... The amount of money and negligence made, covered up, lied about, and stolen from people is pretty shocking.  And the fact that after ALL THIS has gone down, and President Obama gives interviews saying the right things (more regulation, less conflict of interest, etc.) and then RE-HIRES all the bosses of those disastrous country-crushing companies to run our governmental financial system.  Ouch.

The most insane point addressed in the movie is the credit default swap.  I read about that in the book "The Big Short" (also highly recommended), but basically, in the normal world of real money, let's say you want to insure a house.  Only you can insure your house against fire.  But in the fake world of crazy banking rules, there's a mortgage loan on a house (actually a collection of many houses) and you -- as the bank lender -- can insure against default on the loan.  But not just you-the-lender, ANYONE can.  So if the mortgage is defaulted on, the lender gets an insurance pay out, but so might 100 OTHER people.  And when the loans are based on absolutely nothing financially sound, pretty quickly the whole fake money world falls apart.  Obviously, it's more complicated (and corrupt) than that, but what a mess.  And terrible idea.  But people got $485,000,000 paychecks off of it, which I guess lowers that moral bar.

Here's to hoping someone ethical and responsible gets in control of this before it's too late.  (*I'm disappointed I went to Harvard under Larry Summers, what a sleazeball.*)  I also understand now what it was so impossible to get a business loan in 2009.

If you want to learn more about "the economy" -- I hate hearing people blame everything on "the economy" but not understanding what that means exactly -- I would definitely recommend this movie and that book.

Anybody want to run for congress to fix this mess???

Baking: Bread

I'm not sure this fully counts as a successful check, but I'm counting it for now.

First thing to say - my oven is ridiculous.  It's a tiny little thing and that makes cooking a full Thanksgiving extravaganza even more of an adventure than it would already be.  So with the turkey in the oven (in a disposable pan because no normal sized roasting pans, even the really nice ones you get as wedding gifts, FIT), you basically have to cook elsewhere.

Enter the toaster oven.  I don't love toaster ovens.  I don't think we ever had one growing up... Nick's a fan, so I try and give them a shot, but more often than not, things burn.  *Foreshadowing, much?*

Recipe for item #1 on my list (Bread):  No Knead Onion Rolls from Real Simple Magazine

Step one: Get all your ingredients out for the whole day and lay them on the counter so that there's really not any room left to work.  Yes those are industrial sized flour and sugar bags.

 

Step two: Watch your yeast not turn "foamy" in it's bowl.  Watch a youtube video on how to tell if your active yeast foamy.  Based on results, try again.  Yay foam! (Yay for buying 3x the yeast you'll need, just-in-case.)

Rise little guys, rise!!

Everything was really going very well... dough rose, TWICE!  Onions were nice and caramelized and then... the toaster oven.

Holy burned-ness, batman. :(  Luckily it was only the tops and after we sawed them off (and promptly threw the garbage - evidence - away), the rolls were really super moist and flavorful and yummy.  I wasn't going to show a picture, but... here goes.

So, I've successfully used yeast, it wasn't that scary, and I'll leave my baking for the (slightly) bigger oven.

And to item #1.  Bake bread - I say CHECK!

Hike: Little Mountain & (maybe) Verissimo Hills OSP

In the spirit of exploring our beautiful backyard in Northern CA, on "our Thanksgiving" (aka, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the day we're going to eat because Nick had to work all day on the real holiday) Nick, Lucy and I headed to Novato, CA, to go on a little 5.1 mile hike.  It was a very quiet walk and Lucy got to run off leash.  I'm a bad mom and get a kick out of hiding behind rocks and trees and making her nervous, so she learned to not get too far ahead. :)

"Are you coming?  Why do I have to sit here like this?"

It was a little colder than we planned for, and we got a little confused about the directions of the hike.  I think we've figured it out and will try again another day.  I'm pretty sure we just did the Little Mountain part of the hike, but *oh well* it still counts as

#47.  Go on 10 hikes in Sonoma. (1/10) -- CHECK!

Isn't she such a good little poser??

Half marathon circa 2011

This Sunday we ran the Big Sur Half Marathon in Monterey, CA. 

Here is an example of the pictures I saw when we signed up:

Look at all those happy people, running in shorts, enjoying the blue sky...

