Vacation

Do you know what taconite is? I didn’t before my vacation. I always keep my eyes and ears open for interesting or surprising things that I think will make interesting blog reading. Our vacation was a wonderful  relaxing and unsurprising mid western week. At different times in my life I’ve lived in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and North Dakota. I have a lot of Midwestern roots. Anyway…. back to taconite. It is low grade iron ore. Direct shipped ore is 50% to 60% iron. Taconite is 20% to 30% iron and is crushed and shipped as pellets.  I learned this from a highway rest area sign  in the Black River Valley in Wisconsin  where they mine taconite.

We had a great vacation. The weather was warm and the humidity was uncharacteristically low. We took a red eye flight into Chicago on July 3. We were in the loop area by 7am and spent a few hours exploring. We went to The Art Institute of Chicago. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many Monets in one place. I am always  surprised by how much Monet’s use of color and light wows me. We spent a  few hours in the museum and then explored the  relatively new Millennium Park and got to  see the very cool fountains with lots of kids playing in the water. The fountains are two 50 foot high glass block towers at each end of a shallow reflecting pool. The towers are covered in flowing water and display video faces. Every so often the faces open their mouths and shoot out an extra stream of water. It is a lot of fun to watch.

After leaving Chicago we spent three nights with  my Uncle and Aunt at  their cabin on Lake Sissabagama in northern Wisconsin. There were surprisingly few bugs and we got to sit out by a fire in the front yard overlooking the lake to watch the July 4th fireworks. One day my uncle took us canoeing on Bean Brook and another day we sailed on the lake. We had a great visit. It is a wonderful place.

On Thursday we drove to Iowa, stopping along the way to search out the cemeteries containing the graves of my  Great Grandparents, Great Great Grandparents and Great Great Great Grandparents all of whom lived and are buried in south  western Wisconsin.

We spent the rest of our time in Manchester, Iowa. We stayed with Duke’s brother and his wife and  spent a lot of time visiting with Duke’s parents and doing a few odd jobs. I even got to drive the riding lawn mower to help mow the yard. One night we went to dinner in  Elkader  overlooking the  Turkey River and the keystone bridge  which is the longest of its type west of the Mississippi.

Monday we drove back to Chicago and flew home. It never ceases to amaze me how different California is from the Midwest. I really enjoyed it.

Vacation

Duke and I leave on vacation tonight. We are flying to Chicago then driving up to visit my Aunt and Uncle at their lake house near Stone Lake, Wisconsin. From there we will drive to Manchester, Iowa to visit Duke’s  family, and then back to Chicago to fly home. It is quite a bit of driving but we love exploring and Wisconsin. Illinois, Iowa are a beautiful part of the country.  I don’t expect to be near a computer so won’t be blogging or answering email. I will be keeping my mind open for interesting and surprising tidbits to blog about when I get home. Have a great  Independence Day!

Broker Dealers and Clearing Houses

I have been calling financial planners this week to ask them if they would like to help us test some new software . On of the things I ask them is what firm they use as a custodian. I am mainly talking to financial planners who manage their clients assets for them. That means that the planner is able to trade and manage assets in the client’s account. Planners custodian their accounts with companies like Schwab, TD Waterhouse, and Ameritrade. What is confusing is that there is also the concept of a broker dealer, and a clearing house. It is important to know who the clearing house  is because that will be the source of account downloads. If I understand it correctly big companies like Schwab and Waterhouse do both the broker dealer function and the clearing house function. But there are broker dealers who use  a separate clearing house like Pershing. In talking to planners it  is important for me to know the difference  because it will impact our testing. I am enjoying learning all this new stuff.

A’s Baseball

Duke and I are going to the A’s vs Mariners game tonight.  Every year I become more of an A’s fan. Thanks to Duke’s boss we have gone to 2-3 A’s games a year for he past few years.  The book MoneyBall by Michael Lewis greatly increased my interest in the team. It is much more than an A’s book or a baseball book. It is a book about thinking outside the box  and running an organization based on what you measure not on your preconceived notions. I also enjoyed the book because it tells some great player stories. I like knowing something about the backgrounds of the players.

The human side of the story is one of the reasons I really liked the  Josh Suchon story about the A’s reliever Ron Flores that ran in yesterdays Argus. Flores was the 870th pick in the 2000 baseball draft and he is one of only 47 major league baseball players who have a college degree. It is an inspiring story and Suchan tells it well. It is well worth reading.