Houses and Hedges

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My last post on the wonderful housing market we are having was back in November. That Autumn I had decided to declare the market peaked, and still feel that that was a correct call. Of course, these things take time to work their way through the system, especially with people awaiting a Spring bounce. Things have remained mostly quiet these past few months, and I’ve been busy adding more optimistic positions to my small portfolio. What I’ve been holding off on adding is a hedge against a housing downturn.

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Literacy

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One of the projects I would eventually like to attempt is a general computer literacy program. It is unfortunate that few exist, creating a situation similar to that of literacy in the Middle Ages. This article is an attempt to identify the failings of existing courses, and to create a curriculum that can produce literate individuals.

There are cultures that maintain high levels of technical literacy, and it is perhaps unfair to hold all users to such high standards. Your average person would not be expected to sit down and churn out text in the style of Tolkien, much less be able to advance to Saramago’s creative disregard for punctuation. One would, however, expect them to be able to read such texts with a decent degree of comprehension.

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Interior Decorating

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We have a Giants fan at work. This is a man with Giants paraphernalia in his office, on his walls, and season tickets in his pocket. He’s also been on Sabbatical for a number of weeks, and is this very afternoon attending the Giants’ opening game in San Francisco.

It would be unseemly for a coworker to be gone so long without receiving some sort of welcome, and sure enough, certain others in the department took it upon themselves to decorate his office with streamers, posters, a piñata, a signed t-shirt, and sundry other articles.

I should at this point mention that the Chief Decorator is a fan of the LA Dodgers.

Bespoke Suits, & Similar Extravagances

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A recent discussion in Another Place on the inappropriateness of ties in the workplace briefly mentioned the luxury that is a bespoke suit. I was immediately impressed with Tom’s site and now have a few ideas as to where to go for my next vacation. Actually, I have been considering East Asia as my next destination for some time now; recommendations for tailors in Beijing or Hong Kong just provide a sufficiently arbitrary excuse.

On a related note, it appears that Charles Tyrwhitt, a Jermyn Street shirtmaker, offers 50% off initial orders. (A catalogue showed up unannounced a few days back.) The current crop of Façonnable shirts is also a bit colourful, with a good showing of greens and purples for Easter.

Update

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I’ve switched the backend of this site to WordPress, and will be migrating older posts in my Copious Free Time. New posts should hopefully be more frequent, as I have added a new category (“sartorial”) for other ideas that have crossed my mind. Actually, that’s not the original category, but it replaced “frivolous” after a moment’s thought.

Update: for the moment, the older posts are still accessible.