I wish I had screen captured the weather forecast in the days leading up to the race, but it looked something like this:

Every day up until Sunday a.m.:  Sunny and cool

Sunday a.m.:  RAIN, MISERY, AND COLDNESS

Sunday p.m.:  Pleasant again

Nick and I checked and checked and checked the hourly weather forecast, bought rain gear, tried to psych up for a nice little 13.1 mile jaunt in the rain... and then when the alarm went off at 5:30a, I noticed a beautiful thing.  No noise.  No rain!!! Oh thank youuuuuuu weather!!

It was PERFECT.  It rained overnight, but for the race it was cool, overcast, and NO rain. And gorgeous scenery.  We ran down Cannery Row and then along the beautiful coast of Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean.  It was a nice out-and-back route, so at about mile 5, we saw the winners coming back (at their mile 11!).

Our goal was a sub-2 hr run and the final time was 1:59.02.  Yay hooray!!!  A nice little post race festival (with Michelob Ultra at 9:15a) and then we headed to clean up and cheer on the Packers. And watch the skies open up and rain again.  Just running to get/pack the car was miserable, so once again, thank youuuuuuuuu weather for cooperating!!

And to "Run a half marathon in 2011", I say:  CHECK!

Two checks in one SF trip!

Nick and I headed to SF to see Cirque du Soleil's traveling show, Totem.

Source

And while we were there enjoyed a very nice dinner at Michael Mina.  A nondescript building in the financial district.  Our reservation was for 830p on a Sunday and the place was completely full!

Source

We got the chef's tasting menu (five course - steak tartare, scallop, fish, duck, ribeye, two desserts - a goofy overly fancy rootbeer float creation and then little bites) with wine and checked off two (sub) checks on the 101 list:

     #17.  Eat ten new foods:  (1) John Dory:  A perfectly tasty white fish.  As to
              the funny name?  Even wiki is unsure.
     #62.  Eat at three one-Michelin starred restaurants:  (1)  Michael Mina SF

My favorite course was probably the fish (although the scallop with the crab salad underneath was realllly tasty too); there were these little potatoes and this puree with it... yum yum.  I was impressed by the food - Nick was underwhelmed.  Which for the $$ is disappointing...

All-in-all though, a very fun evening in the city!!

First check!

Ok, well, it's a sub-check really.

#59. Watch 20 documentaries.  (1/20)

An Inconvenient Truth - 2006 - dir. Davis Guggenheim

Source

I've been wanting to watch this one for a while, having been an Oscar winner and all.  But I didn't love it.  It was from 2006 and kind of felt/looked that way.  The most striking thing-I-learned -- California (not even the whole US) tried to pass car emissions regulations that in ten years time would bring our standards to the current standards in China (Japan?) which are far lower than even Europe, etc.  But the US car industry petitioned SO HARD the standards failed.  And now the US car companies can't sell our products in Asia because we're so far below their levels.  Sad.

Anyway, climate change is scary, I'm glad I have a hybrid car, I promise I'll buy energy friendly light bulbs, and it's maddening what the media can distort from fact into hype (NO published scientific studies doubt that global warming is happening; >50% of lay media, aka regular news reports state global warming as a "possibility" or "theory").  And I hope some of his predictions/charts are wrong.... (don't buy any beach homes.)

Seen any good documentaries lately?

Progress

Ok.  Eight days in...

I HAVE put $8 in the jar and I registered for an account on Pinterest.

Did you know you have to apply and wait on a wait list??  To be part of a cool kid website?? Well, I don't want to say too much in case I become a convert, but so far, still don't get it.  Sorry item #78.

We also made reservations for a one Michelin star restaurant this weekend (woohoo!) and I'm blogging right now, that counts, right??

Here's to getting some check marks!!

THE DATE

Day 1001 is........

Friday August 1, 2014!!!

And.... GO!!

Redirect

So... I was into the thing-a-day for a while, but just thinking about doing new things seemed to get me out of my funk and I didn't need to TRY so hard to feel like I had a full life.  Or I just didn't feel like blogging for a while.  But it was on my mind.

And I still like goals.

And I'm still a little bored. 

So I found a NEW inspiration: 101 in 1001 - you make a list of 101 attainable, specific goals (not bucket list things) and have 1001 days to check them off.   Find my list under the other page tab.

Off we go!